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Powering Down
Admiral Obama
A Scalpel, Not A Hatchet
Pentagon Budget: Top 3 Winners And Losers
U.S. Navy Breaks The Wrong Record
Countering Iranian Threats
In defense of the aircraft carrier fleet
Powering Down
A decline in U.S. military might could upend the world order
(WASHINGTON POST 03 FEB 12) ... Robert Kagan
These days “soft” power and “smart” power are in vogue (who wants to make the case for “dumb” power?) while American “hard” power is on the chopping block. This is, in part, a symbolic sacrifice to the fiscal crisis — even though the looming defense cuts are a drop in the bucket compared with the ballooning entitlement spending that is not being cut. And partly this is the Obama administration’s election-year strategy of playing to a presumably war-weary nation.
But there is a theory behind all this: The United States has relied too much on hard power for too long, and to be truly effective in a complex, modern world, the United States needs to emphasize other tools. It must be an attractive power, capable of persuading rather than compelling. It must convene and corral both partners and non-partners, using economic, diplomatic and other means to “leverage” American influence.
These are sensible arguments. Power takes many forms, and it’s smart to make use of all of them. But there is a danger in taking this wisdom too far and forgetting just how important U.S. military power has been in building and sustaining the present liberal international order.
That order has rested significantly on the U.S. ability to provide security in parts of the world, such as Europe and Asia, that had known endless cycles of warfare before the arrival of the United States. The world’s free-trade, free-market economy has depended on America’s ability to keep trade routes open, even during times of conflict. And the remarkably wide spread of democracy around the world owes something to America’s ability to provide support to democratic forces under siege and to protect peoples from dictators such as Moammar Gaddafi and Slobodan Milosevic. Some find it absurd that the United States should have a larger military than the next 10 nations combined. But that gap in military power has probably been the greatest factor in upholding an international system that, in historical terms, is unique — and uniquely beneficial to Americans.
Nor should we forget that this power is part of what makes America attractive to many other nations. The world has not always loved America. During the era of Vietnam and Watergate and the ugly last stand of segregationists, America was often hated. But nations that relied on the United States for security from threatening neighbors tended to overlook the country’s flaws. In the 1960s, millions of young Europeans took to the streets to protest American “imperialism,” while their governments worked to ensure that the alliance with the United States held firm.
Soft power, meanwhile, has its limits. No U.S. president has enjoyed more international popularity than Woodrow Wilson did when he traveled to Paris to negotiate the treaty ending World War I. He was a hero to the world, but he found his ability to shape the peace, and to establish the new League of Nations, severely limited, in no small part by his countrymen’s refusal to commit U.S. military power to the defense of the peace. John F. Kennedy, another globally admired president, found his popularity of no use in his confrontations with Nikita Khrushchev, who, by Kennedy’s own admission, “beat the hell out of me” and who may have been convinced by his perception of Kennedy’s weakness that the United States would tolerate his placing Soviet missiles in Cuba.
The international system is not static. It responds quickly to fluctuations in power. If the United States were to cut too deeply into its ability to project military power, other nations could be counted on to respond accordingly. Those nations whose power rises in relative terms would display expanding ambitions commensurate with their new clout in the international system. They would, as in the past, demand particular spheres of influence. Those whose power declined in relative terms, like the United States, would have little choice but to cede some influence in those areas. Thus China would lay claim to its sphere of influence in Asia, Russia in eastern Europe and the Caucasus. And, as in the past, these burgeoning great-power claims would overlap and conflict: India and China claim the same sphere in the Indian Ocean; Russia and Europe have overlapping spheres in the region between the Black Sea and the Baltic. Without the United States to suppress and contain these conflicting ambitions, there would have to be complex adjustments to establish a new balance. Some of these adjustments could be made through diplomacy, as they were sometimes in the past. Other adjustments might be made through war or the threat of war, as also happened in the past.
The biggest illusion is to imagine that as American power declines, the world stays the same.
