Tag Archives: U.S. Navy

Naval Strategy Returns to Lead the POM

October 27, 2016 Guest Author 8 Comments

By Steve Wills

Introduction

Newly appointed U.S. Navy Secretary John F. Lehman Jr. gave a signature speech at the Naval War College in Newport, RI in 1981. In his remarks Lehman hailed, “the return of naval strategy” to the forefront of the Navy’s planning.¹Such a message was again issued last week by Chief of Naval Operations Admiral John Richardson. While the CNO’s 18 October naval message (R 182128Z OCT 16) did not have Secretary Lehman’s dramatic turn of phrases, it is no less important and in fact is the most significant change in the role of U.S. naval strategic thinking since late 1991. The CNO’s message implements a major change in the planning and execution of the annual Navy budget statement known as the Program Objective Memorandum (POM.) For the first time since July 1991, the Navy Staff (OPNAV) Operations, Plans and Strategy (N3/N5) office will have the first input to the Navy POM building process. While this may not seem significant at first glance, it is a major course correction in Navy thinking. It could signal a return to the halcyon days of the 1980s when the Navy’s Maritime Strategy served as the service’s global blueprint for operational naval war against the Soviet Union, informing Navy programs, budgets, exercises, war games, education, training, and real world operations.

POM and Strategy Evolution Through the Cold War

The POM was created in 1970 by President Richard Nixon’s Defense Secretary Melvin Laird. It was designed as a response to what was seen as overbearing domination of service programming by the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations under Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara.²The POM was prepared by service rather than Defense Department analysts and was seen as a better way to allow the services to plan for their own futures. The Navy POM was controlled largely by the CNO’s OP 090 programming and budget directorate with the powerful systems analysis divison OP 96 in the lead for the development of Navy programs and associated budgets.

The system remained in place across the 1970s as a trio of influential CNOs brought about the conditions for what Navy strategist Captain Peter Swartz and naval historian John Hattendorf have called, “A renaissance in naval strategic thinking,” that occurred in the 1980s.³ Admirals Elmo Zumwalt Jr, James Holloway III, and Thomas Hayward all explored ideas for global naval strategy against a growing and more capable Soviet fleet. Admiral Zumwalt conducted a major reorganization of the Navy Staff (OPNAV) and worked to create an affordable yet capable fleet to confront its Soviet counterpart. Admiral Holloway explored differing fleet sizes and offensive concepts. Admiral Hayward had conducted significant research into a new offensive naval strategy while serving as the Pacific Fleet Commander. He further tried to reintroduce a strategic culture through the creation of a Naval War College-based, CNO strategy “think tank” called the CNO Strategic Studies Group (SSG) to create operational solutions to naval strategic problems.⁴ All three of these extraordinary CNOs worked to restore the Navy from its post-Vietnam War doldrums. They laid the groundwork for success in the 1980s, but faced severe policy and budget restraints and did not have optimum mechanisms to translate their naval strategy concepts into solutions acceptable to civilian leaders.

In August 1982, with a new presidential administration in power and a new CNO at the helm of the Navy, Deputy CNO Admiral Small sent an influential message to both the Navy’s strategy (OP 06) and Director of Naval Warfare (OP 095) offices with a powerful instruction. To this end, Admiral Small (and presumably CNO Admiral James Watkins) adjusted the Navy POM process to give the Strategy branch the first “cut” on the POM building process as opposed to the OP 96 systems analysis branch. Small had been exploring this change for some months. In March 1982, he sent a memo to OP 06 Vice Admiral Sylvester “Bob” Foley in which he stated, “A review of maritime strategy may well change many of the assumptions currently explicit in our systems requirements. I guess the responsibility for this type of thinking lies somewhere between (or among) OP-06 and OP-095, but seems dormant.”⁵The Director of Naval Warfare (OP 095) Rear Admiral W.R. Smedberg IV suggested that, “OP-06 take the lead in this action” and that the strategic setting and operational concept should be spelled out more explicitly as the backdrop of our POM development.” The Navy Programming and Budgeting Director (OP 090) Vice Admiral Carl Trost and the systems analyst division head Rear Admiral Jack Baldwin agreed with Small’s statements. Small submitted an August 1982 memo to, in his words, “Get the whole OPNAV staff moving in that direction (of strategic thinking in POM development).”⁶ In a 1998 letter, Small recounted that he, “had been increasingly perturbed by a lack of any relationship of POM development to any kind of maritime strategy, not only from an affordability standpoint, but the concomitant failure to challenge the assumptions made by program and platform sponsors.”⁷

Small’s memo set in motion a historic series of events. If strategy were to play a part in the 1983 POM process, a strategy briefing would need to be prepared in support of the Navy POM input. The OPNAV Strategic Concepts branch head (OP 603) Captain Elizabeth Wylie was ordered to prepare such a strategy appraisal. She selected Lieutenant Commander Stanley Weeks, who was assisted by Commander William Spencer Johnson from OP 605, in preparing this input. Weeks and Johnson’s document became the first iteration of the 1980s Maritime Strategy, which grew in sophistication and influence throughout the early and mid 1980s.

Strategy Adrift in the Post Cold War Era

A Maritime Strategy appraisal (CPAM) remained the first input to the POM process through 1991, but by then the global strategic system had been turned upside down. The passage of the Goldwater Nichols Act of 1986, the collapse of the Warsaw Pact, the end of the Cold War, Desert Storm operational practices, and the looming fall of the Soviet Union itself had precipitated significant changes. The Goldwater Nichols legislation had given the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff rather than the CNO control of the size and strategy of the fleet, although these powers would not be fully invoked until the accession of General Colin Powell to the chairmanship of the Joint Chiefs in 1989. The collapse of the Soviet opponent further weakened the need for the Maritime Strategy. By the spring of 1990, incoming CNO Admiral Frank Kelso was forced to concede that there was no need for a Maritime strategy in the absence of a great maritime enemy like the Soviet Union. He officially declared the 1980s Maritime strategy as “on the shelf” until again needed during his June 1990 Senate confirmation hearing as CNO.⁸

Between 1990 and 1991, the Maritime Strategy was replaced by the White Paper Revision, later known as “From the Sea,” as the opening assessment for the POM process. Admiral Kelso later suggested that “From the Sea” would play a similar role to that of the 1980’s Maritime Strategy in getting the Joint Staff, Congress and the Office of the Secretary of Defense to support, “The Navy’s job in the years ahead of us.”⁹

The new strategy was used in a method similar to its predecessor at the start of its existence. Many of its components were incorporated into a Total Force Assessment (TFA) brief scheduled for the CNO Executive Board (CEB) as a kickoff to the POM cycle by Captain Dick Diamond (OP 603 Branch Chief) to Admiral Kelso on 18 July 1991. Diamond’s brief was undercut at the last minute by an additional slide produced by RADM Dave Oliver’s OP 81 (systems analysis) office entitled, “The Coming USN Budget Train Wreck” that Oliver insisted be inserted into Diamond’s brief. Diamond recalled that Admiral Kelso did not like the littoral warfare focus of Diamond’s presentation and exploded when the OP 81 slide suggesting the Navy would shrink to less than 300 ships by 2010 was displayed.¹⁰ Admiral Kelso called Diamond into his office the next day and reversed course, stating that, “the brief was essentially correct and what you recommended is the right path ahead for the Navy…so I am going to do it.”¹¹

Reorganizing OPNAV

The new strategy appeared to have CNO support as a POM influencer, but this condition was only temporary. Over the summer of 1992, Admiral Kelso responded with the most significant reorganization of the OPNAV staff since Admiral Zumwalt’s two decades earlier.¹² In a 1994 USNI Proceedings article, Admiral William Owen, Kelso’s lead for the reorganization effort, suggested the reason for Kelso’s massive staff restructure was to implement this new strategy.¹³ Admiral Kelso stated in his Reminiscences of 2009 that the strategy was merely a rally point behind which Owens as the new N8 would organize programs and their funding.¹⁴

The OPNAV staff would now be organized by “N” codes along the Army-centric lines of the Joint Staff. The OP 08 programming office under the leadership of Admiral Owens was re-branded as the N8 and all Navy programmatic activity was effectively centralized under his control. Its primary management tool, the Joint Mission Assessment, was an analysis-driven document, developed by OPNAV flag officers and coordinated by the N81 (formerly OP 81) analysis office. The three star platform “barons” were downgraded to two stars and subordinated to N8.

The OP 603 office had previously conducted its strategy appraisal of the POM as part of the CNO Executive Board Review (CEB) prior to the other POM appraisals. The CEB was disestablished as part of the October 1992 OPNAV reorganization. The list of POM development assessments conducted before the 1992 reorganization includes a “White Paper Revision,” also known as “From the Sea,” described as a successor to the Maritime Strategy. Subsequent lists of POM development assessments make no mention of a strategy assessment.

The apparent demise of a direct service strategy input to the POM in 1992 was paralleled by a rise in the influence of systems and campaign analysis in POM development and management. In 1994, when recruited by CNO Admiral Mike Boorda to work in N81 analysis branch, veteran Navy operations analyst Bruce Powers said Boorda desired, “To revitalize N81 and turn it back into what OP 96 had been earlier.”¹⁵

The new analysis branch (formerly OP 81) N8 in time became even more powerful than the old OP 96 office over the next decade. In 2000, Admiral Vern Clark, a 1970s-era alumnus of the OP 96 office, succeeded Admiral Jay Johnson as CNO.¹⁶ Clark was a former Joint Staff Operations officer (J3), its director, and the first business school graduate to be appointed CNO. Clark believed that strategy properly belonged to OSD and the Joint system. His own job as a service chief was to manage the organization, training, and equipment provision to the service. Clark desired a “readiness-based” Navy; especially after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.¹⁷

Strategy Struggles

The N3/N5 (Deputy CNO for Plans, Policy and Operations) office attempted to get back into the business of influencing the POM in the 1990s and in the 2000s. In 1994, N3/N5 RADM Phillip Dur and his N51 Captain Joe Sestak attempted to improve the 1992 “From the Sea” White Paper with a successor document entitled “Forward From the Sea.” While it had some initial success, it did not achieve any influence in POM development since it was still focused on “blue water” programs and did not “Script a convincing story about how a littoral strategy works.”¹⁸ It was further criticized as just a repeat of the Navy’s Cold War presence operations and provoked backlash from the Army and Air Force due to its, “Parochial focus on uniqueness of naval forward presence.”¹⁹ “Only “boots on the ground,” combined with robust land-based (as opposed to carrier-based,” aviation could actually influence others.²⁰ Although useful for two years in shaping the Navy POM, it did not achieve lasting influence.²¹ Further attempts by the N3/N5 office to influence the POM including a Navy Operational Concept, and the Navy Strategic Planning Guidance for POMs 02 and 03 were short-lived and failed to develop lasting influence on the budget cycle. They were greatly overshadowed by Department of Defense strategic initiatives such as the First Quadrennial Review (QDR) and increasing attempts at joint operations.²²

In 2002, Admiral Clark told Vice Admiral Kevin Green, the incoming N3/N5 that the Navy did not need a “strategy,” as it already had one and it was called the POM.²³ Admiral Clark assigned control of the Navy’s 30-year shipbuilding plan to N81 in 2000.²⁴ The N81 office was also instrumental in developing the Global Concept of Operations (CONOPS) for Admiral Clark’s “Sea Power 21” concept.²⁵

The decade of the 2000s was more successful in terms of re-asserting the influence of strategy on the OPNAV staff. Admiral Mike Mullen became CNO in 2005. Vice Admiral John Morgan was N3/N5 from 2004-2008 and had more success than Vice Admiral Green in pushing strategy documents to a wider audience, but was still outpaced by N81 in terms of POM influence. The Navy Operating Concept for Joint Operations, written by N513 (the strategy office of N3/N5) by contrast was little cited in either POM documents or within the press.

