All posts by Dmitry Filipoff

Interviews

A Talk with RDML Fred Kacher and CDR Doug Robb on The Naval Officer’s Guide to the Pentagon

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By Dmitry Filipoff

CIMSEC had the opportunity to discuss with Rear Admiral Fred Kacher and Commander Doug Robb their new book, the Naval Officer’s Guide to the Pentagon. In this conversation they discuss what naval officers need to know when reporting to the Pentagon, how this book can serve as an excellent reference for a variety of roles, and what is unique about serving in the nation’s capital.  

The introduction notes that this is the first ever edition of this book. What motivated you to take on this project, and how do you see a need for this book?

The U.S. Naval Institute’s Blue and Gold professional series has for years provided naval professionals—officers, enlisted, civilians, and their families—with helpful guides designed to ease acclimation to life and work in the Navy. This project was borne from a similar desire to help.

Initially, USNI envisioned a slightly narrower guide designed to help naval officers bound for the Pentagon’s Joint Staff. But as we thought about which jobs young leaders from the Fleet head to when they report to the Pentagon, we realized we needed to broaden the focus. As we looked around, there seemed to be only a single relevant preparatory book—Assignment Pentagon by retired Air Force Major General Perry Smith, first published in the late 1980s. It contained valuable information, but wasn’t geared specifically to naval officers or a Navy crowd. So we set out to describe the types of things—a history of the building, how to get around it, the different staffs and assignments one may be detailed to, other government branches and organizations, and information about the area—that a junior or mid-grade naval officer coming to Washington for perhaps the first time would need to know to really make an impact soon after reporting.

Although both of us remember our first tours at the Pentagon well, we also quickly realized that we didn’t have all the answers, so we sought out people from across the service whose professional backgrounds, past experiences, writing acumen, and desire to help made them natural partners for this project. The result is an anthology of sorts where some true subject matter experts break down complex topics in a way that will be useful to Washington-bound naval officers and civilians alike.

The Pentagon is the headquarters of the massive bureaucracy that is the Department of Defense. What key organizations and processes can someone familiarize themselves with to get a sense of who the key players are and understand the regular business of the building?

The answer to this question really lies in the way we’ve organized the book. In it, we describe the different staffs within the Pentagon with which naval officers or civilians work or interact, including the Navy (OPNAV) Staff, the Secretariat, the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD), and the Joint Staff. Additionally, chapters describe the types of jobs one may find themselves in, whether as an action officer or helping shepherd a senior leader through their day as a member of their staff.

One chapter in particular—on the budget process—translates what is often described as an arcane or confusing system into plain English. And as we’ve observed firsthand, there’s a lot about working in the Pentagon that is different from serving on a ship or in a squadron. It can seem like business is being conducted in a foreign language. As just one small example, we include 13 pages—13 whole pages—listing the various acronyms someone working in the Pentagon will need to be familiar with. It’s emblematic of how we tried to design the content in the book to help “flatten” the learning curve for newly-reporting officers and civilians and provide a resource they’ll find useful to consult during their tour.

Nearly every job in the Pentagon or in Washington requires an understanding of organizations and actors outside of the Pentagon—the Executive Branch (e.g. the White House and National Security Council), the interagency, Congress, think tanks, and others—and we delve into those, as well.

To newcomers, entering the Pentagon can be a daunting experience. What can someone do to hit the ground running in their new role? 

For this book, we don’t anticipate many people will sit down and read it cover-to-cover—we certainly don’t expect them to. Rather, we think of it as a “ready reference” for folks to keep handy and consult when they need a quick fact or want to learn more about a particular topic or role.

For people reporting for the first time, a good place to start is Chapter 2, “Navigating the Pentagon.” This includes Frommer’s Travel Guide-like logistical details about how to plan your commute, where to enter the building, how to traverse its corridors by making sense of the building signs and naming conventions, where to eat, and where to find other services.

Over time, after you’ve settled into your office and begin to understand your role and how it fits into the broader organization and processes around you, other chapters can help accelerate your understanding and “de-code” some topics that folks before you have found important but perhaps a tad foreign when they were first encountered.

Finally, opportunities often arise for seasoned and high-performing officers to shift offices or positions within the Pentagon, so pulling this book off the shelf could help someone learn about a new job, prepare for an interview, or execute a new assignment.

A key theme that many of the authors touch on is the importance of working well with others outside the usual naval milieu, such as those from another service, a different agency, and from other countries. Why is the ability to work across these divides so important?

