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)

By Dmitry Filipoff

CIMSEC recently engaged with the commander of the Surface and Mine Warfighting Development Center (SMWDC), RDML Wilson Marks, to discuss the latest developments and priorities of the command. In this discussion, RDML Marks discusses the new Surface Requirements Group, how SMWDC is working to better measure warfighting skill, and how the WTI program is influencing the Surface Warfare Officer career path.

SMWDC will soon be completing its restructuring and the development of the Surface Advanced Warfighting School (SAWS). What is the value of this restructuring and how will it change how SMWDC and the Warfare Tactics Instructors (WTIs) operate?

SMWDC’s restructuring promotes productivity, collaboration, and integration across all warfighting domains. Ultimately, this will enable WTIs to be more effective and efficient in their missions due to ease of information sharing and capitalization on the diversity within our organization. Similarly, in consolidating the schoolhouse at SAWS, each warfare specialty area, colloquially known as patch type, is able to gain additional feedback from every course iteration and share lessons learned at a more rapid pace. It promotes standardization of class structure, rigor in class performance requirements, and camaraderie within the cadre as we transition to subject matter experts teaching their specialty across all warfare tactics courses of instructions regardless of patch type.

How is SMWDC developing frameworks and criteria for measuring the tactical skill and watchstanding experience of warfighters? What kind of data is being collected and how may that data be used? 

The team at SMWDC serves as the executive agent for Commander, Naval Surface Force’s Surface Warfare Combat Training Continuum (SWCTC) program. SWCTC is a data-driven approach to simultaneously deepen, broaden, and synergize training across the Surface Force. We are currently developing the Maritime Warfare Proficiency Model (MWP) to establish and standardize watchstanding skills using advanced data analytics to generate a numerical score for a watchstander’s level of knowledge, skill, experience, aptitude, and currency as a means of objective performance evaluation. This ultimately gives us the analytical tools necessary to continually improve individual watchstanding skills, make warfighters more lethal, and ensure our Surface Force is able to consistently demonstrate the proficiency and capability to fight and win at sea. 

Within the last year, SMWDC launched the inaugural cycle of the new Surface Requirements Group (SURFRG), and also participated in a pilot program that sought to fill billets at program offices and warfare centers with WTIs. How can WTI involvement in these staffs and the SURFRG add value to the requirements and acquisition process? What can we expect from the next SURFRG cycle? 

The Surface Requirements Group’s (SURFRG) primary function is to align fleet, program office, and resource sponsor (OPNAV N95/N96) efforts throughout the systems development process. It enables our WTIs to represent the challenges facing our fleet today and the challenges we are likely to face in the future. We do this by providing technical and tactical solution recommendations and divestment opportunities on near-term and future weapons, sensors, and combat system capabilities on behalf of the Surface Force.

We completed our first SURFRG cycle in August 2023 with the signing of the Technical Solution Recommendation Letter, and then in September when we briefed 15 tactical priorities to key industry partners in conjunction with the SNA West Coast Symposium. In this year’s cycle we are looking to build upon the lessons learned and successes of the inaugural cycle. We are specifically looking at streamlining the cycle while also adding more touchpoints for senior leaders and industry partners earlier in the process. We also have three WTIs working at Program Executive Office Integrated Warfare Systems (PEO IWS) who are working alongside the project managers to bring their high level of tactical expertise to enhance our future warfare systems. At the same time, they gain acquisition and project management expertise from some of the best personnel in our Navy. It is a true win-win arrangement. 

The war in Ukraine has featured high-profile naval combat operations, including the sinking of the cruiser Moskva, exploding unmanned surface vessels attacking warships, and naval mining and blockades. How is SMWDC processing lessons learned from the conflict’s naval operations, and what are some key takeaways? 

We work closely with the fleet commanders to capitalize on any information they receive and compare that against our tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) for possible improvements or needs to write new ones. For example, our team at the SMWDC Mine Countermeasures Technical Division (MCMTD) is using the information we receive to think through the ways we need to approach any mine clearance effort. While we are taking a look at the details we have available to us now, the nature and extent of the mining efforts employed by both sides will only be clearly understood when the conflict is complete. However, what we can learn from this conflict is that naval mines are still relevant. We are working hard to ensure that our Navy is better informed about this low cost, asymmetric weapon in the maritime domain and about the types of mine countermeasures capabilities and technologies that we need to invest in to be able to conduct mine countermeasures in the future. 

