CNO’s Design Week

By Walker D. Mills

“The proposition that the sea service of the United States should behave as complimentary parts of a national fleet is true to their several natures and functions. It need not provoke controversy.” –Colin  S. Gray, 2001

In December 2019, Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Michael M. Gilday, the released his FRAGO A Design for Maintaining Maritime Superiority. The FRAGO harped on integration with the Marine Corps – mentioning it seven times over the course of the short, eight-page document. This is to be lauded, as General David Berger, the new Marine Commandant, has been pushing for integration as hard or more so from the green side. This naval integration is critical to the Navy and Marine Corps moving forward.

But there is still a piece missing – where is the Coast Guard? The Coast Guard has been increasingly asked to share the burden of maritime policing, presence, and security cooperation in the Pacific, and they have long supported those missions in other waters. The USCG has even contributed to U.S. FONOPS in the Strait of Taiwan. Despite this, the Coast Guard was not mentioned a single time in the document. As long as the Coast Guard continues to support Navy missions in the Pacific and elsewhere (and it should), the CNO should make it clear that the USCG is an integrated part of the nation’s maritime force structure. Not doing so only marginalizes one of America’s best tools for maritime grey zone competition and contributes to an overly narrow focus on conventional naval combat.

The most significant line of effort in the FRAGO is lethality. CNO Gilday makes it absolutely clear that lethality is the most important measure of the Navy, which is hardly disagreeable. But a single minded focus on “lethality” and “warfighting” ignores much of the reality in the Pacific. As the U.S. Navy prepares for the possibility of a conventional battle for sea control, every day a mix of commercial vessels, paramilitaries, and maritime law enforcement vessels tangle in constant competition. Admiral Gilday himself writes “We must also succeed in sustained, day-to-day competition, winning future fights before they become kinetic.” But this appears to be only an afterthought, a caveat to his focus on lethality.

The Chinese Coast Guard possesses the world’s largest law enforcement fleet, and by some counts their law enforcement fleet would be the second largest fleet in the world – after the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN). The U.S. Navy is meeting the simultaneous challenge of being prepared for potential conflict with the PLAN and countering day-to-day aggression by Chinese law enforcement vessels below the level of armed conflict. But it doesn’t have to go it alone – the Coast Guard can support these missions too. And perhaps better still – the U.S. Coast Guard can help U.S. allies and partners in the region strengthen and fortify their own coast guards more effectively than the Navy can alone. The Coast Guard is also integral to operations in the Arctic and the Middle East. They operate the only icebreakers owned by the federal government and maintain a permanent presence in Alaska. Cooperation and integration between the Navy and Coast Guard is essential for supporting an increased naval presence in the Arctic and protecting “increasingly vital” economic corridors like the Bering Strait. In the Middle East, the U.S. Coast Guard has maintained their largest detachment outside the United States since 2002 with 5th Fleet in Bahrain.

Some observers have raised objections to including the Coast Guard in the U.S. response to Chinese belligerence and encroachment in the South China Sea – it has repeatedly been a focus of commentary without generating a consensus. Generally, these objections are based on the small size and meager funding that the Coast Guard has and how the Coast Guard would be unprepared if a shooting conflict broke out in the region. Both of these are reasons why the CNO needs to plan for and mention the inclusion of the Coast Guard in his guidance to the force and make them a part of the larger conversation. Ignoring the Coast Guard, minimizing their potential contribution, or leaving them out of the discussion entirely would only serve to exacerbate these two issues. The Coast Guard is already supporting operations in the Southern and Western Pacific and it would be unwise to ignore this reality.

Recognizing the unique value that the Coast Guard can provide in support of national security missions is also valuable to the Navy. If the Navy believes itself to be undermanned and underfunded as its leaders have recently argued – increased integration with the Coast Guard can be a way to offload some missions and relieve a small piece of that burden. Arguments have been made for standing up a dedicated Coast Guard force for patrolling in the Pacific, which could serve as another means to reprioritize the Pacific over the Middle East where the United States has maintained a permanent USCG presence for almost two decades.

In keeping with the intent of the CNO’s FRAGO, one way the Navy can increase its focus on high-end lethality is to argue for an enhanced and interoperable Coast Guard that can absorb some of the lower-end missions. The 2015 joint Navy-Coast Guard National Fleet Plan, signed by the CNO and the Coast Guard Commandant, affirmed that “Navy and Coast Guard forces maintain a symbiotic relationship that benefits the nation as a whole. This relationship is most noticeable during ongoing operations, but it starts with conceptualization, continues through the planning cycle, and culminates during mission execution.” But unfortunately this sentiment is not captured in the FRAGO.