Succeeding strategy documents were also ineffective. The Navy Strategic Plan in support of POM 08 (2006) was signed out six months too late to be of significant influence on its intended POM cycle.²⁶ The Strategic Plan for POM 10 (2007) had some influence in the development of the 2007 Cooperative Strategy for 21^st Century Seapower. It was deliberately targeted at Navy Department programmers supporting POM development.²⁷It had extensive support from N81 including influential officers such as Commander Bryan Clark and Captain John Yurchak to ensure it “fit with the OPNAV POM process.”²⁸ However, this document was Secret only and did not get wide distribution as a result. Unfortunately, the POM 10 Strategic planning effort was lost to a degree in the turmoil of the end of the Bush administration during which operations in Iraq and Afghanistan dominated Defense Department thinking.²⁹ It reflected current and near-term Navy programming already in place rather than attempted to influence future efforts. It did not include the Marine Corps, and had no mechanism to secure OPNAV support, as did the N8 /N81 POM development process.³⁰

Admiral Morgan’s greatest triumph was perhaps the 2007 Cooperative Strategy for 21^st Century Seapower. It was championed by CNO Admiral Mullen and drafted by N3/N5 staff member Commander Bryan McGrath, and writers from the other sea services. The 2007 Cooperative Strategy was designed as a tri-service effort in support of POM 12.³¹ The document had widespread influence in the wider U.S. and international naval community, but again failed to have a significant impact on its intended POM target. Despite its influence, the 2007 document had no direct connection with POM development, unlike the pre-1992 Maritime Strategy CPAM inputs to the POM process.³² The distinct lack of a formal relationship between strategy and the programming process allowed Navy programmers to ignore strategic input from 1992 through the beginning of the second decade of the 21^st century.

By contrast, the N81 analysis branch’s formal connection to the programming process has allowed it wide influence.³³ Since 2000, the 30-year shipbuilding plan has in effect served as the Navy’s de facto strategy document. Its key supporting element is the Naval Force Structure Assessment (FSA). The FSA is described in OPNAV Instruction 3050.27 (12 February 2015), as a tool that, “determines long-term Navy force structure objectives to support a global posture of distributed mission-tailored ships, aircraft, and units capable of regionally concentrated combat operations and peacetime theater security cooperation efforts.”³⁴ The 2012 FSA was used to, “determine a post-2020 requirement for 306 ships in the battle force and emphasized forward presence while re-examining resourcing requirements for operational plans and defense planning scenarios.”³⁵

Back to the Future

It now appears that Admiral Richardson intends to reverse the last 25 years of total N8-dominated POM development. The POM will now be a three-phase process with the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations (DCNO) for Operations, Plans and Strategy (N3/N5) as the supported commander for the first phase; the N9 Warfare Systems office in charge of the second requirements integration phase, and the N8 leading the third resource integration phase effort. POMs will begin three months earlier than usual in order to ensure “strategic deliberation.” There will be no separate Resource Program Sponsor Proposals (RPSPs) in this new, more transparent POM environment. In addition, billets from the CNO’s own OPNAV “think tank,” office of 00K and the N81 Quadrennial Defense Review Division have been moved to the N50 divison (under N3/N5) to create a powerful new Strategy division capable of managing the first phase of the new POM process. The formal connection of the N50 office to the programming process appears to ensure that the influence of the inputs it creates will not be lost in bureaucratic channels as in the last 25 or so years. The final goal in the words of the message is, “a strategy-based, fiscally balanced, and defendable Navy Program for submission to OSD, which appropriately implements OSD fiscal and programming guidance, addresses SECNAV and CNO priorities, and achieves the best balance of strategic guidance as provided in the CNO guidance.”

Conclusion

Admiral Richardson’s new POM process is a bridge from the days of the 1980s Maritime Strategy across a quarter century of force structure management, and pseudo-strategy to a new era of great power competition. This process is perhaps the beginning a new global maritime strategy with which the Navy can confront the collective and growing maritime power of the Chairman’s “4+1” combination of potential threats (Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, and terrorism.) Admiral Richardson’s change to the Navy’s POM process is perhaps again the beginning of another golden age of American naval strategy.

Steve Wills is a retired surface warfare officer and a PhD candidate in military history at Ohio University. His focus areas are modern U.S. naval and military reorganization efforts and British naval strategy and policy from 1889-1941.

1. Peter M. Swartz with Karin Duggan, U.S. Navy Capstone Strategies and Concepts, 1981-1990, Strategy, Policy, Concept and Vision Documents, Alexandria, VA, The CNA Corporation, December, 2011, p. 21.

2. Richard A. Hunt, Melvin Laird and the Foundations of the Post-Vietnam Military, 1969-1973, Washington D.C, The Office of the Secretary of Defense, Historical Office, The Secretaries of Defense Historical Series, Volume VII, Erin R. Mahan, General Editor,, pp. 16, 17.

3. John B. Hattendorf and Peter M. Swartz, U.S. Naval Strategy in the 1980’s. Selected Documents, Newport R.I, The United States Naval War College, The Newport Papers #33, 2008, p. 4.

4. John Hanley, “Creating the 1980’s Maritime Strategy and Implications for Today,“, Newport, R.I., The United States Naval War College Review, Spring, 2014, Volume 67, No 2, p. 15.

5. John B. Hattendorf, The Evolution of the U.S. Navy’s Maritime Strategy, 1977-1986, Newport, R.I, The United States Naval War College Press, The Newport Papers #19, 2003, pp. 66-68.

6. Ibid.

7. Fax letter from Admiral William Small USN (ret) to Captain Peter M. Swartz, USN (ret), 02 October 1998, Arlington, VA, The Personal and Professional Papers of Captain Peter M. Swartz, USN (ret), used with permission.

8. “The Nomination of Admiral Frank B. Kelso, Jr USN, to be Chief of Naval Operations,” Hearing before the Committee of the Armed Services, The United States Senate, Second Session of the One Hundred First Congress, 14 June, 1990, pp. 326, 327.

9. Frank B. Kelso II and Paul Stilwell, The Reminiscences of Admiral Frank B. Kelso II U.S. navy (Retired), Annapolis, Md, The United States Naval Institute Press, 2009, p. 687.

10. Email from Captain Richard Diamond, USN (ret) to Dr. John Hattendorf, Naval War College, subject “Paper Review Status” (unpublished narrative of the events leading up to the September 1992 publication of “From the Sea”), 09 September 2006, Filed jointly inThe United States Naval War College, The Naval Historical Collection, The papers of Dr. John Hattendorf, and in the Professional papers of Captain Peter M. Swartz, USN (ret), 1991 “The Way Ahead” file, used with special permission of Dr. John Hattendorf, Captain Swartz and Captain Richard Diamond, USN (ret).

11. Ibid.

12. William A. Owens, High Seas, The Naval Passage to an Uncharted World, Annapolis, MD, The United States Naval Institute Press, 1995, p. 5.

13. William Owens, “The Quest for Consensus,” Annapolis, MD, The United States Naval Institute Proceedings, Vol 120/5/1095, May 1994, pp. 69, 70.

14. Frank B. Kelso II and Paul Stilwell, The Reminiscences of Admiral Frank B. Kelso II U.S. navy (Retired), p. 688.

15. Bob Sheldon and Michael Garrambone, “Military Operations Research Society (MORS) Oral History Project Interview with Mr. Bruce F. Powers,” Military Operations Research, V21 N#2, 2016, doi 10.5711/10825983212107, p. 118.

16. Wayne P. Hughes, Jr., (2002) Navy Operations Research. Operations Research 50(1):103-111. http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/opre.50.1.103.17786, p. 107.

17. Ronald Ratclift, “CNO and OPNAV Reorganization,” In David A. Williams (ed.), Case Studies in Policy Making and Implementation. 6th ed, Newport, RI, The United States Naval War College Press, 2002 , p.p. 326-328.

18. Edward Rhodes, “…From the Sea and Back Again, Naval Power in the Second American Century,” Newport, RI, The United States Naval War College Review, Vol LXX, No.2, Sequence 366, Spring 1999, p. 32.

19. Peter M. Swartz with Karin Duggan, U.S. Navy Capstone Strategies and Documents, 1991-2000, Alexandria, VA, The CNA Corporation, D0026416.A2/Final, March 2012, p. 93.

20. Ibid.

21. Ibid, p. 95.

22. Ibid, p. 102.

23. Peter Haynes, Toward a New Maritime Strategy, American Naval Thinking in the Post Cold War Era, Annapolis, MD, The United States Naval Institute Press, 2015, pp. 227, 228.

24. Ronald O’Rourke, “Navy Force Structure and Shipbuilding Plans: Background and Issues for Congress,” Washington D.C., The Congressional Research Service (CRS), 7-5700, 12 June 2015, p. 8.

25. Peter M. Swartz with Karin Duggan, U.S. Navy Capstone Strategies and Documents, 200-2010, Strategy, Policy, Concept and Vision Documents, Alexandria, VA, The CNA Corporation, D0026241.A2/Final, p. 27.

26. Ibid, p. 101.

27. Ibid, p. 127.

28. Ibid, p. 136.

29. Ibid, p. 129

30. Ibid, p. 138

31. Ibid, p. 166.

32. Ibid, p. 189.

33. James A. Russel, James J. Wirtz, Donald Abenheim, Thomas Durrell-Young, and Diana Wueger, “Navy Strategy Development in the 21^st Century,” Monterey, CA, The United States Navy Postgraduate School, The Naval Research Program, #FY14-N3/N5-001, June 2015, p. 4, electronic resource, https://www.hsdl.org/?view&did=768350, last assessed 25 October 2016.

34. “OPNAV Instruction 3050.27, Force Structure Assessments,” Washington D.C., The Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, 12 February 2015, p. 1, electronic resource, https://doni.daps.dla.mil/Directives/03000%20Naval%20Operations%20and%20Readiness/03-00%20General%20Operations%20and%20Readiness%20Support/3050.27.pdf, last assessed 5 October 2016.

35. “Report to Congress on the Annual Long Range Plan for Construction of Naval Vessels for Fiscal year 2016,” Washington D.C., The Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, The Deputy Chief of Naval Operations (Integration of Capabilities and Resources,) March 2015, p. 7. Electronic resources, https://news.usni.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/FY16-30-Year-Shipbuilding-Plan.pdf, last assessed 5 October 2016.

Featured Image: ARLINGTON, Va. (Jan. 12, 2016) Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Adm. John Richardson delivers remarks during the 28th annual Surface Navy Association (SNA) National Symposium. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Nathan Laird/Released)

Capability Analysis, Tactical Concepts

Autonomous Warfare: An Operational Concept to Optimize Distributed Lethality

October 26, 2016 Guest Author 1 Comment

By LT Coleman Ward

Introduction

To better meet today’s force demands, [we must] explore alternate fleet designs, including kinetic and non-kinetic payloads and both manned and unmanned systems. This effort will include exploring new naval platforms and formations – again in a highly “informationalized” environment – to meet combatant commander needs.

– Admiral John Richardson in A Design for Maintaining Maritime Superiority

Today’s military operating environment is more complex than ever. While the principles of warfare have remained relatively unchanged throughout history, the development of advanced military capabilities and employment of unconventional styles of warfare increasingly challenge the way commanders are thinking about future conflict. Potential adversaries are further complicating the operating environment through various anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) mechanisms. While many countries are developing such capabilities, this article will focus primarily on the threat of the People’s Republic of China (PRC’s) maritime development. The PRC is rapidly improving its air, surface, and subsurface platform production as it continues its quest for exclusive control of untapped natural resources within the “nine-dash line” region.¹ Additionally, the PRC is equipping these platforms with improved weapons that can reach further and cause more damage.² As a result, the U.S. Navy will assume greater risk when operating in complex A2/AD environments such as the Western Pacific. To mitigate this risk, the U.S. Navy is developing innovative warfighting concepts that leverage technologies and assets available today. The incorporation of unmanned systems into maritime domain operations provides one example where the U.S. Navy is making significant progress. Another example is the inception of a new surface warfighting concept called Distributed Lethality.

In January 2015, Vice Admiral Thomas Rowden (Commander U.S. Naval Surface Forces) and other members of the surface warfare community’s higher leadership formally introduced the opening argument for how the Surface Navy plans to mitigate the A2/AD challenge in an article titled “Distributed Lethality.”³ In this inaugural piece, the authors argue, “Sea control is the necessary precondition for virtually everything else the Navy does, and its provision can no longer be assumed.”⁴ The “everything else” corresponds to promoting our national interests abroad, deterring aggression, and winning our nation’s wars.⁵ At its core, Distributed Lethality (DL) is about making a paradigm shift from a defensive mindset towards a more offensive one. To enable DL, the U.S. Navy will increase the destructive capability of its surface forces and employ them in a more distributed fashion across a given theater of operation.