The navies of other great powers possess considerable capability and their own unique doctrine and tactics, especially the Chinese Navy. How is SMWDC enhancing the surface fleet’s literacy in “Red” capabilities and doctrine? Does SMWDC have plans for assigning WTIs to dedicated adversary roles, such as red cells, OPFOR units, or aggressor staffs? 

SMWDC is working closely with both the Navy’s and national intelligence communities to improve the Surface Force’s understanding of current maritime threats. SMWDC provides “Red” threat presentations through a series of in-port training sessions for prospective commanding officers, plans and tactics officers, and future WTIs. We have also enhanced the threat presentation offered underway during Surface Warfare Advanced Tactical Training (SWATT) events to align to the current pacing maritime threats units can expect to encounter on deployment. While we do not assign WTIs to dedicated adversary roles, we do have “communities of focus” based on mission areas to allow a greater depth of understanding and competency. This provides us the ability to create tactical and operational advantages in our TTPs to enable victory in any conflict. 

Concepts such as Distributed Maritime Operations (DMO) and joint fires are deeply cross-cutting and combined arms methods of warfighting. How is SMWDC partnering with the Navy’s other warfighting development centers, and entities from the other services, to refine these methods?

SMWDC maintains close and consistent contact with the other Warfighting Development Centers (WDCs). In October, we hosted the semi-annual Warfighting Development Center Leadership Huddle and Advanced Warfighting Seminar on behalf of the Navy Warfare Development Center, allowing each WDC commander to educate their peers on the unique capabilities and challenges each center has in operationalizing Distributed Maritime Operations. In addition to those command-level engagements, the WDCs have touchpoints for mutually supporting joint exercise and wargame planning.

At SMWDC, we have created a Surface Warfare Integration Office (SWIO) staffed by talented WTIs who support these events. The SWIO team works with other services to enhance our interoperability during SWATT, preparing Surface Forces for the joint and high-end fight. Additionally, our Mine Countermeasures Coordination Group enjoys consistent and valuable participation from our Marine Corps partners and the Undersea Warfighting Development Center. The future fight will be enormously complex, and the DMO framework requires the capabilities of all the services at the right time and place to deliver the necessary effects. Partnering and planning with all of the WDCs and other services is a normal part of our daily practice to make the fleet more lethal in an all-domain, joint fight.

After becoming a WTI and completing a production tour, what are the possible downstream effects on a SWO’s career? How is the WTI program influencing the incentives and milestones of the SWO career path? 

Becoming a WTI is one of the most career-enhancing choices a young officer can make. Our WTIs screen for department head at 100 percent and exceed the selection rates of non-WTIs for commander command and major command. The team at PERS is working closely with SMWDC to ensure we are applying the subject matter expertise where it makes sense across the fleet and in line with the needs of the officer. We have also added the additional qualification designator (AQD) of KWC to a WTI’s record at the completion of a production tour. Having the KWC designator indicates a level of knowledge of not just the WTI course of instruction, but also continued professional development and experience gained in their associated WTI production tour. This allows us to fill billets at commands looking for this level of expertise within an integrated warfighting environment in places like SMWDC, the Program Executive Office Integrated Warfare Systems, and other tactical commands as availability allows. None of this is limiting to a SWO’s career choices, and we continue to provide flexible, challenging, and career-enhancing opportunities to our WTIs. Our top priority is to make the fleet more lethal and our WTIs are the key to our success.

Rear Admiral Wilson Marks graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1994 with a Bachelor of Science in History. He has also earned a Master of Arts in National Security Affairs in Strategic Studies from the Naval War College and a Master of Science in National Strategic Studies from the National War College. Marks commanded USS Mason (DDG 87), USS Robert Smalls (CG 62) formerly named USS Chancellorsville, Provincial Reconstruction Team Ghazni Province, Afghanistan, and Naval Surface Group Western Pacific. Ashore, he served as a Placement Officer and Assistant Captain Detailer at Naval Personnel Command, Executive Assistant to the commander of Naval Surface Force Atlantic, the Deputy for Combat System and Warfighting Integration at the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, and as the Executive Assistant to the commander of U.S. Pacific Fleet. Marks assumed the role of Commander, Naval Surface and Mine Warfighting Development Center in May 2023.