Conclusion

The CNO dedicated part of his FRAGO to guidance on building “alliances and partnerships” internationally – but it is just as if not more important to build partnerships and interoperability between sister services and other U.S. agencies. The CNO’s FRAGO is a far cry from the level of Coast Guard inclusion that permeated the 2015 Cooperative Strategy for 21^st Century Seapower. While CNO Gilday obviously does not have the statutory authorities to direct his FRAGO at the Coast Guard – he can make it clear to his sailors that he views the Coast Guard as playing a critical role in the Navy-Marine Corps-Coast Guard team. That would be moving toward a truly integrated national maritime architecture and force structure. This direction will be critical for preserving U.S. primacy at sea and enforcing rule of law in the global commons.

Walker D. Mills is a Marine infantry officer currently serving as an exchange officer in Cartagena, Colombia. He has previously authored commentary for CIMSEC, the Marine Corps Gazette, Proceedings, West Point’s Modern War Institute and Defense News.

Featured Image: The US Navy (USN) Virginia Class New Attack Submarine Pre-Commissioning Unit (PCU) TEXAS (SSN 775) sails past the US Coast Guard Cutter USCGC SEA HORSE (WPB 87361) as it returns to Northrop Grumman Newport News shipyard in Virginia (VA) after successfully completing Alpha sea trials. (PHAA Patrick Gearhiser, USN)

CNO’s Design Week

By Capt. Jamie McGrath (ret.)

Introduction

In his FRAGO 01/2019: A Design For Maintaining Maritime Superiority, Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Michael Gilday calls out three focus areas: Warfighting, Warfighters, and the Future Fleet. The CNO declares that “Together with the United States Marine Corps, our Navy is the bedrock of Integrated American Naval Power.” This level of USN/USMC Integration was last seen at the end of WWII. The path to that level of integration blazed in the interwar period provides a blueprint for integrating today’s Navy and Marine warfighting and warfighters.

Admittedly, the crucible of a world war played a significant role in forging the Navy-Marine Corps team into a virtually unstoppable amphibious juggernaut that systematically took over Imperial Japan’s Pacific empire. But the foundation for the integrated team began in the interwar period with three interrelated efforts: large-scale Fleet Problem exercises, which included amphibious operations, constant wargaming at the U.S. Naval War College, and all-out effort at the Marine Corps schools to develop and refine amphibious doctrine. Although not initially coordinated, by the mid-1930s, these efforts all focused on the plan to defeat Japan, commonly referred to as War Plan Orange.

Preparing for War

The Fleet Problems, the interwar equivalent of today’s Large Scale Exercises (LSE), allowed fleet and ship commanders to experiment and practice with their weapons platforms at both unit and fleet-level formations. This allowed the development of doctrine and the full exploration of the new capabilities as they joined the fleet. Fleet Problems even exercised future capabilities with the interwar years’ version of Live, Virtual, and Constructive training – the simulation of capabilities with surrogate and constructive forces. Following the Fleet Problems, robust conversations and formalized after action debriefs, which included dozens of senior commanders and junior officers of the fleet, critiqued the performance. The Fleet Problems identified some enduring lessons that can guide development of warfighting today: innovation requires time to mature; exercises and wargames should not be confused with reality; surrogates should not be mistaken for actual capability; annual large scale exercise foster openness, flexibility, and frankness; familiarity with tactics and operational concepts leads to internalization of these ideas; and the role of the Fleet Problem is to explore ideas, not necessarily technology; and candid critiques must be done immediately afterward.¹

The cost of the Fleet Problems, both in dollars and wear and tear on the fleet, meant they occurred only annually. Unconstrained by these costs, the Naval War College took the lessons from the Fleet Problems and incorporated them into a vast series of wargames. These wargames were also unconstrained by predetermined conclusions. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, the officers who would eventually lead the American armada in its defeat of Japan spent time at the Naval War College participating in and learning from these wargames.² And the results of the wargames were fed back to the fleet, helping to inform the next Fleet Problem. It was these incessant wargames the prompted Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz to remark after the war, that “the war with Japan had been enacted in the game rooms at the War College by so many people and in so many different ways that nothing that happened during the war was a surprise—absolutely nothing except the kamikaze tactics toward the end of the war. We had not visualized these.”³