DL shows promise in executing the initiatives provided in the Chief of Naval Operations’ Design for Maintaining Maritime Superiority in the years to come.⁶ However, as the U.S. Navy continues to invest in promoting DL, there is a danger that improper fusion of this new operating construct with the foundational principles of war could lead to a suboptimal DL outcome.⁷ To optimize the combat potential inherent to DLin an A2/AD environment, the Navy must develop and apply the concept of “Autonomous Warfare.” Autonomous Warfare addresses both enabling decentralized, autonomous action at the tactical level through careful command and control (C2) selection at the operational level and further incorporating unmanned systems into the Navy’s maritime operating construct. A flexible C2 structure enabling autonomous action supported by squadrons of unmanned systems optimizes DL and ensures its forces will deliver the effects envisioned by this exciting new concept in the most challenging A2/AD environments. DL advocates put it best in saying that “we will have to become more comfortable with autonomous operations across vast distances.”⁸ This paper will first examine why DL is an appropriate strategy for countering A2/AD threats before developing the main argument for Autonomous Warfare. This paper concludes by examining how the combined effect of autonomous C2 and aggressive implementation of unmanned systems will achieve the desired results for Autonomous Warfare as it applies to DL, followed by a series of recommendations that will assist with implementing this new idea.

Why Distributed Lethality?

“Naval forces operate forward to shape the security environment, signal U.S. resolve, protect U.S. interests, and promote global prosperity by defending freedom of navigation in the maritime commons.”⁹ During war, one of the Navy’s principal functions is to gain and maintain sea control to facilitate air and ground operations ashore. An adversary’s ability to execute sea denial makes the endeavor of exercising sea control increasingly challenging. A key driver behind DL is countering advances in A2/AD capability, a specific sea denial mechanism, which inhibits the Navy’s capacity to operate in a specific maritime area.¹⁰

A2/AD is a two-part apparatus. Anti-access attempts to preclude the entrance of naval forces into a particular theater of operation. For example, the threat and/or use of anti-ship cruise and ballistic missiles can hold surface vessels at risk from extended ranges.¹¹ The PRC’s People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) is one of the many navies that deploy various anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCMs), out of a global arsenal of over 100 varieties that can reach nearly 185 miles.¹² Of its anti-ship ballistic missiles (ASBMs), the PRC’s renowned “carrier killer” (DF-21D), with a range of 1000 plus miles, is generating cause for concern from an anti-access perspective.¹³ Additionally, submarines operating undetected throughout a given area of operation (AO) can deter surface forces from entering that area without significant anti-submarine warfare (ASW) capability. On the other hand, area denial seeks to prevent an adversary’s ability to maneuver unimpeded once a vessel has gained access to an area.¹⁴ While employment of the aforementioned missiles poses a threat in a combined A2/AD capacity, the PRC’s shipbuilding trend is triggering additional alarms from an area denial perspective. A recent workshop facilitated by the Naval War College’s China Maritime Studies Institute (CMSI) highlighted that the PRC has surged its shipbuilding efforts more than ten times over from 2002 to 2012 and will likely become the “second largest Navy in the world by 2020” if production continues at this pace.¹⁵ Indeed, the PRC has generated and continues to produce significant capacity to practice A2/AD and maintains a formidable shipbuilding capability. These observations are just a few amongst a host of many that spark interest in shifting American surface forces toward a DL-focused mindset.

One might ask, “How does DL help mitigate these A2/AD concerns?” Ever since carrier operations proved their might in the Pacific theater during World War II, U.S. naval surface combatants have principally acted in defense of the aircraft carrier. Essentially, the surface force relies predominantly on the firepower wrought by the carrier air wing, while other surface ships remain relatively concentrated around the carrier and defend it against enemy threats from the air, surface, and sub-surface. A well-developed A2/AD operational concept married with a diverse and sophisticated array of systems is advantageous against this model for two reasons: that adversary could hold a limited number of high value units (the carriers) at risk with only a small number of ASBMs, while the imposing navy could only employ a fraction of its offensive capability due to a necessary focus on defensive measures. DL addresses both concerns by deploying progressively lethal “hunter-killer” surface action groups (SAGs – more recently referred to as Adaptive Force Packages) in a distributed fashion across an area of operation (AO). By doing so, the DL navy will provide a more challenging targeting problem while offering the commander additional offensive options.¹⁶DL shifts the focus of the Navy’s offensive arsenal from its limited number of aircraft carriers to the surface navy as a whole.

Potential Shortcomings

DL addresses the challenges of operating in an A2/AD environment by dispersing offensively focused surface combatants across the theater. To be effective, however, the operational commander must assign an appropriate C2 structure for DL forces. The DL operating concept could rapidly dissolve through the development and implementation of complex command and control structures. Furthermore, inadequate use of unmanned systems presents an additional potential shortcoming to the effective application of DL. While the consequences of these shortcomings would not be cause for instantaneous failure, they could create adverse second and third order effects and result in deterioration of the DL concept.

Command and Control

Effective C2 is the cornerstone of the successful execution of any military operation. Service doctrine aids in establishing the proper balance between centralized and decentralized C2. The Naval Doctrine Publication 1 for Naval Warfare defines C2 as “the exercise of authority and direction by a properly designated commander over assigned and attached forces in the accomplishment of the mission.”¹⁷ Further, the Joint Publication for C2 and Joint Maritime Operations highlights that a clear understanding of commander’s intent should enable decentralized execution under the auspices of centralized planning.¹⁸ Instituting the appropriate C2 structure based on the mission at hand and composition of employed forces helps achieve maximum combat utility while minimizing the need to communicate. This is particularly important when the operational commander has cognizance over a large number of forces and/or when the enemy has degraded or denied the ability to communicate. As the absence of a notional C2 architecture for Adaptive Force Packages (AFPs) at the operational level represents a significant gap in the DL concept, this paper will provide a traditional Composite Warfare Commander (CWC) approach to commanding and controlling AFPs, followed by a potential solution through the lens of Autonomous Warfare.¹⁹ The intent is to show that thinking about AFPs as autonomous units will uncover innovative ways to assign C2 functions and responsibilities amongst DL forces.

Unmanned Systems

The proper employment of unmanned systems will prove equally critical in developing the design for Autonomous Warfare as it relates to DL.²⁰ Increasing the offensive capability of smaller groups of warships is one of DL’s main functions (if not the main function). A key enabler to this is the ability to provide ISR-T in a manner that reduces risk to the organic vessels. The concern is that targeting requires the ability to detect, track, and classify enemy vehicles – which oftentimes requires emission of electronic signals that will alert the enemy. Unmanned systems have the ability to provide ISR-T while reducing the risk for organic vessels to reveal their location. Autonomous Warfare will leverage the use of unmanned systems in all three maritime domains (air, surface, and sub-surface). Anything less would unnecessarily limit the potential for delivering maximum offensive firepower while minimizing risk to the organic platforms. Furthermore, critics should note that the U.S. Navy’s adversaries are making similar advances in unmanned systems.²¹The bottom line is that underutilization of unmanned systems will be detrimental to DL. The effectiveness of DL as an operational concept depends on the effective employment of unmanned systems.

Providing A Frame of Reference

The following hypothetical situation offers a frame of reference for the remainder of the Autonomous Warfare argument.²² The goal is to show that Autonomous Warfare will optimize DL employment in a scenario where multiple BLUE AFPs must operate in the same AO against multiple RED force SAGs and other RED forces.²³

screenshot_12 — Figure One: A notional scenario for DL²⁴

The area depicted in Figure 1 represents the AO for the given scenario. Country GREY is an abandoned island and has an airfield that BLUE forces want to capture to facilitate follow-on operations against RED. The Joint Force Maritime Component Commander (JFMCC) receives the task of capturing the airfield. As such, he establishes two objectives for his forces: establish sea control on the eastern side of the island (indicated in yellow) to support an amphibious landing in preparation for seizing the airfield, and establish sea denial on the western side of the island (indicated in orange) to prevent RED from achieving the same.

BLUE’s Order of Battle (OOB) consists of one carrier strike group (CSG), one expeditionary strike group (ESG), and three AFPs. Each AFP is comprised of an ASW capable Littoral Combat Ship (LCS), a Flight III Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, and a Zumwalt-class destroyer. Together, each AFP is capable of the full range of offensive and defensive measures needed to defeat enemy targets in each of the three maritime domains.²⁵ RED’s OOB consists of one CSG, three SAGs, and two diesel-electric submarines. RED has a more difficult targeting problem than if BLUE elected to concentrate its forces, since BLUE distributed them across the AO utilizing multiple AFPs capable of delivering offensive firepower in all three traditional warfare domains. How then should BLUE best establish its C2 structure? Will that C2 structure continue to function while operating under emissions control (EMCON) and in the event RED is able to degrade or deny BLUE communications? What roles should unmanned systems play in optimizing ISR-T while minimizing risk to the organic platforms? By developing and applying the concepts of Autonomous Warfare, BLUE will operate with a C2 construct that enables more autonomous action at the lower levels. Additionally, BLUE will leverage the use of unmanned systems, relieving the stress of ambiguity in a communications denied environment.

A Traditional Approach for Applying the CWC Concept to DL

One could argue that AFPs operating under the DL construct should follow a traditional CWC C2 structure, which provides a counter-argument for the Autonomous Warfare approach. The CWC concept attempts to achieve decentralized execution and is defensively oriented. The composite warfare commanders direct the various units of a task force on a warfare-specific basis.²⁶ By delegating oversight of each warfare area to lower levels, the command structure avoids creating a choke point at the task force commander level (the CWC). This configuration is “structurally sound – if not brilliant” for its inherent capacity to simplify the offensive and defensive aspects of maritime warfare down to each warfare area.²⁷ AFPs employed in the scenario described above would then operate under the cognizance of the different warfare commanders on a warfare-area basis. These AFPs are simply groups of disaggregated forces forming a distributed network that would otherwise maneuver as a concentrated assembly around the carrier.

Figure 2: Traditional CWC Operational C2 Structure for a DL Task Force

Putting the given scenario into action and using the C2 structure depicted in Figure 2, to what degree are the APFs enabled to achieve the given objectives? BLUE AFPs are stationed as shown in Figure 1 and will attack any RED forces attempting to contest BLUE’s sea control in the yellow box. BLUE also has a continuously operating defensive combat air (DCA) patrol stationed west of the sea denial box to prevent any RED advancements towards island GREY. Just as BLUE forces get into position, RED attempts to form a blockade of the island by sending two SAGs, each escorted by a submarine, around the north and south ends of the island. The first indication of a RED attack comes from a synchronized ASCM salvo from unidentified targets (they were fired from RED’s submarines) followed by radar contact on the RED SAGs from BLUE UAVs providing ISR-T. BLUE’s distributed AFPs, fully enabled by commander’s intent, are capable of self-defense and defeating the RED forces.

Close coordination with the warfare commanders is not required. Each AFP commander understands that in order to maintain sea control to the east, he must dominate in the air, sub-surface, and on the surface. The CWC remains informed as the situation develops and the warfare commanders provide additional guidance for regrouping following the destruction of enemy threats. Thus, a traditional CWC approach to commanding and controlling AFPs provides the opportunity for centralized planning with decentralized execution with respect to DL. Further efforts to decouple the C2 of the AFPs from the task force as a whole could jeopardize unity of effort amidst a complex maritime contingency. AFPs should not be totally self-governing since “uncontrolled decentralized decision-making is just as likely to result in chaos on the battlefield” as no command and control at all.²⁸

An Autonomous Warfare Approach for DL Command and Control

The traditional CWC approach for DL C2 works in this case only because the given scenario is relatively simple. Uncertainty and adversity (often times referred to as fog and friction) are problems that commanders will enduringly have to overcome in wartime. “A commander can no more know the position, condition, strength, and intentions of all enemy units than the scientist can pinpoint the exact location, speed, and direction of movement of subatomic particles.”²⁹ The best he can do is generate an estimate of the situation based on the information available. In the previous scenario, RED’s COA was generic; BLUE should anticipate this type of COA to a degree, relative to RED’s overall plan of attack. Replaying the scenario with two slight yet profound modifications will show that we should not think of the traditional CWC C2 concept as a universal solution. An Autonomous Warfare approach will simplify managing the fog and friction of war from an operational C2 perspective and maximize AFP combat potential.