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

Featured Image: Naval Surface and Mine Warfighting Development Center (SMWDC) and Center for Surface Combat Systems (CSCS) host advanced Anti-Submarine Warfare Officer (ASWO) students for hands-on training inside of CSCS’s Combined Integrated Air & Missile Defense/ Anti-Submarine Warfare Trainer (CIAT). (U.S. Navy photo by Clinton Beaird/released.)

By Dmitry Filipoff

In Large Scale Exercise 2023, numerous naval forces from around the world engaged in simulated warfighting under one global scenario. CIMSEC had the opportunity to discuss LSE23 with lead exercise planner Capt. Chris Narducci. In this discussion, Capt. Narducci describes what makes LSE unique, what the Navy is looking to learn from the event, and how LSE prepares the fleet for conflict against strategic competitors.

Many terms can be used to define Navy exercises, such as rehearsals, certifications, experiments, and others. How would you define LSE and its objectives? 

LSE can definitely be classified as an “exercise,” however, it also included elements of experimentation. LSE was not a rehearsal for any specific operational plan, and no forces were certified during the exercise.

LSE’s end state objectives were to further refine Distributed Maritime Operations (DMO), and the supporting concepts of Littoral Operations in a Contested Environment (LOCE), and Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations (EABO) in order to build a more lethal force. LSE also sought to globally synchronize naval operations at the operational-to-tactical level of warfare. The exercise also sought to make naval forces better prepared to fight and win against strategic competitors through the use of a Live, Virtual, Constructive (LVC) training environment. 

How is LSE different and complementary to other large Navy exercises, such as COMPTUEX and Fleet Battle Problems? What unique aspects does LSE afford the fleet the opportunity to exercise?

Other Navy exercises do not compare in scope and scale to LSE.

COMPTUEX is designed to certify a single live Carrier Strike Group (CSG) or an Amphibious Readiness Group (ARG) for deployment. The focus is at the tactical level from the 1-star staff down to the individual participating units. A COMPTUEX will typically include a second CSG or ARG staff participating virtually. A Fleet Battle Problem (FBP) typically involves a single live CSG or ARG. The FBP focus is also at the tactical level, while its purpose is to assess several elements of DMO and/or LOCE/EABO, as well as provide opportunity for experimentation.

LSE was unique in that it was able to stimulate the individual Sailor or Marine at the low tactical level all the way up to the 4-star fleet commanders at the high operational level of warfare. LSE participants were spread across 22 time zones and six geographic combatant command areas of responsibility. LSE had six CSGs (1 live, 5 virtual/constructive), four ARGs (virtual/constructive), as well as over a dozen additional ships and submarines participating live. LSE also provided the opportunity to assess many of the capabilities and elements of DMO and LOCE/EABO.

LSE included nine Navy Maritime Operations Centers (MOCs) operating as a Joint Force Maritime Component Commander (JFMCC) or as a numbered fleet commander.

The staffs included U.S. Pacific Fleet, U.S. Fleet Forces Command, U.S. Naval Forces Europe/Africa, Second Fleet, Third Fleet, Fourth Fleet, Fifth Fleet, Sixth Fleet, Seventh Fleet, and Tenth Fleet. Marine Forces Pacific, Marine Forces Command, and Marine Forces Europe/Africa embedded within their respective JFMCC staffs and served as Deputy JFMCCs during the exercise. While we may see several MOCs participate in a large combatant command-level exercise, LSE is the only exercise that brings together all nine fleet MOCs into one global scenario.

While a majority of the tactical-level exercising we saw in LSE could also be executed in events like a COMPTUEX or FBP, LSE is the only event where participants are given the opportunity to exercise global maritime synchronization at the operational level of warfare.

A major objective of LSE23 was testing concepts like DMO and EABO. How did LSE illustrate the differences between these concepts and how the Navy operated in the past? 

