Notes to the New CNO Series

By Lt. Sam Straus

Despite enlistment bonuses, recruiter rodeos, a renewed focus on influencers, and modest policy changes from PERS, the U.S. Navy continuously fails to keep Sailors from walking out the door and to convince would-be recruits from stepping in. This problem has gotten so severe that the Navy is on target to miss recruiting goals by over 7,000 personnel for FY23, and gapped billets at-sea continue to exceed 9,000.^{1, 2*} This shortage will continue as overworked enlisted Sailors leave, refusing the possibility of being sent TAD on additional deployments, and officers resign, rejecting uncertain billet assignments.

Reports – both internal and external to the DoD – point fingers at societal health, youth hesitancy, and a declining perspective of the military as causal explanations for this phenomenon. But they fail to realize that current socio-economic conditions have the potential for the greatest boon to military enlistment and retention since the 2008 financial crash and the attacks on 9/11.^{3, 4} Why then are we failing to meet our numbers?

To many in the fleet, the Navy is a job just like any other. In an economy that promotes career-jumping from ladder to ladder, it is no surprise that Sailors forego internal promotions for a chance to climb, all without the burdens of weekend duty, mid-watches, and extended deployments. The traditional benefits of naval service – adventure, camaraderie, leadership experience, stable pay, and robust benefits – no longer match the costs associated with a sea-going career. While this may not be the case for every Sailor, personnel numbers indicate a strong correlation. So what do we do?

We need to make the Navy a better place to work. Luckily for us, many of the levers to do this are within our control.

To offer a historical lesson, Admiral Zumwalt faced a similar struggle as he assumed the office of CNO amidst a monumental shift from a conscript to all-volunteer force, a force that was wracked by social divisions and readiness issues. His approach then, as ours should be now, was to dismantle the immediate barriers to Sailor happiness and success – increasing Quality of Life, most often by decreasing administrative requirements.⁵ These changes typically arrived in messages known as “Z-Grams,” personal communiqués from Zumwalt to the fleet. 

With this in mind, we should reestablish Retention Study Groups (RSGs) and the associated Z-Grams. To paraphrase Z-Gram #2, RSGs are “…Representative groups of junior officers and enlisted (Sailors) from the major surface, aviation and submarine communities…to surface those current views and recommendations from the fleet which appear to represent consensus.” These groups formed the foundation of CNO Zumwalt’s efforts to boost retention and spawned many of the benefits we enjoy today, including standard Leave and Earning Statements, Ombudsmen, Holiday Routine at sea, as well as equal opportunity for all Sailors regardless of sex, race, or creed.⁶ The true power of the RSGs and Z-Grams derived from their ability to focus the Navy on what mattered most – its people and their ability to win at sea – by removing deckplate-level friction points from Sailors’ lives. In other words, these efforts rebalanced the cost-benefit analysis to new or continued naval service.

We must make similar efforts now by transforming or sunsetting the programmatic barriers to Sailor success, for example, post-9/11 ATFP watches, redundant OFRP training requirements, and an antiquated 3M program. Revamping these policies will bring the Navy in line with Sailor consensus, shifting complaints from, “Why are we doing the same certification for MOB-S, SAR, and MOB-N?” to “Why aren’t we making GQ drills even more challenging?” The latter is what we need to promote crew morale and warfighting readiness, and to attract and retain the best.

Will implementing this approach be met with pushback from status quo leaders throughout the fleet? Of course, but that simply reinforces the necessity for unrelenting advocacy and professional engagement. We cannot let entrenched interests or pride stop us from getting better. Our “standard” Navy approach of sending decisions through committee for neutering and pacification cannot make the serious changes needed to affect the minds of Sailors that are considering leaving the service. Only direct action and real authority from the CNO’s office have the force to dismantle many of the obstacles to productivity, performance, and morale.⁷ “Getting Real” with these issues requires outspoken action, a renewed focus on what our Sailors need, and a keen ear for what they want.

It will take thought and care to get this right, but the Navy’s history offers a valuable example on how to achieve success. It is time to restart RSGs and end the retention crisis. Time for the F-Gram!

