By Dmitry Filipoff

Chris Hemler spoke with CIMSEC to discuss his book, Delivering Destruction: American Firepower and Amphibious Assault from Tarawa to Iwo Jima. In this book, Hemler examines the development of American amphibious fire support doctrine during WWII and offers insightful analysis on wartime organizational learning.

In this discussion, Hemler discusses the challenges of developing combined arms warfighting doctrine, key organizational constructs that facilitated flexible command-and-control of amphibious fire support, and the fundamental principles that fostered adaptation in war.

Why investigate this topic and publish a book on it?

The short answer is that I have always been fascinated by the Pacific War – the naval character of the conflict, the great distances involved, the incredible industrial production required, and many more captivating themes. In addition, my operational experience in the U.S. Marine Corps has given me a firsthand perspective on the difficulties and obstacles involved in amphibious operations. So when I combined my interests, my curiosity, and my experiences with a story that I felt was missing from the World War II scholarship, I had my project.

What role did triphibious fire support play in the American operational approach in the Pacific War?

First, maybe a note on semantics. I stumbled into the word “triphibious” during my research, and I’ll be honest, it wasn’t love at first sight. But over time, the word grew on me. And before long, it took on a dominant role in my project and eventually my book. It is an important word that allows us to look at the Pacific War with a different lens and it is the single most important word in Delivering Destruction. In order to seize the hardened islands of the Central and Western Pacific, American forces had to master triphibious fire support. And I think that is a very important storyline to cover when we discuss the war.

Triphibious fire support – the combined application of heavy firepower delivered by air, land, and sea to support amphibious invasion – was essential. It was an indispensable function for Nimitz’s Central Pacific campaign. While the ground units, air support, and naval gunfire elements have all received individual recognition before, it was truly the combination – the synergy – of these various capabilities that allowed the Americans to advance at the rate they did and triumph in the way they did. Triphibious fire support, and namely the combined arms coordination and integration of that support, was an essential ingredient of success in the Pacific War.

The traditional historiography of the war, and indeed the films and television series that cover the war, do an excellent job acknowledging the infantrymen, artillerymen, naval aviators, and others that enabled victory against Japan. But often lost in that narrative – a narrative typically defined by individual warfare communities and individual skills – is the synergy of those various communities. And that’s the storyline that Delivering Destruction provides.

You discuss the triphibious doctrinal innovation that occurred during the interwar period, and how it fell far short of what was needed in wartime. Why did the fleet exercises and doctrinal development of the interwar period not deliver an effective triphibious fire support system in time for the war?

That is a really important question, and one that I have taken very seriously in my work. I don’t want to be unfairly critical of the interwar Navy and Marine Corps, but it is essential that we learn from the success and the shortfalls of the interwar period. And while the interwar triumphs are well-cataloged, the failures are much less acknowledged. While the naval services spent a great deal of time and attention addressing their concerns over landing craft, logistics, and other amphibious matters, they did not dedicate sufficient attention to the coordination of triphibious firepower. Therefore they did not appreciate the full complexity and difficulty of the challenge they faced.

Planners of the 1920s and 30s thought an awful lot about how to get to the beach, but they did not adequately address staying on the beach. They did not acknowledge the firepower requirements, careful coordination, and mature tactics that would spell success. This left the interwar Fleet Landing Exercises (FLEXs) entirely unrealistic in the coordination and delivery of firepower. To preserve the safety of their troops, most landing forces trained on separate islands from the naval gunfire ships. Umpires used wooden targets ashore to represent enemy bunkers, and naval gunfire officers confirmed their misplaced confidence in “area bombing” methods, which were replaced by more rigorous precision bombing techniques developed during the war. These artificialities led one Marine pilot to label his FLEX as “little more realistic than a map problem.”

Some servicemembers did voice concerns, but they formed only a minority opinion, and their critique had little effect. The result left American naval forces unprepared for the full task that lay before them – effectively integrating and coordinating not only distinct forces, but distinct forms of firepower, during a contested seaborne assault.

Why was the triphibious experience at Tarawa so challenging yet so instructive?

Prior “ignorance” is one explanation. That is the word the accomplished naval historian Samuel Eliot Morison used in his study of the Tarawa attack. To be certain, the Marines knew that Betio Island, the Japanese stronghold of the atoll, was very well-defended. Japanese troops had more than 500 concrete bunkers and a frightening web of mines, barbed wire, and machine gun and mortar positions.

That intelligence aside, the Marines were quite confident as they rode ashore. Unchallenged confidence in the naval gun reigned supreme. The Americans’ three-hour naval bombardment prior to the landing was a stunning display. Three battleships, four heavy cruisers, and nearly two dozen destroyers delivered ordnance ranging in caliber from three inches to fourteen inches. As one admiral briefed his peers before the battle, “Gentlemen, we will not neutralize Betio Island. We will not destroy it. We will obliterate it.” Needless to say, that was far from what transpired, as Tarawa turned out to be a brutal experience for the Marines despite the preparatory bombardment.

Those hard experiences became cherished lessons that the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps integrated into their planning and preparation for the remainder of the war. Just as Guadalcanal had introduced them to the zeal and determination of their Japanese enemy, so Tarawa introduced them to the full challenge of the amphibious assault. By noting and then addressing their impractically rigid fire support timelines, unsuited communications gear, and deficiencies in coordination at the beachhead, it was the American response to the trauma of Tarawa that proved crucial to the subsequent campaigns of the war.

How would you describe the system of operational learning and the various feedback loops that matured this capability? How did they process lessons from major battles, anticipate challenges, and incorporate new doctrine and training into the force in the leadup to future battles?

In this case, the answer is twofold. Bottom-up adaptation drove much of the Americans’ progress throughout the war. In the book, I mention the names and post-battle efforts of junior and mid-level officers that are, almost exclusively, missing from the war’s narrative. These were the leaders on the front lines observing operations in real time, analyzing the Americans’ performance, and delivering professional critique to improve upon their methods. They constantly iterated on firing techniques, ship positioning, communications, and cross-unit culture. Men like Navy Lieutenant Charles Corben, Marine Lieutenant Colonel Donald Weller, and Marine Colonel Vernon Megee are not household names, but their contributions compel recognition. These men belong to Paul Kennedy’s “engineers of victory” – the individuals that fostered critical change and adaptation at the working level in wartime.

But it wasn’t all grassroots adaptation. The V Amphibious Corps also exercised a healthy dose of bureaucracy in the form of patient and persistent administrative work. Following each individual campaign, staff representatives produced after-action tomes averaging more than 1,000 pages. After the battle for Iwo Jima, their report ran to an astonishing 1,600 pages. In these organizational reflections, the V Corps commented on everything from manning arrangements to communications to ammunition projections. Coupled with the ad hoc evolution of their units and more junior leaders, these efforts fed a continuous feedback loop that helped the Navy and Marines improve at each and every juncture. 

You trace the development of the JASCO coordination teams that were central to managing triphibious fires. What role did these specialized teams serve and how did they evolve throughout the war?

They JASCOs were critical to the Americans’ ability to seize – and more importantly hold – a defended beach. The Joint Assault Signal Company construct emerged in late 1943, fueled in part by the costly lessons of the attack on Tarawa. They were designed to bring the disparate components of the task force together, help blend the distinct cultures of the triphibious arms, and provide an administrative headquarters for the fielding, training, planning, and integration of fire support.