The Marine Corps of the 1930s realized that if it were to remain viable as a service, it needed a mission beyond is role as a constabulary force. Recognizing the need for island bases for the success of the Navy’s plan to defeat Japan, the Marines developed doctrine first to seize and then to defend island bases to allow the fleet to march across the Pacific. Initiated by Major Pete Ellis’ survey of the islands of the South Pacific, the Marines developed the Tentative Manual for Landing Operations (1934) and the Tentative Manual for Defense of Advanced Bases (1936) with the help of dedicated effort by the faculty and staff of Marine Corps Schools. Brigadier General James Breckinridge, Commandant of Marine Corps Schools, “temporarily discontinued Field Officers School classes so that the staff and students could devote their full attention to developing the new doctrine.”

The three efforts discussed above were self-synchronizing, which is to say not synchronized, with no single authority directing their efforts. This led to inefficiency and a lack of common direction. Despite the excellent work occurring in Naval War College wargaming, the college struggled to stay open during the austere, Great Depression-era budgets of the late 1920s and early 1930s. The conclusions reached by fleet commanders and War College staff and students did not always agree, and senior navy commanders in charge of the fleet often did not want to yield to the academics. And despite the apparent utility of seizing island bases to the drive across the Pacific, the U.S. Navy initially invested little in amphibious capability, even when naval construction began anew in 1933.

There were still successes in integrating efforts. Fleet Problem III in 1924 provided the first opportunity to incorporate the Marines into fleet operations and demonstrated that “amphibious operations might have a role to plan in the navy’s sea-control mission.”⁴ In the mid-1930s, the Fleet Problems began to include a Fleet Landing Exercise (FLEX) component, but often the Marine’s desire to contribute to the sea control mission by seizing islands was superseded by the Navy’s focus on the decisive fleet engagement.⁵ The opportunity for integration was there, but without a common top-down coordinator, the two branches continued to focus on their independent priorities.

Integrating Today for Tomorrow’s Fight

Today’s Navy-Marine Corps team can learn from these efforts, modeling the commitment to Fleet Problems, Naval War College wargaming, and the single-minded development of amphibious doctrine, but today’s team needs to take it further. The first improvement is to ensure these efforts are integrated. The CNOs FRAGO and the Commandant’s Planning Guidance are a step in the right direction but cannot be the end of integration. An integrated Navy-Marine Corps steering group should be developed to synchronize integration efforts, identifying significant integration development activities, and ensuring alignment among them. A modern version of the Navy General Board as suggested in Joel Howlitt’s 2017 CNO History Award-winning essay could serve this role admirably. The steering group does not need to create additional events but instead would ensure existing events are linked together and align Navy-Marine Corps integration efforts and doctrine where appropriate.

Next, make these three powerful integration mechanisms a priority. Don’t allow LSE 2020 to be a one-off event. Like the Fleet Problems of the interwar years, make the LSEs annual, and make them a defined operational priority for the fleet’s ready naval power, getting as many ships, aviation units, and Marine formations to sea and into the exercise as possible. And for ships unable to sail or other units unable to join, connect them to the exercise via the Navy Continuous Training Environment (NCTE) and after action review mechanisms.

Once complete, consider how the lesson from the exercises will be used. Will they be squirreled away in a lesson learned database, or will they be turned over to these new, powerful brain trusts of the Naval War College and Marine Corps University? Like the interwar period, the Large Scale Exercise and Fleet Exercises should inform, and be informed, by the studies at the two institutions. Give the classified results, all of them, to the war colleges, and let the student and staff pick them apart.

To ensure quality analysis and feedback, the service must send the best officers from all warfighting and combat support communities to the Naval War College and Marine Corps University – not just the officers who happen to be available. There is a saying that if the loss of a liaison officer you sent to another command doesn’t hurt, you’re sending the wrong officer. The same should be true with the Naval War College and Marine Corps University. Accept the tactical risk at the unit level of losing an officer to this effort to buy down the strategic risk of an underprepared officer corps. This is exactly what is called for in the Secretary of the Navy’s Education for Seapower (E4S) Decisions and Immediate Actions memorandum from February of last year. In it, he directed that “All future unrestricted line Flag and General Officers will require strategically-focused, in-residence master’s degrees.” The Navy’s Chief Learning Officer further notes that “the critical months of in-residence study afford each officer a unique chance to read, think reflect, and interact with their future fellow Fleet and Marine Operating Force Commanders…”⁶