What has been true since the time of Rome remains true today: There can be no world order without power to preserve it, to shape its norms, uphold its institutions, defend the sinews of its economic system and keep the peace. Military power can be abused, wielded unwisely and ineffectively. It can be deployed to answer problems that it cannot answer or that have no answer. But it is also essential. No nation or group of nations that renounced power could expect to maintain any kind of world order. If the United States begins to look like a less reliable defender of the present order, that order will begin to unravel. People might indeed find Americans very attractive in this weaker state, but if the United States cannot help them when and where they need help the most, they will make other arrangements.
Admiral Obama
A diminished Navy can't meet its multiple global missions.
(WALL STREET JOURNAL 28 JAN 12)
President Obama plans to cut the Pentagon budget by half a trillion dollars or more in the next decade. He also wants the military to take on new missions, principally for the Navy to lead an American strategic "pivot" to the Asia-Pacific.
Something has to give. Care to guess what?
The Administration's record to date is undeniable. Defense was targeted from day one in office, and Mr. Obama disguised his latest, steepest retrenchment as part of a new "strategic review" earlier this month. The Pentagon on Thursday previewed the cuts, announcing that the 2013 defense budget due next month will decline for the first time since 1998. As spending on entitlements rises, budget cuts disproportionately hit the Pentagon, which accounts for a fifth of federal spending but over half the deficit reduction.
A closer look at the Navy reveals the damage. The Pentagon announced that seven cruisers will be decommissioned sooner than planned. Plans to purchase new Virginia-class submarines, a large-deck amphibious ship and smaller attack vessels will be delayed or reduced. Mr. Obama vetoed the Navy's offer to drop one of 11 aircraft carriers, but that decision may be revisited if he is re-elected. As Chief of Naval Operations Jonathan Greenert wrote last month, the service in 2025 "may be smaller than today."
This is not good news. The Navy's fleet is already too small and its ships too old to perform its multiple missions. The fleet has shrunk by half in two decades and currently stands at 285. At the height of the Reagan Cold War buildup in 1987, the Navy had 568 carriers, destroyers, submarines and other ships.
Five years ago, the Navy pledged to get back to a floor of 313 ships sometime in the next decade. But even that shipbuilding plan was stingy in ambition and funding, favoring smaller, relatively inexpensive combat and supply ships. An update last year cut the number of ballistic missile submarines to 12 from 14. The Pentagon's latest budget plan makes it virtually impossible for the Navy to meet the 313 ship goal. And as Defense Secretary Leon Panetta wrote in a letter to Congress in November, if it cuts another $500 billion next January under "sequestration," the U.S. may be looking at a "fleet of fewer than 230 ships."
Administration officials have little choice but to talk down the usefulness of a larger fleet. "We have the 600-ship Navy [now]," in terms of overall capabilities, Navy Undersecretary Bob Work said at an industry conference this month. "The numbers don't [matter]. We span the globe."
He has a point that the weapons and technologies on today's ships have improved greatly since the Reagan era. The Pentagon has rightly focused as well on developing unmanned vessels and electronic warfare to ensure "access," in military speak, to any potential hot spot. "We will have a Navy that maintains a forward presence and is able to penetrate enemy defenses," says Mr. Panetta.
But there's a catch: The planet isn't smaller. A ship can only be in one place at one time. So numbers do matter if the Navy is asked to chase pirates in Somalia, ferry humanitarian aid to Haiti, protect the Strait of Hormuz and keep a muscular presence in the South China Sea—to name a few of the recent and growing demands on the fleet. To cite another, the Obama Administration has also pivoted from ground- to sea-based missile defenses. This means that Aegis class cruisers must be parked in the Mediterranean to guard against an Iranian attack.
An independent bipartisan panel that went over the Pentagon's last Quadrennial Defense Review in 2010 said that the U.S. needed a larger Navy. It recommended 346 ships, including 11 aircraft carrier groups and 55 attack submarines (compared to only 48 in current plans), which it justified by invoking—as President Obama implicitly did earlier this month—the rise of China.
"To preserve our interests, the United States will need to retain the ability to transit freely the areas of the Western Pacific for security and economic reason," the panel wrote. A 313-or-fewer ship Navy doesn't look imposing from Beijing.