The robust global threat scenario in LSE created an environment that required the participants (live or virtual) to operate using new operational concepts, like DMO and LOCE/EABO. The scenario forced participants to distribute and maneuver their forces while still remaining integrated across all warfare domains.

What was the role of the opposition force in stressing the concepts and servicemembers? How scripted versus free-play were the force-on-force events? 

The exercise control group designed the scenario such that the laydown of the opposition force (OPFOR) created dilemmas not only for the tactical units, but also for the operational staffs (MOCs). The OPFOR laydown challenged the MOCs to globally synchronize their efforts across multiple areas of responsibility. Additionally, the OPFOR team utilized tactics representative of our strategic competitors that required the individual Blue (friendly) tactical units to operate using the concepts of DMO and LOCE/EABO.

LSE utilized a combination of scripted and free-play actions from the OPFOR team. While certain engagements may have been scripted to occur on certain days or in certain time blocks in order to drive exercise objectives, the OPFOR team was free to utilize the tactics required in response to Blue actions. Other engagements were at the discretion of the OPFOR director. 

How would you describe the learning architecture surrounding the event? Whether in terms of feedback loops, analytic frameworks, data capture, or debriefings, how is the Navy gathering and processing the lessons learned? 

LSE was designed to provide real-time feedback during execution, as well as to observe and collect large amounts of data for post-execution assessment. There were over 100 personnel from multiple commands positioned at various locations across the globe to collect on and ultimately assess the exercise.

The Exercise Steering Group (ESG) was led by retired U.S. Navy Admiral Scott Swift, and consisted of four retired admirals and generals. The ESG was tasked to provide real-time feedback to the exercise control group during exercise execution. The ESG observed efforts from Exercise Control at the Naval Warfare Development Center (NWDC) in Norfolk, VA. They also participated in multiple daily video teleconferences (VTCs) with observers/assessors at each of the MOCs. If the ESG saw issues that could affect achievement of exercise objectives, or if they saw opportunities to improve exercise design or execution, they provided that feedback to Exercise Control.

An exercise “hotwash” VTC was conducted at the completion of LSE. The hotwash provided an opportunity for the exercise director, the ESG, higher headquarter role players (11 additional retired admirals and generals led by retired U.S. Navy Admiral James Foggo), and the JFMCC commanders to share their observations and lessons learned of both participant execution and the design of the exercise.

The Center for Naval Analyses (CNA) is in the process of analyzing data that they and multiple other observers and assessors collected during execution. Data was collected from direct observation, electronic LVC playback, the hotwash, and the ESG. The CNA after-action report will include recommendations and lessons learned. The recommendations and lessons learned will support multiple feedback loops. Those loops include:

• Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (TTPs) updates/development
• Training syllabus updates
• Capability gap and future requirements identification in support of future budget requests
• Exercise design for future LSEs

This is the second iteration of the Large Scale Exercise series, and the next is planned for 2025. How is the Navy linking the LSEs and their lessons learned over the arc of the series?

As mentioned, one of the feedback loops from LSE is the design of the exercise. The planning team took numerous exercise design lessons learned from LSE 2021 and incorporated them into the LSE 2023 design. We are in the process of analyzing initial LSE 2023 lessons learned, and additional lessons learned will be pulled from the final after-action report. The planning team will then determine which of those lessons we can action as we begin LSE 2025 planning in early 2024.

Capt. Chris Narducci is a 1996 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy. He has completed multiple tours as a P-3C Orion pilot. His additional assignments included action officer with the Joint Staff J6, command of the 33d Flying Training Squadron, Vance AFB, and as navigator on USS Harry S Truman. He has been serving as the LSE lead planner with U.S. Fleet Forces Command since August 2019.

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

Featured Image: ADRIATIC SEA (August 14, 2023) Aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78) steams in formation alongside the Blue Ridge-class command and control ship USS Mount Whitney (LCC 20), the flagship of U.S. 6th Fleet. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Mario Coto)

By Dmitry Filipoff

Dale Rielage recently spoke with CIMSEC about the role of Navy staffs in command and modern naval warfare. A retired Navy Captain, Dale has captured the lessons of his long experience in the Navy Staff Officer’s Guide: Leading with Impact from Squadron to OPNAV, a new book in the U.S. Naval Institute professional series. A long-time CIMSEC contributor, he has been a critical voice in professional debates about how the Navy should face the challenges of the Pacific and China as a pacing challenge. In this conversation, Capt. Rielage discusses the enduring value of naval staff work, how commanders and their staffs can best work together, and what fleet-level warfare means for preparing navy staffs.