Assume the forces available and assigned objectives on each side are unchanged. In this case, RED brings to bear more of its A2/AD capabilities, including jamming BLUE’s communications network. Additionally, RED has sufficient ISR capabilities to determine the location and composition of BLUE’s AFPs. As a result, RED concentrates its forces to the north in an attempt to annihilate BLUE’s AFPs in series. The AFP to the north is now overwhelmingly outmatched. Similar to the previous scenario, BLUE’s first indication of a RED attack is a salvo of ASCMs fired from RED’s submarines. As a result, the LCS is damaged to the extent that it provides no warfare utility. Because communications are jammed, the remaining AFP forces cannot communicate with the CWC and his warfare commanders on the carrier to receive guidance on how to proceed. How does the affected AFP protect itself with the loss of its primary ASW platform? Does the traditional C2 structure allow the affected AFP to coordinate directly with the adjacent AFP for re-aggregation? Collectively, the remaining AFPs still offer the commander adequate capability to thwart the RED attack. This is not to say that Autonomous Warfare completely nullifies the principles of the CWC concept. Autonomous Warfare simply optimizes the principles behind the CWC concept for DL.³⁰

The following is an analysis of how an Autonomous Warfare approach to C2 for AFPs optimizes the combat potential that DL offers – especially in an A2/AD environment. A notional Autonomous Warfare DL C2 structure is provided in Figure 3. Each AFP would have an assigned AFP commander and designated alternate. Tactical decision-making would occur at the AFP level. Communications requirements would be drastically reduced. The delegated C2 structure obviates the need for dislocated command and control – AFPs under the auspices of the CSG. Thus, the “search-to-kill decision cycle” is completely self-contained.³¹ This degree of autonomy avoids the particular disadvantages of centralized command indicated in the previous example. Autonomous Warfare enables the AFP commander to make best use of his available forces based on the tactical situation and in pursuit of the assigned objectives. Furthermore, Autonomous Warfare prioritizes local decision-making founded on training, trust, mission command, and initiative rather than top-down network-centric command and control.³²

Figure 3: Autonomous Warfare C2 Structure for a DL Task Force. — Figure 3: Autonomous Warfare C2 Structure for a DL Task Force

There is an additional significant advantage to having a more autonomous C2 structure. Although the operational commander could assign each AFP a geographic area of responsibility, they could combine forces and disagreggate as necessary in the event of a loss or an encounter with concentrated enemy forces. In the second scenario above, two AFPs could coordinate directly with each other to counter the larger enemy compliment. They could avert the challenges and ambiguity of reaching back to the centralized commanders altogether as long as they maintained accountability for their assigned areas of responsibility. In the case where the LCS was eliminated, the AFP commanders should have the autonomy to adapt at the scene to accomplish the objective without seeking approval for a seemingly obvious response to adversity.

Another reason why a more flexible, autonomous C2 structure is imperative for DL forces is that there is no “one-size-fits-all” AFP.³³ The operational commander may assign different combinations of platforms based on the assets available and the given objectives. The harsh reality of war is that ships sink. The doctrine in place must allow for rapid adaptation with minimal need to communicate to higher authority. The Current Tactical Orders and Doctrine for U.S. Pacific Fleet (PAC-10) during World War II captures this notion best: “The ultimate aim [of PAC-10 was] to obtain essential uniformity without unacceptable sacrifice of flexibility. It must be possible for forces composed of diverse types, and indoctrinated under different task force commanders, to join at sea on short notice for concerted action against the enemy without interchanging a mass of special instructions.”³⁴

Optimizing DL with Unmanned Systems

The aggressive employment of unmanned systems is the second feature of Autonomous Warfare through which the U.S. Navy should optimize DL. “It is crucial that we have a strategic framework in which unmanned vehicles are not merely pieces of hardware or sensors sent off-board, but actual providers of information feeding a network that enhances situational awareness and facilitates precise force application.”³⁵ While there are many applications for unmanned systems, Autonomous Warfare exploits the information gathering and dissemination aspects to increase the lethality of organic platforms. By enhancing the capacity to provide localized and stealthier ISR-T using unmanned systems, AFPs will assume less risk in doing the same and can focus more on delivering firepower.³⁶ The examples provided below solidify this assertion.

Submarines provide a healthy balance of ISR and offensive capabilities to the operational commander. A submarine’s ability to remain undetected is its foundational characteristic that gives friendly forces the advantage while “complicating the calculus” for the enemy.³⁷ There is a significant tradeoff between stealth and mission accomplishment that occurs when a submarine operates in close proximity to its adversaries or communicates information to off-hull entities. By making use of UUVs, AFPs can still rely on stealthy underwater ISR-T while allowing the organic submarine to focus on delivering ordinance. In the given scenario, a small fleet of UUVs could be stationed west of the island and provide advanced warning of the approaching enemy forces. If traditional manned submarines took on this responsibility, they would likely have to engage on their own as the risk of counter-detection might outweigh the benefits of communicating. AFPs themselves could remain stealthy and focus on efforts to defeat the enemy.

While UUVs provide additional support in the undersea domain, UAVs are potential force multipliers in the DL application for two additional reasons. A cadre of unmanned aircraft could provide valuable ISR-T and line-of-sight (LOS) communications to further enable AFP lethality.³⁸ From an ISR-T perspective, AFPs could deploy UAVs to forward positions along an enemy threat axis to provide indications and warning (I&W) of an advancing enemy target or SAG. Their smaller payloads means they can stay on station longer than manned aircraft, and they eliminate the risk of loss to human life. Additionally, the benefits of providing LOS communications are numerous. LOS communication is particularly advantageous because it eliminates the need to transmit over-the-horizon, which becomes exceedingly risky from a counter-detection perspective as range increases.³⁹ A UAV keeping station at some altitude above the surface could provide LOS communications capability among various vessels within the AFP that are not necessarily within LOS of each other. Further, a UAV at a high enough altitude may afford the opportunity for one AFP to communicate LOS with an adjacent one. The level of autonomy these AFPs can achieve, and therefore lethality, only improves as battlespace awareness becomes more prolific and communication techniques remain stealthy.

actuvdryrunbridge — Featured Image: The prototype of DARPA’s ACTUV, shown here on the day of its christening. (Photo: DARPA)

Just as UUVs and UAVs offer significant advantages to Autonomous Warfare, there is great value in the application for USVs in the surface domain. Take for instance the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) anti-submarine warfare (ASW) Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel (ACTUV). This stunning new technology has the capability of tracking the quietest diesel-electric submarines for extended periods.⁴⁰ If this type of vessel was available to provide forward deployed ASW capabilities in the second scenario described above, the likelihood of RED submarines attacking BLUE would have diminished. While this particular USV would operate primarily for ASW purposes, it is completely feasible that the designers could equip the ACTUV with radar capabilities to provide additional ISR against air and surface threats. USVs simply provide an additional opportunity for operational commanders to provide ISR-T to weapons-bearing platforms.

The Combined Effect

The true value intrinsic to Autonomous Warfare stems from the combined effect of an appropriate C2 structure for DL that enables autonomous action and the force multiplier effect the operational commander realizes from unmanned systems. Distributed Lethality has serious potential for raising the status of our surface force as a formidable contender to one of deterrence. In an age where leaders measure warfighting capacity in technological advantage, it is refreshing to see an emerging concept that applies innovative thinking to warfighting techniques with the Navy we have today. A more autonomous C2 structure at the operational level will afford DL forces the flexibility to rapidly deliver offensive measures as contingencies develop. “By integrating unmanned systems in all domains, the U.S. Navy will increase its capability and capacity,” especially with respect to DL.⁴¹

Recommendations

It will take both time and effort to achieve an optimized Distributed Lethality construct through Autonomous Warfare. The following recommendations will assist in making this vision a reality:

1. There is risk that by disconnecting the AFPs from the CSG from a C2 perspective, the CSG becomes more vulnerable and unnecessarily sacrifices situational awareness. The Surface Warfare Directorate) N96 and the Distributed Lethality Task Force should further evaluate the tradeoffs associated with implementing a more autonomous C2 structure to DL at the operational level. Additionally, this paper proposes an operational C2 structure for DL. The conclusions derived from this paper should support further development of tactical level C2 for DL.

2. While many of the unmanned systems mentioned above are currently operational or under development, there is limited analysis of how to employ them in a Distributed Lethality environment. OPNAV N99 (Unmanned Warfare Systems), working in conjunction N96 and the DL Task Force, should consider incorporating unmanned systems within the DL concept as outlined above.

3. The U.S. Navy should conduct wargames and real world exercises to both validate the strengths of Autonomous Warfare and identify areas for improvement. Wargames will help refine Autonomous Warfare from a developmental approach. Naval exercises have two benefits: realistic testing provides proof of concept with the same force that will go to war. They also provide the opportunity to practice and inculcate new concepts.

4. Doctrine should begin to foster a culture of Autonomous Warfare throughout the U.S. Navy. The battlefield is becoming more volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous. The more we enable our highly trained and experienced officers to think and act autonomously, the greater combat potential the Navy will realize. Submarines, by nature, operate this way on a continuous basis. Other warfare communities will benefit from having the ability to operate in a more autonomous manner. As Autonomous Warfare represents a paradigm shift from a “connected force” towards a more autonomous one, the U.S. Navy must understand and embrace Autonomous Warfare before implementing it.

Conclusion

Distributed Lethality’s impending contribution to the joint force depends on its ability to maintain flexibility. An autonomous C2 structure allows for localized assessment and force employment, rapid adaptation in the face of adversity, and the ability to combine forces and re-aggregate as the situation dictates. Aggressive employment of autonomous vehicles only enhances these principles. Unmanned systems operating across the maritime domains will provide valuable ISR-T and facilitate localized decision-making, while minimizing risk to the organic platforms. By providing a means of stealthy communication among ships within an AFP or even between adjacent ones, Autonomous Warfare fosters an environment of secure information sharing. Less need to reach back to a command node means that DL forces can spend more time taking the fight to the enemy and less time managing a complicated communications network.

Maritime warfare is a complex process. Characterized by uncertainty and ambiguity, no weapon, platform, or operating concept will eliminate the fog and friction of war. Commanders must mitigate these challenges by setting the conditions necessary for their subordinate leaders to prosper. Commanders at the tactical level earn the trust of their superiors before taking command. We should not compromise that trust by establishing rigid command and control structures that ultimately inhibit the subordinate’s ability to perform as trained. Applying the autonomous approach to C2 for distributed lethality will enable AFPs to operate in accordance with commander’s intent and is in keeping with the initiative to promote Mission Command throughout the U.S. Navy.

LT Coleman Ward is a Submarine Officer who is currently a student at the Naval War College. The preceding is his original work, and should not be construed for the opinions of views of the Department of Defense, the United States Navy, or the Naval War College.

Featured Image: The prototype of DARPA’s ACTUV, shown here on the day of its christening. Image Courtesy DARPA.

1. Timothy Walton and Bryan McGrath, “China’s Surface Fleet Trajectory: Implications for the U.S. Navy,” in China Maritime Study No. 11: China’s Near Seas Combat Capabilities, ed. Peter Dutton, Andrew Erickson, and Ryan Martinson, (U.S. Naval War College: China Maritime Studies Institute, February 2014), 119-121, accessed May 5, 2016, https://www.usnwc.edu/Research—Gaming/China-Maritime-Studies-Institute/Publications/documents/Web-CMS11-(1)-(1).aspx.; Peng Guangqian, Major General, People’s Liberation Army (Ret.), “China’s Maritime Rights and Interests,” in China Maritime Study No. 7: Military Activities in the EEZ, ed. Peter Dutton, (U.S. Naval War College: China Maritime Studies Institute, December 2010), 15-17, accessed May 12, 2106, https://www.usnwc.edu/Research—Gaming/China-Maritime-Studies-Institute/Publications/documents/China-Maritime-Study-7_Military-Activities-in-the-.pdf.

2. Walton and McGrath, “China’s Surface Fleet Trajectory: Implications for the U.S. Navy,” 119-121.

3. Thomas Rowden, Peter Gumataotao, and Peter Fanta, “Distributed Lethality,” U.S. Naval Institute, Proceedings Magazine 141, no. 1 (January 2015): 343, accessed March 11, 2016, http://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2015-01/distributed-lethality.

4. Rowden et. al. “Distributed Lethality.”

5. James Bradford, America, Sea Power, and the World (West Sussex, UK: John Wiley and Sons, 2016), 339.

6. John Richardson, Admiral, Chief of Naval Operations, A Design for Maintaining Maritime Superiority (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, January 2016), 6.

7. Matthew Hipple, “Distributed Lethality: Old Opportunities for New Operations,” Center for International Maritime Security, last modified February 23, 2016, accessed May 12, 2016, https://cimsec.org/distributed-lethality-old-opportunities-for-new-operations/22292.

8. Thomas Rowden et. al., “Distributed Lethality.”

9. U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Coast Guard, A Cooperative Strategy for 21^st Century Seapower (Washington, D.C.: Headquarters U.S. Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard, March 2015), 9.

10. Thomas Rowden et. al, Distributed Lethality.

11. United States Navy, Naval Operations Concept 2010 (NOC): Implementing the Maritime Strategy (Washington D.C.: Government Printing Office, 2010), 54-55.