It sounds clichéd but in Washington, D.C. it truly is all about relationships. Perhaps one reason for this is that the scope of issues on which people work on in Washington are so broad that no one person—whether an action officer managing a portfolio or a senior leader responsible for a large organization—can affect change on their own. As a result, having a friend or colleague to call for advice, help, support, or advocacy can be invaluable as you seek to “move your ball down the field.” 

But building those relationships and establishing trust takes a great deal of time—in fact, it often spans the entire length of one’s tour. Consequently, by starting a job having already done some preparatory reading on your new role, how your organization fits into the broader scheme, and the general processes that govern your job —in other words, the information we focus on in this book—you can start developing those relationships on Day One.

While most of the book focuses on serving at the Pentagon a significant part of it looks at roles “across the river,” where a person in uniform may be embedded within civilian staff and institutions. These can range from working at the White House, in a think tank, or with congress. What is valuable about these kinds of roles and experiences?

Just as the Pentagon could be considered the military’s “corporate headquarters,” so too is Washington, D.C. the center of all national policy- and decision-making (which extends well beyond just military matters). And so as Admiral Jim Stavridis (ret.) mentions in the book’s foreword, one of the rewarding things about service in Washington, D.C.—even for uniformed service-members—is the opportunity to work with, or even within, other organizations that impact our government and country.

Active duty personnel are assigned to the White House, National Security Council, State Department, Capitol Hill, think tanks, research organizations, and academic institutions—and are exposed to the deliberations, inner workings, and decisions that will affect the nation and, in some cases, the world. While these experiences are valuable, sending this cadre of officers back to the Fleet can not only help the Navy contribute more effectively to the interagency, but will also position these folks to take on greater responsibility in our organizations in the future.

It is noted throughout the book that a tour at the Pentagon and in the Washington D.C. area can be an especially rewarding experience. What is unique about the professional experience that can be earned through these tours?

While both of us enjoyed our first tours in the Pentagon, the reality is that like other officers we came from—and returned to—the operational Navy. One of the neat things about the United States Navy is that most warfare community career paths are designed so that officers have the opportunity to “do something different” ashore after serving at sea. As a result, working in the Pentagon and Washington, D.C. area not only provides naval officers a chance to learn how our “corporate headquarters” works, but also how the other instruments of power play a role in our country’s direction. To echo Fleet Admiral Ernest King, who once said, “Where the power is that is where the headquarters have to be,” it is important to understand how and why major decisions are made in the capital. But it is equally if not more important to take those insights back to the waterfront or flight line.

Finally, although you’ll hear an awful lot about D.C. highway traffic and Pentagon bureaucracy, the D.C. metropolitan area is also a really vibrant area with a Stanley Cup-winning hockey team, a World Series-champion baseball team, museums, restaurants, universities, great history, and some great and varied communities to live in.

Any final thoughts you would like to share?

Simply put, we wrote this book to help future young naval leaders coming to the Pentagon from the Fleet succeed and thrive. At sea, there is an old adage that leaders should leave a ship “better than they found it” and this book is our effort to do the same for those heading to the Pentagon. We hope that in helping the next generation of D.C.-bound naval leaders, we will also help build a cadre of officers who better serve the needs and interests of the naval profession. Because at the end of the day, the quality of the work and advocacy done in Pentagon directly impacts the Fleet and our Sailors where the real work of the Navy happens.

RDML Fred W. Kacher, USN, is an active duty naval officer who has commanded USS Stockdale (DDG 106), Destroyer Squadron Seven and is currently in command of Expeditionary Strike Group Seven, forward deployed to the Pacific. He is the author of the Newly Commissioned Naval Officers Guide, 1st and 2nd editions, in addition to numerous articles on naval leadership and management. He has also served at the White House and in multiple tours at the Pentagon.

CDR Douglas A. Robb, USN, is an active duty surface warfare officer whose next assignment is as Executive Officer in USS Spruance (DDG 111), homeported in San Diego, California. He attended graduate school in Washington and has subsequently served three tours there, including on Capitol Hill and in the Pentagon on the staff of the Chief of Naval Operations.

Dmitry Filipoff is CIMSEC’s Director of Online Content. Contact him at Content@cimsec.org.

