Category Archives: Notes to New CNO Week

Notes to New CNO Week

Reestablish the Strategic Studies Group

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Notes to the New CNO Topic Week

By Commander Chris O’Connor, USN, and Lieutenant Commander Ryan Hilger, USN

In April 2016, Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Admiral John Richardson directed the Strategic Studies Group (SSG) to disband. The SSG had become irrelevant, despite, as the CNO states, “[producing] some ground-breaking ideas that have moved our Navy forward.” Some commentators agreed, accusing the SSG of becoming too technology focused and a waste of resources. But the history of the SSG and the lessons that it might provide for the Navy in a new era of great power competition are compelling. The SSG’s original mandate, to develop and propose innovative warfighting concepts against peer competitors (initially the Soviet Union), is quite relevant today. The new CNO should reestablish the SSG along these lines to develop a new generation of strategists and operational concepts for Navy and Marine Corps warfighting. 

In 1981, after several years of debate amongst Navy and Marine Corps flag officers over his strategic concepts, CNO Admiral Thomas Hayward chartered Robert Murray, the outgoing Undersecretary of the Navy, to establish the Strategic Studies Group. Murray, after wrestling with many issues, finally settled on the SSG model: a small cohort of officers (augmented with civilian specialists in later years) reporting directly to the CNO, with unprecedented access to senior leaders that would produce a tightly-focused study on some aspect of maritime strategy. Various aspects of strategy could be tackled over successive cohorts to allow for a single cohort to conduct a deep analysis of the problem. 

After overcoming the initial defensiveness of senior leaders, the SSG found a pragmatic audience, accruing many champions. Most senior leaders came around to see the benefit for developing a “strategy in a vacuum” as a way of diversifying strategic thought and refining the conventional maritime strategy, something the Navy lacked. Over the next several years, the SSG would develop the core of the operational strategy to defeat the Soviets in conventional war. Their influence would reach Secretary of the Navy John Lehman and would be a major shaping force of the Maritime Strategy he released. 

This version of the SSG is desperately needed today. Not the last iteration, rechartered under CNO Admiral Boorda in 1995, which for two decades focused on the nexus of emerging technology and new operating concepts (railgun, electromagnetic maneuver warfare, net-centric warfare) against an undefined adversary. The Naval War College (NWC), Naval Warfare Development Command, or Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) did not fit well with this assignment, despite their assertions. Their overall focus is on academic research or tactical doctrine, not maritime strategy at the operational level of war. Individuals at NWC or NPS often lack the high-level access and diversity of thought from well-crafted teams to produce revolutionary strategies. Given the strategic challenges that we face, the operating costs of a reestablished SSG would pale in comparison to the benefits of developing revolutionary warfighting concepts and re-training leaders to think unconventionally in order to execute those strategies with naval forces across the warfighting domains. The CNO should follow the example of Admiral Hayward by bringing back the SSG and staffing it with our best and brightest people. 

Commander Chris O’Connor and Lieutenant Commander Ryan Hilger both served on CNO Strategic Studies Group XXXIII. Their opinions are their own and do not necessarily represent the Department of the Navy. 

Featured Image: 190822-N-WI365-1014 TAIWAN STRAIT (August 23, 2019) – Ensign Juan Curbelo, from Isabela, Puerto Rico, looks through a bearing circle while standing watch as the conning officer on the bridge of amphibious transport dock ship USS Green Bay (LPD 20). (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Markus Castaneda)

Notes to New CNO Week

Make Crew Endurance an Operational Warfighting Imperative

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Notes to the New CNO Topic Week

By Captain John Cordle, USN (ret.)

Admiral Gilday, we are classmates from the Naval Academy, SWOSDOC, and the PCO course. I have watched and admired your career for nearly four decades. You are the right person at the right time to make crew endurance a priority. After the tragic deaths of 17 Sailors in 2017, the Navy made progress in this direction, but there is still much left to do. Now is the time to accelerate the learning process and leverage the benefits of circadian watches and crew endurance policies into a Navy-wide mindset that values and prioritizes personal readiness.

Like you, I have studied — and lived with — sleep deprivation, fatigue, and their pernicious effects for decades. While in command of San Jacinto (CG-56), I used a circadian watch bill at sea, and the performance and morale of my crew made me a believer. While not a perfect cure for everything, it works. 

Navy researchers like Dr. Nita Shattuck and Dr. Kimberly Culley have amassed a mountain of research to support the safety, operational, and long-term health impacts of circadian-based schedules, and many current commanding officers have seen the benefits. Although the human body needs at least seven hours of good quality sleep, a commanding officer studied by Dr. Shattuck slept on average only 5.2 hours per 24-hour period, including naps, which resulted in a state of chronic fatigue while deployed. Additionally, he spent approximately 15 percent of the deployment at a fatigue level equivalent to a person with a blood alcohol concentration of 0.08 percent, i.e., “legally drunk.” (See Figure 1.) Many studies show that the averages are not much different for the Sailors as well.

