Drones/Unmanned

Manning the Unmanned Systems of SSN(X)

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By LCDR James Landreth, USN, and LT Andrew Pfau, USN

In Forging the Apex Predator, we published the results of a new analytical model that defined the limitations and constraints for the United States Navy’s Next Generation Attack Submarine (SSN(X)) concept of operations (CONOPS) for coordinating multiple unmanned undersea vehicles (UUV). Using a Model Based Systems Engineering approach, we studied tradeoffs associated with the number of UUVs, crew complement and UUV crew work schedule. The first iteration of our analysis identified crew complement as the limiting factor in multi-UUV, or “swarm,” operations. Identifying ways to maximize UUV operations with the small footprint crew required aboard submarines is critical to future SSN(X) design. Not all potential UUV missions require continuous human operator involvement. Seafloor surveys, mine detection, and passive undersea cable monitoring for ships can all occur largely independent of human supervision. The damage to Norwegian undersea cables in late 2021, potentially caused by a UUV, hints at the critical nature of this capability for 21st century conflict.1 By identifying operations that require less human supervision, CONOPs for SSN(X) can be tailored to maximize crew and UUV employment. The requirements for training and manning the crews to employ UUVs must be part of the considerations of creating the SSN(X) program.

The submarine force needs sailors with specialized skills to maintain, operate and integrate UUVs into SSN(X) operations. Because the submarine force and the United States Navy at large lack a documented, repeatable, and formalized process for training UUV operators and maintainers, the qualitative concept and computational model presented in this article offers a bridge to scaling multi-UUV operations. The Navy needs to develop codified training and manning requirements for UUV operations and the infrastructure, both physical and intellectual, to support unmanned systems operations. The recommendations discussed here are focused on the specific use case of UUVs deployed from manned submarines.

Defining the Human Operator’s Role in “The Loop”

In order to define a strategy to man SSN(X)’s UUV mission, the submarine force must first define the possible operational and maintenance relationships between man-unmanned teams. Once the desired relationships are defined, then the relevant activities can be listed and manpower estimates can be made for each SSN(X) and for the entire fleet. The importance of this definition and the resultant estimates cannot be understated. For example, launch and recovery of a medium UUV may be seen as consistent with existing Navy Enlisted Classifications (NECs) currently required in torpedo rooms across the fleet. Novel functions like “coordination of autonomous UUV swarms” has many supporting tasks that the Navy’s education enterprise is not yet resourced to meet. Identification of the human tasks required to meet the concept of operations (CONOP) is an essential component of integrated design for SSN(X).

The original model optimized five primary variables with a number of trial configurations, and found the most critical component for maximizing the battle efficiency of SSN(X)’s UUVs was crew support. Specifically, the model identified that the human resources consumed per UUV was the limiting relationship for the UUV swarm size deployable from a single hull. The first version of the trade study varied (a) the number of UUV crews available to support UUV operations and (b) the duration of these shifts, and used a human-in-the-loop configuration, which established a 1:1 relationship between crew and UUV. In order to employ multiple UUVs at once, the model consumed additional UUV crews for each UUV operating and/or increased the length of UUV crew’s shift. This manpower intensive model quickly constrained the number of UUVs that a single hull could employ at once.

Informed by the limitations that human resources placed on SSN(X)’s UUV mission, we updated the systems model to inform the critical task of “manning the unmanned systems.” Submariners and those who support their operations know the premium placed on each additional person inside the pressure hull. Additional crew members can limit the duration of a mission whether by food consumption, bed space, or breathing too much oxygen. As a result, any CONOP that adds a significant human compliment inside the skin of SSN(X) is likely to founder. Additionally, personnel operating and maintaining the UUVs will have a specific set of training, proficiency and career pathway requirements, whose cost will scale with the complexity of the UUV system and CONOP.

The original model was based on unmanned aerial systems (UAVs) operations and followed the manning concept of Group 5 UAVs, where one pilot is consumed continuously by an armed drone. Significant differences in operating environments between UAVs and UUVs necessitate different operating models. Due to the rapid attenuation of light and electronic signals in the undersea domain, data exchange between platforms occurs at relatively low speeds over comparatively limited distances unless connected by wire. This means that the global continuous command, control and communication CONOP available to UAVs will not transfer to UUVs. Instead, SSN(X) UUV operators will control their UUVs during operations relatively close to their manned platform, where the mothership and UUVs will share the same water space during launch and recovery. Communications at longer range will occur less frequently and be status updates to the operator rather than continuous or detailed. Separating the concern about counter detection and interception of acoustic signals, communications at range is possible.2

The unique physical characteristics of the underwater domain make communications one of the most challenging aspects of multi-UUV operations.

Putting connectivity differences aside, the manpower required for this human-in-the-loop model is unnecessarily limiting for the expected UUV CONOP. Alternate models are presented in Autonomous Horizons: The Way Forward, which details the roles for three man-machine team concepts: human-in-the-loop, human-on-the-loop and human-out-of-the-loop. A human-on-the-loop scenario would allow an operator to supervise a coordinated swarm rather than a single asset. This would be less efficient than fully autonomous operation, but dramatically improve the number of UUVs a SSN(X) could deploy as a swarm. Operations performed in this control mode would be limited to those that do not present a hazard to humans but require careful supervision such as a coordinated offensive search or scanning a mine field. Finally, a human-out-of-the-loop scenario would require the fewest human resources and maximize the number of UUVs an SSN(X) could effectively employ, but its mission scope is assumed to be limited to non-kinetic activities (“shaping operations”). Figure 1 provides a visualization of how mission role and levels of autonomy impact human resource requirements.