Why a book about staff work?

Why indeed? Of all the services, the Navy probably has the most negative view of its own staffs and staff work in general. Our identity is grounded in the first six frigates of our Navy. We remember them as independent commands, sent abroad under legendary captains with general orders to defend the interests of the new nation. To this day, the concept of “sustained superior performance at sea” does not include much place for staff work. We get together with shipmates and tell sea stories, not staff stories, right?

And while that identity is core to who we are as a service, it is also incomplete. More than a century ago naval warfare reached a level of complexity that requires a commander to be supported by a team of professionals – a staff – to inform and execute their operational design. And the sinews of maritime power are built over years through complex processes and interlocking decisions made by Navy staffs.

I have always been befuddled by staff-adverse naval officers who criticize their manning, their communications plan, their logistic support, the tactics, techniques, and procedures that their teams are taught in schoolhouses, the design of the platforms they operate, and other essential functions. They know on some level these functions are the product of other naval professionals working through a staff process, and yet the criticizing officers do not want to invest in that process.

So first and foremost, I wrote this book to convey two core truths. First, staff work matters. It does not win the fight, but it can lose it before it ever begins, and sometimes years before. Second, naval officers are not born knowing how to be effective staff officers. Like any part of the naval profession, it is a learned skill, and true professionals will apply themselves to learning it the same way they hone their craft at sea.

How is a staff assignment different than serving in the operating forces? What unique opportunities and perspectives can officers encounter on a staff assignment?

First, I would point out the diversity of Navy staffs, ranging from a destroyer squadron to a major type commander. Navy staffs serve ashore and afloat, and many in both categories are, in every sense, operational every single day.

Trying to generalize across that diverse population, staffs tend to be indirect contributors to success, providing the means for other forces, present and future, to do their work. Staffs are also often focused on a longer timeframe than the forces they serve – whether that is the operation-after-next, or conceiving, designing, and delivering a new naval platform. In some cases, staff issues endure indefinitely – think about providing naval stores to the fleet. This reality means that few staff officers experience the start or the end of a project. They shape long-term work that is then handed on to others to continue.

This dynamic means that the success and rewards for good staff work are rarely direct and immediate. Some officers never get past their need for instant gratification and struggle through their staff experience as a result. There is an element of unselfishness in good staff work. An officer has to be willing to work hard and thoughtfully on things that may not come to fruition for years, and if they eventually do, the contributing officers may not earn distinct credit.

That said, staff work can also be a uniquely rewarding experience for a developing naval leader. Staffs usually deal with a larger scope of action than do individual operational elements. For an officer who aspires to have influence or to command beyond the bounds of a single platform, a staff job is where that broad insight and vision is usually first developed. A staff tour also often offers opportunity to work directly with more senior leaders. We learn by example. A staff tour is where you get to see senior Navy leaders grappling with hard challenges up close, day after day. You also often have the chance to expand thinking beyond the stovepipe of a single operational community. A large naval staff has just about every type of naval professional – all the warfare communities, restricted line specialties, civilians, contractors – all dedicated to the mission. It can be a unique learning laboratory for the officer who is willing to invest the time and effort.

You explicitly note that a staff functions to help a commander exercise their authority, and that the authority of the staff derives from the commander’s responsibilities. What does a staff need to understand about their commander and their intent to best support them? How can a commander set enduring guidance to effectively empower the staff?

Staffs are about command – either supporting a commander’s decision-making or carrying out their decisions. That means any staff is a creature of the commander. An effective staff officer understands that fact and immediately focuses on a couple key questions. First, what matters to the commander? How do they take information most effectively? Who do they interact with up and down their chain of command? I am always concerned about staff officers who never consider these fundamentals and struggle as a result.