Lt. Sam Straus is a Surface Warfare Officer in the U.S. Navy. His views are his own and do not reflect the official position or policy of the U.S. Government, the U.S. Department of Defense, or the U.S. Navy.

*Correction, the number of gapped at-sea billets is 9,000, not 750 as originally stated. 

References

1. Correll, D. S. (2023, September 14). Navy will miss recruiting goals by 7,000 sailors this year. Retrieved from Navy Times: https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2023/09/14/navy-will-miss-recruiting-goals-by-7000-sailors-this-year/

2. Mongilio, H. (2023, February 1). Navy Exceeding FY 2023 Sailor Retention Goals, Says Q1 Data. Retrieved from USNI News: https://news.usni.org/2023/02/01/navy-exceeding-fy-2023-sailor-retention-goals-says-q1-data

and 

Heather Mongilio, “Navy Needs to Fill About 9,000 At-Sea Billets in More than a Dozen Ratings, Says Personnel Command,” USNI News, October 25, 2022.

3. Magnuson, S. (2023, January 18). Annual Poll Shows Low Confidence in Military. Retrieved from National Defense Magazine: https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2023/1/18/annual-poll-shows-low-confidence-in-military

4. Garamone, J. (2023, April 20). Vice Chiefs Talks Recruiting Shortfalls, Readiness Issues. Retrieved from U.S. Department of Defense: https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/3369472/vice-chiefs-talk-recruiting-shortfalls-readiness-issues/

5. Zumwalt, E. R. (2017, August 11). List of Z-grams. Retrieved from Naval History and Heritage Command: https://www.history.navy.mil/research/library/online-reading-room/title-list-alphabetically/z/list-z-grams.html 

6. Ibid.

7. Aghion, P., & Tirole, J. (1997). Formal and Real Authority in Organizations. Journal of Political Economy. Retrieved from https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/262063

Featured Image: PHILIPPINE SEA (May 1, 2020) Sailors aboard the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Mustin (DDG 89) tie line to a span wire during a replenishment as sea with the dry cargo and ammunition Ship USNS Alan Shepard (T-AKE 3). (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Cody Beam)

Notes to the New CNO Series

By Harrison Schramm

Navy leadership should scrutinize the somewhat disjointed approach the military writ large and the Navy in particular have adopted towards AI. As a statistician, it is clear that success in large inference machines – to include AI – requires three things: technology, people, and culture. Technology is the easiest and paradoxically the least important component. Because of the hierarchical nature of military career paths, the people currently serving are poised to be the leaders of this revolution. There is ample talent in the ranks, provided it is effectively cultivated and employed.

Focus on culture. Successful AI culture is a departure from Navy norms. Military culture is based around assured success, but compared to aviation or weaponeering, AI requires far more failure before reaching success. It is estimated that upwards of 85 percent of AI projects fail. Resist the temptation to think better performers, technology, or business processes will change this number. Instead, accept that this failure rate is a fundamental feature of developing AI. With this in mind, what should the Navy do to create this culture?

First and foremost, understand the difference between technical failure and management failure. Technical failures are, if not good, at a minimum necessary. They are a precondition to success, and some even use the phrase ‘fail forward.’ Second, resist the temptation to want to create one AI tool to solve them all. Start small and on issues that have relatively low risk. Safety data is a perfect opportunity for this type of small start.

Finally, ensure that Sailors – those who are currently wearing the uniform – are exposed to the process and shortcomings of AI in the course of their duties. Formal education programs – such as NPS – are necessary, but not sufficient. The CO of the first AI-enabled warship is someone who is currently serving, not someone we will assess later in the future. Should this CO find themselves in the midst of a shooting conflict where AI is an enabling tool, they will be commanding from the CIC. The engineers and technicians who developed the technology will not. Warfighters will ultimately be responsible for the operational outcomes of these tools – both positive and negative.

The ability to harness and use AI is critical, but Navy culture must change to realize its potential. Military members must remain the masters – never the servants – of technology.