While these future operational commanders are in residence at the War College and Marine Corps University, make it worth their while to attend these prestigious institutions. Rather than sticking to a rigid curriculum designed to satisfy graduate school accreditation and Joint Professional Military Education wickets, give these officers the hard problems to solve. Give them the tools to “study strategy, policy, operational doctrine, and the effects of new technologies for national strategic advantage”⁷ that comprise the current curriculum, but then give them real-world tasks, at the appropriate classification levels, and let them apply that knowledge. Not just in select groups like Gravely and Halsey, but across the board – putting large numbers of minds against our hardest problems to come up with a range of solutions, just like the interwar period’s Naval War College did.

And while sending the best and brightest to in-residence programs, more integration is needed in each institution. A recent Proceedings article called for higher percentages of Marines at the Naval War College and filling all the Navy billets at Marine Corps University. This is spot on and should be implemented with urgency. If we are going to ask the Naval War College and Marine Corps University to tackle problems of integration, they must have an integrated staff and student body. Then allow wargaming departments, now with a significant pool of frontline operators available to run the games, refight the LSEs and determine were improvements can be made. And finally, feed the output from these wargames into designing the subsequent LSEs, to take advantage of the lessons learned from these multiple interactions.

Conclusion

The tools are in place and a roadmap is available for developing Navy-Marine Corps integration in peacetime. The interwar use of annual Fleet Problems, Naval War College wargaming, and Marine Corps amphibious doctrine development focused the efforts of all three on preparing for war against Japan. Using those same tools and the lessons learned from their shortcomings, Navy-Marine Corps warfighting and warfighters can achieve unprecedented levels of integration and be prepared for the next great Pacific war when it comes.

CAPT Jamie McGrath, USN (ret.), retired from the U.S. Navy after 29 years as a nuclear-trained surface warfare officer. He now serves as a Deputy Commandant of Cadets at Virginia Tech and as an adjunct professor in the U.S. Naval War College’s College of Distance Education. Passionate about using history to inform today, his area of focus is U.S. naval history, 1919 to 1945, with emphasis on the inter-war period. He holds a Bachelor’s in History from Virginia Tech, a Master’s in National Security and Strategic Studies from the U.S. Naval War College, and a Master’s in Military History from Norwich University.

References

1. Albert A. Nofi, To Train the Fleet for War: The US Navy Fleet Problems, 1923-1940 (Naval War College Press: Newport, RI, 2010), 303-315.

2. John R. Kroger memorandum to Secretary of the Navy, Graduate Strategic Studies for Flag and General Officers, dated 11 December 2019. On 07 December 1941, 83 of 84 active Navy flag officers were graduates of the US Naval War College in residence program at the beginning of World War II.

3. Chester W. Nimitz [FAdm, USN], speech to Naval War College, 10 October, 1960, folder 26, box 31, RG15 Guest Lectures, 1894–1992, Naval Historical Collection, Naval War College, Newport, RI,

4. Craig C. Felker, Testing American Sea Power: US Navy Strategic Exercises, 1923-1940 (Texas A&M University Press: College Station, TX, 2007), 94-97

5. Ibid., 104-109

6. Kroger memorandum.

7. Ibid.

Featured Image: Sailors and Marines of the USS Ronald Reagan stand at attention before manning the rails on the flight deck in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, June 28, 2010.
U.S. Navy photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Oliver Cole

CNO’s Design Week

By Capt. Bill Shafley

Introduction

 The Chief of Naval Operations recently released FRAGO 01/2019, A Design for Maintaining Maritime Superiority. The CNO charged senior leaders to simplify their focus. Warfighting, the Warfighter, and the Future Navy are its tenets. At the nexus of these tenets rests the staff of the Carrier Strike Group, where this staff employs the combat power of the premier maneuver arm of the Fleet Commander, the Carrier Strike Group (CSG). To master fleet-level warfare and leverage the power of the integrated fleet as the CNO urges, this staff must be organized, manned, and educated for the complexity of the high-end fight.