Commanders who are served by a staff need to learn to use their staff as an essential asset, no differently than they might have learned how best to use an afloat command structure as young officers. Clear and deliberate communication to the staff of their needs and expectations is no different than writing clear, thoughtful night orders, but it is much rarer.

Commanders also need to cultivate trust with their staff in a deliberate way. The complexity of the issues that confront most staffs, their longer timelines, and interlocking structures can make it easier to bury unpleasant information, at least for a time. This is especially true when a commander has conveyed through their actions that they do not value candor. I will tell senior staff officers and commanders that if they cannot remember the last time their thinking was challenged by their staff – and I do not mean gentle pushback, but full-on disagreement – they are likely failing on some level.

I love General Omar Bradley’s recollection of his experience when General George C. Marshall took over as Army Chief of Staff on the eve of World War II. At the end of Marshall’s first week in the job, he gathered his team, including a young Lieutenant Colonel Bradley. The staff thought they had made a pretty good first impression on their new boss, and were bewildered when he expressed disappointment in their performance. Marshall noted that, while the staff was professional and thoughtful, in the course of the week no one had disagreed with him. That was, in Marshall’s assessment, a sign that they were not fully executing their duties.

You have chapters on the functional areas that correspond with the N-codes of a major staff. Given your specific background, how does the staff intelligence team (N2) best support the commander, and how can the commander best leverage their intelligence and information operations team? How can the staff N2 integrate with the other elements of the staff?

The Navy is about prompt and sustained combat operations at sea. That means an adversary, whether a real, specific adversary or a hypothetical future adversary, needs to be central to our thinking. The intelligence team, whether one Sailor or 150, is uniquely tasked to understand and articulate these adversaries to the commander and the staff. Early in World War II, Fleet Admiral Nimitz told his intelligence officer, then LCDR Eddie Layton, that his job was to be the opposing commander for the staff, and that if he did, he would provide the Pacific Fleet with the insight it needed. That remains true today. The danger is that the requirement to manage the process of intelligence, collections or targeting, or integrating with a wider information warfare enterprise, for example, has increasingly become seen as a substitute for deep understanding of the adversary.

Assuming that penetrating understanding is achieved, taking full advantage of it requires both that intelligence professionals understand operations and that operators understand intelligence. I have often reflected that, at its best, intelligence delivers a relationship, not simply a product. Leaders take insight from people they trust. For Navy seniors, that relationship is usually built through shared experiences in Navy staffs.

You note that with the return of great power competition, the fleet has now been defined by the Navy as its basic combat formation. The CNO is calling for a renewed focus on fleet-level warfare, but these fleets are a larger-scale entity than the CSGs, ARGs, and other typical formations of recent decades. How can the fleet staffs better manifest this operational warfighting role to prepare for great power conflict? How can large-scale exercises and wargames hone the warfighting skills of fleet-level staffs and their commanders?

It is interesting how the current challenges the Navy is facing are pushing it back to the integrated fleet model of naval warfare. From the beginning of the battleship era through the end of the Cold War, the fleet was the unit of action for the Navy. Only a fleet could integrate all the capabilities of naval power across a broad ocean area, defend and attack across multiple domains, and sustain that capability for as long as was required for strategic effect. The idea that a single small formation – and in naval terms, a carrier strike group or surface action group is small – could be the unit of action was really only tenable in limited operations against adversaries who were not peers in the maritime domain.

Today, the material elements of fleet-level operations still exist. Bringing fleet-level staffs back into warfighting is more challenging, in part because it is a cultural change, and cultural change takes time. Individual unit training is core to our operations – every officer knows training is non-negotiable for safe and effective operational performance. Training for fleet-level operations, however, remains a work in progress. One of the many reasons that the interwar Fleet Problems have gained attention recently is that they were true fleet-level exercises, stressing free-play combat against live thinking adversaries, with fleet staffs adapting to dynamic operational-level problems. There are many ways to train Navy staffs to work at this level – wargaming, as you mention. But to do so, they need to be truly dynamic events and not simply concept rehearsals. They also need to be more than one-off events that an officer may encounter only once in a tour. Repetition matters.