Doves these days say that the U.S. is in an arms race only with itself, and that it spends nearly half of the world's defense dollars, so why not cut spending to 2.7% of GDP, a level last reached before Pearl Harbor? Yet the Chinese certainly behave as if they are in an arms race. China is building dozens of new ships, plus cheap and quiet diesel-electric submarines and antiship missiles that pose a threat to U.S carriers.
China's strategic goal is to undercut America's naval preeminence in the Pacific. Analysts estimate that Beijing's defense budget, which isn't exactly transparent, may be as high as $300 billion in purchasing power parity terms due to the lower cost of running a military in China. The base Pentagon budget for fiscal year 2013, which doesn't include war costs, will be $525 billion, and future budgets will further narrow the gap with China.
The U.S. needs 11 aircraft carriers, even when no other country has more than one, because no other country does what it does. American military power has ensured global peace and prosperity since World War II. The Navy is the symbol and instrument of America's ability to project power. Its deterioration would hasten the end of the Pax Americana, carrying a high and dangerous price for the world.
A Scalpel, Not A Hatchet
Why is Obama cutting so little out of the Pentagon budget? He could cut even more.
(SLATE 26 JAN 12) ... Fred Kaplan
The Pentagon revealed a bit more of its defense budget today, and, really, the proposed cuts in spending amount to no big deal. It would be hard to justify not making these cuts. If Congress winds up wanting to cut deeper, there’s plenty of room for more hacking.
First, a word of caution: There are many ways to calculate a “cut,” and some will no doubt invoke a few to claim that the Obama administration’s cuts are severe. Let’s go to the numbers.
In his press conference today, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said that he will request $525 billion for fiscal year 2013—plus $88 billion for “overseas contingency operations” (aka the wars in Afghanistan and elsewhere, the costs for which have generally been considered separately from the baseline budget).
Some hawks will no doubt scream that this constitutes a cut of $45 billion, or 8 percent—a substantial rip for a single year. But this claim is at best misleading. It’s true that, a year ago, the Pentagon projected that the budget for FY 2013 (at the time, two years out) would be $571 billion.
Compared with that figure, the sum Panetta settles for ($525 billion) is $45 billion less. But last year’s actual FY 2012 budget was $531 billion. And compared with this figure, the proposal for FY 2013 is a cut of just $6 billion, or 1 percent.
Caspar Weinberger pulled this trick all the time when he was Ronald Reagan’s defense secretary. He would insist that he was making drastic cuts by comparing his budget with what he’d projected it to be (sincerely or not) the year before—while, in fact, he was requesting massive increases.
I haven’t seen anyone do this yet, but conceivably some extreme critic might complain that Obama is cutting the budget by $72 billion. You could get there by adding, on top of the misleading $45 billion, the $27 billion he’s cutting from overseas contingency operations. But of course this latter cut reflects the withdrawal of all troops from Iraq and the beginning of the drawdown from Afghanistan. (Would even a Republican presidential candidate distort reality this much? It wouldn’t be the grossest instance.)
In any case, looking at the five-year defense plan that Panetta presented, the military budget goes back up in fiscal year 2014 and each year after, winding up at $567 billion in FY 2017. Measured in “real dollars” (that is, adjusting for inflation), the budget at least stays fairly constant—all five years amounting to a total cut (not an average annual cut but a total cut) of just 1.6 percent. This is the work of a paring knife, not a meat cleaver.
What are Obama and Panetta cutting?
As has been long predicted, the biggest knife goes to the Army, which is set to lose eight brigades and see its active-duty troop level decline from a post-9/11 peak of 570,000 (reached in 2010) to 490,000.
This seems to be a substantial cut—14 percent. But three facts need to be kept in mind.
First, a few years ago, the Army made plans, without any controversy, to cut 49,000 of those troops: This was the number that had been added on, as a temporary measure, to allow for the “surges” in Iraq and Afghanistan. So the Army needs to cut only 31,000 more to meet the target.
Second, 100,000 troops just left Iraq; another 33,000 will leave Afghanistan by the end of this year. If Panetta didn’t deactivate some of them, where would they all go? Where, for what contingency or threat, are they needed? For instance, part of Panetta’s plan, which was fully coordinated with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is to deactivate two of the remaining four brigades stationed in Europe. Does anybody have a problem with that?