Featured Image: The Pentagon, headquarters of the United States Department of Defense, taken from an airplane in January 2008. (David B. Gleason via Wikimedia Commons)

Call for Articles

Call for Articles: A Design for Maintaining Maritime Superiority

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By Dmitry Filipoff

Submissions Due: February 19, 2020
Week Dates: February 24-28, 2020
Article Length: 1000-3500 words
Submit to: Content@cimsec.org

U.S. Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Gilday recently released a Design for Maintaining Maritime Superiority, which identifies primary lines of effort for how the U.S. Navy will look to evolve. In this time of great power competition and unprecedented technological change, the Navy will be greatly challenged to pace the evolving threat environment, and this Design seeks to meet that challenge. As the Design proclaims, “Modern naval operations are in rapid transition, demanding the integrated, multi-domain capabilities of our fleets. We will respond to this transition with urgency.”

The Design ambitiously outlines serious changes and reassessments on the course of the Navy. Among them include an assessment of the Optimized Fleet Response Plan to evaluate the Navy’s force generation model, a pledge to integrate more closely with the Marine Corps, and the creation of a Warfighting Development Campaign Plan. Additionally, the Design emphasizes how the Navy should prioritize fleet-level warfare through the regular execution of large-scale exercises, and how cyber and information warfare must become more deeply ingrained in the Navy.

CNO FRAGO 012019

 

Authors are encouraged to write about these lines of effort and others contained in the Design, the underlying assumptions that may need reevaluation, and how the Design could best serve to guide the evolution of the Navy. Please send all submissions to Content@cimsec.org.

Dmitry Filipoff is CIMSEC’s Director of Online Content. Contact him at Content@cimsec.org.

Featured Image: PACIFIC OCEAN (Dec. 4, 2019) An MV-22B Osprey assigned to Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron (VMM) 165 takes off from the amphibious assault ship USS Makin Island (LHD 8). Makin Island is conducting routine operations in the eastern Pacific. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Jeremy Laramore)

History, Interviews

The Second Most Powerful Man in the World: Phillips O’Brien on Admiral William Leahy

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By Dmitry Filipoff

CIMSEC had the opportunity to discuss with Phillips Payson O’Brien his latest book, The Second Most Powerful Man in the World: The Life of Admiral William D. Leahy, Roosevelt’s Chief of Staff. In this conversation O’Brien sheds light on Admiral Bill Leahy’s momentous contributions to U.S. strategy and foreign policy in the critical years during and following World War II, as well as his personal style of discreetly exercising influence as “the second most powerful man in the world.”

As the title clearly suggests, Admiral Leahy wielded tremendous power and influence, especially during the interwar period, WWII, and in the immediate aftermath of the war. What were the sources of his power and influence that led you to describe him as “the second most powerful man in the world”?

The single most important element in Leahy’s rise to the top of the U.S. government in World War II was his longstanding friendship with Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The two men first met in the Navy Department in 1913 and grew to not only enjoy each other’s company, but to trust each other’s instincts. In the case of Roosevelt, this was special. Roosevelt, though outwardly charming, was not a naturally trusting individual. As he rose up politically, he was surrounded by ambitious people trying to take advantage of his power to further their own careers—and he often held them at arm’s length because of this. In the case of Leahy, he came across someone who was happy not to be in the limelight, but motivated to serve his interests first and foremost. It was why, as soon as Roosevelt became president, he started promoting Leahy up the naval chain of command, making sure that the admiral received every major position he could—chief of the Bureau of Navigation, commander of the Battle Force, and culminating in Leahy’s appointment as Chief of Naval Operations (1937-1939).

The two men also shared a similar strategic outlook. They were committed believers in the importance of a strong American navy and both had been strongly influenced by the ideas of Alfred Thayer Mahan. It meant that when they did work together running the American Navy in the 1930s, they instinctively reinforced each other’s perceptions and made a very strong team. By the time World War II started for the U.S., the American Navy was more the creation of these two men than any others.

Leahy actually retired formally in 1939, having reached mandatory retirement age. However by this time Roosevelt had made the decision that if a war did break out in the near future he would want to bring Leahy back to help him run it. He started discussing such a role with Leahy in the spring of 1939, and the two men honed the specifics of the role during the coming years. To allow this to happen, Roosevelt kept Leahy employed. He first made him governor of Puerto Rico, so that Leahy could help build up naval bases in the Caribbean. He then made Leahy ambassador to Vichy France. Both of these positions were a sign of the special trust the president had in the admiral.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt with Admiral William Leahy on board USS Houston (CA-30) during the president’s cruise in that ship which began on 18 February 1939 and ended on 3 March 1939 in the Caribbean. (Naval History and Heritage Command)

Beyond the close personal relationship between Leahy and Roosevelt, the admiral had a number of key skills. He was instinctively political (this is discussed in more detail later) and he was undoubtedly competent and thorough. Though not the most deeply intellectual, Leahy had a way of getting a job done that was invaluable. When you combine this with his lack of interest in personal publicity, it was a powerful cocktail and made him stand out in a Washington DC populated by people who were always on the lookout for personal glory.