You focus much attention on how staffs communicate and the various approaches to sharing ideas and products. What can effective communication look like, such as for an individual staff officer, staff coordination more broadly, or how the commander communicates with their staff?

Communications is the life-blood of the staff. Yes, the book includes a section on how to use email and computer presentations as communications tools. I was surprised by how many experienced staff officers have told me that this part of the book was the most valuable for them, or would have been, had they known these tips when they were starting out.

Really, for new staff officers, the big lesson is being deliberate in their approach to communications. Pick the right tool for the desired effect; use it with care and intent. Communication – a slick brief, for example – is never a substitute for insight and expertise. Usually, however, naval officers coming into staff tours know their stuff, or they learn fast, but even brilliant ideas need to be shared with rigor, power, and persuasion in the right medium to have enduring effect at scale.

For commanders, the hardest issue is usually making time to communicate with their staffs. The best make time, formal and informal, knowing that this interaction – the provision of clear guidance and vision, the power of their example – ultimately saves time by aligning the staff to serve their needs, and, through them, the mission. The tyranny of the present makes that hard, especially in a culture that expects commanders to be always connected.

Throughout the book you share vignettes that illustrate what good (and not so good) staff work looks like. What can the career of Admiral Arleigh Burke teach us about how to do good staff work and what its legacy may be?

It says something that most naval officers do not think of Arleigh Burke as a staff officer.

When I was a young surface warfare officer, Admiral Burke was held up to us as the premier example of what we should aspire to be as warriors at sea. We all know the legend – Commodore Burke, commanding a destroyer squadron at a critical moment when the U.S. surface force was not doing well against the Imperial Japanese Navy. His style of command, perfecting innovative tactics and employing them with audacity, led to some of the most extraordinary U.S. Navy surface victories of the war. At moments when the material odds were essentially even, Burke simply out-fought his opponents.

It was only when a dear friend, Dr. David Rosenberg, shared with me his collection of Arleigh Burke’s papers that I grew to appreciate Burke as a staff officer. After his squadron command, Burke was sent to be Vice Admiral Marc Mitscher’s Chief of Staff. Mitscher commanded most of the fast aircraft carriers in the Pacific. Burke’s assignment was part of a thoughtful effort by Fleet Admiral King to ensure that surface admirals had aviator chiefs of staff, and that aviator admirals had a surface officer as their chief of staff. Burke struggled with this assignment. In his letters to his wife, Burke anguished about how he was failing as a staff officer, that he thought Mitscher disliked him, that he did not have a grasp of air power even though his job was employing the largest assembly of naval aviation in history.

In the end, Burke was brilliant. He formed an excellent team with Mitscher, and the two came to respect each other deeply. He took his tight, clear style of conveying tactical orders and scaled it to the fleet level. He learned how to fight not just a surface action group, but to employ the full multi-domain power of a modern fleet. Arguably, Burke’s staff work enabling Third Fleet’s drive across the Pacific contributed far more to victory than his relatively short period in operational command of DESRON 23. And in his later senior tours, including three tours as Chief of Naval Operations and a member of the Joint Chiefs, Burke’s ability to establish the shape of the Cold War Navy – remember, Burke was the CNO who gave the Navy its nuclear SSBN force – was through his staff. His papers are full of truly thoughtful notes to the OPNAV staff, focusing them on the important rather than the urgent, often with his trademark sense of humor.

So what I take from Admiral Burke’s career is twofold. First, he was a great warrior at sea, but his largest impact on the World War and his enduring impact across decades of our Navy came from him using that warfighting insight as part of and commanding Navy staffs. Second, even Arleigh Burke had to learn how to be a staff officer as part of his path to extraordinary impact on our Navy.

Captain Dale C. Rielage, USN (Ret.), is a former surface warfare and naval intelligence officer with eleven tours on Navy and Joint staffs afloat and ashore, including as an N-code Director in two Maritime Operations Centers, and special assistant to the Chief of Naval Operations. He is the author of several dozen articles on maritime and security issues.

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

Featured Image: YOKOSUKA, Japan (May 7, 2021) – The U.S. 7th Fleet Information Warfare Commander (IWC) holds a conference with task force IW leaders throughout the 7th Fleet and Pacific Fleet. (U.S. Navy photo)