Harrison Schramm is a retired Navy commander and a professional statistician. During his time in the Navy, he flew the H-46 and MH-60S. Ashore he worked in Operations Research, teaching at the Naval Postgraduate School and working at OPNAV N81. He is the immediate past President of the Analytics Society of INFORMS.

Featured Image: A Fire Controlman monitors a radar console for air and surface contacts in the combat information center aboard the forward-deployed Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Donald Cook (DDG-75). (U.S. Navy photo)

Notes to the New CNO Series

By CDR Paul Nickell

The Get Real Get Better initiative has been a near-term effort to increase the effectiveness of how Sailors do things, to include problem-solving – which could be described as the science of warfighting. To holistically improve Sailors, the “Navy-wide culture renovation” must also inculcate learning strategies – the art of warfighting. A supplement or revision to NDP-1, tentatively entitled Naval Warfighting, would accomplish this by integrating the art and science of warfighting into an enduring doctrine on learning strategies.

China and Russia both view the focus of modern warfare as being cognitive dominant, which is described as a positive outcome from the friction between intuition and expertise, or art and science. A revised NDP-1, modeled on the Marine Corps FMFM-1 Warfighting, would offer structured ways to think and learn about naval warfare. It would codify the values and skills of continuous learning, and provide guidance on cognitive development for all echelons. In this way, a revised NDP-1 will go beyond teaching warfare principles as an instrument of national power. Indeed, it would provide a timeless model for how to approach complex warfighting challenges with specific learning strategies and campaigns.

Currently, NDP-1, Naval Warfare, is insufficient to generate an understanding of the central premise of naval forces’ existence – warfighting. It also lacks foundational organizational concepts and individual behavioral strategies such as feedback loops. These strategies and concepts are needed to help individuals and organizations navigate the learning challenges that are at the core of strengthening warfighting skill.

A revised NDP-1 would be the doctrine that guides Sailors’ learning efforts in three essential ways. First, cultivate self-awareness and knowledge about how cognitive biases affect information processing and meaning-making in a warfighting environment. Second, practice broad, holistic decision-making skills that are willing to challenge prevailing assumptions and established practices. Lastly, employ decision frameworks and learning models when developing guidance and policies. All of these efforts would be grounded in warfighting, with an eye toward how to apply these principles to tactical and operational challenges.

Regardless of their quality, doctrinal publications may fall far short due to a lack of concrete incentives and directives that make sure personnel engage with the material. For a revised NDP-1 to have real impact, it can be made mandatory reading for warfare tactics instructors, war college faculty and students, fleet staffs, and other target audiences.

Some within the fleet have readily embraced Get Real Get Better’s call to action. But more can be done, especially to ground this campaign in warfighting. A revised NDP-1, focused on developing learning strategies for warfighting challenges, will help the Navy and its Sailors achieve a campaign of continuous learning. It will help strengthen the professional incentives that reward warfighting skill, and cultivate a more robust intellectual environment in the Navy, one that values diversity of thought, the questioning of ideas, and rapidly developing winning solutions.

Commander Paul Nickell is a PMBA student at the Naval Postgraduate School and a Senior Course student at the Naval War College. He is part of the naval aviation community having commanded a P-8A squadron, facilitated learning at the Navy’s Leadership and Ethics Command for future Major Commanders, Commanding Officers, Executive Officers, and Command Master Chiefs. His academic focus has been on organizational learning, vertical development, and executive coaching as foundational aspects for learning organizations.

Featured Image: NAVAL AIR STATION WHIDBEY ISLAND, Wash. (Aug. 1, 2023) – A P-8A Poseidon assigned to Patrol Squadron (VP) 46, the ‘Grey Knights,’ taxis into the combat aircraft loading area at Naval Air Station, Whidbey Island, Washington. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Jacquelin Frost.)