By virtue of their mandate, the JASCOs became the most important actor in both managing and improving triphibious fires throughout the war. Over time – and through proven battlefield performances – they built a remarkable reputation. They embedded themselves within the landing forces they served, and they also built strong relationships with other representatives of the naval task force, often through personal liaison, shipboard conferences, and enduring relationships. The JASCOs matured from “suspicious stranger” in the early days of the war to a trusted teammate by 1945. They became the human network and organizational construct that enabled effective fire support across the V Amphibious Corps.

The development of this capability was hampered by differences in culture and operating practices, including between communities and between services. What differences had to be managed to mature these combined arms teams and capabilities?

American forces had to overcome several cultural hurdles in order to achieve their fullest potential as a naval combined arms force in the Pacific. Many of these hurdles flowed not from willful obstinance, but from divergent understandings and perspectives on operational priorities, risk tolerance, and more. In most cases, U.S. Sailors and Marines were not trying to thwart coordination, but their distinct assumptions and tactical concerns occasionally clashed, thereby splintering the cohesion and combat effectiveness of the force.

Throughout the interwar years, and into the early campaigns of the conflict, many senior Navy officers remained opposed to amphibious warfare, in spirit if not in word. From their perspective, any prioritization of or preference for amphibious operations compromised the proper identity of the fleet, anchored in conventional surface forces and decisive engagements at sea. Furthermore, the mobility constraints of supporting a landing force in a particular place for an extended period invited foolish risk upon the naval task force, which prided itself on constant mobility.

Troops encountered cultural friction at the tactical level as well. In the Gilbert and Marshall Islands offensives, American aviators encouraged their counterparts on the ground to accord greater respect to prearranged timelines and support agreements. In a pilot’s mind, the timeline was supreme. From their earliest indoctrination in aviation culture, pilots were directed to monitor precise metrics such as launch schedules, altitude readings, and fuel levels that yielded timelines for aviation operations. Such precise data dictated the support that a naval pilot could provide to the infantrymen below.

On the other hand, the ground units making their way ashore against tides, headwinds, and problematic coral reefs – to say nothing of the enemy forces firing projectiles at them – were taught to anticipate chaos and uncertainty. Valuing flexibility, adaptability, and resourcefulness, the culture of the landing force provided a stark contrast to the aviator’s preference for methodical action.

The story of the V Amphibious Corps in the Central Pacific is very much a story of these cultures learning to coexist. And learning to not only acknowledge but appreciate the values and perspectives of adjacent units and communities. Neither tribe was incorrect. The real-time application of triphibious fires required aspects of both mindsets, according to the circumstances, requirements, and resources at hand. Only in the tailored combination of these cultures and of these fires did the V Amphibious Corps find ultimate victory.

Triphibious fire support consists of the fires delivered by naval and air forces, as well as the organic artillery of the amphibious landing force. How do these different types of fires and delivery systems cover each other’s weaknesses and form a combined arms system?

Delivering Destruction is not meant to be a highly technical study nor a deep comparison of the nuances inherent to each delivery system. But without a doubt, the book introduces the reader to the general capabilities and constraints of the various platforms and the synergy they create when employed together.

The campaigns of the Central Pacific certainly revealed the complementary strengths and weaknesses of naval, air, and field artillery fires. Naval gunfire provided consistent and sustained coverage during landing operations, and its capacity for high-volume fire support made it the backbone of the Americans’ island assaults. In particular, as naval gunfire officers learned from and improved upon their early experiences in the Gilbert and Marshall Islands, naval gunfire ships positioned themselves closer and closer to shore in order to provide the most precise and destructive fires possible to the forces fighting ashore. This is how the admiral and naval gunfire advocate Richard “Close-In” Conolly got his fantastic nickname.

For their part, American aviators provided a more mobile platform capable of striking much deeper into enemy territory. Although most of the V Corps’ objectives were not large enough to make distance a significant consideration, air support proved particularly valuable against reverse-slope targets, which often presented a challenge for naval gunners (from the attacker’s perspective, reverse-slope targets lay on the far slope of a hill or mountain, making them more difficult both to identify and strike).

Environmental conditions presented different challenges to air and naval forces, meaning that one or the other might enjoy a particular advantage on a particular day. While aircraft could be grounded on account of visibility or cloud cover, ships were most often disrupted by poor sea states driven by wave activity, swells, and wind. In general, naval gunfire proved much more resilient in the face of poor weather, but performance could be more nuanced according to the local conditions of a specific location or operation.

Field artillery provided yet its own combination of strengths and weaknesses, whereby it could provide sustained, high-tempo fire support so long as its ammunition allowed. Mobility was certainly more challenging for the field artillerymen, especially in the constrained beacheads of most Pacific War battles, where maneuver space was limited and terrain often problematic. 

You point to how triphibious fire support was fundamentally a human endeavor, something that could not be mastered through a formulaic approach alone. How was the human element critical for maturing this capability, and how should formulaic aspects compliment the human element?

The technology and the mathematics have to work, they are essential. Shell-fuze combinations, aircraft payloads, and firing solutions are all critical matters. And they are quite scientific. But those formulaic aspects must provide for tailored application and adaptation to the battlefield of human combat that is inherently marked by uncertainty, disorder, and friction. The battle is far from over just because you mastered your math homework. In combined arms, formulas are necessary but insufficient.

The human teamwork and artful execution behind triphibious firepower was decisive in the Pacific. The way that U.S. Sailors and Marines brought these capabilities together, experimented and iterated on new tactics from 1943 to 1945, and combined their weapons and their expertise to achieve creative solutions on the battlefield was quite remarkable. The evolution of air support control and authority during the war, the amalgamation of service branch cultures and priorities over three years, and the careful synchronization of a “rolling” naval barrage during the assault on Iwo Jima are but a few examples of the creative firepower achievements in the war. And those achievements point to the primacy of the human, not the scientific, element.

How could these lessons apply to the main contingency many are considering today, a Taiwan invasion? Both in terms of the joint fires that could support the invasion, and those that could stop it?

I am far from an expert on emerging weapon systems or the potential scenarios in the Western Pacific today. But what I can reflect on are a few principles that helped the V Amphibious Corps fight its way across the Pacific in the 1940s. And these principles are not just fire support principles – I am convinced they are fundamental principles of collaboration. Whether military units or civilian organizations, joint service operations or multinational alliances, island assaults or shipbuilding challenges, these are principles that help divergent groups come together to solve complex, high-stakes problems:

Nothing teaches like experience. The Navy and Marine Corps made laudable progress during the interwar period. They experimented with important concepts and advanced several important platforms that would play a role in their success against Japan. But in the realm of supporting arms coordination, their theories were proven incomplete. Their training scenarios left much to be desired. Namely, they failed to interrogate their firepower integration efforts, the communication networks that would allow for success, and the troops that would bring aerial, naval, and ground-based fires together. Part failure of imagination and part insufficient self-critique, the Americans began the war with confident theories but little practical experience. Interwar shadow boxing didn’t do the trick, and the opening bouts of the war laid bare the United States’ deficiencies. In the case of triphibious firepower, nothing taught like actual experience.