12. United States General Accounting Office, Comprehensive Strategy Needed to Improve Ship Cruise Missile Defense, GAO/NSIAD-00-149 (Washington, DC: General Accounting Office, July 2000), p. 5, accessed April 14, 2016, http://www.gao.gov/assets/230/229270.pdf.

13. Andrew Erickson and David Yang, “Using the Land to Control the Sea?,” Naval War College Review 62, no. 4, (Autumn 2009), 54.

14. United States Navy, Naval Operations Concept 2010: Implementing the Maritime Strategy, 54-56.

15. Andrew S. Erickson, Personal summary of discussion at “China’s Naval Shipbuilding: Progress and Challenges,” conference held by China Maritime Studies Institute at U.S. Naval War College, Newport, RI, 19-20 May 2015, accessed April 25, 2016, http://www.andrewerickson.com/2015/11/chinas-naval-shipbuilding-progress-and-challenges-cmsi-conference-event-write-up-summary-of-discussion/.

16. Thomas Rowden et. al., “Distributed Lethality.”

17. United States Navy. Naval Doctrine Publication (NDP) 1: Naval Warfare (Government Printing Office: Washington, D.C. March 2010), 35.

18. This is also referred to as “Mission Command” or “Command by Negation;” U.S. Office of the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Publication (JP) 3-32, Command and Control for Joint Maritime Operations (Washington D.C.: CJCS, August 7, 2013), I-2.

19. The Naval War College’s Gravely Group recently conducted a series of three DL Workshops with representation from offices across the Navy and interagency. One of the key findings was that “AFP SAG C2 architecture requires further development in view of information degraded or denied environments.” This paper proposes a notional operational level C2 structure – tactical level C2 is addressed in the recommendations section; William Bundy and Walter Bonilla. Distributed Lethality Concept Development Workshops I – III Executive Report. (U.S. Naval War College: The Gravely Group, December 29, 2015), 9.

20. This paper considers three types of maritime unmanned systems currently employed or under development: Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), Unmanned Underwater Vehicles (UUVs), and Unmanned Surface Vessels (USVs).

21. See the below article featuring a newly developed Chinese drone similar to the U.S.’s Predator drone currently employed for operations in the Middle East; Kyle Mizokami, “For the First Time, Chinese UAVs are Flying and Fighting in the Middle East,” Popular Mechanics, last modified December 22, 2015, accessed May 10, 2016, http://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/news/a18677/chinese-drones-are-flying-and-fighting-in-the-middle-east/.

22. This scenario does not represent a universal application for DL.

23. The Rowden “Distributed Lethality”article provides its own “Hunter-Killer Hypothetical” situation while supporting its main argument. However, the scenario is basic and does not afford the opportunity to explore how AFP C2 and unmanned systems would function in a complex maritime contingency.

24. Google Maps, “South Atlantic Ocean” map (and various others), Google (2016), accessed April 14, 2016, https://www.google.com/maps/@-50.3504488,-53.6341245,2775046m/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en.

25. This is the same AFP force composition suggested in the Rowden Distributed Lethality article “Hunter-Killer Hypothetical” situation; Thomas Rowden et. al., “Distributed Lethality.”

26. For a full explanation of the CWC concept and roles and responsibilities of CWC warfare commanders, see: United States Navy, Navy Warfare Publication (NWP) 3-56: Composite Warfare Doctrine (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, September 2010).

27. Larry LeGree, “Will Judgement be a Casualty of NCW?,” U.S. Naval Institute, Proceedings Magazine 130, no. 10 (October 2004): 220, accessed April 14, 2016, http://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2004-10/will-judgment-be-casualty-ncw.

28. CNO’s Strategic Studies Group (XXII), Coherent Adaptive Force: Ensuring Sea Supremacy for SEA POWER 21, January 2004.

29. Michael Palmer, Command at Sea (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2005), 319.

30. Jimmy Drennan, “Distributed Lethality’s C2 Sea Change,” Center for International Maritime Security, last modified July 10, 2015, accessed April 14, 2016, https://cimsec.org/?s=Distributed+lethality+c2+sea+change.

31. Jeffrey Kline, “A Tactical Doctrine for Distributed Lethality,” Center for International Maritime Security, last modified February 22, 2016, accessed March 17, 2016, https://cimsec.org/tactical-doctrine-distributed-lethality/22286.

32. Palmer, Command at Sea, 322.

33. Jeffrey Kline, “A Tactical Doctrine for Distributed Lethality.”

34. Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Pacific Fleet, Current Tactical Orders and Doctrine, U.S. Pacific Fleet (PAC–10), U.S. Navy, Pacific Fleet, June 1943, pg. v, section 111.

35. Paul Siegrist, “An Undersea ‘Killer App’,” U.S. Naval Institute: Proceedings Magazine 138, no. 7, (July 2012): 313, accessed April 30, 2016, http://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2012-07/undersea-killer-app.

36. Thomas Rowden et. al., “Distributed Lethality.”

37. Ibid.

38. Robert Rubel, “Pigeon Holes or Paradigm Shift: How the Navy Can Get the Most of its Unmanned Vehicles,” U.S. Naval Institute News, last modified February 5, 2013, https://news.usni.org/2012/07/25/pigeon-holes-or-paradigm-shift-how-navy-can-get-most-its-unmanned-vehicles.

39. Jonathan Soloman, “Maritime Deception and Concealment: Concepts for Defeating Wide-Area Oceanic Surveillance-Reconnaissance-Strike Networks,” Naval War College Review 66, no. 4 (Autumn 2013): 89.

40. Scott Littlefield, “Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel (ACTUV),” Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, accessed April 30, 2016, http://www.darpa.mil/program/anti-submarine-warfare-continuous-trail-unmanned-vessel.

41. Robert Girrier, Rear Admiral, Director, Unmanned Warfare Systems (OPNAV N99), “Unmanned Warfare Systems,” Lecture at U.S. Naval War College, May 11, 2016.

Featured Image: PHILIPPINE SEA (Oct. 4, 2016) The forward-deployed Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS McCampbell (DDG 85) patrols the waters while in the Philippine Sea. McCampbell is on patrol with Carrier Strike Group Five (CSG 5) in the Philippine Sea supporting security and stability in the Indo-Asia-Pacific region. (U.S. Navy photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Christian Senyk/Released)

Capability Analysis

Moving Forward: Evolution of the Maritime Operations Center

October 19, 2016 Guest Author 1 Comment

The following article originally featured on MOC Warfighter and is republished with permission. Read it in its original form here.

By William Lawler, CAPT USN and Jonathan Will, CAPT USN (Ret.)

After WWII, the U.S. Navy’s ability to plan and execute at the operational level of war (OLW), which links tactical actions with strategic objectives, progressively diminished. Following 9/11, Navy senior leadership recognized this shortcoming and introduced a new concept, the Maritime Operations Center (MOC), to address it. In 2005, the CNO, VCNO and major fleet commanders committed to the reinvigoration of U.S. Navy operational-level execution by spreading the MOC concept throughout the fleet. This article traces the development of the MOC, recognizes that the Navy has markedly improved its ability to effectively plan and execute at the OLW, and makes recommendations for moving forward.

Why MOC?

The MOC concept was born out of difficulties experienced by the Navy in operational planning, command and control (C2), and Service interoperability when it took part in joint operations in Grenada (1983), Panama (1989), and Operation Desert Storm (1991). While the Navy made significant contributions to these operations as a force provider, it was generally perceived that Navy personnel lacked the expertise and capacity required to plan and command campaigns and major operations. In short, the Navy had lost its ability to plan and execute at the OLW.

After 9/11, ADM Clark and subsequent Chiefs of Naval Operations (CNOs) recognized the need to enhance the planning and C2 capabilities of Navy OLW staffs. The result was a CNO vision to establish networked commands with MOCs that would employ common doctrine, standardized processes, educated and trained personnel, and common C4I systems. These strengths would enable them to operate with diverse partners (joint, interagency, coalition, or combined) across the range of military operations. The MOC concept was first used in 2002 by the U.S. Second Fleet during Fleet Battle Experiment Juliet (FBE-J) in ExerciseMillennium Challenge 02, using a draft tactical memorandum (TACMEMO) as the basis. The MOC concept and TACMEMO were further developed the following year in FBE-K. Over the next few years, six additional fleets stood up as MOCs: Third, Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Fleets, U.S. Fleet Forces, and Pacific Fleet.

The CNO directed USFF to establish a flag-level governing board to provide oversight, focus and recommendations for improving Navy ability at the OLW. The challenge was that planning and C2 concepts were understood only by a small number of naval officers. In response to CNO guidance and fleet commander requests, the Naval War College (NWC) took several steps to assist with implementing the CNO’s MOC vision to include instituting flag officer courses: a Joint Force Maritime Component Commander (JFMCC) Course in 2005 and a Combined Force Maritime Component Commander (CFMCC) Course in 2006. Also in 2006, in response to CNO guidance and a Secretary of Defense requirement that combatant commanders certify their joint headquarters and subordinate component commands, the NWC initiated the Assist and Assess Team (AAT) and the Maritime Staff Operators Course (MSOC). The AAT was to support fleet operational commanders and share lessons learned and effective practices, and MSOC was to educate officer and senior enlisted personnel en route MOC billets. In 2007, the President of the NWC formally established the College of Operational and Strategic Leadership (COSL), in part, to focus NWC efforts as an advocate for developing the Navy’s OLW expertise. Additionally during this time, NWC doubled the throughput of active duty planners at the Naval Operational Planners Course (later expanded to the Maritime Advanced Warfighting School) and lengthened the intermediate curriculum at the war college by four weeks to enable greater depth of study in Joint Military Operations.

During this time, the draft TACMEMOs that were used during earlier Fleet Battle Experiments as the foundation for the MOC construct and MOC processes developed further and became doctrinal publications: Joint Publication (JP) 3-32,Command and Control for Joint Maritime Operations (2006); Navy Warfare Publication (NWP) 5-01, Navy Planning (2007); NWP 3-32, Maritime Operations at the Operational Level of War (2008); and Navy Tactics, Techniques and Procedures (NTTP) 3-32.1, Maritime Operations Center (2008).

In 2008, the CNO formalized a requirement for Maritime Headquarters Training and Accreditation in OPNAVINST 3500.40, and U.S. Fleet Forces Command (USFF) established a team to support that effort. After an initial round of fleet “MOC accreditation” was completed by the end of 2009, the CNO eliminated the requirement for MOC accreditation, and in 2012 instituted an OLW education and training continuum in OPNAVINST 3500.40A. This instruction: (1) designated Commander, USFF as responsible for manning, training, and equipping all MOCs, (2) designated President, NWC as responsible for MOC education of flag officers, officers, and senior enlisted personnel, and (3) tasked USFF and NWC to collaborate to form a Navy MOC Training Team (MOC-TT) to support MOCs during operations and exercises and disseminate effective practices to facilitate mission accomplishment and advance commonality.

Since the introduction of the MOC concept, two additional fleets with MOCs were established: U.S. Fourth Fleet (C4F)/U.S. Naval Forces Southern Command in 2008, and U.S. Tenth Fleet (C10F)/U.S. Fleet Cyber Command in 2010. U.S. Second Fleet and its MOC were disestablished in 2011 as part of a Navy reorganization, being subsumed into U.S. Fleet Forces Command.

MOCs in Practice: Then and Now

Fleet staffs have evolved considerably under the MOC construct over the past six years. Out of necessity, they started with an internal focus on people, processes and organization, but now they have progressively matured their MOCs to include more habitual external linkages, while facing more complex challenges due to the changing environment.

MOCs from 2007-2009

Early efforts to implement the MOC concept focused on breaking down the “stove pipes” inherent in the existing Napoleonic “N-code” organizational structure of the fleets and replacing them with the more agile, efficient, and cross-functional MOC construct. Across the fleets there existed a wide range of roles and missions the MOCs had to support, from theater security cooperation, to crisis response, to defense support to civil authorizes, to supporting full-scale contingency operations. Fleet commanders thus aligned their MOC organizations and processes to support their respective combatant commander’s missions while taking into consideration the requirements unique to each geographic area of responsibility (AOR). Additionally, commanders shaped their MOCs to support event horizons and decision cycles specific to their fleet, and ensured that their MOCs would allow them to act as JFMCCs, Navy component commanders (NCCs) or joint task force (JTF) commanders.

During early MOC implementation, fleet staffs focused mainly on revamping their organizational structures and processes. While some fleets implemented change more rapidly than others, by 2009 established fleets had implemented joint-based boards, bureaus, centers, cells and working groups (B2C2WGs) either alongside or in lieu of traditional N-codes, and had established the initial functionality of the core activities of current operations (COPS), future operations (FOPS), and future plans center (FPC). Implementation of an assessment function varied widely across the fleets. Each fleet also established a battle rhythm designed to synchronize the activities of the staff and assist the commander’s decision cycle. However, some fleets were not synchronizing their B2C2WGs with those of higher headquarters (HHQ) unless operational necessity forced the linkage.