Soon after the U.S. entered WWII, it was confronted with a major strategic decision on how it should define specific war production priorities for its tremendous industrial might, a decision you described in the book as perhaps one of the most strategic decisions of the war for the U.S. What was Admiral Leahy’s role in these deliberations?

Usually strategy in WWII is seen as some great debate over where and when military force should be used. Discussions over whether the U.S. should have invaded France in 1943 or 1944, or whether it should fight a Germany-First war are perhaps the most famous examples of this. In our focus on the where and when, however, what is almost always overlooked is the what. All the great powers in World War II had to decide what to build in terms of equipment, force structure, how to balance needs between armies, navies, and air forces, as well as within the services such as balancing needs between, for example, fighters and bombers or tanks and trucks.

This was a far more involved process for the U.S. than many realize and William Leahy was at the heart of this debate. Not long after Pearl Harbor was attacked, President Roosevelt approved an arms construction plan of enormous depth and breadth which was nicknamed the Victory Program. However, by the summer of 1942, it was clear that even with the largest and most powerful economy in the world the U.S. could not build nearly as much equipment as was called for by the Victory Plan. A crisis ensued and hard choices needed to be made in the second half of 1942 about what would be built, and even more controversially, what would have to be cut.

Leahy was the most important person in the government, except for Roosevelt, in determining these priorities. By this point he was both the president’s chief of staff (the closest modern equivalent would be the National Security Adviser) and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Wearing his two hats he fought to cut army construction and focus on aircraft and aircraft carrier construction. By December 1942 he had emerged triumphant, and both his targets received the highest priority for the U.S. in 1943 and 1944. On the other hand, production for the army, particularly tank construction, was slashed. This decision, which has received little historical discussion, determined what the U.S. could and could not do during the war.

Admiral Leahy photographed circa 1945. (Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives)

Another strategic choice that Leahy was instrumental in making at this time was about the size of U.S. armed forces. The other joint chiefs favored inducting huge numbers of men and women into the forces, at one point devising a plan for more than ten million U.S. military personnel. That plan, however, soon clashed headlong with the need to keep skilled personnel working in the economy to produce war material. Leahy was the only military officer to serve on a small committee chosen by Roosevelt to examine the question of military and civilian employment, and he came down strongly in favor of more equipment production and a small army. His preference was one of the reasons that the U.S. fought the war that it did. The United States opted for an equipment heavy, personnel-light military force structure that kept casualties down.  

Admiral Leahy chaired the Joint Chiefs of Staff during World War II (and afterward) and also participated in major strategic conferences of the war, such as at Yalta and Potsdam. What was his influence on wartime grand strategy and the conduct of WWII?

Leahy took over as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs holding very different strategic priorities from the Chief of Staff of the Army, George Marshall. Looking at the war from an overall perspective, Leahy did not want the United States to fight a Germany-First war, which Marshall and many others, including Winston Churchill, strongly supported. Leahy was worried that if the Japanese were allowed to entrench themselves in their Pacific empire while the U.S. threw everything into the war against Germany, that it would have devastating consequences. It would, he feared, take many extra years and a great deal of American blood to take the fight to Tokyo.

In this, Leahy walked arm-in-arm with Chief of Naval Operations Ernest King. The Leahy-King alliance ended up triumphing in this fight, and contrary to what is widely believed, at no time in the war did the United States fight a Germany-First strategy. In 1942 the U.S. fought, if anything, a Japan-First war. The United States sent more overall equipment to the Pacific over Europe or North Africa. In 1943 and 1944 the U.S. fought two different wars. The Army and Army Air Force did prioritize the war against Germany—sending approximately two-thirds of their equipment to Europe. The Navy, on the other hand, sent at least 90 percent of its strength (including one of the largest air forces in the world) to fight Japan. This meant that in overall terms the United States, under Leahy’s watchful eye, fought a war almost evenly balanced between Europe and the Pacific but weighed slightly more toward the latter.