Awareness feeds decision-making. Arguably the greatest contribution that the Joint Assault Signal Companies (JASCOs) made to the success of the V Amphibious Corps was an increased awareness of the battlefield throughout the assault. By connecting front-line spotters, offshore gunners, overhead pilots, and battlefield commanders (read, decision-makers), the JASCOs delivered unprecedented awareness to American forces. This awareness allowed staff officers and commanders to make informed judgments in real time and refine their command-and-control. It allowed them to triage the most pressing situations in the battle. This awareness then allowed commanders to apply the most appropriate (or most available) fire support solution to the given situation. Great leaders – and great teams – must have a strong sense of awareness throughout their environment, whether that’s a battlefield, a basketball court, or a dynamic industry.

Familiarity strengthens outcomes. Over time, the awareness that helped to shape better targeting in triphibious fire support also increased the familiarity and shared knowledge between the specialized troops of the V Corps. And that familiarity bred a stronger fire support cycle from start to finish. As infantrymen gained a better understanding of the capabilities and limitations of naval gunfire support or close air support, they became more informed users of that firepower. They learned which targets, terrain, distances, and conditions made for a better (or worse) fire support mission. Through the same shared experiences, naval officers, pilots, and artillerymen increased their familiarity with infantry tactics, needs, and challenges. As the V Corps troops evolved in their understanding of and appreciation for their fellow troops – whoever they were – the team got better.

Redundancy is essential. This combined arms principle is ancient, but that makes it no less critical. Improving the efficiency and integration of triphibious firepower allowed the V Corps to build organic redundancy into its firepower solutions. No matter the circumstantial challenges –enemy reinforcements, hardened positions, defenses-in-depth, coral reef impediments, problematic weather – the Americans had not only sufficient but redundant fires. If an artilleryman could not reach a target, then a pilot could. And that translated to a tremendous advantage for the Americans, particularly by late 1944 and 1945. Redundant fire support could overcome a variety of mistakes or weaknesses on the battlefield, just as redundant skills and effective cross-training can help any team through a tough season or unanticipated challenge.

It is through these principles that triphibious fire support matured and eventually contributed to ultimate victory in the Pacific.

Dr. Chris Hemler spent ten years on active duty in the U.S. Marine Corps, holding posts with the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, 2d Marine Aircraft Wing, and U.S. Naval Academy Marine Detachment. He holds a PhD in military history from Texas A&M University and is the author of Delivering Destruction: American Firepower and Amphibious Assault from Tarawa to Iwo Jima(Naval Institute Press, 2023). Chris currently serves as a Professor of Naval Studies at the U.S. Naval Community College and a Marine reservist with the Marine Corps History Division. He resides in Annapolis, Maryland with his wife and two children.

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

Featured Image: April 1, 1945 – The battleship USS Tennessee bombards Okinawa with her 14/50 main battery guns as LVTs in the foreground carry troops to the invasion beaches. (U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph)

By Dmitry Filipoff

Tom Wildenberg spoke with CIMSEC about his new book, Fighting in the Electromagnetic Spectrum – U.S. Navy and Marine Corps Electronic Warfare Aircraft, Operations, and Equipment. In this book, Wilbenberg traces the development of naval airborne electronic warfare back through WWII, and captures the various innovations, tactics, and controversies of these unique platforms and capabilities. 

In this conversation, Wildenberg discusses the value of electronic warfare capability, deadly shootdown incidents involving electronic reconnaissance aircraft, and how the Joint Force came to rely so heavily on the Navy for airborne EW.

Electronic warfare is an especially complex and technical form of capability. Broadly speaking, how can we understand the value of EW capability and its various applications?

Electronic Warfare (EW) can be either active or passive. Passive EW involves signal intelligence (SIGINT), also known as communications intelligence (COMINT), and electronic intelligence (ELINT). The former allows one to listen in on the enemy’s communications, which can be an important intelligence asset. The latter is used to collect data on the performance characteristics of the enemy’s electronic devices, such as radar, and is also used to establish the enemy’s electronic order of battle.

There are two primary methods of active EW. Jamming is the one that most people are familiar with. It uses high-power electromagnetic energy to disrupt or blind the enemy’s radars, or to prevent the use of communication by filling his communication channels with noise. More sophisticated methods are used to spoof, capture, or insert false information into the enemy’s radars (search or fire control) or communication systems, disrupting their use or effectiveness.

Aerial electronic warfare missions tend to fall into two broad categories – tactical support to operational forces and national-level intelligence collection missions. How can we characterize these two mission areas, and how did they create tensions over limited EW assets?

Strategic SIGINT and ELINT missions are conducted under the auspices of the National Security Agency, which authorizes, plans, and funds these missions, which are conducted using aircraft and personnel from highly secret Air Force and Navy units that are specially established for this purpose. Since these highly secret missions are funded via the so-called “Black Budget,” their funds are separate from the operating forces that employ EW on the tactical level.

During past conflicts, such as the war in Vietnam, the limited distribution of intelligence gathered by the NSA caused conflicts with both the local and theater commanders who believed that withholding this information was detrimental to in-theater operations.

The Vietnam War and Operation Desert Storm both featured numerous U.S. aircraft battling complex integrated air defense systems. How did electronic warfare feature in these air campaigns? 

The United States military was unprepared when the North Vietnamese began fielding their Russian-supplied SA-2 anti-aircraft missiles. Quick responses by industry, Air Force, and Navy EW specialists enabled both services to field effective countermeasures and tactics that were generally effective in defeating the anti-aircraft missiles. However, the North Vietnamese were constantly developing methods to defeat the American countermeasures, requiring constant re-adjustment by American forces. To avoid these missiles, U.S. aircraft were required to fly at low altitudes during the approach and egress from their target areas, subjecting them to the danger of intense gunfire from hundreds of anti-aircraft weapons. The vast majority of U.S. aircraft losses in Vietnam were downed by these easily deployed weapons.

One significant revolution in military affairs that emerged from the air war over Vietnam was the need to suppress enemy air defenses (SEAD) and the creation of units and tactics designed specifically for this purpose. This concept was used very effectively during Operation Desert Storm to virtually eliminate Iraq’s air defense system.

You note that virtually all electronic warfare aircraft in the U.S. military were a product of reconfigured airframe designs. You highlight the EA-6B Prowler as a possible exception. What was unique about this aircraft and how potent was its EW capability? 

The origins of the EA-6B Prowler can be traced to the Marine Corps requirement to replace its aging F3D-2Q Skynight for a carrier-capable aircraft filling the EW attack mission. The Marine Corps provided funding to modify one of the original A-6A Intruders for this purpose. The success of Grumman’s protype led to a production contract for 12 two-seat EA-6A carrier-based EW aircraft.

Towards the end of 1965, as the Marines were beginning to deploy the EA-6A, the Navy needed to replace its aging EKA-3Bs and issued a requirement for a carrier aircraft having a state-of-the art countermeasures suite to support tactical strike aircraft by denying the enemy (the North Vietnamese) the effective use of their defenses and radio communications. Grumman was already at work on an improved version of the EA-6A based around the ALQ-99 tactical jamming system then under development. Since the new ALQ-99 system could not be handled by one electronic countermeasures operator (ECMO), the crew was increased to four – a pilot and three ECMOs.