Major sleep episodes of a U.S. Navy commanding officer during a deployment (Shattuck and Matsangas, 2015)

I challenge my two friends and shipmates, you and Chief of Naval Personnel Admiral John Nowell, to prioritize crew rest and endurance as a warfighting imperative. This can be done through several initiatives.

Launching a Crew Endurance Panel to chart the progress on combating fatigue across the Navy. Bring in experts and operational commanders to create momentum in training the force on human requirements for sleep, the operational benefits of it, and the best practices for ensuring rest on shore and at sea. There are too many independent efforts that are not coordinated. Your leadership can change this.

Promulgating a Crew Endurance Policy by the end of 2019 to convert the guiding principles of circadian watch rotations, daily routines built around the watchstanders, and best practices to mitigate fatigue into operational priorities for the entire Navy. SUBFOR and SURFOR have paved the way; their instructions and NATOPS (the aviators have always gotten it!) can be used as models.

Establishing a Center of Excellence to craft educational products, track implementation, and train the force in the science of sleep, always striving to keep the minds and bodies of Sailors sharp. The Naval Postgraduate School would be the perfect place. Establish the SWOS and Senior Enlisted training that was recommended by the CR, but is still not yet in place two years hence.

The Navy owes Sailors a culture that maintains its people with the same rigorous mindset and planning as the maintenance of its ships and aircraft. Proper crew rest and sleep hygiene not only improve the daily performance and long-term endurance of our personnel in stressful environments, but best practices will lead to better long-term health outcomes when our Sailors leave the service. This aligns perfectly with (and in reality, is a necessary prerequisite for) other recent initiatives, such as “mindfulness” and “toughness.” You can recapture the sense of urgency that we all felt in the summer of 2017 but has since waned. Standing by to help!

Captain Cordle retired from the Navy in 2013 after 30 years of service. He commanded the USS Oscar Austin (DDG-79) and USS San Jacinto (CG-56), and received the U.S. Navy League’s Captain John Paul Jones Award for Inspirational Leadership in 2010.

Featured Image: PACIFIC OCEAN (Sept. 11, 2019) Sailors transit through Pearl Harbor aboard Independence-class Littoral Combat Ship USS Gabrielle Giffords (LCS 10) during sea and anchor detail. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Kenneth Rodriguez Santiago/Released)

Notes to New CNO Week

Prepare for Autonomous Undersea Conflict

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Notes to the New CNO Topic Week

By David Strachan

Undersea warfare is entering an era of profound transformation due to the increasing sophistication and proliferation of unmanned systems. But while their roles, missions, and concepts of operation have been thoroughly analyzed, the ultimate deployment of autonomous, expendable vehicles in a shadowy, hostile environment could unfold in ways that have yet to be fully imagined. When this is considered against the current geopolitical backdrop of hybrid warfare and gray zone operations (with the line separating competition from conflict growing blurrier by the day), conditions are ripe for the emergence of a new front in great power rivalry that could redefine the very nature of undersea warfare.

Operating within an opaque, clandestine domain, autonomous undersea vehicles (AUVs) will employ kinetic and non-kinetic means to disrupt, degrade, and destroy, subsuming every aspect of undersea warfare under the umbrella of autonomous undersea conflict, including:

  • ISR: AUVs will conduct and actively counter covert monitoring of maritime operations on the high seas, in the littorals, and within ports, coastal facilities, and inland waters.
  • Mine Warfare: No longer simply “weapons that wait,” AUVs will surveil, penetrate, blockade, stalk, strike, and defend against such operations by adversary vehicles.
  • ASW: AUVs will detect, classify, track and engage adversary submersibles, and will actively disrupt and degrade adversary ASW operations.
  • Seabed Warfare: AUVs will disrupt, infiltrate, strike and defend critical seabed infrastructure, such as undersea cables, recharging and data exfiltration stations, and listening posts.

In order to prepare for autonomous undersea conflict, future force investments should emphasize the counter-UUV (CUUV) mission, specifically:

  • Artificial Intelligence: CUUV operations will require highly advanced AI, as they will occur in a complex, dynamic, communications-denied environment, and under intense conditions that demand rapid-fire decision-making based on real-time situational and contextual awareness.
  • Energy: The complexity of CUUV operations will demand high levels of stored energy to power advanced processing and sophisticated payloads, as well as the propulsive power and maneuverability required for kinetic engagements.
  • Collaboration: Pods of AUVs working together will provide expendability, redundancy, wide operating coverage, and will provide tactical overmatch during CUUV engagements.
  • Miniaturization: Small, expendable, agile, and lethal AUVs will be preferable to slower, larger, high-value AUVs which will be vulnerable to adversary CUUV operations.
  • Weaponization: CUUV operations will include non-kinetic effects to deceive, disrupt and degrade, and to infiltrate adversary undersea networks. Kinetic effects will include proximity and contact detonation for near or complete target neutralization, or “true” kinetic energy strikes to achieve mission kills.