Given the multi-mission role that SSN(X) and its UUV swarm will play, the updated model offers three man-machine team configurations that could be matched to given missions. SSN(X) requirements officers, submarine mission planners and submarine community managers must understand these man-machine configurations in order to inform SSN(X)’s human resource strategy:

  1. In-the-Loop. The authors assumed that certain missions such as weapons engagement will continue to require a human-in-the-loop architecture where a human is continuously supervising or controlling the actions of a given UUV. As such, the original model results were retained to represent these activities and provide a baseline for comparison against the two other architectures.
  2. On-the-Loop. Directed missions like coordinated search or enemy tracking that could be precursors to human-in-the-loop scenarios benefit from the supervision of a human operator. In a human-on-the-loop architecture, the UUV operator is collaborating with one or more UUVs. The UUVs operate with a degree of autonomy and prompt the operator when they require human direction. The study assumed each operator could coordinate up to 3 UUVs, though this number is a first approximation. Further experimentation might show that this number could be significantly larger.
  3. Out-of-the-Loop. In this architecture, the UUV(s) engage in fully autonomous activities. They remain receptive to commands from the operator but require no input to perform their assigned role. The study assumed that an operator could coordinate up to 18 UUVs in a fully autonomous mode.3 However, this could scale as a multiple if SSN(X) could perform simultaneous launch and recovery operations from multiple ocean interfaces.

By affording the model the scale available from on-the-loop and out-of-the-loop control modes, the predicted swarm of UUVs could easily triple the area surveyed in a 24-hour period. Detailed results of the updated model are provided in Appendix 1. The submarine force must first consider its need to generate UUV crews for SSN(X), regardless of their mode of operation. More complex UUV operations will require greater skill investment, and more actively used UUVs per hull will impose a greater maintenance burden on the crew. Figure 1 illustrates the important relationship between UUV complexity, control mode, mission role across the range of military operations.

Figure 1. Man-Machine Teaming Based on Mission Role

Current Situation Report

The Navy’s guiding document for unmanned systems, the Unmanned Campaign Framework (UCF), addresses how Type Commanders will “equip” the fleet, but the Navy should expand the UCF to include how Type Commanders will perform their “man and train” missions.4 The realities of unmanned technologies will require new training for existing rates and potentially new specialized ratings. The “man and train” demand signals will become louder as the skills required for UUV operations and maintenance grow as a function of UUV complexity5 and scale6 of operations. Establishing a central schoolhouse and formal curriculum for officer and enlisted UUV skills is a strategic imperative. As a reminder, SSN(X)’s requirements demand complex UUV operations at scale.

The Navy has organized UUVs into four primary groups based on size. Figure 2 shows the categorization of UUVs into small, medium, large and extra-large UUV (SUUV, MUUV, LUUV, and XLUUV). The current groupings are based on the ocean interface required to deploy each UUV, but as the Navy develops its UUV CONOP, the submarine force would be wise to borrow from the similar categorization of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) in the Joint Unmanned Aircraft Systems Minimum Training Standards.7 The five UAV groupings consider not only physical size, mission, and operational envelop but also the qualification level required of the operators. These categories will determine how each UUV category will be employed, with SUUV, MUUV and even some LUUVs able to be deployed from manned submarine motherships. The complexity and skill required to operate UUVs will also scale with size, with larger UUVs able to carry more sensors at greater endurance. These categorizations easily translate into training and manpower requirements for operations, with more training and personnel required for larger UUVs.

Figure 2: UUV System Categorization by PMS 406. Click to expand.8

Almost all of the platforms illustrated in Figure2 are currently in the experimental phase, with only a few copies of each UUV platform available for test and evaluation. At least one UUV platform, the Knifefish, is moving into low-rate initial production.9 As the Navy moves to acquire more UUVs, it will have to transition its training of sailors from an ad hoc deployment specific training to codified schoolhouses.

In line with the experimental nature of current UUVs, the units that operate and maintain UUV systems also exist in the early phases. The Unmanned Undersea Vehicle Squadron 1 (UUVRON 1), and Surface Development Squadron 1 (SURFDEVRON 1) are tasked with testing unmanned systems and developing tactics, techniques, and procedures for their operation. Task Force 59, operating in the 5th Fleet area, is the first operational Navy command that seeks to work across communities to bring unmanned assets together for testing and operations. Sailors assigned to these commands will learn many unmanned-specific skills and knowledge on the job because the skills they bring from their fleet assignments may or may not be applicable. Similar to the schoolhouse challenge, establishing maintenance centers of excellence and expanding the work of development squadrons are essential pillars of the unmanned manpower strategy.10

Preparing for the Future

The Navy must train sailors for two primary UUV tasks: operations and maintenance. While the same sailor may be trained and capable of performing both tasks on UUVs, manpower models must accommodate enough personnel to simultaneously operate UUVs while performing maintenance on one or more other UUVs.