Notes to the New CNO Series

By Steve Wills

The United States Navy has been without an operational level of war strategy to guide its force size, design, and employment since June 1990. In testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee, Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) nominee Admiral Frank Kelso put the Maritime Strategy of the 1980s “on the shelf,” stating, “military strategy needs a specific enemy, and the issues before us today seem ones of naval policy rather than strategy.” Since Admiral Kelso’s CNO tenure, the Navy has created a series of white papers and policy documents. These ranged from Kelso’s “From the Sea” document of 1992, to the most recent “Advantage at Sea, Tri-Service Maritime Strategy” signed by CNO Admiral Mike Gilday in 2020. CNOs have also issued guidance to the force, with recent examples including CNO Admiral Richardson’s “Designs for Maritime Superiority,” and Admiral Gilday’s “Navigation Plans.” But these documents have not sought to provide a concrete operational strategy for how the Navy would be employed in war.

The same period highlighted how the lack of an operational strategy contributed to the Navy’s declining force structure and readiness. From 1990 to 2020, the Navy decreased from over 520 ships to less than 300. Yet the service continued to forward deploy an average of 100 ships while at the same time maintaining a potential “surge” capacity for short-notice deployment of six carrier strike groups, such as were surged for Operations Desert Storm, and later Operations Enduring and Iraqi Freedom. These requirements became a heavy burden on fleet readiness over the 2000s and 2010s. Successive reports from the Board of Inspection and Survey, the Government Accountability Office, the Congressional Budget Office and Congressional Research Services, and others have been critical of Navy readiness. The 2010 Balisle report and Center for Naval Analyses “Tipping Point” studies both sounded significant alarms on Navy readiness challenges.

Successive service plans to address readiness problems in the form of the Fleet Response Plan, Optimized Fleet Response Plan, and now the 75 Ready Ships initiative have all failed to address the root causes of declining Navy readiness. Multiple classes of ships are reaching block obsolescence, including the CG-47 class cruiser, the LSD-41 class amphibious warfare ship, the SSN-688 class submarine, and the first units of the DDG-51 class destroyer. Attempts in the past two decades to create a new generation of surface ships such as the Zumwalt-class destroyer and littoral combat ship (LCS) failed to provide the desired capability. It seems clear that without an operational strategy to anchor its focus, the U.S. Navy has been unable to develop and sustain a force design with specific numbers of ships that meet its global mission set.

Some may argue that an operational level of war strategy is not the purview of the Navy as a service, but rather that of the combatant commands. The recent Marine Corps reforms highlight what is possible. The development of operational warfighting concepts such as stand-in forces and expeditionary advanced base operations (EABO) set the stage for changes to force design and how to measure readiness. By changing the forces that the service provides, the Marine Corps was able to subsequently evolve the warfighting options and strategies of the combatant commanders.

The 1986 Goldwater-Nichols Act instituted a bifurcation between the military entities that generate forces and those that employ them, which seemingly put a service-developed operational strategy like the Navy’s 1980s Maritime Strategy out of reach. But this bifurcation does not absolve the services of the fundamental need to develop warfighting strategies. The services must develop their own separate visions of future warfighting given how their force design and readiness mandates go well beyond the typical time horizon of combatant commander responsibilities.

The U.S. Navy is now at a force design and readiness crisis point not seen since Admiral Elmo Zumwalt took the helm in 1970. Admiral Lisa Franchetti should take the initiative to develop a comprehensive, operational level of war maritime strategy that will determine fleet missions, which will subsequently inform a specific fleet size and force design. Forging a stronger connection between warfighting strategy and force design will remain among the most pressing matters for the leadership of the United States Navy.

Dr. Steven Wills is a navalist for the Center for Maritime Strategy at the Navy League of the United States. He is an expert in U.S. Navy strategy and policy and U.S. Navy surface warfare programs and platforms. His research interests include the history of U.S. Navy strategy development over the Cold War and immediate, post-Cold War era, and the history of the post-World War II U.S. Navy surface fleet.

Featured Image: APIA, Samoa (Sept. 13, 2023) – Independence-variant littoral combat ship USS Jackson (LCS 6) arrives in Apia, Samoa, for Pacific Partnership 2023. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Deirdre Marsac)