When it came to the war against Germany, Leahy’s vision was the one the United States followed more than any other chief’s. Leahy was the only chief who supported the invasion of North Africa in 1942, better known as the Torch Landings. Indeed, Leahy had been the first major policymaker who proposed a North African invasion to Roosevelt, suggesting such an operation in the summer of 1941 (when Leahy was ambassador to Vichy France). Leahy believed such an operation would confine Germany to the European continent, and allow for Allied domination of the Atlantic. Understanding Leahy’s strong support for Torch helps explain why Roosevelt backed the operation over the strong opposition of Marshall and King almost immediately after Leahy became Chief of Staff.

After Torch, Leahy’s number one goal for the war in Europe was to delay the invasion of France until 1944. He did not want to try an invasion in 1943, which Marshall supported, because Leahy believed it was an unnecessary risk which could result in high U.S. casualties (and he also believed it would deprive the war against Japan of needed equipment). He thus helped undermine the U.S. army’s attempt to get British approval for any 1943 invasion. However, once this was ruled out, Leahy enthusiastically supported D-Day in 1944, and helped force the British to accept this position at the grand strategic conferences in Washington, Quebec, Cairo, and Tehran which were held in 1943.

Allied leaders pose in the courtyard of Livadia Palace, Yalta, during the conference. Those seated are (from left to right): Prime Minister Winston Churchill (UK); President Franklin D. Roosevelt (USA); and Premier Josef Stalin (USSR). Also present are USSR Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov (far left); Admiral of the Fleet Sir Andrew Cunningham, R.N., and Air Chief Marshall Sir Charles Portal, R.A.F. (both standing behind Churchill); and Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy, USN, (standing behind Roosevelt). (Photograph from the Army Signal Corps Collection in the U.S. National Archives)

Following the death of his close friend President Roosevelt and the end of WWII, Admiral Leahy continued to be highly influential in the Truman administration and played a major role in many critical postwar questions. How did Admiral Leahy shape postwar formulations of the U.S. defense establishment and international order?

Franklin Roosevelt’s death led to a significant change in Leahy’s influence. For the two years before FDR died, Leahy was the most influential policymaker in the White House, as Harry Hopkins (who was more influential in 1942 when Leahy became chief of staff) saw his influence decline. However, Leahy had no pre-existing relationship with Harry Truman, and so he immediately lost his preeminent position as a close friend and longtime confidant of the president when Roosevelt passed. Truman also had a very high opinion of people such as George Marshall and James Byrnes and he started taking their advice more than Roosevelt did. That being said, Leahy did maintain a good deal of power. After meeting him, Truman decided he wanted to keep Leahy on as his chief of staff, and by 1946 they were even on the road to becoming friends. Leahy, for instance became an automatic companion of the president when Truman started taking his famous vacations at the naval base in Key West, Florida.

The establishment of a strong working relationship with Truman allowed Leahy to keep influence in a few areas—most importantly relations with the Soviet Union. By the time Truman took over, Leahy had met with Stalin twice, at Tehran in 1943 and Yalta in 1945, and had discussed U.S.-Soviet relations with Roosevelt countless times. Though Leahy was never critical of Roosevelt, he was always instinctively more skeptical about the future of relations with the Soviets than the deceased president. He believed a long-term, friendly relationship between the two nations was unlikely and wanted the U.S. to toughen up in its positions—a stance he started urging on the new president.

President Harry S. Truman is piped aboard USS Missouri (BB-63), during the Navy Day fleet review in the Hudson River, New York City, 27 October 1945. Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy is just behind the president. (National Archives and Records Administration)

Truman almost immediately after becoming president asked Leahy for briefings on relations with the Soviet Union. Indeed, the first time Truman met with Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov, he asked Leahy to be in the room with him, providing support. Maybe Leahy’s greatest role in this regard was how he shaped Truman’s most important speech on Soviet relations, his Navy Day address of late 1945 and, even more surprisingly, Winston Churchill’s Iron Curtain speech of 1946. Leahy was the driving force behind the writing of the Navy Day address as a series of points, with a noticeable message about the role of the U.S. in supporting free peoples. When Churchill heard the Navy Day address, he decided to press ahead with an address of his own, which became known as the Iron Curtain speech. Churchill discussed this speech with Leahy more than any other American, indeed they spent one entire morning going through the text when Churchill visited Washington just before it was delivered. Churchill was so grateful for Leahy’s advice that, years afterward, he privately thanked the admiral for it.

Admiral Leahy frequently interacted with many well-known individuals of the WWII era, including those known for their strong personalities such as Admiral Ernest King, Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and others. How would you describe Admiral Leahy’s personal style of leadership and management?