Early MOC information management/knowledge management (IM/KM) efforts primarily focused on establishing common collaborative tools for use in each AOR. For example, some fleets used Defense Connect On-Line (DCO) because their HHQ did, while others used video teleconferences and/or transitioned to voice over secure internet protocol (VOSIP) to conduct meetings with HHQ, components and subordinates. Additionally, early in the MOC development process fleet staffs appeared to place more emphasis on their internal KM efforts, sometimes at the expense of improving their ability to collaborate with their subordinates via tools like Collaboration at Sea (CAS) portals. Emphasis on establishing initial battle rhythms and B2C2WG applications was generally internal, limiting rapid integration with HHQ and peer components during crisis transition.

As MOCs were developing their organizational structures, internal processes, and IM/KM tools, there was also a strong effort to enhance planning capacity. The infusion of pre-assignment education for fleet staffs bolstered planning capability and enabled fleets to establish common procedures and introduce the concept of planning time horizons (far, mid, and near). However, fleets struggled with the ability to manage and synchronize multiple planning teams, often failing to fully include subordinate task forces in planning, and had difficulty proactively providing supporting plans that had been coordinated with peer components to HHQ.

While interaction between the MOCs was mostly limited to specific initiatives including maritime domain awareness (MDA), MOCs demonstrated the ability to collaborate during some routine operations (e.g., C5F counter-piracy operations), exercises, and the response to the Haiti earthquake (C4F with support from C2F and USFF). However, there was still significant room for improvement with respect to improving the ability of MOCs to synchronize and integrate their activities.

By 2009 there was widespread concurrence at the fleet commander level that the MOC construct yielded several benefits when compared to the traditional Napoleonic staff construct as depicted in Figure 1.

While the MOC concept was deemed to have several advantages over the traditional N-code organizational structure, observers noted that common problems existed across the fleets that needed to be addressed including forming and transitioning the staff, assessment, and IM/KM.

MOCs from 2010-2012

MOCs continued to evolve during this period with the addition of one new fleet staff, the functionally oriented C10F (cyberspace, space, cryptologic and information operations), while USFF and its MOC subsumed C2F. Years of experience implementing the MOC construct resulted in MOCs that were able to conduct crisis response planning and cross-AOR drills, support joint exercises, and plan and command real-world operations such as Operations Odyssey Dawn(C6F with support from C5F and C2F) and Tomadachi (CPF and C7F with support from C3F). As one fleet flag officer observed, “The global stressors for MOCs included simultaneous events that spanned multiple AORs and stressed OLW commanders in planning and responding to changing events and missions.” The diverse nature of fleet responses to these events evidenced the fact that MOCs had truly become tailorable, flexible, and scalable organizations while still maintaining a degree of commonality.

An important area of growth during this period was the enhancement of relationships among MOC principals, lead planners, and key action officers and their counterparts at HHQ, other components and fleets, and subordinate task forces. Historically, flag and general officers have made it a priority to establish working relationships with their counterparts. As the MOCs evolved, there was an increased recognition that efficiency and effectiveness could be enhanced if other key staff members established routine working relationships external to the MOC. As a result, fleet staffs became better postured to rapidly and accurately feed information into the commander’s decision making cycle and help their commanders manage the operations process (plan, prepare, execute, and assess).

The capacity and ability of fleet MOCs to utilize the Navy Planning Process also increased during this timeframe. Although many of the Marines assigned to Fleet MOCs still provide critical planning expertise, no longer is the fleet commander required to rely heavily on the Fleet Marine Officer to lead all critical planning. The Navy continues to produce capable planners resulting in more detailed plans and an improved alignment with HHQ and subordinate staffs. However, while staff planning capability has improved, certain negative trends warrant scrutiny. Many observers agree that MOCs need to generate more thorough maritime supporting plans to combatant commander plans, connect fleet planning more closely with subordinate task forces, and better leverage the use of supported-supporting relationships. This has been recognized by the fleets and is driving a requirement for more planning capacity. Additionally, fleets recognize the necessity to synchronize simultaneous planning efforts across the three event horizons to help better align and conserve manpower. Staffs better understand the need to build maritime products such as maritime supporting plans, OPGENs, OPTASKs, and DIMs that better support and complement joint products such as OPLANs, OPORDs, and FRAGORDs.

Although still not standardized, IM/KM tools and processes have become more common across the fleets. Much recent effort has focused on better nesting MOC battle rhythms with HHQ and subordinates. The result has been a greater ability to rapidly connect and synchronize with key external commands at the outset of a crisis.

Fleets are now building greater detail into their manpower documents, transitioning from a basic manning document with a pool of augmentees, to more specific fleet/joint manning documents that focus on distinct roles of the commander, missions, and forward command element considerations. Manning documents now identify the required rank and skill set for each billet, thus enhancing the staff’s ability to more rapidly and effectively gain additional capacity through reach-back and/or augmentation.

Addressing Common MOC Challenges

Although the Navy has made great strides in its ability to plan and execute at the OLW, observers routinely see four areas of improvement needed across the MOCs as seen in Figure 2.

Crisis transition, shifting within the MOC from routine to crisis operation mode, has always been challenging, but becomes even more difficult if staffs do not train in a realistic operational environment. Most MOC staffs have built basic transition plans based on applicable manpower documents, MOC processes, procedures and organization. However, the challenges of shifting MOC staff from routine operations and facilities is increasingly complex; fleet commanders are faced with supporting a wide range of joint and Service roles while the environment drives an increasing demand for reach-back support from other MOCs and supporting agencies. Continuing refinement of SOPs and doctrine, and practicing crisis transition in more robust environments that stress staff sustainment should pay big dividends. Unfortunately, exercises often do not allow OLW commanders to validate staff sustainment and production capability during crisis transition due to their short duration, lack of depth, or single-phase focus of the exercise.

Planning Capacity and Management

While planning capability has improved across the fleets, there is still not enough planning capacity because of ever-increasing requirements (e.g., maritime supporting plans) for planning expertise. Additionally, staffs continue to struggle with the requirement to manage multiple plans that span different time horizons (near, mid, and far). Staffs must continue to become more proactive and disciplined in assigning planning efforts to limited staff planning resources based on event horizons and continue to improve their internal transition processes from future plans to future operations to current operations. Too frequently staffs have reacted to events and not kept their planning horizons sufficiently stretched into the future.

Fires and Targeting Processes and Capabilities

At the outset of planning, fires must be designed to support the commander’s objectives, intent, and guidance, and should provide options designed to achieve lethal and non-lethal effects. During planning, fleet staffs must develop a fires concept from the JFMCC perspective and lobby for its integration into the overall joint concept. Crafting a well-defined concept of fires is especially vital during operations where the JFMCC is the supported commander and must take lead for the prioritization of joint fires.

A common mistake is to lump fires and targeting together as if they were the same thing. Fires is the use of weapons systems to create specific lethal or nonlethal effects on a target and is essentially an art. Targeting is a science – the process of selecting and prioritizing targets and matching the appropriate response to them, considering operational requirements and capabilities. The ultimate purpose is to achieve an effect – a change to the physical or behavioral state of system that results from an action, set of actions, or another effect – that contributes to the commander’s objectives and end state.

Fires and targeting training at the OLW is often individually focused, and fires elements/cells frequently do not train together on the systems they will use during actual mission execution. This man-train-equip disconnect is exacerbated when MOCs transition from routine to crisis operations. At this time, fires activities normally shift from a maritime targeting focus to influencing the deliberate joint fires processes for maritime objectives which support the broader joint objectives. This requires the activation and augmentation of the naval and amphibious liaison element (NALE) at the air and space operations center (AOC). The NALE usually trains separately from the MOC and lacks established working relationships with MOC personnel, further limiting effective interaction between the NALE and the fires element/cell. Current exercises do not fill the gap between training and execution because they rarely stress the transition from target planning to fires execution to relevant combat assessment.

At the OLW, fires and targeting are often executed as if they were stand-alone operational functions or processes. As a result, staffs struggle with synchronizing all of the other operational functions (C2, movement and maneuver, protection, intelligence, and sustainment) of the command while at the same time delivering integrated fires in real-world operations.

Finally, across the fleets the established targeting processes remain largely reactive to the joint force air component commander (JFACC) air tasking order (ATO) cycle. There is usable doctrine for the joint targeting process, but no doctrine that truly integrates planning for kinetic and non-kinetic effects, including information operations and cyberspace operations. Moving forward, maritime components need to rely less on being a “force provider” to the JFACC ATO cycle, and should strive to work toward more common JFMCC targeting and fires processes that align with the JTF staff, while including wider integration of kinetic and non-kinetic effects.

Information Operations/Cyberspace Operations Integration

All MOCs would benefit from enhancing their ability to integrate information-related capabilities (IRCs), to include cyberspace operations, into planning, preparation and execution. Staffs would be well served to implement processes whereby IO working groups engage in every aspect of the Navy Planning Process, thinking through if, when, and how IRCs can be employed to accomplish the commander’s objectives as well as how the use of IRCs can be integrated into the concept of fires. Such integration will likely involve discussions concerning authorities, ROE, and C2, and require working with C10F supporting elements. Opportunities and challenges associated with information and cyberspace operations integration will have a significant impact on MOC development in the foreseeable future.

Conclusion

MOCs across the fleet have made substantial progress over the past six years, both in their internal processes and organization as well as their ability to support external requirements. However, the increasingly dynamic operational environment will continue to drive naval component and fleet commanders to aggressively pursue all opportunities to best support joint force commanders.

In the near term, maritime OLW commanders must consider new C2 constructs designed to enhance their ability to communicate vertically and horizontally and to accomplish the assigned mission. Moving forward, given anticipated fiscal constraints, MOCs will need to work together to address the common challenges outlined above and in so doing contribute to the next evolutionary phase in the Navy’s ability to plan, prepare, execute, and assess at the OLW.

Captain Lawler is the Deputy Director of Operational-Level Programs, and Professor. Will is the Deputy Director of the Assist and Assess Team, both of which are part of the College of Operational and Strategic Leadership at the Naval War College, Newport, RI.

Featured Image: YOKOSUKA, Japan (Oct. 3, 2016) Capt. Carroll Bannister, the U.S. 7th Fleet Maritime Operations Center, director, right, give a tour of the MOC to Adm. Tomohisa Takei, Chief of Maritime Staff, Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force and Vice Adm. Joseph Aucoin, commander, U.S. 7th Fleet. (Navy photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Jason Kofonow/Released)

History, Interviews

Commodore Dudley Wright Knox – Sailor, Writer, Sage

October 10, 2016 Guest Author Leave a comment

By Christopher Nelson

The U.S. Naval Institute’s popular and well-reviewed 21st Century Foundation series continues to grow. This past May, Dr. David Kohnen added to the list with his 21st Century Knox: Influence, Sea Power, and History for the Modern Era.

Captain Dudley W. Knox as a member of the "Planning Section" of the "London Flagship" headquarters of the Commander, U.S. Naval Forces in Europe, Admiral William S. Sims. Having arrived in London for Christmas in 1917, Knox synthesized operations with intelligence by organizing future planning efforts within the headquarters. (U.S. Navy Photograph) — Captain Dudley W. Knox as a member of the “Planning Section” of the “London Flagship” headquarters of the Commander, U.S. Naval Forces in Europe, Admiral William S. Sims. Having arrived in London for Christmas in 1917, Knox synthesized operations with intelligence by organizing future planning efforts within the headquarters. (U.S. Navy Photograph)

In a review published on CIMSEC back in August, Captain Dale Rielage, USN, said that “Knox offers an example of how an officer with ideas and the willingness to challenge the status quo can have a profound influence on the U.S. Navy.” To learn more about Commodore Knox, and how he challenged naval thinking, I talked with Dr. Kohnen about his new book.

Finally, I am excited to tell you that Dr. Kohnen has provided us with pictures of Commodore Knox and Admirals King and Sims that have never been published. They are published here for the first time.

Professor Kohnen, welcome. Thanks for taking the time to talk about your new book. So, to start, why did you want to write a book about Knox?