The submarine force can examine the operational training models that exists for UAVs where the size and capabilities of the UAV determine training requirements. The Department of the Navy already provides training for a range of UAV classes and missions including: RQ-21 Blackjack, ScanEagle, MQ-4 Triton, MQ-8C Fire Scout, and a number of other joint programs of record. The UAV training requirements exist in various stages of maturity, but on average exceed UUVs by several years or even decades due to early investment by both military and civilian organizations like the Federal Aviation Administration. Requirements for UAV training vary widely based on grouping. Qualification timelines for Group 1 UAVs like small quadcopters can be measured in days. Weapons-carrying or advanced UAVs like the MQ-9 Reaper require operators who have received years of training similar to manned aircraft pilots.

The Navy, Army and Marine Corps have established military occupational designations for roles related to UAVs, including maintenance and flight operations. They have established training courses to certify service operators and maintainers for a wide variety of UAV platforms. In contrast, the Navy has yet to promulgate a plan for Navy Enlisted Classifications (NEC) or Officer Additional Qualification Designations (AQD) or establish an equivalent career field for UUV operations at a level of detail consistent with legacy warfare platforms.

In addition to evaluating the transferability of lessons learned from the UAV community, the submarine force should incorporate the lessons learned from sister UUV users in the special warfare and explosive ordinance disposal domains. These communities possess the mature UUV technology and operating procedures. The experience of these communities can accelerate the nascent domain knowledge the submarine force has already established as it builds a foundation for multi-UUV operations from SSN(X). Separate from operations, the Navy will need to be able to perform organic-level maintenance tasks on UUVs at sea such as replacing circuit cards, swapping sensor packages, or maintaining propulsion units. Given SSN(X)’s heavy weapons payload requirements, an unmaintained UUV occupying a weapon’s stow will limit its intended multi-mission nature. The Navy will need to train its work force for these maintenance tasks. Just as importantly, UUVs will have to be designed for maintainability, so that basic components can be repaired or replaced at sea.

Manpower Models

However the Navy chooses to train sailors to operate and maintain UUVs, community managers will face a different set of choices when it comes to the organization and manning. There are two different models the Navy primarily uses to organize and man similar units supporting unmanned operations: directly assign sailors with the required skills to operational units or create specialized UUV detachments located in major homeports that then augment deploying units.

The most integrated model would be direct manning of submarines with sailors possessing the NEC or AQD certifying skill in operation and maintenance of UUVs. Each unit would have the number of billets necessary to meet manpower requirements and these sailors would be part of the crew, getting underway and performing duties other than those directly related to UUVs, even when UUVs are not onboard. This model would ensure continuous integration of UUV experts with the rest of the crew. While the crew may gain more knowledge from these experts, the experts may face challenges maintaining their expertise based on the needs of a given deployment. The most significant challenge to maintaining skills will be the availability of UUVs on every submarine and time at sea to practice operations.

The detachment model offers an arguably more proficient set of operators to a deploying unit, but can cause secondary impacts to warfighting culture. The Information Warfare Community (IWC) efficiently supports current submarine operations via the detachment model for certain technical operations. IWC “riders” are welcome compliments for important missions, but the augment nature means that the hosting submarine does not necessarily fully integrate the “rider’s” culture and knowledge into its own. If the submarine force adopted this model, a UUVRON at fleet concentration areas like Groton or Pearl Harbor would have administrative responsibility for sailors with the technical skills to maintain and operate UUVs. These sailors form into detachments and deploy to submarines to conduct operations while deployed. This model requires fewer personnel than a direct manning model, and these sailors will likely become more proficient in UUV operations. However, the rest of the submarine crew (and thus the force as a whole) would become less familiar with UUV operations without a permanent presence of expert sailors.

Both of the direct assignment and detachment manning models have advantages and drawbacks. Quantitatively, the submarine force must assign priorities and human resource availability to the variables within the trade space. Qualitatively, the Navy must determine how tightly UUV operators will be coupled to deploying units, and whether the detachment model can establish the desired UUV culture across the fleet.

Conclusion

Despite the unmanned moniker, UUVs will still require skilled humans to maintain and operate them. SSN(X) requirements officers, mission planners and community managers must provide early input into the types of autonomous missions SSN(X) UUVs will perform and the corresponding skill level required of sailors. To succeed, decision makers can compare the model provided in this article with existing programs of record’s training and certification requirements for UAVs. The submarine force must adopt a framework of training requirements that scales to UUV size and capability, and that framework must include whether UUV sailors will come from specialized detachments like current-day IWC riders or be integrated members of the crew. As the Navy moves UUVs from the test and evaluation to deployment phases and formalizes requirements for SSN(X), skilled sailors must be already in the fleet, ready to receive and operate these systems.

Lieutenant Commander James Landreth, P.E., is a submarine officer in the Navy Reserves and a civilian acquisition professional for the Department of the Navy. He is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy (B.S.) and the University of South Carolina (M.Eng.). The views and opinions expressed here are his own.