The EA-6B as originally delivered had an extremely comprehensive electronic warfare suite (internally mounted) that included four defensive jammers, three offensive tactical jammers (covering three radar bands), an integration receiver, and a surveillance system. In addition, the aircraft had seven external stores stations to hold a 300-gallon fuel tank, two more tactical jammers, and up to four weapons.

Electronic intelligence missions can be risky, even if there is no outright conflict. What are some of the more notable close calls and shootdown incidents that happened in peacetime and how did they influence subsequent operations? 

During the first decade of the Cold War, the Joint Chiefs of Staff authorized the Special Electronic Search Project utilizing personnel from the Naval Security Group, who specialized in ELINT and cryptology, to conduct “ferret” missions around the Soviet Union and communist states. Theses missions were extremely hazardous for the Navy crews flying them. Between December 1950 and June 1959, 18 Navy planes were attacked. Six were shot down or forced to ditch, killing and wounding a number of Navy personnel.

In November 1968, the Navy began conducting scheduled ELINT missions off the coast of North Korea using piston engine EC-121Ms that had been derived from the Lockheed Constellation. On April 15, 1969, an EC-121M using the call sign Deep Sea 129 was flying on a routine mission over the northwest corner of the Sea of Japan when it was intercepted and shot down by two North Korean MiG-21s – despite the fact the Air Force radars in Korea had detected two North Korean MiGs flying toward the unarmed EC-121M. The U.S. Air Force Security Service listening post at Osan, South Korea, which was eavesdropping on North Korean voice and Morse air defense radio traffic, was also tracking the path of the EC-121M, as well as the intercept course of the North Korean fighters. The naval security group listening post at Kamiseya in Japan was also intercepting Soviet PVO radar tracking of the EC-121M. Both of these sources provided NSA with real-time information about the flight path of Deep Sea 129 and the MiGs attempting to intercept, but did not provide sufficient warning to Deep Sea 129’s crew.

In the weeks following the shootdown, the command-and-control aspect of the EC-121M incident was examined by two official executive office study groups. One was a CINCPAC board of evaluation, the other a JCS ad hoc fact-finding group. The consensus of these studies was the need to improve command and control communications during such missions and that protection for reconnaissance flights into sensitive areas required more coordination between the SIGINT community and the Air Force operational commands that had protective responsibility. A specific recommendation called for integrating SIGINT information with operational information at command-and-control centers where decisions could be made based on all-source information. A naval board of inquiry into the loss of the EC-121M was also convened. One of the recommendations made by this board was for the procurement of higher-performance aircraft to replace the obsolete EC-121M, leading to the development and procurement of the EP-3B ARIES.

Regardless of the danger faced by the crews flying electronic reconnaissance missions, they continued to be flown and were frequently harassed. On April 1, 2001, a Chinese F-8 on one of these harassing missions accidently struck an EP-3E ARIES flying off the coast of China, forcing the severely damaged aircraft to land on China’s Hainan Island. Although the crew used the short time before landing to destroy as much of the sensitive equipment as possible, what information obtained by the Chinese was never revealed. The crew was eventually released after the U.S. government delivered a letter “expressing sorrow,” but not apologizing for the incident.

Despite EW’s importance, the Navy found itself in the position of being the sole provider of aerial electronic warfare capability to the joint force. How did this situation arise and how did it result in unconventional arrangements for these high-demand assets? 

In November 1994, recommendations made by the congressionally-mandated Commission on Roles and Missions of the Armed Forces, established to eliminate redundancy and waste in DOD, led to increased funding for the EA-6B Prowler and a cut in funding for the Air Force’s EF-111A. This effectively established the Prowler as the sole source of Joint Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses (JSEAD) support.

A number of factors contributed to the decision to retire the EF-111A in favor of the EA-6B. First and foremost was the issue of operating expenses. Although the EF-111s made up nine percent of the aircraft in the Air Force’s Tactical Air Command, they consumed 25 percent of the command’s maintenance budget. While both aircraft needed new ECM equipment to counter the next generation of SAM systems, the EA-6B’s ICAP-II weapons system had a better tactical jamming capability. The EA-6B’s four-man crew provided additional operational advantages over the EF-111A’s two-man crew. The EA-6B was also equipped to fire the AGM-88 HARM, which the EF-111A was not. Lastly, and not insignificantly, the Air Force was promoting a concept that stealth aircraft required no outside electronic warfare support to perform their mission.

After the EF-111As were retired, the EA-6B became the Joint Force’s only airborne tactical jamming platform. To support the JSEAD mission, the Navy created non-carrier based expeditionary squadrons that deployed to overseas bases to support U.S. land-based air assets.

A modern high-end conflict is expected to feature a heavily contested electromagnetic spectrum. What are some key lessons from the history of electronic warfare that can inform preparations for modern high-end combat? 

Although electronic warfare has played an important role in every major aerial campaign since World War II began, interest in its continued support and development has often waned during the peaceful interlude that inevitably follows such conflicts. This phenomenon can be attributed to a number of factors concerning the nature of electronic warfare. First is the secrecy surrounding its operations and equipment, which limits the dissemination of EW information to the public and within the military itself. Since the mission of such aircraft is to collect information or suppress enemy air defenses, it lacks the glamour associated with missions flown by attacking aircraft. This discrepancy is reflected in the attitude and elan of the pilots in the attack community who have great influence over what type of aircraft need to be procured or developed. In the past as budgets tightened, the leadership within the aviation community preferred to spend their limited resources on obtaining more fighter, bomber, or attack aircraft, only to discover during the next major conflict that it had to rely on a limited number of somewhat obsolete EW assets to support its mission objectives.

This attitude is no longer as prominent, as evidenced by the latest EW suites being developed for the F-35 and the newest versions of the F-18. The reasons for this are twofold. First is how air power in today’s military operations has to overcome the proliferation of sophisticated air defense systems and enemy fighters armed with air-to-air missiles, which can only be overcome via robust SEAD capability. This concept is well-understood within the aviation community and the upper echelons of the U.S. military. Second, are the extraordinary advances in software and digitization that have enabled the development of state-of the-art EW suites that are lighter and smaller than legacy systems. These new systems are also engineered for autonomous operation. Autonomous operation eliminates the need for additional crew members, and the size and weight reductions allow very sophisticated EW suites to be installed in the latest generation of single-seat fighters without affecting aircraft performance. Whether such systems eliminate the need for dedicated EW attack aircraft remains to be seen.

Thomas Wildenberg is an award-winning scholar with special interests in aviators, naval aviation, and technological innovation in the military. He is the author of a number of books on a variety on naval topics, as well as biographies of Joseph Mason Reeves, Billy Mitchell, and Charles Stark Draper.

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

Featured Image: A Marine Corps EA-6B Prowler departs after receiving fuel from a U.S. Air Force KC-135 Stratotanker. (Staff Sgt. Trevor T. McBride/Air Force Photo)

By Dmitry Filipoff

Jeff Vandenengel spoke with CIMSEC about his new book, Questioning the Carrier: Opportunities in Fleet Design for the U.S. Navy. In this book, Jeff makes critical contributions to ongoing debates about what kind of fleet the Navy needs and how it can evolve beyond its carrier-centric force design. 