Chris, thank you, I greatly appreciate this opportunity to discuss Commodore Dudley W. Knox. Indeed, I firmly believe that Knox stands among the most significant naval thinkers in American history. His ideas truly resonate, as the themes he addressed in his historical work during the first fifty years of the twentieth century informed the development of the U.S. Navy “second to none.” Through his close personal associations with President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King, Knox became one of the key architects in designing the foundations of U.S. Navy professional military education, in understanding American naval history and traditions, and in advancing the idea of employing the U.S. Navy as an international peacemaker. Knox remains one of the most important figures in understanding American concepts of “sea power” thorough two world wars and into the Cold War era. From my own studies of his life and historical works, I firmly believe that Knox offered strategic observations on concepts of maritime strategy, which transcend into the twenty-first century. I also firmly believe that our Navy should revisit the ideas Knox offers in his writings in order to be better informed of the historical foundations, which have shaped contemporary discussions concerning the future of American sea power and the military policy of the United States.

Knox advised the strategic decision makers who created the U.S. Navy “second to none” and the post-imperial vision of replacing historical empires with multinational alliances under the United Nations. Given his close friendship with Roosevelt and King, I have come to view Knox as a figure perhaps comparable to a Thomas Cromwell, or the fictional consigliore from the Godfather movie, as depicted by the Hollywood actor Robert Duvall. By the way, Knox was also a mentor for Duvall’s father, Commodore William H. Duvall, who served in destroyers in both the Atlantic and Pacific during the Second World War.

I first became aware of Knox as I was working on my dissertation, which focused on Ernest J. King. In the process of writing, I started reconstructing the circle of personalities surrounding King in order to understand the bureaucratic culture and primary group dynamics, which characterized the social character of the U.S. Navy during the first fifty years of the twentieth century. As I am sure you know, the story of Ernest J. King begins during the reconstruction era after the Civil War. He eventually served as Chief of Staff of the Atlantic Fleet during the First World War. Among King’s best friends and closest shipmates was a guy named Dudley Wright Knox. Of course, Knox and King shared a deep interest in history.

Knox had ties with historical figures in American military history. His father was a general officer in the Army, and he had relatives in the service going all the way back to the American Revolutionary period. So Knox is already one of these people who is inclined to think in historical terms.

Then I started mapping out his associations. I’m an intelligence officer in the Navy. So in the same way you do that as an intelligence officer, I began doing that with these historical figures. When you look at the association between King and Knox you start to see other associations. You begin to then see the connection between King, Knox, Nimitz, and then Halsey, Spruance, and the whole gang. So you have this close circle of naval officers who periodically bumped into each other during their careers in the naval service.

Now, in this circle of naval officers, Dudley Knox looms large in the discussion. Knox was a little bit older than the rest of them and he was so sharp minded that people like Ernest King would look to him for advice, perspective, and just good conversation.

Of course, those were the days before distractions like television and the internet. These guys, then, spent their time focusing on their profession – reading the professional literature that should be read for people who want to think about strategy, naval operations, and the maritime dimension. These are books that unfortunately have become obscured in the contemporary context. You think about some of the things that Knox and his contemporaries were reading, people like John Knox Laughton and Spencer Wilkinson. These guys were aware of Corbett long before anyone else was aware of Corbett. They are an interesting group of people. That’s why I started gravitating to Commodore Knox.

Knox, however, was not my main focus in my PhD studies — my focus was Ernest King. But now I had all these “left-overs,” the cutting room types of material after I finished the dissertation on King. And all that extra material was there, so I wrote a paper that I gave at the Oceanic Society of History Conference. On the panel was Claude Berube and B.J. Armstrong. I gave this paper about Knox, and shortly after I finished B.J. slipped me a note. B.J. wrote, “You need to write the book on Knox.” I looked at him and was like, ‘OK, whatever.’ After the conference we went to the pub and B.J. told me about the 21st Century Series and its focus. He convinced me that what I had on Knox would work quite well within the context of the 21st Century Series. It came together relatively quickly because I already knew a lot of things about Knox that simply didn’t exist in the secondary literature — and still doesn’t exist. I’m pretty happy how this little piece came together. It was a great way of bringing Knox back to the 21st century professional naval audience.

And we are not done with Knox. Once I get some other things done, it is my full intention to go back and do something more substantial about Knox. He certainly deserves a focused biography for all the work that he did and the influence that he had, which I highlight in the collection, specifically his associations with Ernest King and Franklin Roosevelt.

Retired Captain Dudley W. Knox presents President Franklin D. Roosevelt with the final volume of an edited collection official naval records relating to U.S. Navy strategy and operations during the undeclared War with France between 1798 and 1801. After four years work, Roosevelt and Knox worked together to complete these volumes by 1938. Roosevelt insisted upon referring to the "Quasi-War" with France, much to the chagrin of Knox. However, Roosevelt specifically chose this phrase for the title of the work, as the underlying point of the work centered upon how he intended to employ the U.S. Navy in support of American neutrality strategy before the Second World War. Together, Roosevelt and Knox used history to inform American naval strategy in both peace and war. — Retired Captain Dudley W. Knox presents President Franklin D. Roosevelt with the final volume of an edited collection official naval records relating to U.S. Navy strategy and operations during the undeclared War with France between 1798 and 1801. After four years work, Roosevelt and Knox worked together to complete these volumes by 1938. Roosevelt insisted upon referring to the “Quasi-War” with France, much to the chagrin of Knox. However, Roosevelt specifically chose this phrase for the title of the work, as the underlying point of the work centered upon how he intended to employ the U.S. Navy in support of American neutrality strategy before the Second World War. Together, Roosevelt and Knox used history to inform American naval strategy in both peace and war.

I assume it is difficult as an editor to decide what to include in a book and what not to include, particularly if a subject is a prolific writer. How did you go about making those decisions?

That’s an interesting question. So, Commander B.J. Armstrong is the editor of the series, and we’re also good friends. I’m prolific in terms of, well, I like to use a lot of words to say things. And I like to use footnotes and I like to explore every avenue in my analysis. That results in large manuscripts. B.J. was draconian as an editor in executing the sixty-thousand word limit. That really constrained me in terms of what I could do in terms of Knox. We actually cut two essays that I wanted to include just to make sure the pieces fit within the context of the 21st Century Series.

So the balance of putting together Knox’s biographical details, which are not out there in the secondary literature, there’s no real comprehensive biography of Knox available to us – so for the time being, at least, this book is a starting point for a detailed biography, which needs to be written. And if somebody else doesn’t do it I’m going to do it once I get King off my plate. When you think about editing and the choices that you have to make, what I did is I focused on the themes that the CNO is focusing on with his “Design for Maintaining Maritime Superiority.” I also considered pieces in light of some of the discussions that are ongoing here at the U.S. Naval War College, contemporary questions of American maritime strategy, naval leadership, ethics (but Knox always talked about the “naval ethos” opposed to ethics), and I think those differences are worthy of discussion. Knox also strongly talked about the importance of understanding the foundations of history in order to frame contemporary discussions about the future. He wrote about these themes. The way he did it was so profoundly unique that Knox remains worthy of consideration in the contemporary context. So, when I assembled these essays I followed those points when selecting the essays in the book.

My favorite essay is actually the last one. It turns out in my mind as the most interesting within the contemporary context. He’s talking about the problem of unification among the services. He’s writing at the time of the revolt of the admirals, which was just erupting. And there all of these problems between the Army and the Navy. The Air Force was newly created; the armed forces security agency; the Central Intelligence Agency; all these new things that came after World War Two. Knox is reeling against the tide as the future was being mapped out. I think Knox was a little bit reluctant to embrace these new ideas because he was still looking at things from the perspective of the past. He understood the problems that came with the bureaucratic changes that happened after the Second World War, which, from Knox’s point of view really didn’t measure up in terms of American ways of war — the American tradition of having a clearly defined civilian command over the military. Knox was worried about a progressive military industrialization of American culture. He wrote about this.

After that last essay, Knox sort of said ‘look, we need to rethink how we are talking about problems of war.’ And he did talk about the importance of how navies are different from armies, and that armies require naval support. Armies are there to conduct operations ashore to achieve an effect ashore. But armies and navies are different, they operate in different environments, and both need airpower to conduct those operations.

So when you follow Knox’s logic he is saying this separation of an air force is a really bad idea. It creates another bureaucracy. As a result you are going to create more flag billets and you are going to see more investment, not less investment, in the military. Knox is reeling against that. Then he does this nice comparison of “Hey if I build an aircraft carrier it is going to last 40 years, you can use it for multiple functions, and use it during peacetime. Rather than if you build a fleet of bombers where its only function is going to be useful if you need to drop a bomb.” Knox did not agree with that sort of approach.

Are there other Knox writings that didn’t make it into the 21st Century Knox but should be read as well?

Dudley Knox was prolific. B.J. and I would go around and around about which essays should go in the book. So like I said earlier, the important part was zeroing in on themes that are immediate interest to the contemporary U.S. Naval professional. That sort of dictated how we were going to put together this little collection. When I compiled the essay that were selected, I focused on the questions of strategy, doctrine, leadership, and of course, the ethos of American naval service. The one thing that I would say that is important in the process of selecting the essays, is that Knox and his associates had this perspective that the naval service has multiple functions. It is not just war. I think Knox would have a problem with contemporary words like “warfighter” because it is too specific. Knox would have reminded us that the Navy is always operational rather if we are at peace or at war. So when you look at his essay titled “Naval Power as a Preserver of Neutrality and Peace,” it is an important essay because he is basically riffing off an essay Teddy Roosevelt published in 1914 titled “Our Navy, Peace Maker.” Now, these themes are important because it is a way of thinking about military service that is different than some of the conversations that we have here in the contemporary era. For example, when you look at their careers, Knox’s generation, coming out of the naval academy at the beginning of the 20th Century, they remained in the naval service for the remainder of their lives. Knox even served in retired status as director of naval history until his death.

(Previously Unpublished) Dudley W. Knox requested transfer to the retired list of the U.S. Navy, seeking to broaden U.S. Navy efforts to engage the American public in understanding the influence of sea power upon history. During the 1920s and 1930s, Knox helped organize historical research and preservation efforts within the Navy Department. In this role, he also remained heavily involved with the Office of Naval Intelligence. Fusing historical research with efforts to meet contemporary challenges, Knox served as a trusted personal adviser to President Franklin. D. Roosevelt. The painting behind him is that of a destroyer escorting a convoy during the First World War. During the war, Knox was heavily involved in convoy operations. — (**Previously Unpublished)** Dudley W. Knox requested transfer to the retired list of the U.S. Navy, seeking to broaden U.S. Navy efforts to engage the American public in understanding the influence of sea power upon history. During the 1920s and 1930s, Knox helped organize historical research and preservation efforts within the Navy Department. In this role, he also remained heavily involved with the Office of Naval Intelligence. Fusing historical research with efforts to meet contemporary challenges, Knox served as a trusted personal adviser to President Franklin. D. Roosevelt. The painting behind him is that of a destroyer escorting a convoy during the First World War. During the war, Knox was heavily involved in convoy operations.

When you put together the chronology of some of these guys’ naval careers, and the numbers they spent fighting wars, it only adds up to about eight years. So what are they doing during this other time? So here you have people serving, this idea of service, the ethos of naval service, over a sixty odd year period, and their orientation is not to go find a war but to find ways to avoid a war through sea power. And of course this ties into the theories of Mahan and Luce at the end of the 19th century. Of course, their perspectives reflected an informed understanding of John Knox Laughton’s work, Spencer Wilkinson, Alfred Mahan, and others.

Dudley Knox had some well-known mentors. Who were they and how did they influence him? Knox, if I understood correctly, was concerned that there will be some challenges if you have a U.S. Air Force trying to support a naval surface force. He had some concerns about an independent air force. This was in a time when discussions of creating a U.S. Air Force sounded quite contentious. Was he concerned that air force aviators wouldn’t understand naval operations and vice versa?

The problem here centers on the question of who controls what. Knox observed post-World War I events, for example, the Washington Naval Treaty. Those events inspired Knox to write his first substantial book called “The Eclipse of American Sea Power.” He’s reeling against the fact that the average American policy maker is not educated enough to understand what they were doing when they were cutting the Fleet. After that fight in 1923, Billy Mitchell arrives and is fixated in creating an American equivalent to the British Royal Air Force, and Knox is reeling against this during his whole career because Knox is saying that the army needs airpower as much as the Navy needs airpower. But airpower for the sake of airpower is nothing. We don’t need a separate air force, he says. That’s Knox’s position for the remainder of his career.

Knox, I was interested to read, was quite the historian. In fact, one of your selections is his piece titled “Forgetting the Lessons of History.” And in my copy of your book, I underlined a section where he says he was quite frustrated with the lack of accessibility to naval archives — in particular, private collectors upset him. Why?