Lieutenant Andrew Pfau, USN, is a submariner serving as an instructor at the U.S. Naval Academy. He is a graduate of the Naval Postgraduate School and the U. S. Naval Academy. The views and opinions expressed here are his own.

Appendix 1: Data Comparison between System Optimized for Human-In-the-Loop versus On-the-Loop and Out-of-the-Loop Optima

 

# UUV # Crew Miles Scanned per 24 hrs Utilization
8 4 240 0.25
7 4 240 0.29
6 4 240 0.33
5 4 240 0.4
4 4 240 0.5
3 4 240 0.67
2 3 165 0.69

Table 5. Sample Analysis Results Optimized for Man-in-the-Loop (1:1)

 

# UUV # Crew Crew OPTEMPO UUV Charging Bays Charges per Day Miles Scanned per 24 hrs Utilization Notes ↑↓
8 4 0.5 2 0.33 659 0.69 2.75x ↑ in miles scanned; 2.76x ↑ in utilization
7 4 0.5 2 0.33 577 0.69 2.4x ↑ in miles scanned; 2.37x ↑ in utilization
6 4 0.5 2 0.33 494 0.69 2.06x ↑ in miles scanned; 2.1x ↑ in utilization
5 4 0.5 2 0.33 412 0.69 1.72x ↑ in miles scanned; 1.7x ↑ in utilization
4 4 0.5 2 0.33 330 0.69 1.72x ↑ in miles scanned; 1.7x ↑ in utilization
3 4 0.5 2 0.33 247 0.69 1.03x ↑ in miles scanned; 1.03x ↑ in utilization
2 3 0.5 2 0.33 165 0.69 No change

Table 6. Sample Analysis Results for On-the-Loop (3:1) vs Man-in-the-Loop Optima

# UUV # Crew Crew OPTEMPO UUV Charging Bays Charges per Day Miles Scanned per 24 hrs Utilization Notes
8 4 0.5 2 0.33 659 0.69 No change
7 4 0.5 2 0.33 577 0.69 No change
6 3 0.5 2 0.33 494 0.69 Same output with 1 fewer crew
5 3 0.5 2 0.33 412 0.69 Same output with 1 fewer crew
4 2 0.5 2 0.33 330 0.69 Same output with 2 fewer crew
3 2 0.5 2 0.33 247 0.69 Same output with 2 fewer crew
2 2 0.5 2 0.33 165 0.69 Same output with 1 fewer crew

Table 7. Sample Analysis Results for On-the-Loop (3:1) Re-Optimized

 

# UUV # Crew Miles Scanned per 24 hrs Utilization
8 4 659 0.69
7 4 577 0.69
6 4 494 0.69
5 4 412 0.69
4 4 330 0.69
3 4 247 0.69
2 3 165 0.69
8 2 659 0.69
7 2 577 0.69
6 2 494 0.69
5 2 412 0.69
4 2 330 0.69
3 2 247 0.69
2 2 165 0.69

Table 8. Sample Analysis Results for Out-Of-the-Loop (18:1) vs In-the-Loop Optimal. The same performance metrics of miles scanned and utilization rates are achieved with only 2 crews for the same UUV configurations.

Appendix 2: Analysis Constraint Equations

The following equations were used to develop a reusable parametric model. The model was developed in Cameo Systems Modeler version 19.0 Service Pack 3 with ParaMagic 18.0 using the Systems Modeling Language (SysML). The model was coupled with Matlab 2021a via the Symbolic Math Toolkit plug-in. This model is available to share with interested U.S. Government parties via any XMI compatible modeling environment.

Equation 7b. Crew Availability Equation introduces a new variable called “Number of UUV Managed per Crew.” This variable represents an evolution from the first version of this study, which limited an individual crew and its UUV to a 1:1 relationship. Equation 7a. Crew Availability Equation used in the first version calculations is included for comparison.

Equation 1. Scanning Equation

Equation 2. System Availability Equation

Equation 3. UUV Availability Equation

Equation 4. UUV Duty Cycle Equation

Equation 5. Day Sensor Availability Equation

Equation 6. Night Sensor Availability Equation

Equation 7a. Crew Availability Equation

Equation 7b. Crew Availability Equation

Equation 8. Charge Availability Equation

Equation 9. Utilization Score

Endnotes

1. Thomas Newdick, “Undersea Cable Connecting Norway with Arctic Satellite Station has been Mysteriously Severed”, The War Zone, Jan 10, 2022, online: https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/43828/undersea-cable-connecting-norway-with-arctic-satellite-station-has-been-mysteriously-severed

2. Milica Stojanovic, “On the Relationship Between Capacity and Distance in Underwater Acoustic Communication Channel”, ACM SIGMOBILE Mobile Computing and Communications Review, Vol 11, Issue 4, Oct 2007. Online: https://doi.org/10.1145/1347364.1347373

3. The basis for 18 was that the deployment and recovery of each UUV would consume approximately 4 hours in an anticipated 72-hour UUV mission (72:4 reduces to 18:1).