In this conversation, Jeff talks about the carrier’s liabilities, what opportunities can be seized with a new force structure, and the challenges of moving beyond the carrier.

Intense debates on the carrier have existed for as long as the platform itself. Why write a book on questioning the carrier, and why now?

Navies’ force designs are a function of both the era’s available technology and the fleet’s intended missions. To question the carrier requires an alternative answer, a realistic force structure that can better execute those missions.

For much of the aircraft carrier’s history, there was no alternative that could outperform the platform and its supporting force structure. Following World War II, the technology either did not exist or was not robust enough to support alternative force structures, and the carrier, despite its flaws, repeatedly proved itself the worthy flagship of the fleet. It defended the Pusan Perimeter in the Korean War, launched the majority of U.S. sorties in the Vietnam War, and was the right choice to lead the U.S. Navy against the Soviet Union in the Cold War.

Starting in the 1990s, the technology likely existed to improve on the carrier-centric model, but the mission did not. With the demise of the Soviet Union and the People’s Liberation Army Navy being a weak coastal force, there were no credible naval adversaries and so the U.S. Navy shifted its focus to power projection from uncontested seas, a mission the large nuclear-powered aircraft carrier excels at.

Today, we have both the technology and the mission to move past the carrier-centric fleet. The Navy, partnered with industry, has worked hard to develop the technologies that will enable such a change, including advanced sensors, communications, and missiles. At the same time, with the rise of the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN), there is a mission demanding a change in the fleet’s structure: sea control and contested power projection against a peer adversary.

Therefore I wrote this book to show that, with today’s technology and the Navy’s evolving missions, it is time to question the carrier’s centrality to the fleet’s structure. It will remain a key component of that fleet for decades to come, but today’s technologies provide better options to accomplish the Navy’s peacetime and combat missions.

The large nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, the reason for our Navy’s success for so many years, is now holding us back from an ever better future.

In the book you say that, “The mission has become the protection of the carrier rather than attacking effectively first. Yet the perfect defense for a priceless platform has rarely if ever been possible in naval history.” Why does this tension exist between protecting the carrier and enabling more of the fleet to take on offensive roles? How is the carrier-centric model incurring an opportunity cost in fleet design, and forcing the Navy to focus on defending a single point of failure?

The large nuclear-powered aircraft carrier is the single most powerful surface warship in all naval history, in part because it concentrates a great deal of capabilities onto a single ship. When that ship can operate as intended, that concentration makes the carrier an efficient and flexible means of deterring adversaries and delivering firepower. However, if that ship is lost, all those impressive capabilities are lost at the same time.

More seriously, the sinking of a Ford- or Nimitz-class carrier would likely be catastrophic for the Navy and perhaps the nation. The destruction of a $12 billion ship serving as a symbol of American might would have unmatched military, diplomatic, and political consequences. The casualties could exceed those of previous momentous Navy losses such as USS Chesapeake, USS Maine, USS Arizona, USS Houston, USS Indianapolis, and USS Thresher—combined.

To prevent that from occurring, the Navy has little option but to devote great operational and financial resources to the ship’s defense, a task the Navy has excelled at—a U.S. aircraft carrier is the best defended ship in the world. However, that defense must operate to a different standard than that of every other warship – it must be perfect to avoid the unthinkable, the loss of an American supercarrier. There is little naval history to suggest we can generate such a perfect defense, and trends in scouting and weapons technology indicate that task is only getting harder. More importantly, within the Navy’s finite resources, every sailor, ship, and dollar focused on the defense of the aircraft carrier is not focused on “attacking effectively first,” which Captain Wayne Hughes showed to be the key to combat at sea.

For example, consider the Surface Force leadership’s 2015 introduction of the exciting idea of “Distributed Lethality,” which evolved to “Distributed Maritime Operations” today. They boldly outlined an initiative to distribute the surface fleet and better enable all ships to launch their own attacks, writing that “a shift to the offensive is necessary.” However, the Navy will always be limited in how many platforms it can distribute for offensive operations when so many of them are concentrated for the defense of eleven capital ships. The admirals even indirectly acknowledge that limitation in the opening paragraph of their work, writing, “The surface fleet will always defend the high-value and mission-essential units; that is in our core doctrine.”

For decades the centralization of resources and missions on the “high-value and mission-essential” carrier was a good thing, as it proved to be an effective and efficient means of accomplishing the Navy’s tasks. With no credible adversaries at sea, there was little risk of losing a carrier. There was no one to attack at sea, so there was no reason to focus on attacking effectively first.

Today the situation at sea has obviously changed. To effectively execute the sea control and contested power projection missions against a peer adversary, the fleet must be focused on attacking effectively first. It cannot do that while huge portions of that fleet are focused on the defense of eleven ships. To maximize the Navy’s readiness for combat against our adversaries, it is necessary to move past the carrier-centric model.

The effectiveness of a fleet force structure can be weighed through numerous factors and considerations. What are your criteria for valuing the peacetime utility and wartime combat power of fleet force structure?

A fleet should be judged by its ability to execute the Navy’s peacetime and wartime missions, within existing financial, technological, industrial, operational, and political constraints.

In peacetime, the U.S. Navy is responsible for the “promotion of the national security interests and prosperity of the United States,” as the recently amended Title 10 language directs. The Navy’s presence operations, or campaigning, can include deterring adversaries, reassuring allies, protecting trade, conducting exercises, and ensuring freedom of navigation. We are seeing the importance and value of those operations off Israel and in the Red Sea right now.

Part of that evaluation must be the quantity of platforms in the fleet, as ships can only be in one place at a time and, as Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said, “A smaller military, no matter how superb, will be able to go fewer places and be able to do fewer things.” However, simply counting ships tells only part of the story, as they are not all equal in their ability to influence the nation’s allies and adversaries. Today, no single ship can match a Nimitz­- or Ford­-class aircraft carrier in presence value—but the correct metric is the fleet’s overall presence value, not that of a single ship.

In wartime, the force structure should be evaluated by its ability to conduct primary mission areas such as reconnaissance, anti-surface warfare, anti-submarine warfare, integrated air and missile defense, and strike warfare, all to gain sea control and project power ashore. Again, there are both quantitative and qualitative factors to that evaluation. Numerically, a fleet with more ships has better geographic coverage, better distributes its capabilities, is more difficult to track, and better retains its combat power after suffering losses. However, fleet capability is also a function of warship quality, accounting for their sensors, weapons, command and control systems, survivability, and logistics capabilities. Today there is no single more powerful surface warship than a large nuclear-powered aircraft carrier—but there are more powerful force structures than one centered on those carriers.

You propose an alternative fleet force structure called the Flex Fleet. How is this fleet different than the Navy’s current and proposed force structures, and how is it more competitive?

The primary purpose of the hypothetical Flex Fleet is to disprove the argument that we cannot do better than a fleet centered on the large nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. The Flex Fleet is designed to show that it is operationally, technologically, and financially possible to generate a force structure that outperforms today’s already impressive fleet. When the Navy decides to move past the limits of a fleet concentrated around the CVN, it can surely develop a force structure better than both the Flex Fleet and today’s force, drawing on its own staffs’ designs, the work of Captain Jeff Kline and his colleagues at the Naval Postgraduate School, and your “Fighting DMO” series, Dmitry.