Leahy was instinctively political, and this defined his career for either good or ill depending on your point of view. He had the ability to read people and situations and adjust his own responses in such a way to appeal to those with whom he interacted—without revealing his true opinions. His lifelong friend and fellow Admiral Thomas Hart claimed that Leahy was a “born diplomat” who “always gets on with others.” In social situations Hart claimed that Leahy could be as “comfortable as an old shoe.”

This political, personal skill was a powerful weapon in his arsenal. He could use it on people he genuinely liked, such as Franklin Roosevelt, or those of whom he was deeply skeptical, such as Vice President Henry Wallace. It seems from the moment that Leahy met Roosevelt in 1913 he found a way to appeal to the young politician, to behave in such a way that earned Roosevelt’s trust. On the other hand, someone like the left-wing Wallace, about whom Leahy was intensely skeptical, seemed to think that the admiral was a friend or at least thought well of him when that was certainly not the case. Wallace had no idea that Leahy was working to undermine his position when he was Secretary of Commerce under Truman.

Leahy’s political skills were evident in his chairmanship of the joint chiefs of staff and his behavior at the great grand strategic conferences of World War II. As chairman or “senior member,” which was what he normally referred to himself as during the war, Leahy would usually let the other chiefs such as Marshall and King go on at great length with discussing their ideas and plans. If Leahy disagreed he would rarely say so outright, but instead, in a friendly manner, start asking questions of the plan being proposed and in doing so hopefully highlight its weaknesses. Leahy thus retained the impression of being impartial, when at times he was very partial indeed.  

At a luncheon meeting of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, circa 1943. Present are (from left to right): General Henry H. Arnold, Chief of Staff, U.S. Army Air Forces; Admiral William D. Leahy, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff; Admiral Ernest J. King, Chief of Naval Operations and Commander in Chief, U.S. Fleet; and General George C. Marshall, Chief of Staff, U.S. Army. (Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives)

When dealing with the higher-ups such as Churchill and Stalin, Leahy normally said as little as possible, and when he did speak it was to support the position of the president. Both Churchill and Stalin eventually understood how much Leahy was valued by Roosevelt and by the end of the war treated him with great respect. Churchill even asked Leahy if the two could establish a private channel of communication, but Leahy, not wanting to do anything that would seem disloyal to Roosevelt, declined.

With the worldview and experience that he held toward the end of his career, how may have Admiral Leahy judged U.S. national security strategy as it stands today?

When Leahy’s career drew to a close in 1948 he was conflicted about the direction of U.S. foreign policy. He has sometimes been inaccurately portrayed as a simple, hardline Cold Warrior. Leahy had a far more nuanced view. He certainly wanted the United States to toughen up its policy vis-a-vis the Soviet Union after the end of World War II, and did not believe the wartime alliance was going to continue. He also wanted the U.S. to support democratic movements around the world—in a mostly non-militarized way.

This points out the big difference between what Leahy believed and how he has been portrayed. While he had no confidence in the future of the U.S.-U.S.S.R. wartime alliance, he was also dead set against the U.S. turning into a world policeman, deploying troops around the world and interfering in the internal affairs of other countries. He was particularly keen to keep the U.S. from becoming an interventionist power in the Middle East. That is why, when President Truman in early 1947 decided to intervene in Greece and Turkey, which is often seen as the start of the Cold War, Leahy was strongly opposed. He tried to change the president’s mind, but to no avail. When Truman decided to press ahead, Leahy, being the presidential servant that he was, publicly supported the move. However, his heart was not in it. Until the end of his time in office he did his best to keep the United States from becoming an interventionist power in the Middle East. He disagreed strongly with Truman over the U.S. decision to recognize Israel for instance, which he believed would lead to decades-long religious war in the region—a war that would eventually drag in the U.S. The differences between Truman and Leahy on the start of the Cold War and the Middle East were one of the reasons for the decline in Leahy’s influence from 1947 onward.

One might describe Leahy’s stance on foreign policy as robust non-interventionism. He was not apologetic about American power or influence, he just did not believe that much could actually be accomplished by interventions in other countries. In that sense, Leahy’s foreign policy vision could very well have resonance today. At the end of World War II the United States dominated world politics. It had half the world’s economic product and its most advanced armed forces. Though it is still the world’s leading power today, it is no longer as dominant as it was then. As such, the country could benefit by rethinking how and where it should involve itself in the world. A Leahy-like policy of greater restraint and less cost could be the natural choice for the U.S.