4. Department of the Navy, “Unmanned Campaign Framework,” Washington, D.C., March, 2021 https://www.navy.mil/Portals/1/Strategic/20210315%20Unmanned%20Campaign_Final_LowRes.pdf?ver=LtCZ-BPlWki6vCBTdgtDMA%3D%3D

5. Complexity refers to the technical sophistication of each UUV and/or the difficulty of executing a mission within a realistic battle space

6. Scale refers to the number of UUVs in a coordinated UUV operation

7. Joint Staff, “Joint Unmanned Aircraft Systems Minimum Training Standards (CJCSI 3255.01, CH1),” Washington, D.C., September 2012

8. Slide 2 of briefing by Captain Pete Small, Program Manager, Unmanned Maritime Systems (PMS 406), entitled “Unmanned Maritime Systems Update,” January 15, 2019, accessed Oct 22, 2021, at https://www.navsea.navy.mil/Portals/103/Documents/Exhibits/SNA2019/UnmannedMaritimeSys-Small.pdf?ver=

9. Edward Lundquist, “General Dynamics Moves Knifefish Production to New UUV Center of Excellence,” Seapower Magazine, August 19, 2021, https://seapowermagazine.org/general-dynamics-moves-knifefish-production-to-new-uuv-center-of-excellence/

10. The end of 2021 saw initial operating capability for Task Force 59 in the 5th Fleet area of operations, which was the first unmanned Task Force of its kind.

Featured Image: BEAUFORT SEA, Arctic Circle (March 5, 2022) – Virginia-class attack submarine USS Illinois (SSN 786) surfaces in the Beaufort Sea March 5, 2022, kicking off Ice Exercise (ICEX) 2022. (U.S. Navy photo by Mike Demello)

Interviews

General Anthony Zinni (ret.) on Staying Honest with the Troops and Translating Experience

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By Mie Augier and Major Sean F. X. Barrett

This is the third part of our conversation series with General Anthony Zinni, USMC (ret.) on leadership, strategy, learning, and the art and science of warfighting. Read Part One here and Part Two here. 

During an earlier conversation, one thing we touched upon was how to develop people who ask the right questions and do not fall victim to biases and simply project what they want to believe. Even if we managed to do so, what obstacles might we confront when trying to implement and apply concepts, doctrine, ideas, and strategy?

Zinni: The system rewards certain things that may not be the things that are going to contribute to successful operational results. There is a natural friction between the service chiefs and the combatant commanders. Many of the service chiefs still think they take their forces to war, but it doesn’t happen anymore. You can offer a lot of great ideas. You can write doctrine about the best ways to employ forces, but you need to present these concepts to the combatant commanders who are going to fight them. It does me no good to have four service chiefs tell me what their doctrine is if those doctrines don’t mesh.

This built-in friction tells you we’ve got a screwed up system. If you started from scratch and said, “Okay, I want to build a military,” you would not come up with the structure we have now, which is sort of self-defeating. Ever since the creation of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1947, look at how they have failed the president. Developing extraordinary conceptual ways of doing things and developing advanced theory is not enough. If you don’t have the organization, strategy, structure, processes, capabilities, and systems to apply them in effective ways—more effectively than the guys you are going to fight—then it is pointless. It’s just an academic drill.

What is your sense of the obstacles we were unable to overcome in Afghanistan?

Zinni: It’s interesting. There were four Presidents, 14 Secretaries of Defense, 10 CENTCOM commanders, and 18 U.S. commanders in Afghanistan. When you look at this mess, we have gone to “war by temps” as I call it. In World War II, if you were in command, you stayed there. When units went out, they stayed out. But in Vietnam, we went to individual replacement, which was a disaster. You had no unit cohesion. So, we went to unit rotation, and then we made the decision that the unit should only be out there six months. Then, you look at senior leadership above the units, and they rotate unbelievably fast. When I went out to Afghanistan to do an assessment in the tenth year of the war, I really wanted to see what problems this caused, and it was unbelievable. Everybody that comes in has a different approach, and it was driving everybody crazy, especially those that had been out there for multiple tours. When they’d go back out, it was like a different war: different objectives, different operational designs, different everything. I really think this way of doing business is part of the problem. The Taliban didn’t go home. They were there the whole time, and they learned, like the bad guys in Vietnam. We, however, think these are all interchangeable parts, so we don’t build any corporate memory.

I also didn’t think the foundation we were building was as strong as we either thought it was or portrayed it to be. I’m a big believer that when you get into nation building, or counterinsurgency (COIN), or anything like that, the measure of success must be viable institutions. If I look around and see a corrupt government, an incompetent military, economic systems going nowhere, and some sort of corrupting institution—like the drug trade in Afghanistan—that is stronger than your institutions, and tribal structures and other institutions are stronger than national ones, you are not going to succeed. If institutions aren’t there, or you aren’t building them successfully and honestly assessing them, you can be deceived by the house you’re building.

The other thing is if the enemy has a sanctuary and you don’t do anything about it, then he can rearm, refit, reconstitute, and re-recruit. I saw that in North Vietnam, and we never really did anything major—an occasional bombing, but it wasn’t serious. Then, Pakistan became the sanctuary. It was obvious those borders were completely porous. Al Qaeda (AQ) and the Taliban set up on the other side of the border in Pakistan and were basically free to operate.

What do you see as the strategic mistakes or pitfalls? You point to the lack of leadership and continuity as one.