The Flex Fleet is designed to attack effectively first, seeking to fulfill Captain Wayne Hughes’ tactical maxim, as described in Fleet Tactics. To do that, it seeks to capitalize on modern opportunities in fleet design, opportunities that the Navy has made great progress on but cannot fully benefit from while operating within the confines of the carrier-centric model. The Flex Fleet seeks to embrace the Age of the Missile, network the distributed fleet, and thus diversify the fleet’s kill chains. To do that, it adds missile corvettes, missile arsenal ships, and light carriers, and increases the number of planned Constellation-class frigates. To pay for that, it stops producing Ford-class carriers, reduces the number of planned new construction Arleigh Burke and follow-on DDGs, and cancels plans for conventionally armed Columbia-class SSGNs, as called for in the Navy’s most recent Thirty-Year Shipbuilding Plan.

The resulting Flex Fleet shifts the Navy from an all-capital ship structure to a better mix of large and small platforms. In peacetime, its improved platform numbers and combat credibility means the collective fleet can better conduct the Navy’s presence operations, even if no single ship in that fleet can match the CVN’s presence value. In combat, its distributed structure and large missile inventory means it is better at finding the enemy and attacking effectively first, can more effectively project power ashore from contested seas, and is better able to survive the inevitable losses of war.

The Flex Fleet, operating within existing financial and technological constraints, has more platforms launching more weapons from more vectors and from more domains than the Navy’s already formidable “program of record” fleet. It is a fleet focused on deterring a peer adversary, and if that fails, winning sea control and projecting power from contested seas.

The Flex Fleet does not do away completely with carriers, but rather narrows their mission set and distributes their capacities more broadly into CVL “lightning carriers.” How can these carriers and their roles offer a better alternative to the fleet?

Without a credible threat at sea, concentrating the fleet’s missions on the CVN is an efficient and effective method. However, against a peer adversary, there are certain missions that naval aviation is best suited for, and other missions that different platforms and weapons can perform more effectively.

As a result, the Flex Fleet seeks to alleviate the burden on today’s carrier force and shift some of its missions to the rest of the fleet, which would reduce the need for CVNs. Shifting to CVLs allows for the use of an increased number of carriers, allows for naval aviation to achieve improved geographic spread and a more distributed structure, and reduces the fleet-wide impact if one is lost.

Make no mistake, a CVL is less capable than a CVN. Furthermore, if all we do is take the money for CVNs and buy an increased number of CVLs, it will result in a weaker fleet overall. But, as then-Chief of Naval Operations Michael Gilday said in 2020, previous Pentagon carrier studies have tried to make an “an apples-to-apples comparison” that “lead to fait accompli that a smaller carrier just does not compete with a super carrier. I think that’s a false choice.”

The best comparison is not CVN versus CVL, but fleet versus fleet: the carrier-centric fleet versus an alternative force structure that benefits from carriers’ many attributes without being wholly dependent on them.

You dive extensively into the recent combat history and dynamics of the major warfare areas to understand how they may affect carrier capability and survivability. What aspects and trends of the undersea domain in particular, especially submarine and mine capability, most affect the future of the carrier?

One of the carrier’s greatest attributes is its ability to stay mobile to avoid targeting while accomplishing its tasking. Today, with over-the-horizon radars, satellite networks, cyber penetration tools, and networked communications, it is harder to hide the carrier than at any point in its history.

On the other hand, submarines’ improved quieting and elimination of historical vulnerabilities means undersea scouting is getting more difficult. For example, Admiral James Foggo III and Dr. Alaric Fritz wrote in 2016 that modern Russian submarines are “significantly quieter,” meaning “The clear advantage that we enjoyed in antisubmarine warfare during the Cold War is waning.”

The Falklands War demonstrated those diverging trends in scouting. The nuclear-powered submarine HMS Conqueror found the Argentinian cruiser ARA General Belgrano within 24 hours of receiving orders to do so. It stalked the ship and her escorts undetected for more than 24 hours while waiting for permission to attack, and then destroyed Belgrano and escaped without the escorts ever knowing the submarine’s location. As a result, the Argentinians withdrew their entire surface fleet to port for the remainder of the war. In the only case of a nuclear-powered submarine entering combat, it found and destroyed a single ship without ever being found—and defeated an entire navy in the process.

That is not to suggest that surface ships are suddenly obsolete. Submarines’ poor presence abilities, communications, and cargo capacity means they cannot perform many of the Navy’s missions. However, it does indicate that we can better capitalize on submarines’ potential while shifting away from a fleet structure that requires a perfect—and therefore unlikely—defense against the undersea threat.

Mines are just as problematic. While they are a threat to all warships, the nation’s low risk tolerance regarding CVNs means even an adversary’s press release about a supposed minefield could lead commanders to not commit their most powerful ship.

Numerous constituencies are heavily invested in continued carrier procurement. What will it take to make a major course change in fleet force structure?

There are many institutions and individuals with both the incentive and ability to influence the Navy’s force structure decisions to protect the carrier. This is not to argue that they are doing anything wrong—they are not. This is to argue that their strong connections to military leadership and Congress gives them the ability to affect the Navy’s shipbuilding decisions, and their valid financial, political, or organizational motivations give them a reason to exert that influence. As a result, a change away from the carrier-centric model will be one of the most difficult evolutions our Navy has ever faced.

Within the military, shifting away from the large nuclear-powered aircraft carrier would upset the balance of power between warfare communities, have huge implications for resource decisions, restrict aviators’ primary path to flag rank, eventually end the entire community of nuclear-trained Surface Warfare Officers (Nuke-SWOs), and constrain Naval Reactor’s influence to just the submarine force.

Within the defense industry, there are entire organizations that advocate for CVNs, such as the Aircraft Carrier Industrial Base Coalition representing thousands of companies. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of retired flag officers working for those companies. For example, Huntington Ingalls Industries employs a former Combatant Commander, a former Director of Naval Reactors, a former Naval Air Forces Commander, a former Naval Sea Systems Commander, and a former Chief of Legislative Affairs, all distinguished leaders who formerly oversaw the Navy’s financing, production, or operation of aircraft carriers, and now work for the sole producer of those carriers.

Finally, within Congress, approximately 96 percent of Senators and roughly two-thirds of Representatives have companies involved in carrier construction or maintenance in their district, meaning they have a very good reason (constituent jobs) to maintain the fleet’s structure. It will be impossible to evolve the fleet without earning buy-in from across the Department of Defense, defense industry, and Congress, a difficult task to say the least.

There are lots of organizations that can resist such a move if they choose to, but I believe only one has the knowledge, experience, and vision to lead it—OPNAV. The change is simply too large, too complex, and will take too many years to successfully accomplish without the Navy’s uniformed leadership driving it. As Admiral Sandy Winnefeld said, for the U.S. Navy to transform its fleet structure, “The real leader has to be a noisy, impatient, creative, courageous, and insistent military leadership.”

Fortunately, the Navy has faced similar challenges in the past and overcome them to improve itself. There is the story of obstructionist battleship admirals stuck in the past leading up to World War II, but that is a myth. In reality, the Navy made great progress developing naval aviation in the interwar period because of leaders like Admirals Joseph Reeves, William Moffett, and William Sims. They innovated with aircraft and ship designs, changed the personnel and training systems, and developed a new way of fighting. When a mission came along that required carrier aviation—the Pacific theater in World War II—the Navy was ready because of their pioneering work.