Phillips Payson O’Brien is a professor of Strategic Studies at the University of St Andrews in Fife, Scotland. Born and raised in Boston, he graduated from Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut before working on Wall Street for two years. He earned a PhD in British and American politics and naval policy before being selected as Cambridge University’s Mellon Research Fellow in American History and a Drapers Research Fellow at Pembroke College. Formerly at the University of Glasgow, he moved to St Andrews in 2016.

Dmitry Filipoff is CIMSEC’s Director of Online Content. Contact him at Content@cimsec.org. 

Featured Image: Admiral William Leahy saluting on the reviewing stand during the Navy Day parade, on Constitution Avenue, Washington, D.C., 27 October 1944. (Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives)

Tactics

Increasing the Lethality of the Surface Force: A Conversation with RDML Scott Robertson

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By Dmitry Filipoff

CIMSEC had the opportunity to discuss the growth and evolution of the U.S. Surface Navy’s lethality with Rear Admiral Scott Robertson, commander of the Surface and Mine Warfighting Development Center (SMWDC). In this discussion RDML Robertson discusses the cutting edge of Surface Navy training and tactical development, and how SMWDC is planning to take its efforts to the next level.

Much of SMWDC’s effort is geared toward being a learning organization, whether through experimenting with tactics, training WTIs, and digesting technical data gathered from exercises. Going across your various lines of effort, what exactly is being learned and taught by SMWDC?

The center of gravity for SMWDC is our Warfare Tactics Instructors (WTI) produced through our WTI courses of instruction. We have four different specialty strands to meet Fleet needs and each one has differing lengths. All WTI strands focus on warfare theory, deep understanding of surface warfare Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (TTP), study of adversary capabilities and limitations, standardized instructional techniques, and then repetitive application of knowledge in complex scenarios.

SMWDC’s premier contribution to tactical training is Surface Warfare Advanced Tactical Training (SWATT) exercises held for ships in the advanced phase contained within the OFRP cycle. A SWATT has both in-port academics instruction and underway training exercises to teach TTPs through scenarios of increasing complexity. During a SWATT, the SMWDC team collects performance data related to metrics, developed and associated with surface warfare TTPs. This data collection allows us to do a number of things. First, it gives quantitative feedback to the ship crews so they can learn from the at-sea exercises and execute TTPs with increased speed and accuracy. Secondly, it gives SMWDC a better measure of the fleet’s overall increase in lethality and unveils areas that need focus or improvement. Lastly, SWATT can isolate and assess gaps in individual, watchteam, and unit-level training that exist and need to be filled to maximize our ship’s warfighting potential.

SWATT, among other underway exercises, allows us to further TTPs in two additional ways. First, it gives us the opportunity to validate, or affirm, that our TTPs work and identify what adjustments need to be made based on our application in a controlled environment. Secondly, it provides the opportunity to work TTP development and experimentation to ensure we can deliver the right TTPs, at the right time, as new systems and capability are delivered to the Fleet, as well as changes to employment methodologies required to keep adversaries at risk.

Rear Admiral Scott F. Robertson (U.S. Navy photo)

We’ve leveraged real-world events to dissect the situation and examine TTPs executed, including weapons system performance and watchstander actions to identify where expectations did or did not meet reality in response to operational commanders’ requests. This has allowed us to tailor our TTP development and training of our WTI cadre in the pertinent WTI COI.

With the release of the National Defense Strategy, great power competition has become the primary focus of the Department of Defense after years of focusing on rogue states and counterinsurgency. What does a return to great power competition mean for SMWDC, and how do you operationalize this guidance and tailor your efforts?

The nature of SMWDC’s establishment and identified lines of operation in our codified Missions, Functions, and Tasks (MF&T) is a measure the Navy as a whole has taken to “operationalize” and act upon the higher-level national security guidance. Therefore, the answer is simple: carry out our assigned duties in our MF&T and continue to learn and build upon our execution as described earlier.

The return to great power competition also means that we have to conduct all of our training (both for WTIs and SWATT) at a level that closely represents or even exceeds the anticipated environment (volume and multi-domain warfare-wise) our ships will need to operate in should a conflict with a great power adversary occur.

A major function of SMWDC is integrating tactical development across the surface warfare enterprise, and ensuring cross-cutting conversations are happening between various entities. How is this integration an improvement from the past, and especially with communicating across communities to their own Warfighting Development Centers?