Third, even with these cuts, the Army will have more troops than it did in 2001. There will also still be a half-million in the National Guard and Reserve, which Panetta is leaving alone. He’s also leaving uncut the corps of midgrade officers (mainly colonels), so that, if a larger force does need to be recruited in a hurry, the combat leaders will still be there. Also he’s increasing the number of Special Operations Forces.
Under the plan, the Air Force will also lose six of its tactical fighter squadrons (out of its current 60) and 130 aging cargo-transport planes (leaving it with a fleet of 392). The budget sheets passed out at today’s briefing aren’t sufficiently detailed to allow for conclusions on whether these cuts are excessive. I’m sure we’ll know more once Panetta has to counter the inexorable protests by members of Congress from districts with large aerospace contracts.
Clearly, the shift in the Air Force is toward unmanned aircraft—the “drones” equipped with cameras and, in many cases, smart bombs. The budget sustains the 65 that are flying combat missions at any one time (meaning there are around 200 drones in all). Panetta is also building up the infrastructure so that the 65 can be expanded to 85. And it’s building new models, including Fire Scout, which is designed to operate at sea (presumably to monitor Chinese vessels in the South China Sea and, perhaps, suspicious cargo boats floating in or out of North Korea’s harbors).
The much-publicized “pivot” to the Pacific means that Panetta (no doubt with a nod from the White House) is leaving untouched the Navy’s fleet of 11 aircraft carriers and big-deck amphibious ships, letting slip only one submarine and a couple of smaller ships, and then merely as a bit of bookkeeping to place their delivery a little bit after the five-year defense plan.
China’s ambitions—and, more significantly, our Asian allies’ growing worries about those ambitions—may justify a recalibration of how many ships we need to build in the coming years. But are 11 carriers really needed? And given all the firepower and defensive radar on carriers these days, does each one need to be escorted by all the cruisers, frigates and destroyers that have followed them around in the past?
And what about the nuclear weapons arsenal? At the last big Pentagon news conference, on Jan. 5, when Panetta and President Obama himself outlined their new defense strategy, the undersecretary of defense for policy, Michele Flournoy, said at a briefing afterward that the budget would reflect the finding that national security can be preserved with a smaller nuclear force.
But now we see the budget, and the only apparent change in this realm is a two-year delay in production of a new Trident missile-carrying submarine. Meanwhile, the commitment to the “strategic triad”—the arsenal of land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and bombers—seems sacrosanct, complete with plans to build a new bomber.
A missed opportunity for huge savings came when Panetta announced that he remained committed to building the F-35 stealth fighter plane—2,443 aircraft in all, including the F-35B for the Marines. He will only be slowing down the production schedule to allow for further testing, followed possibly by changes in the plane itself. This slowdown will save $15 billion over the next five years. But he could save much more by shutting it down. If more planes are needed for some reason, he could build more modified F-16s and F-18s. They’re old, but they seem to be good enough that the Air Force and Navy are building more of them even now.
The big picture that this budget projects is in sync with the strategic review that Obama unveiled earlier this month: a shift away from Europe to the Pacific and Middle East; a shift away from large-scale, protracted “stability operations” (such as we’ve just been doing in Iraq and Afghanistan) to smaller, shorter operations (involving mainly Special Operations Forces and drones) to “advise and assist” foreign allies fighting insurgents; and a shift away from being able to win two wars at once (always a mythic notion) to being able merely to beat one foe while denying victory to another.
This strategic review was prompted, of course, by the Budget Control Act’s mandated reductions of $487 billion in defense spending over the next 10 years, including $259 billion over the next five. And the budget rolled out by Panetta today marks the first step to fulfilling that.
But, White House and Pentagon officials insist, they would have made these changes, as a response to global conditions, even if the fiscal house were in order.