Zinni: You can never recover from the lack of any strategy. When the Rumsfeld DoD came in, before 9/11, they had a mission to transform the U.S. military to rely heavily on technology and less on manpower. Of course, they wanted to prove this by doing Iraq and Afghanistan with few troops. They discarded the war plan that called for 380,000 troops in Iraq and went with 130,000. They paid a big price for that. We never sealed the border, never controlled the population—all the things we had in the war plan that we knew we would run into.

In Afghanistan, they supported the Northern Alliance, which they thought was really cool. And the CIA guys rode on horseback with the Northern Alliance, and they were going to get AQ. That was the mission. We only sent in a Marine Expeditionary Unit and a couple of other forces, but when AQ got trapped in Tora Bora, they bought their way out. They bought off the Northern Alliance, and they beat feet into Pakistan. So, now our troops are in Afghanistan, AQ is in Pakistan, and you have no strategy beyond going in to get AQ and doing it the wrong way. And then, we stayed. There was no deliberate decision to rebuild Afghanistan. We just did what we’ve always done—mission creep—and we rolled into nation building without knowing what we were doing.

We had no strategy and never bothered developing one, but COIN and nation building became the strategy sort of by default. No administration—not the Bush administration, not the Obama administration—ever bought into it. No one ever looked at what it would cost, how doable it was, and what it would involve. We sort of rolled into something that no one ever made the deliberate decision to do. I also realized this turnover of units and commanders caused constant confusion and a lack of consistency and that nobody had a good picture of what the heck was going on. The CIA’s picture was way different than the military’s, and I don’t know what was driving these differences.

You talk about institutions. The power of institutions is such that they don’t change quickly, and you can’t build them overnight.

Zinni: You have two problems. One is you’re countering other institutions, and the institutions they had—tribalism, conservative interpretation of religion—were countering what we were trying to do. We never coopted them and never understood how to deal with them to diminish their power compared to the institutions we needed to build. It was a house with no foundation.

The second thing is we built a myth. We convinced a bunch of young girls and men that this was going to be something, that we were building a different kind of Afghanistan. It was never there. It was a myth, and they bought into it. And you saw things like “girls are going to school” and “guys are opening businesses” and “look, there’s hairdressers,” and we allowed ourselves—and them, which is the real tragedy—to be deceived by this façade. There was nothing behind it.

The other key question is whether the bulk of the population is willing to die for whatever you are selling them. This is a lesson I learned in a small hut in a village in Vietnam. The wife of the village chief with whom I was living said, “What is it that you want me and my son to die for?” If you can’t answer that question and you are giving the Kiwanis Club pitch to a woman who has seen 30 years of war, you have a problem.

Suppose there’s a guy in a village who joins the Afghan Army. Well, his cousin is a Talib, and in their traditional way, he might fight that cousin today, but he might cut a deal with him tomorrow. We’re the outsider. We come in with this sort of hubris that makes us think they’re embracing us to the point they’re totally rejecting their brothers and sisters who they’re fighting. Well, their tradition is to go tribe-to-tribe and cut deals. This is what the Taliban did and what we saw in the total collapse and surrender of the Afghan military and government. The tribes have always cut deals and shifted sides based on the conditions. To a tribe out in the middle of some valley, if you’re saying they’re supposed to die fighting the Taliban, they may ask, “Why? I can cut a deal with that Taliban chief, and he won’t bother me.”

Marine Gen Anthony Zinni, right, then-Commander-in-Chief, Central Command, testifies on Capitol Hill, Tuesday, March 3, 1998, before the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on military strategy and operational requirements. (Tyler Mallory/AP)

We see what we want to believe sometimes.

Zinni: That is true. We’re all guilty of that sometimes. I used to tell my lieutenants back when I was a company commander, “Keep me honest because I’m going to be the one who sees the good stuff, and you have to be the guys to tell me what I don’t see.” Everybody wants to be the one who gives the boss good news, and you must build this trust so your subordinates can tell you, “Boss, let me tell you how it really is.” It’s hard to take sometimes because you get so invested.

Another big danger I found is that you fall in love with your plan. You thought about it, you developed it, and you know you’re a genius and don’t want to accept that something is flawed. Unless you’ve built some sort of internal red teaming into your command system and fostered an environment in which people are willing to come to you and tell you that, you’re going to get into trouble.

Is this part of our tendency to avoid mistakes and failures and our inability or unwillingness to learn from them?

Zinni: There are a couple of problems. As I mentioned, one is our political system and the lack of corporate memory at the top, where you hope strategy would begin. Instead, you have this constant turnover, and we don’t do a good job of passing anything forward, especially if parties change. There isn’t much of a foundation anymore. There used to be. During the Cold War, strategies of containment and deterrence were consistent from administration to administration. Today, we are dealing with the byproducts of “war by temps.” There isn’t an ability to learn from your mistakes because you are changing out the people that made them, and you are bringing people in that are going to make them all over again.

The other thing, and I was guilty of it as a young officer, too, is young people join the military for an adventure. The idea that they are going off to war is exciting. I saw this when I retired. When the workup to Iraq and Afghanistan was taking place, I was asked to speak to some units, but they didn’t want to hear what I had to say. Most of the officers there were like, “He’s an old guy, kind of a naysayer. This is war. You have to be patriotic. This is our first time in.” Then, after they got their fingers burned, they came back and saw things a little differently.