OPNAV continues that tradition of innovative and bold leadership today. Whenever they decide it is time to evolve the fleet, they will surely face a daunting challenge. However, whether or not we think we can transition away from the carrier-centric fleet, I believe the evidence is increasingly clear that we need to.

CDR Jeff Vandenengel is a naval officer with tours on three fast-attack submarines. Winner of the 2019 Admiral Willis Lent Award for tactical excellence at sea, he deployed to the Western Pacific three times and to the Atlantic at the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. These views are his alone and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Department of Defense or U.S. government.

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

Featured Image: ATLANTIC OCEAN (March 26, 2022) The aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78) transits the Atlantic Ocean. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Jackson Adkins)

By Christopher Nelson

Can we reform the Department of Defense and the Navy? In their new book, American Defense Reform: Lessons from Failure and Success, Admiral Dave Oliver (ret.) and Dr. Anand Toprani make a spirited argument that, yes, we can.

But it won’t be easy. Oliver and Toprani outline four key disruptive historical events in the Navy—the 1940s Revolt of the Admirals, the McNamara Revolution in systems analysis, the fallout from the Vietnam War, and the end of the Cold War. From these events, the authors note that reform in the Navy and the Defense Department will require collaboration among Congressional members, the White House, the Department’s senior uniformed and civilian leaders, and collaboration with industry and the private sector. In this conversation, the authors discuss their new book along with a wide range of topics, including the future of the Navy, its good and bad leaders, thoughts on Admiral Hyman Rickover, and useful reading recommendations.

How did you two meet and develop the idea for this book? 

We met during a series of Naval War College discussions regarding the future of the U.S. Navy. We quickly found we had a compatible background. Dave had served six tours in the Pentagon and been a political appointee and corporate leader. Anand was an historian with special interest in naval history after World War II. Both of us wanted to understand why imposing change on the military had not worked in the past. Since the naval services – the Navy and the Marines – operate in all of the major domains of war (air, land, and sea), we wondered if it might not well serve as a microcosm of understanding the challenge of managing the defense establishment.

We postulated that a review of what the Navy did well or poorly during three major fiscal challenges since 1945 – the end of World War II, the Vietnam War, and the Cold War – might disclose best practices and point to a way ahead for leaders who wanted to embark upon major changes of the Department of Defense. At the same time, we recognized we could not limit our analysis to the past – we needed to examine the strengths and weaknesses of the various contemporary actors who might push change, such as political appointees, Congress, and the private sector. 

Historians regularly rank U.S. Presidents. So, if you were to argue for your top two or three men who were the Secretary of Defense and the top two CNOs, who are they and why?

This query gets at why we were able to produce such a strong book. Because we had strong and sometimes divergent viewpoints that we only reconciled after additional research and discussion, our book ends up reflecting the best attributes of our varied experiences as a practitioner, on the one hand, and a scholar, on the other.

To address your specific question, Anand believes that Forrest Sherman was probably the most skilled CNO of the post-WWII era. He was a bona fide strategic thinker and a skilled bureaucratic operator. He repaired the damage of the “Revolt of the Admirals” with Defense Secretary Louis Johnson and saved naval aviation even before the Korean War began. Finally, he secured the construction of the Forrestal class of supercarriers but had the presence of mind not to feud with the Air Force by constructing the carriers in such a way as to launch long-range nuclear strikes.

Dave interviewed or worked with Arleigh Burke, George Anderson, Dave McDonald, Elmo Zumwalt, Jim Watkins, Carlisle Trost, Frank Kelso, Mike Boorda, Jay Johnson, and Vern Clark. Of these extraordinary men, he has long placed Zumwalt and Kelso in the front rank, for reasons that we make clear in our book.

Just as with CNOs, Dave and Anand have different views about what makes an effective SECDEF. Anand is convinced that the smartest SECDEF hands down is Harold Brown. He didn’t revolutionize how the Pentagon operated, but he did make many of the technological investments that the Reagan Administration exploited a decade later. Moreover, despite his brilliance, he was open minded about alternative viewpoints, provided his critics made a strong argument. For example, when the Navy pushed back against the idea that it should play only a supporting role in the defense of Europe, Brown gave his SECNAV, Graham Claytor, the authority to commission a study questioning OSD’s assumptions. He also came around to the need for a more proactive naval policy by the end of the Carter Administration. Finally, Brown recognized the essential fact that you cannot run defense like a business, and that a certain inefficiency is the price we pay for living in a democratic society.

Dave worked for and knew Mel Laird, Dick Cheney, Les Aspin, Bill Perry, Bill Cohen, and Donald Rumsfeld. He has long been impressed with the many accomplishments of Bill Perry and hope that future scholars will explore discontinuity between Dick Cheney’s performance as Secretary of Defense and his service as Vice President. 

And the two or three worst?

People do their best, and few people leave the Pentagon with their reputations enhanced. That said, Anand thinks that Caspar Weinberger misunderstood his role. Weinberger appeared to see his job as being an advocate for higher defense budgets and was desperate to avoid the taint of being “another McNamara.” Consequently, Weinberger failed to exercise leadership by asking why the services were making their specific budget choices, and whether each service’s decisions complemented those of the other services. Consequently, one can make a good case that the country did not get the return on investment it deserved during the 1980s.

Dave believes that an extraordinary book is still waiting to be written that explains why a man with all of Donald Rumsfeld’s experience, charisma, intellect, and charm was unable to lead the Department of Defense. 

Who was William Edwards Demming? How did he influence Admiral Kelso’s leadership style? 

Demming was the statistician and engineer who went to Japan and provided the Japanese with guidance (Total Quality Management) that was vital to the reconstruction of their shattered industrial sector. He then returned to the United States to espouse the same principles to U.S. industry, but found few takers at a time when U.S. firms were globally dominant and saw little need to innovate. Nevertheless, Demming’s principles were consistent with the precise demands of nuclear power that Hyman Rickover was espousing. When Total Quality Management was combined with the concept of Six Sigma originated by Bill Smith (most famously of Motorola), certain sectors of American industry took an enormous surge forward. (This is discussed at some length in Dave Oliver’s Bronze Rules, Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2021, pgs. 145-152.)

The impact of these three men – Demming, Rickover, and Smith – on American industry during the last century cannot be overstated. That said, Demming and Smith’s concepts were intended to guide aid in the production of manufactured items and have only a peripheral application to defense matters. Admiral Kelso may have overhyped the potential impact of Total Quality Management, but it is impossible to make an accurate judgment since this imitative was overtaken by the Tailhook scandal, which consumed the Navy after 1991. 

I really enjoyed the second part of the book titled “What is to be done and by whom?” You synthesized and compiled a lot of information about what doesn’t work well in the DoD across the private sector, Congress, and appointed officials. As for the length of, say, a flag officer’s time in a particular billet, do you think we should keep them in a job for longer than two years? Did we rotate as often and as quickly in the WWII era and Korea through Vietnam as we do today? Or less? 