If that’s the case, the shifts could be sharper, and the cuts could be deeper. More than that, they’re going to have to be. Military personnel and health care costs are skyrocketing. Panetta’s plan assumes reforms and efficiencies that will make some of those costs come down, but the assumption seems far-fetched, the numbers look loose. If those costs can’t be controlled, then savings will have to be found elsewhere. It’s time to take a deeper look at the military’s roles and missions—what they really need to do in the post-Cold War, post-Iraq/Afghanistan world and how much doing those things really has to cost.
Pentagon Budget: Top 3 Winners And Losers
(CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR 26 JAN 12) ... Anna Mulrine
As the Pentagon rolled out its budget preview Thursday, it stressed the tough work involved in cutting $487 billion over the next decade. But in Pentagon parlance, the word “cut” is a relative term. While the Defense Department's base budget initially decreases from $553 billion this year to $525 billion in fiscal year 2013 – more than its $480 billion base budget in 2008, when US troops were in the midst of two wars. The budget will then rebound steadily to $567 billion in fiscal year 2017.
With this in mind, here are the top three winners and losers:
Winner No. 1: the Navy
The Pentagon has made no secret of its plan to shift its attention toward the Pacific (read China) in the years to come. This is a boon for the US Navy, whose aircraft carriers and submarines will be key in any US military maneuvering that involves China, senior military officials stress. It is a change of fortune for a service branch that often felt marginalized amid the decade’s two large counterinsurgency wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Indeed, despite some robust calls to reduce just one of the 11 aircraft carriers in the Navy’s fleet, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta announced Thursday that this would not be happening. He cited the need for a Navy “that maintains forward presence and is able to penetrate enemy defenses.”
What’s more, the Pentagon will be putting money into developing, for example, “a new afloat forward staging base” and “a design that will allow new Virginia-class submarines to be modified to carry more cruise missiles.”
The Pentagon is also currently working to develop an “undersea conventional prompt global strike option” – essentially arming submarine-based missiles with conventional warheads – despite a Bush administration decision to scrap it amid concerns that they would be mistaken for nuclear missile strikes.
“Modernizing our submarine fleet will be critical to our efforts to maintain maritime access in these vital regions of the world,” Mr. Panetta said. One senior military official pointed to the Navy’s “particularly useful role” in the seas around China, “for the things we want to do in the future.”
Winner No. 2: Special Operations Forces
Even as the Pentagon shrinks the size of the Army and Marine Corps, it will be expanding the use of its Special Operations Forces (SOF) troops. Though the military will be “smaller and leaner,” Panetta says, it will also be “agile, flexible, ready, and more technologically advanced.”
The small teams of SOF forces that targeted Osama bin Laden and rescued an American hostage from Somali pirates will be increasingly operating from what US military officials describe as small “lily pad” bases around the globe.
The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey, cited the new capabilities of SOF forces as some of the US military’s most significant achievements of the past decade.
Even as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan come to an end, “Elsewhere in the world, the gradual drawdown of post-9/11 wars will provide more opportunities for Special Operations Forces to advise and assist partners in other regions,” Panetta told reporters.
By elsewhere in the world, US officials tend to stress places like Yemen, the federal administered tribal areas of Pakistan, and Somalia.
Winner No. 3: unmanned aerial vehicles
Pentagon officials who worry about the impact of cuts on the military are openly celebrating the proliferation of Predator and Reaper drones in US battlefields throughout the world.
Indeed, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) – or “remotely piloted aircraft,” as the Air Force prefers to call them – will see perhaps one of the largest proportional leaps in funding. The Pentagon will call for a nearly one-third increase in its UAV fleet in the years ahead.
The US military sees opportunities for UAVs not only in its current wars, but also in patrolling the seas, through what defense officials call a “sea-based unmanned intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) systems,” such as the Navy Fire Scout, an unmanned helicopter that can be outfitted with laser-guided rockets.
The Pentagon also declared its intent to “acquire advanced new ISR capabilities.”
Loser No. 1: the Army
The Pentagon will be reducing the size of the active duty Army by some 80,000 troops over the next several years, from approximately 570,000 today to 490,000.
Even then, the force will still be slightly larger than it was before the 9/11 attacks, military officials point out.