One thing with me and my generation, we were all fired up for Vietnam, even going back for multiple tours. It took until after the dust settled, when we were maybe senior majors and lieutenant colonels, that we were able to see things we couldn’t see in the heat of being young company grade officers, when we were out there making our bones. I think that contributes to it, too.

One thing about managing the enthusiasm of senior officers and commanders is how do you balance maintaining good troop morale and people thinking they are doing good work with some serious criticism and internal reflection concerning things that really need to be changed?

Zinni: I think the first thing is to be honest with the troops because they aren’t fools. They are fighting the war, they see it, they know what’s happening. You have the generals that come out with this cheerleader approach and don’t seem to be in touch with reality—the reality those troops are experiencing on the ground. It seems to me you need someone in those positions that listens to what the troops are saying, what they are experiencing, and you are making sure it’s grounded in truth, not misperceptions. And after acknowledging it, you try to fix the problems they see.

The higher up you go, the less in touch with reality they can be. The real key to being a successful senior commander is to get down to those lower levels as much as you can. Get the feedback and acknowledge what they are seeing—that you know what is actually going on. And where there are issues, correct it. You are trying to get that view from the front lines that you need. You have to work hard to get it because there are so many things that get in the way. There are so many people around you and below you that try and screen you from all of that. You must be careful with that. It’s like you need to have intelligence on yourself and on your organization. If you just take what’s coming up the chain of command, you may not get the right picture, so you have to find a way to see and feel everything below that.

Gen Gray, yourself, and others have this sense of humility or humbleness. This seems to be a rare quality or attitude, but if you don’t have it, it seems more difficult to listen and learn.

Zinni: Right, humility is important, but for those lacking it, I don’t think it necessarily always comes from arrogance, although it can come across that way. I think it sometimes comes from insecurity, and that can come across as a lack of humility. I have seen senior officers who are around junior enlisted, and they are at a loss for words. They just don’t know how to connect or take it beyond the first words. Sometimes, to try and not look embarrassed about being unable to communicate effectively, they kind of take an air that looks like a lack of humility. This isn’t to say there aren’t people who are not humble, but I do see a lot of senior officers who are very insecure when they find themselves in that environment. They don’t know how to relate, and they didn’t try to learn how to connect.

How do we address the zero-defect culture and make-no-mistakes kind of attitude? When something goes wrong, commanders oftentimes tighten the screws, which dampens initiative. How do we address that?

Zinni: That’s hard to do because senior officers get scared and overreact. The knee-jerk reaction is over control. It is related to what I was studying in my dissertation—the commanders in World War II. Every one of them had something occur in their careers that today would have ended their careers. Nimitz ran a ship aground as a young officer. MacArthur was warned after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor to be prepared. Vinegar Joe Stillwell was always in trouble.

With Nimitz, his attitude was, this is all new to us—carrier operations, amphibious operations, and the like. We all have flaws. If a mistake is made honestly, and we can learn from it, I am not moving him. And he didn’t. They were after him to fire Spruance and a number of other senior officers, and he wouldn’t do it. He hung in there with them. And that doesn’t seem to happen today. I don’t know where that came in. When I was a second lieutenant and I checked into 6th Marines and got to my first battalion, the sergeant major told me a good Marine is going to have two or three non-judicial punishments. He isn’t a Marine if he didn’t have that. Today, if you have two or three minor offenses, they put you up for a discharge.

When I was the commanding officer of 9th Marines, my predecessor had made all the battalion commanders stand tall in front of him and explain every time a Marine did something minor, like having a little too much to drink out on the town. And then, when new Marines came in, my predecessor addressed them in the base theater and got in their face and said, “You better not do this, you better not do that.” I couldn’t believe this. My approach was, “Welcome to Okinawa. Let me tell you about all the things you can do here. Take care of each other. Use the buddy system. We want this to be positive.” I wanted a more positive environment. It was also the relationships out in town, like with the Japanese police force and the bar owners’ association. Every week, my battalion commanders and I went out to five bars. And besides wanting to know what’s going on with the Marines and being out with them, I wanted to know all the bar owners. I said, “Look, I’m asking you for a favor: if a Marine is getting too loud or it looks like they had too much to drink, just give our courtesy patrol staff a call. They will come out and bring him back.” I wanted to build relationships, and they loved it. It was all about getting everybody involved together and thinking about how to manage things constructively.

Coming out of Vietnam, junior officers were fed up, and this spawned very enthusiastic, even heated, after-hours study group discussions that drove change, notably amongst the maneuverists. What parallels can we draw to that competitive mindset as we regroup from Iraq and Afghanistan and prepare for the next fight? How can we provide the mechanisms to facilitate similar groups today? How can we foster that same type of mindset?