Knox recognized that private collectors are a major source of material that really doesn’t belong to them. They may have paid for it and they might have acquired these items for investment purposes, but from Knox’s point of view these items belonged to the nation. He became very frustrated with some of them because they liked to hang the painting on the wall or have the original commission of John Paul Jones just sitting there on the fire mantle, and Knox said that something like that does not belong on your mantle piece. It belongs to the Navy and to the nation. Through the good offices of FDR a lot of these pieces were acquired by the Navy at Navy expense for the purpose of preservation. And I must say, in the contemporary context, we have a lot of work to do in that front.

On Knox’s writings on naval leadership, he seems, at least to me, to have a reasonable position on naval ceremonies and etiquette. Why did he think that over-emphasizing naval etiquette was more dangerous than under-emphasizing it?

I think over-emphasizing on anything can be dangerous. Knox is trying to say we should be proud of our naval service and celebrate our traditions. We have to live up to the image that we want to paint for ourselves as naval professionals — that’s what he is trying to say. Etiquette for Knox does not equate to naval proficiency. For instance, you could still wear white gloves and wear a sharp naval uniform but be a terrible naval officer. That’s what he is saying. You look at some of the things we emphasize in the contemporary context: can you do enough push-ups, can you run a mile and half in the right amount of time? Knox would have said ‘that’s ridiculous – who cares?’ Knox would have said if the guy can do the job and do it well, and if they are willing to serve, and as long as they are medically fit to be under-way, I don’t care if he has a beer-belly. If he is a good sailor then he is a good sailor – and he is a shipmate. So what are we doing throwing people out that are good sailors. That’s what Knox would have said. I’m channeling his ghost as I speak. There are these superfluous bureaucratic things that Knox and his generation would be reeling against – general training, that sort of stuff. You can follow the manual all day, but you are still not going to get it, in terms of being a naval professional.

When he is talking leadership, what he is saying is ‘look, if you are getting into the weeds, the details of some poor enlisted man’s job, you are not being a leader, you are trying to be an enlisted man. Let the enlisted people do the jobs that they’ve been assigned and develop a sense of teamwork.’ He would have said you have to develop that sense of cohesion and common vision.

As a historian yourself, I want to talk a bit about your writing and research process. Where did you end up going to do most of your research on Knox?

As an analyst, I looked at his associations, and from there I looked at repositories where papers might be that make references that refer to Knox. The U.S. Naval Academy, The Nimitz Library has some great material, the Library of Congress has a gold mine of material. There’ papers in the National Archives from his official work that are hard to find, but they’re there. And of course, at the U.S. Naval War College, we have a substantial collection of interesting papers that relate to Knox and his associates. Specifically, the post-war efforts to develop professional military education standards under the Knox-King-Pye board. It was Dudley Knox and his associate Tracey Barrett Kitridge who helped Sims expand the library collection at the U.S. Naval War College from roughly 1,000 books to over 45,000 books within about a three year period – breaking all the rules and regulations required to get the job done.

(Previously Unpublished) Commander, U.S. Naval Forces in Europe, Admiral William S. Sims, salutes with the Commander, Atlantic Fleet, Admiral Henry T. Mayo, with their chiefs of staffs on board the flagship of the Atlantic Fleet, USS Pennsylvania (BB-38). After the armistice in November of 1918, Sims and Mayo assumed four star rank. Their close collaboration during the First World War provided the template for headquarters ashore to support future U.S. Navy operations at sea. Together, the staffs serving under Sims and Mayo pioneered contemporary concepts of joint and combined naval command. — **(Previously Unpublished)** Commander, U.S. Naval Forces in Europe, Admiral William S. Sims, salutes with the Commander, Atlantic Fleet, Admiral Henry T. Mayo, with their chiefs of staffs on board the flagship of the Atlantic Fleet, USS Pennsylvania (BB-38). After the armistice in November of 1918, Sims and Mayo assumed four star rank. Their close collaboration during the First World War provided the template for headquarters ashore to support future U.S. Navy operations at sea. Together, the staffs serving under Sims and Mayo pioneered contemporary concepts of joint and combined naval command.

The Knox-King-Pye board was another piece that I was unable to fit in this collection. I make some references to it other areas. One of the big things the board highlighted, and the reason it caused so much controversy, is that the board concluded that your average U.S. Navy flag officer was only educated to the lowest commissioned grade. If you think about that, in 1919 they are making the assertion that the average American naval professional went to the naval academy, graduated, became ensigns, and that’s the last time they had any education besides the life at sea. What Knox, King, and Pye concluded was one of the problems in the navy was the poor education of high ranking admirals. One of the people they had in mind when they wrote this was Hugh Rodman, who commanded a battleship division in the First World War. Rodman celebrated the fact that he didn’t read Clausewitz and Jomini – he thought he was just a darn good sailor. King and Knox thought he was a dullard. So in essence what Knox, King, and Pye are trying to do is say, ‘hey, flag officer, you might have the rank, but we are smarter than you.’

Also, as a writer and historian, how did you decide to organize this book? How do you organize your notes and thoughts when you are writing?

I studied with Carl Boyd and the late Craig Cameron at Old Dominion University a long time ago – and both of them had different writing methods. First and foremost as a methodological point, I was conditioned by people like Carl and Craig to study the works of great historians like Michael Howard and Peter Paret. I have been so fortunate in my past studies, as Carl personally made it possible for me to interact with Peter Paret, John Keegan, and Admiral Bobby Inman. Because of Carl, I also had the opportunity to work with and develop close friendships with historians like the late Jürgen Rohwer and Edward L. “Ned” Beach.

Since my studies at Old Dominion all those years ago, I have subsequently had the unique privilege of studying under the immediate supervision of John Hattendorf at the Naval War College and Andrew Lambert at the University of London, King’s College. Hattendorf and Lambert loom very large as inspirations for the type of historian I would like to be. Michael Howard also inspires me to focus on the human dimension, as I consider the strange phenomenon of war. If anything, my studies of past wars have convinced me that contemporary strategic thinkers ought to take the approach that, unlike armies or air forces, Knox argued that navies provided unique means, “not to make war but to preserve peace, not to be predatory, but to shield the free development of commerce, not to unsettle the world, but to stabilize it through the promotion of law and order.”

From my education as a historian, I strive to employ the method that is more closely associated with Leopold von Ranke. Through primary archival research and documentary history, I try to replicate the conditions of the time in order to understand why people acted in the way that they did at the time. I strive not to superimpose 21st century concepts upon personalities like Knox or King. I’m trying to understand why they did things in 1919 within the context of 1919. I do take sort of a broadly humanistic approach in examining historical questions.

Now, it does cause some problems for me, because I was not actually there in 1919 and I will never actually get to meet people like Knox or King. By reading their papers and by placing them into their proper historical context, however, I must say that one can get a visceral sense of what made them tick (so to speak). Since they were able to navigate the unforeseeable cybernetic challenges of technology and the collapse of empires during the unprecedented upheaval of two world wars, I must say that Knox and King would certainly have something to say about the contemporary challenges we face in the twenty-first century.

When I’m talking to contemporary strategic thinkers at the Naval War College, I also have to help them understand why the past is still important within the contemporary context. Obviously, I want people to read my writing. So, one of the challenges is to make it such that these people that are no longer with us – people like Knox and King – that they resonate with contemporary readers. I look for things that provide connections to the contemporary reader, which of course helps us discussions about the future.

I begin with that methodology. I pick people to focus on and then I look for their papers. Of course, I try to read everything I can possibly get my hands on about these people. There’s not much on Knox, unfortunately. Soon you realize that you are dealing with these complicated personalities — and you are dealing with myths in the historiography, all the while trying to figure out what made these people tick. The more you know the more complicated it gets. You have to be disciplined to focus on the themes that are the most important to understanding the person you are dealing with, but also how that person continues to be important to the contemporary reader.

Once I have all my information together I’ll rough out an outline of the themes that I want to hit on. Those then become your chapter headings, and then each chapter has its own focus. Next, you do your best to try to tie all the chapters together into a comprehensive narrative with a strong opening argument in the beginning and a strong conclusion in the end, telling the reader what it means.

My last questions have to do with Knox’s legacy. What do you think, if anything, he anticipated as future challenges for the U.S. Navy? And second, what is the single most important thing you want readers to takeaway from Knox’s work?

Knox is part of that generation of naval officers who followed the vision of the “navy second to none.” He did it through two world wars and he did it during peacetime in efforts to avoid wars in the first place. Arguably, the navy you have today is the navy that Knox and his associates built. If we don’t recognize that then we run the risk of losing what they built. I would argue that Knox is with us everyday when a U.S. Navy warship gets underway. If anything, I would hope that contemporary U.S. Naval professionals just take some time to think about the rich history and traditions of our service. In some respects I am channeling the ghosts of Knox and King in stating that I firmly believe that we must recognize our responsibility of being the curators and caretakers of our U.S. Navy for the future interests of American seapower and in framing an informed approach to the future military policy of the United States. As an aside, I was pleased the other day that they got rid of the blue navy working uniforms. It was a uniform that Knox would have taken time to write about in a negative way. It would be great to see us get back into proper naval uniforms.

Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz congratulating Commodore Dudley W. Knox with a Legion of Merit in 1946. During the Second World War, Knox returned to active status with assignment to the staff of the Chief of Naval Operations and Commander in Chief, U.S. Navy (CominCh). In this capacity, Knox served at large as a strategic adviser to President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King. Through their good offices, Knox established the Office of Naval History as a coequal branch of the Office of Naval Intelligence on the Operations Navy (OpNav) staff. For this service, King nominated Knox for promotion to commodore in 1945. The following year, the postwar Chief of Naval Operations, Nimitz, recognized Knox with the Legion of Merit Medal to mark his return to retired status. Nevertheless, Knox continued working within the Office of Naval History until his death in 1960.

I am chagrined that some bureaucrat, probably sitting in a cubicle in the Pentagon, decided to abandon centuries of naval tradition by abandoning our enlisted rating system in favor of the air force and army models of focusing on rank. The rating system was really emphasized by Rear Admiral Stephen B. Luce who thought that military rank was ancillary to the mastery of a more focused professional trade, such as the quartermaster masters of navigation, the boatswain masters of seamanship, and the medical master corpsmen. If it is the last thing I do, our navy will someday return to its historical roots and develop a better understanding of why our U.S. Navy became what it now is within the contemporary context.

Nobody knows what the future holds, but historical understanding provides means to anticipate and adapt to the unforeseeable future. Historians frequently face challenges in dealing with people who are more interested in bureaucratic routines, or mathematically framed engineering processes, or empirically clear solutions. Historians are unable to do this, because they do not tend to offer clear answers in black and white terms. All they can really do is offer contemporary strategic decision makers an informed perspective or a recommendation for a given course of action. Historians can only stand upon the foundations provided by historical understanding, but are not very good at articulating their ideas within the contemporary context as the engineers, lawyers, politicians, and policy-types tend to dominate the contemporary discussions of future strategy.

Basically, I think it is important for us as naval professionals to consistently seek an informed understanding of the past in order to know in clear terms the influence of history upon seapower and in shaping the future military policy of the United States.

Dr. Kohnen, thanks so much for taking the time to chat. All the best to you.

Thank You, Chris. I enjoyed it.

David Kohnen earned a PhD with the Laughton Professor of Naval History at the University of London (Kings College London). As a maritime historian, he concentrates on naval strategy, organizations, and organizational group dynamics. Focusing on these general themes, he edited the works of Commodore Dudley W. Knox to examine historical foundations in contemporary maritime affairs in, 21st Century Knox: Influence, Sea Power, and History for the Modern Era (Naval Institute Press, 2016). In his previous book, Kohnen focused on the transatlantic alliance between the British Empire and United States in, Commanders Winn and Knowles: Winning the U-Boat War with Intelligence (Enigma Press, 1999).

Outside of his scholarly work, Kohnen’s naval service in the active and reserve ranks include two deployments afloat in Middle Eastern waters, two ashore in Iraq, and one supporting landlocked operations in Afghanistan. Balancing work as a Naval War College civil service instructor, Kohnen also serves in the U.S. Naval Reserve with the Executive Programs faculty at the National Intelligence University in Washington, D.C. The comments and opinions in this interview are his own and do not represent the opinions of the U.S Navy or the U.S. Department of Defense.

Christopher Nelson is a U.S. Naval Intelligence Officer currently stationed in the Pacific. The questions and comments above are his personal opinions and do not reflect the opinions of the U.S. Navy or the U.S. Department of Defense.

Fostering the Discussion on Securing the Seas.