It is easier to grow the ranks of foot soldiers than it is to create a new weapon system, senior US military officials tend to point out. And, these officials add, they feel more comfortable cutting the size of the service when troops have been “fundamentally reshaped by a decade of war,” as Panetta puts it.
This means that the troops who remain are “far more lethal, battle-hardened, and ready,” he added in remarks to reporters.
General Dempsey, for his part, endeavored to put a positive spin on the decreasing size of the Army, and the growing emphasis on Special Operations. “The Special Operations Forces can only be ‘special’ if there’s a conventional force that allows them to conduct their operations and shape the environment, so we’ve got to do this all in balance, and I’m confident we’ve done that.”
Loser No. 2: enemy hackers
In Panetta’s remarks and in Pentagon budget preview documents, one common theme involved warnings of the threat of cyberwarfare – and questions about whether the Pentagon can handle sophisticated cyberattacks.
As a result, the Pentagon is pumping more money into cyberoperations. In a rare disclosure about what is considered a highly secretive endeavor, Pentagon officials emphasized that this would include “both defensive and offensive capabilities.”
Indeed, Panetta has warned frequently of a cyber “Pearl Harbor” and Thursday he called the threat of cyberattack one of “the most lethal and disruptive threats of the future.”
The Defense secretary cited the perils, too, involved in not pioneering cutting-edge technological advances. “We’re depending a great deal on being at the technological edge of the future,” Panetta said. “We even have to leap forward if we’re going to deal with the kind of challenges we’re going to face. We’ve got to be smart enough, innovative enough, creative enough to be able to leap forward. Can we do that? Can we develop the kind of technology we’re going to need to confront the future?”
That remains to be seen, say many analysts, who add that the answer depends on America’s ability to fight off cyberattacks that may face America’s electrical grid, its banking system, and the communications systems of US military assets on the battlefield.
Loser No. 3: future troops
Panetta emphasized that “the most fundamental element of our strategy” is “our people” and that “they, far more than any weapons system, far more than any technology, are the great strength of our United States military.”
That said, US military personnel costs are skyrocketing: When taken together, military pay, health care, and retirement benefits have grown nearly 90 percent since 2001.
The Pentagon’s budget allows for “full pay raises” for troops in 2013 and 2014 that will “keep pace with increases in private-sector pay.” After that, though, “We will achieve some cost savings by providing more limited pay raises beginning in 2015,” Panetta said. “This will give troops and their families fair notice and lead time before these proposed changes take effect.”
Panetta emphasized that “nobody’s pay will be cut.” But there will be more costs to troops in the area of, say, health care. “We decided that to help control the growth of health-care costs, we are recommending increases in health-care fees, co-pays, and deductibles.” This involves only current retirees, since senior military officials have emphasized the need to “keep faith” with the soldiers who have fought two wars in the past decade and have been promised certain benefits.
Current US forces will be grandfathered in, but future troops may be looking at reduced benefits as they begin to enter the US military. Panetta told reporters that he will ask Congress to establish a commission with authority to conduct a comprehensive review of military retirement benefits. It is a review that former Defense Secretary Robert Gates championed as well, as he warned that the current military retirement system – with generous benefits for troops who have served 20 years, for example – all but encourages service members to leave the military after that time.
U.S. Navy Breaks The Wrong Record
by James Dunnigan
January 20, 2012
The U.S. Navy broke a record in 2011, as it relieved (removed from their job) 35 senior commanders. Worse yet, 27 of them were commanding or executive officers on ships. This was higher than the previous record year, 2003, when 23 were relieved. Since the end of the Cold War in 1991 the U.S. Navy has been experiencing a larger number of warship captains and other senior naval commanders getting relieved. It's currently over five percent of ship captains a year. At the end of the Cold War, in the late 1980s, the rate was about 3-4 percent a year. So why has the relief rate gone up? And why hasn't the navy been able to do anything to reverse this two decade long trend?