Zinni: I think if you had those experiences as a junior officer, it’s kind of seared into your soul. You have to be a little careful though because some lessons didn’t necessarily translate to the highest level or to the potential “big one” against the Soviets. Translating a lot from Vietnam was difficult, but it did give us a lot of insight into how we needed to repair our military from a training, education, manning, structure, and standards perspective. I think it gave us a much better perspective than the generals in Iraq and Afghanistan who experienced combat for the first time at the colonel and above level. They didn’t have the sense of what it was like as a lieutenant and a captain out there on the ground. I saw that in Afghanistan and Iraq when I did assessments out there. I could relate very easily to those sergeants and captains I was out there with, more so than I could with the generals who didn’t have that kind of gut experience and didn’t understand how some of the decisions they were making or not making were impacting things down there at that level. That becomes hard because it’s not the fault of the generals who weren’t involved in combat until they were at that senior level, but I do think something is missing when you don’t have that perspective.

One thing I saw coming out of Vietnam that didn’t work well was that many colonels and maybe even general officers continued to fight like they did in Vietnam as captains. They still thought they were fighting in some jungle with air superiority. You’d watch a battalion commander get in a helicopter, go over his unit, try to direct them, and you tried to tell him that his helicopter would be toast if he did that in this environment. It wasn’t that way in Vietnam. It made sense back then, so they had bad habits they couldn’t transition out of.

There are certain things you can take out of past experiences—many of them very personal, very visceral—but there are many things you must be careful with translating into a different environment.

General Anthony Zinni served 39 years as a U.S. Marine and retired as Commander–in–Chief, U.S. Central Command, a position he held from August 1997 to September 2000. After retiring, General Zinni served as U.S. special envoy to Israel and the Palestinian Authority (2001-2003) and U.S. special envoy to Qatar (2017-2019). General Zinni has held numerous academic positions, including the Stanley Chair in Ethics at the Virginia Military Institute, the Nimitz Chair at the University of California, Berkeley, the Hofheimer Chair at the Joint Forces Staff College, the Sanford Distinguished Lecturer in Residence at Duke University, and the Harriman Professorship of Government at the Reves Center for International Studies at the College of William and Mary. General Zinni is the author of several books, including Before the First Shots Are Fired, Leading the Charge, The Battle for Peace, and Battle Ready. He has also had a distinguished business career, serving as Chairman of the Board at BAE Systems Inc., a member of the board and later executive vice president at DynCorp International, and President of International Operations for M.I.C. Industries, Inc.

Dr. Mie Augier is Professor in the Department of Defense Management, and Defense Analysis Department, at NPS. She is a founding member of the Naval Warfare Studies Institute and is interested in strategy, organizations, leadership, innovation, and how to educate strategic thinkers and learning leaders.

Major Sean F. X. Barrett, PhD is a Marine intelligence officer currently serving as the Operations Officer for 1st Radio Battalion.

Featured Image: KIN BLUE, OKINAWA (Feb. 9, 2020) – Marines with Charlie Company, Battalion Landing Team, 1st Battalion 5th Marines, 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, and Japanese Amphibious Rapid Deployment Brigade service members communicate during a simulated bilateral small-boat raid on Kin Blue, Okinawa, Japan, Feb. 9, 2020. (Official Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Audrey M. C. Rampton)

Podcast

Sea Control 327 – To Rule the Waves with Bruce Jones

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By Jared Samuelson

Bruce Jones joins the program to discuss the oceans, how they shape the world we live in, China’s rise, and great power relations. Bruce Jones is a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Download Sea Control 327 – To Rule the Waves with Bruce Jones

Links

1. “To Rule the Waves – How Control of the World’s Oceans Shapes the Fate of the Superpowers,” by Bruce D. Jones, Scribner, 2021.
2. “The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger,” by Mark Levinson, Princeton University Press, 2008.
3. “British Warship Collides With Russian Submarine, UK Defense Ministry Confirms,” Radio Free Europe, January 7, 2022.

Jared Samuelson is Co-Host and Executive Producer of the Sea Control podcast. Contact him at Seacontrol@cimsec.org.

This episode was edited and produced by Marie Williams.

Podcast

Sea Control 326 – The Futility of Arctic FONOPs with Cornell Overfield

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By Jared Samuelson

Cornell Overfield joins the program to discuss the difficulty of conducting FONOPs in the Russian and Canadian Arctic. Cornell is an analyst at the Center for Naval Analyses.

Download Sea Control 326 – The Futility of Arctic FONOPs with Cornell Overfield

Links

1. “FONOP in Vain: The Legal Logics of a U.S. Navy FONOP in the Canadian or Russian Arctic,” by Cornell Overfield, Arctic Yearbook, 2021.
2. “The “Polar Sea” Voyage and the Northwest Passage Dispute,” by Philip J. Briggs, Armed Forces & Society, Vol. 16, No. 3, Spring 1990.
3. “Could a Kiwi Sailor’s Northwest Passage Transit Break the Legal Ice Between Canada and the US?,” by Cornell Overfield, lawfareblog, September 25, 1990.
4. “The forgotten cruise of the SS Manhattan,” by Jim Coogan, Cape Cod Times, September 1, 2009. 

Jared Samuelson is Co-Host and Executive Producer of the Sea Control podcast. Contact him at Seacontrol@cimsec.org.

This episode was edited and produced by Jonathan Selling.

Fostering the Discussion on Securing the Seas.