Before the development of SMWDC (and the greater WDC concept) we had Warfare Centers of Excellence that were separated into entities based on warfare areas (i.e. surface, subsurface, missile defense) rather than tied to an entire naval community (i.e. aviation, surface, subsurface, information warfare, expeditionary warfare). From a Surface Navy perspective, the stovepiping of efforts hindered alignment and cross-warfare area TTP development. Furthermore, the previous WCOEs were charged with conducting work on the intellectual side (TTP development and validation) but not so much on the training and operational side (i.e. the equivalent of a SWATT exercise). Now that all surface warfare areas are combined under one command, we can easily govern cross-warfare area TTP development while providing advanced tactical training to the fleet. The current WDC construct truly enables better alignment and supports increased integration across communities; there are more and more connection points between the WDCs and Naval Warfare Development Command.

How has SMWDC and the WTI program influenced the career continuum for SWOs?

There are three ideal entry points into the WTI training pipeline (not in order of preference), namely between one’s first and second division officer tour (advanced warfighter program), after one’s division officer tours during their shore duty, or after one’s department head tours during shore duty.

All of these entry points are congruent with the current SWO career continuum model such that they do not interfere with the sea/shore tour lengths or milestone goals such as starting Department Head School by the 7.5 year mark. The program is still in the development stages. However, we’re beginning to see our first waves of command-eligible SWO WTIs go before selection boards and have initially high screening rates for patch wearers. Bottom line, the surface warfare community values our WTIs and it shows in milestone selection figures.

One of the founding visions has been the idea of having a Fleet full of patch wearers manning our ships at the Commanding Officer, Executive Officer, and Department Head levels. The overall increase in the tactical proficiency and thus lethality of our ships will be impressive and measurable. We are well on our way.

What is the envisioned working relationship between SMWDC and the newly formed Surface Development Squadron?

SMWDC will work with SURFDEVRON to leverage opportunities to develop TTPs and conduct experimentation in conjunction with the DDG-1000-class to shape our understanding on how we can optimize the capabilities this platform brings to the fight. SURFDEVRON is also SMWDC’s gateway to developing the needed TTPs to integrate with coming unmanned assets.

The SMWDC-led series of Surface Warfare Advanced Tactical Training (SWATT) exercises are pushing the surface fleet further out from its comfort zone. How are you looking to enhance and expand these exercises?

As we develop capabilities to combat emerging threats, we will expand SWATT schedules of events to ensure we’re flexing said developed capabilities to give our operators a chance to see the capabilities in action and build a level of comfort employing their weapon systems. In the near term, we will be elevating our exercise complexity and be working to induce more failure to stretch ship crews. We envision incorporating unmanned systems and presenting training targets across different domains that mimic profiles that replicate the most stressing threats. SMWDC is also looking to add more offensive-based exercises vice the traditional heavier bias toward the defensive. Lastly, we also know that Live, Virtual, Constructive (VLC) training is a must for inclusion in our future SWATTs to truly train at the high-end.

Rear Adm. Robertson assumed the duties as commander, Naval Surface and Mine Warfighting Development Command, in May 2019. Robertson has served in a highly diverse range of assignments and participated in many campaigns and operations. His sea tours include: 1st division officer onboard USS George Washington (CVN 73); fire control officer onboard USS Normandy (CG 60); weapons/combat systems officer onboard USS Port Royal (CG 73); engineering auxiliaries officer on USS John C. Stennis (CVN 74); and executive officer on USS Gettysburg (CG 64). Robertson commanded USS Rodney M. Davis (FFG 60) during a seven-month counter-narcotics deployment; he also commanded and deployed with USS Normandy (CG 60), the first Aegis Baseline 9 warship with Naval Integrated Fire Control – Counter Air capability. Additionally, he served as Air and Missile defense commander for the USS Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group. Robertson’s shore assignments include Aegis Training and Readiness Center (ATRC) as course supervisor and lead instructor for the Force Air Defense Warfare Commanders Course; Joint Staff, J-8 Directorate as the resources and acquisition manager; and commanding officer of Surface Warfare Officers Schools (SWOS) Command. 

Dmitry Filipoff is CIMSEC’s Director of Online Content. Contact him at Content@cimsec.org. 

Featured Image: PHILIPPINE SEA (March 14, 2019) The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS McCampbell (DDG 85), the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Milius (DDG 69), and the amphibious transport dock ship USS Green Bay (LPD 20) maneuver while operating in the Philippine Sea. U.S. Navy warships train together to increase the tactical proficiency, lethality, and interoperability of participating units in an Era of Great Power Competition. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class John Harris/Released)