We don’t know the answer. Whether senior naval leaders should spend more time in specific billets is a matter for debate, but there is no doubt that the sum of their experience as operators, bureaucrats, and leaders far exceeds that of people from outside of the defense enterprise. 

The MRAP is a fascinating case study on getting something done and done quite quickly. Personality (SECDEF Gates) and process seemed to meld. Gates demanded bi-weekly meetings I believe. He made it his highest priority. Absent a war or something else that drives national attention, for a bureaucracy the size of ours, is this the best we can hope for among the thousands of decisions, distractions, and other priorities? That is, prioritization matters. And some things – or  many things – are not going to get solved. 

The MRAP story is not black and white. While many believe it took senior direction to get the MRAPs because of problems in the acquisition system, the real problem was one of requirements – that is, the senior Army and Marine officers did not want to buy the MRAPs. Their experience and analysis told them that, as soon as the United States was out of Iraq, their investment in the MRAP would be wasted, and the military would suffer long-term damage because of the misallocation of resources to a program that, while saving lives, yielded no strategic benefit. These officers were out of synch with the Bush II Administration. The President wanted regime change in Iraq, and he did not want to acknowledge that the war was a political and military mistake, which made him deaf to recommendations to change course.

At the end of the Iraq War, the military leaders who slow-rolled the MRAP proved correct as nearly all of the MRAPs, purchased at great cost, were abandoned in place in Iraq, and the United States failed to achieve its political objectives. At the same time, far too many service personnel suffered grievous injuries or worse from improvised explosive devices. There are no heroes or villains, but perhaps a more honest discussion of the war between civilian and military leaders would have allowed the United States to mitigate the long-term damage of the Iraq War. 

Are we done with the age of an Admiral Rickover? A singular juggernaut by sheer force of will that can create an entire military culture that lives on for decades? 

In our book we use the example of nuclear-powered submarines to show how difficult it is for each of the services to recognize technological innovation that threatens their existing culture and hierarchy.

When we think about Admiral Rickover’s legacy, we focus on nuclear-powered carriers and submarines that have set an unparalleled standard of safety by never having a reactor accident, and we recognize the importance nuclear-powered vessels play today to performing vital naval and national security missions. What we forget is that Rickover needed incredible support from political and military leaders, starting with President Truman, whose initials were welded on the hull of USS Nautilus, President Eisenhower, whose wife launched Nautilus, and Admiral Burke, who supported both Rickover and the Office of Special Projects that developed the Polaris missile within the Navy.

Admiral Rickover was innovative, brilliant, and hardworking – a true American original. That said, he would never have been able to make the progress he did if it were not for 40 years of unwavering support from the support from the Oval Office, Congress, and the naval leadership.

You each get to change the current DoD Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution process. What would you do? 

We believe PPBE gets a bad rap, largely because of the association with McNamara and because, as we discuss in our book, the average observer does not realize that each service does the process differently. We probably should make modifications to speed up the process, which generally takes two years to just plan and program each budget before the White House submits its budget to Congress. That said, at its essence, PPBE is a process that tries links budgetary choices to national objectives. The alternative appears to be allowing the services to create their own wish lists without reference to what the Administration and Congress believes is necessary or what the other services are doing.

We think if you want to make meaningful changes, you have start with the requirements and acquisition processes – i.e. deciding what you need and what you will buy. If you get those two questions wrong, no amount of budget wizardry during PPBE is going to save you from the consequences of poor choices made at the start of the process. 

Today, how would you characterize the morale of the DoD civilians and military members you regularly come in contact with? Are they frustrated with some of the issues you’ve raised in your book?

The United States is fortunate to have so many gifted entrepreneurs interested in contributing to national defense. A great number of them, particularly from startups and tech, are justifiably frustrated with how slow the process is to adopt new weapons. The problem is that they have very little understanding that the obstacles against which they struggle are the result of Congressional limitations. Fundamentally, too few people from the private sector share Harold Brown’s realization that the military is answerable to the American people rather than stockholders and cannot simply operate like a private firm.

How would you propose we build or mentor a politically astute officer?

An investment in education would probably help. There simply isn’t time to create such officers in PME, and the quality control is also lacking. Anand is struck by the contrast and influence of the well-educated officers the Navy had in the 1970s and 80s. The Navy made a conscious decision to educate a “Fletcher mafia” among gifted line officers and then send them to specific offices in OPNAV – the same goes with the Strategic Studies Group (SSG) alumni. These same officers then went on to major command and many become flag officers. Ultimately, cultivating defense intellectuals among the officer corps requires considerable expenditure of time and money. Hoping they will find time to develop intellectually in their spare time only make sense if you have made the initial investment to develop the appropriate aptitude and skills.

For each of you, what are three books you recommend to readers after they have picked up your book? Or any books you think anyone working in the DoD should read today in light of our current challenges?

There are two classics we would recommend. The first is Alain Enthoven’s classic, How Much is Enough, to figure out how to reconcile quantitative and qualitative methods of making defense choices. As we discuss in our book, Enthoven and his fellow “Whiz Kids” always claimed analysis was only a tool for aiding judgment, but they failed miserably to create a productive discourse with their military counterparts.

The second book everyone should read is Graham Allison’s Essence of Decision. Although the subtitle of the book is Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis, it has limited utility for illuminating that particular historical event now that most of the relevant U.S. documents, and even some of the Soviet and Cuban records, are declassified. Rather, the greatest strength of Essence of Decision remains Allison’s analysis of how important decisions are made in our national security establishment, particularly his model of “bureaucratic politics.” 

Are you optimistic or skeptical that we see any consequential defense reforms for the better in the next 5-10 years?

Andy Marshall created the discipline of Net Assessment because he wanted the United States to make different choices without the external stimulus of a military disaster or defeat, which is the usual way militaries embrace innovation. Marshall wanted Americans to rethink what they needed and why rather than simply wasting money replicating existing forces whose utility might have declined. Marshall first made his case back in the 1970s, and by the 1990s, he realized few people in positions of responsibility were listening, which contributed to the gradual irrelevance of the office he established in the Pentagon.

The premise of our book is that at some point in time the nation will decide it needs to rebalance or even reshape the defense establishment. This may be because we reach some limit on resources (fiscal, technological, human, etc.), or it may be because of a reconsideration of the threat. Whatever the reason, inspiring lasting change within a complex social organization – whether a bureaucracy, a private firm, or even a military service – is anything but easy, particularly when the entity has been spared the worst consequences of poor decisions for too long. That is precisely the time, we argue, to remember that it is less costly to learn from other people’s mistakes than to make your own. We still believe the country can learn from its history, and our leaders should know the relevant information when making their decisions.

Dave Oliver is a retired admiral who also served in the Pentagon for Presidents Clinton and Bush, and spent more than a decade in the defense industry. He was one of the founding members of the American College of National Security Leaders.

Anand Toprani is an Associate Professor of Strategy and Policy at the U.S. Naval War College.

CDR Christopher Nelson is a career intelligence officer, graduate of the U.S. Naval War College, and regular contributor to CIMSEC.

All views are presented in a personal capacity and do not necessarily reflect the official views of the U.S. Navy or Department of Defense.

Featured Image: The Pentagon, headquarters of the Department of Defense. (Department of Defense photo by Master Sgt. Ken Hammond, U.S. Air Force)