For now, autonomous undersea conflict is the stuff of science fiction, and perhaps this vision may not come to fruition within the next few years. But an autonomous undersea revolution is coming, and with it the need to anticipate and prepare for the myriad operational scenarios that could ensue. The plans laid today will ensure that the Navy stands ready to confront the challenges and opportunities of tomorrow.

David R. Strachan is a naval analyst and founder of Strikepod Systems LLC (strikepod.com), a provider of current and strategic fiction intelligence (FICINT) on global naval affairs, with an emphasis on unmanned undersea systems. He can be found on Twitter @Strikepod, and can be reached at david.strachan@strikepod.com.

Featured Image: ROV Deep Discoverer documents the benthic communities at Paganini Seamount during the Deep-Sea Symphony: Exploring the Musicians Seamounts expedition. (Image courtesy of the NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and Research, Deep-Sea Symphony: Exploring the Musicians Seamounts.)

Notes to New CNO Week

Two Unaddressed Problems in the Surface Navy

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Notes to the New CNO Topic Week

By Matthew Harper, CDR, USN (ret.) 

A lot has been written about the troubles of the U.S. Navy’s surface force, but two underlying institutional problems have not been fully addressed. The failure to address these flaws promises that the U.S. Navy’s surface force will continue to risk generating less capable Sailors who are more risk averse and less tactically astute.

There are far too many Junior Officers (JOs) aboard ships. Around 2000-2001 the Surface Navy began to put double or even triple the number of ensigns onboard ships. For a DDG-51-class destroyer, instead of having 4–5 ensigns, they would have 8–10 or even more. On larger ships such as cruisers or amphibious ships the numbers could be even higher.

Having too many JOs onboard a ship means many do not get the needed experience for when they become department heads and commanding officers. As a result, during their division officer tours, JOs were getting far less time learning how to make independent decisions on the bridge and in the CIC. If a junior surface warfare officer doesn’t develop proficiency at driving a ship, understanding all the instruments they have available, and coordinating with and utilizing the CIC, then they will have a much more difficult time developing those skills later in their careers. Now those original excess JOs are the current generation of surface ship COs and XOs.

There are far too many internal requirements. It is already known that the Surface Navy’s operational tempo is crushing, but a significant increase in mission area requirements within the lifelines of the ship itself also impacts operations. Navy surface ships are required to do far too many certifications, inspections, and qualifications, and with too few Sailors the ship as a whole has less time to effectively train and earns less experience in all mission areas to include seamanship and navigation.

At roughly the same time ships were getting more JOs they also received three additional mission areas that added significant strain to an already overloaded set of requirements. Specifically, all Navy ships added Anti-Terrorism/Force Protection after the USS Cole bombing and 9/11, a few years later certain DDGs began adding Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD), and more recently all have added cybersecurity. All three missions require significant calendar time for the crew and impose additional requirements for leaders to learn. Put another way, using rough numbers and dropping areas that have minimal impact on the entire ship, the Anti-Terrorism/Force Protection, Ballistic Missile Defense, and cybersecurity mission areas have added roughly 20 percent more requirements to the workload of a U.S. Navy BMD destroyer.

While these missions have real value, their introduction was not matched by a corresponding offset of other requirements, inhibiting the crews’ abilities to develop real proficiency in not only those three new mission areas but all others as well. By failing to adjust the risk calculus as it is reflected in the mission areas and requirements assigned, the Navy only incurred more risk.

All of the mistakes made on the Fitz and McCain could and should have been mitigated by an experienced crew of officers, including the JOs on the bridge, the department head and JOs in CIC, and the XO and CO. But both the COs and XOs of Fitz and McCain were the products of having too many ensigns aboard and suffocating internal requirements that demanded significant increases in focus, time, and training when there was zero to spare. While this doesn’t necessarily point to direct causation of those fatal collisions, these two problems significantly contributed to the Fitz and McCain disasters and risk the systemic atrophy of the Surface Navy as a whole.

Matthew Harper, Commander, U.S. Navy (ret.) was a Surface Warfare Officer who served on three DDG-51 class destroyers, USS Cole (DDG 67), USS Shoup (DDG 86), and most recently as Executive Officer on USS Curtis Wilbur (DDG 54). In addition to performing three days of damage control after a terrorist attack on USS COLE, he holds a Masters in Public Administration from Harvard Kennedy School and is an award winning author for “Chinese Missiles and the Walmart Factor,” published in the U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings.

Featured Image: 190711-N-DX072-1117 TASMAN SEA (July 11, 2019) The U.S. Navy Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS William P. Lawrence (DDG 110) transits with the amphibious transport dock ship USS Green Bay (LPD 20) in a photo exercise (PHOTOEX) during Talisman Sabre 2019. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Anaid Banuelos Rodriguez)