The CSG Staff

The CSG staff could benefit from an overhaul. The complexity of the future fight in terms of surveillance, maneuver, and fires call for a level of synchronization and expertise in planning that the current staff is unprepared for. This organization violates the warfare principles of simplicity and unity of effort. The Destroyer Squadron staff, Carrier Air Wing staff, and the niche capability of air defense expertise in the CSG’s resident cruiser provide some hedge against those capability gaps. Yet that expertise comes with a tax of an additional layer of command that adds little tactical value. Every platform in the Carrier Strike Group is multi-mission capable. A destroyer commander has air defense responsibilities to provide the air defense commander. She also has responsibilities as the strike commander and the sea combat commander. Experts in tactics, techniques, and procedures are part of their planning and watch teams. All the while the CSG commander and his staff are inundated with up to three different commander’s views and requirements for the accomplishment of a single mission. This distracts from warfighting. The Composite Warfare Commander (CWC) structure is fit for purpose as a way to “fight a strike group.” But as a manner of planning for combined and coordinated operations, standing warfare commanders and their staffs may be an artifact of the past.

The amount of warfare areas that must be managed and the density in which they can present in any given tactical scenario require the logical organization of the CWC construct. The point is not to argue that the CWC in execution is flawed. Any given operation requires a C2 structure and a doctrinal manner in which to conduct key tasks in the accomplishment of a mission. As the majority of the units in a CSG (from aircraft to surface ships) are multi-role, multi-function and task organized as such, it may be time to leave the CWC organization to the execution of missions and tasks not as a manner in which to “staff” operations at sea.

If the CSG in a wartime environment is the primary maneuver arm of a fleet-level engagement, the CSG staff in its current organizational construct may not be robust enough in manning and experience to integrate at the Joint Force Maritime Component Commander (JFMCC) level. The Fleet staff is organized in a MOC-MHQ construct. It is designed to link into the theater level where campaigning is the order of the day, and operational art (the sequencing of operations in time, space, and force) is truly practiced. A CSG staff is nowhere near organized in the same manner. It may become quickly overwhelmed as the pace and density of operations increases. Without augments, its ability to stay ahead of the Fleet’s fight, synchronize at the operational level of war, or take advantage of tactical opportunity may be overcome.

Today the CWC is the organizing principle behind CSG operations. Common resources are “coordinated” and warfare areas are “commanded.” The CWC organization doesn’t delineate who is responsible for maneuvering the force into position to achieve effect. The CWC organization doesn’t clearly delineate who is responsible for coordinating fires on an objective area and simultaneously protect the carrier from multiple threats in multiple domains. Current practice would suggest this is achieved through warfare commanders working through warfare coordinators in supporting and supported roles. The CSG staff would look for ways to salami slice tasks to the IAMDC, the SCC, the IWC, and CAG. But those structures matter little at echelons above the CSG where in the future fight close coordination will be necessary for managing and resourcing the high-end fight. These stovepipes create missed opportunities for synergy and potentially leave valuable tactical and operational questions unexplored.

Recommendation

The premise behind a new organizational framework lies in the notion that planning for and conducting operations is central. Operations consume readiness and finite resources provided from a common pool. Radar resources, aircraft, fires, intelligence, voice and data communication are necessary components required to place a combat ready, protected Carrier Strike Group in position to achieve an effect. To enable mission command, the commander must have a staff that can translate his understanding of the operational environment and the theory of the fight into actionable orders and tasks across the warfighting functions that can be assessed to ensure mission accomplishment. A new structure for a CSG staff may hold the solution.

A fresh structure should make the warfare commanders and their staffs dual-hatted. Upon completion of the maintenance and basic phases at the unit level, the Air Wing, Destroyer Squadron, and Senior Information Warfare Officer assume the duties as one of four Deputy Commander billets: Deputy Commander for Operations, Deputy Commander for Readiness, and Deputy Commander for Support. The Senior Warfare Commander assumes duties as the Chief of Staff. The Cruiser and CVN COs retain duties as unit Commanding Officers. The squadron and wing staffs round out the existing CSG staff with subject matter tactical, technical, and planning expertise.

The Deputy Commander for Operations leads a team of watchstanders and planners across multiple disciplines to manage the current fight, plan for tomorrow’s fight, and resource the plans of the more distant future. This staff section is the engine that affords the CSG commander the space to execute the mission at hand. It is manned by cells organized around the joint warfighting functions of maneuver, fires, sustainment, protection, and ISR. The operations team is organized along the COPS, FOPS, and plans construct. It is structured to support the Main and Future Planning Groups and staff TFCC, Sea Combat, IAMD, Strike Cell, and Supplot. The COPS, FOPS, and Plans teams are lead by O5 officers with command and/or significant aircraft type, model, and series experience. The team has Weapons and Tactics Instructors from all the communities and advanced trained operational planners. These subject matter experts form the backbone of a planning team has the capability to synchronize resources in time and space employed in a tactically relevant manner.

The Deputy Commander for Readiness leads a team of operators and logisticians charged with ensuring the Carrier Strike Group’s operational reach is effectively sustained to see mission accomplishment through. The readiness team takes a similar approach to the operations team. It is tasked to look at sustainment across platforms, sources of supply, and time horizons. It has a COPS and FOPS team that support the operational tasking framework described above. These readiness cells are staffed with platform-familiar operators and subject matter experts that understand the technologically advanced systems the CSG takes into combat. The team is also manned with the traditional N1 personnel team and the Senior Medical Officer. These functions serve to ensure that the force is manned and cared through steady state operations and in the event of casualties. The readiness team is staffed with temporary TYCOM liaisons that work hand-in-hand with the strike group maintenance officer for emergent and planned mid-deployment voyage repairs. The strike group’s safety and standards officer is also a part of this team and is charged with maintaining operational safety programs and standards keeping.

There are two remaining staff functions in this plussed-up Carrier Strike Group staff. The Deputy Commander for Support leads a team of subject matter experts among the warfighting functions that provide support for operations and readiness. These subject matter experts include Strike Warfare, Ballistic Missile Defense, Anti-Terrorism, and Force Protection. The senior intelligence officer, the senior communicator, and cryptologist join this team. This team also has a tactical development cell charged with forecasting areas for tactical improvement. The strike group training officer is assigned to this staff section and is charged with maintaining a cadre of trained watchstanders, planners, and subject matter experts during the off-cycle. The training officer also introduces and inculcates a formalized after action review process that feeds back to the team lessons learned to foster continuous learning and trend spotting.

The staff is rounded out by the command group. The flag secretary serves as the staff XO. The flag LT, flag writer, and flag mess along with the judge advocate, chaplain and public affairs officer round out this team. The staff XO reports to the chief of staff as his principal assistant. The flag XO maintains the staff tasker list and staffs all routine CDR-level communication up echelon. The chief of staff is the designated deputy CSG commander.

Conclusion

This new staff organization is designed for high-end operations at-sea. It is an operations-centric organization that is designed to take advantage of maneuver and disaggregation to achieve effects. It blends the subject matter expertise of the Navy’s best junior tacticians and planners with its most experienced commanders. It flattens command and control within the strike group in a manner that allows for true task organization, mission command, and recognizes the multi-mission nature of our platforms. This staff will be robust enough to take full advantage of developing over-the-horizon weapons and surveillance technologies. Finally, it creates a staff where the CSG plans for and executes strike group operations holistically without the lenses of the air wing, the boat, and the small-boys. Warfighting functions break down the current community barriers and make operations truly agnostic. To win in the high-end fight requires a staff structure that puts its best and brightest in a position to produce, execute and assess mission orders. This new structure provides an option.

Captain Bill Shafley is a career Surface Warfare Officer and currently serves as the Commodore, Destroyer Squadron 26 and Sea Combat Commander for Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group. He has served on both coasts and overseas in Asia and Europe. He is a graduate of the Naval War College’s Advanced Strategy Program and a designated Naval Strategist. These views are presented in a personal capacity.

Featured Image: Air traffic controllers assigned to the carrier air traffic control center aboard the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman keep a close watch on flight operations. (U.S. Navy photo/Seaman Ryan McLearnon)

By Dmitry Filipoff

This week CIMSEC will be featuring writing submitted in response to our Call for Articles on the U.S. Chief of Naval Operations’ Design for Maintaining Maritime Superiority. Below are the articles and authors that will be featured during the topic week. We thank them for their excellent contributions. 

“A New Carrier Strike Group Staff for Warfighting and Warfighters” by Capt. Bill Shafley
“Interwar Navy-Marine Corps Integration: A Roadmap for Today” by Capt. Jamie McGrath (ret.)
“Integrate with the Marines…And Who Else?” by Walker D. Mills
“Operating at the Edge of Chaos: Enhancing Maritime Superiority Through People” by Christine MacNulty

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

Featured Image: APRA, Guam (Feb. 7, 2020) The aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71) arrives at Naval Base Guam Feb. 7, 2020. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Kaylianna Genier)