There appears to be a number of reasons for this, some of them new and unique, often having to do with the growth of political correctness. But most of the other reliefs appeared to be traceable to the rating system (where commanders evaluate their subordinates each year). Obviously, too many unqualified officers are getting promoted to commands they cannot handle. Seeking a solution, the navy queried commanders for new ideas for the evaluation system. One of the more interesting ones was to hold commanders responsible for their evaluations. Thus, when a commander was up for promotion one of the items considered would be the accuracy of their past evaluations. After all, the higher your rank, the more important it is for you to pick the right people for promotion. The navy has also looked at how corporations handle this evaluation process and discovered that it was common to poll subordinates for evaluations as well. The navy was aware that some commanders consult senior NCOs (chiefs) on evaluations. Chiefs have a lot of experience and see officers a bit differently than more senior officers.
Another problem was a major modification, two decades ago, in these fitness reports in which written comments on many aspects of an officer evaluation were changed to a 1-5 ranking system. The new method also forced raters to rank all their subordinates against each other. This was unfair to a bunch of high performing officers who happened to be serving together and being rated by the same commander.
Even more worrisome was the fact that only a small percentage of reliefs have to do with professional failings (a collision or serious accident, failing a major inspection, or just continued poor performance.) Most reliefs were, and still are, for adultery, drunkenness, or theft. Or, in one case, telling jokes that sailors enjoyed but some politicians didn't.
With more women aboard warships there have been more reliefs for, as sailors like to put it, "zipper failure". Typically, these reliefs include phrases pointing out that the disgraced officer, "acted in an unprofessional manner toward several crew members that was inappropriate, improper, and unduly familiar". Such "familiarity" usually includes sex with subordinates and a captain who is having zipper control problems often has other shortcomings as well. Senior commanders traditionally act prudently and relieve a ship commander who demonstrates a pattern of minor problems and who they "lack confidence in".
Most naval officers see the problem not of too many captains being relieved but of too many unqualified officers getting command of ships in the first place. Not every naval officer qualified for ship command gets one. The competition for ship commands is pretty intense. This, despite the fact that officers know that whatever goes wrong on the ship the captain is responsible.
It's a hard slog for a new ensign (officer rank O-1) to make it to a ship command. For every hundred ensigns entering service, only 11 of those ensigns will make it to O-6 (captain) and get a major seagoing command (cruiser, destroyer, squadron). Officers who do well commanding a ship will often get to do it two or three times before they retire after about 30 years of service.
But with all this screening and winnowing why are more unqualified officers getting to command ships, and then getting relieved because they can't hack it? Some point to the growing popularity of "mentoring" by senior officers (that smaller percentage that makes it to admiral). While the navy uses a board of officers to decide which officers get ship commands the enthusiastic recommendation of one or more admirals does count. Perhaps it counts too much. While the navy is still quick to relieve any ship commander that screws up (one naval "tradition" that should never be tampered with), up until that point it is prudent not to offend any admirals by implying that their judgment of "up and coming talent" is faulty. In the aftermath of these reliefs, it often becomes known that the relieved captain had a long record of problems. But because he was "blessed" by one or more admirals these infractions were overlooked. The golden boys tend to be very personable and, well, look good. The navy promotion system is organized to rise above such superficial characteristics but apparently the power, and misuse of mentoring, has increasingly corrupted the process.
And then there is the problem with the chiefs, history, and zero tolerance. Asking the chiefs (Chief Petty Officers, the senior NCOs who supervise the sailors) might provide some illumination about officer potential. Unfortunately, over the last decade officers have been less inclined to ask their chiefs much. The "zero tolerance" atmosphere that has permeated the navy since the end of the Cold War has led officers to take direct control of supervisory duties the chiefs used to handle. The chiefs have lost a lot of their influence, responsibility, and power.
The problem is that, with "zero tolerance" one mistake can destroy a career. This was not the case in the past. Many of the outstanding admirals of World War II would have never survived in today's navy. For example, Bill "Bull" Halsey ran his destroyer aground during World War I, but his career survived the incident. That is no longer is the case. It's also well to remember that, once World War II began, there was a massive removal of peacetime commanders from ships. The peacetime evaluation system selected officers who were well qualified to command ships in peacetime but not in wartime. Same pattern with admirals.
Another problem is that officers don't spend as much time at sea, or in command, as in the past. A lot of time is spent going to school and away from the chiefs and sailors. For example, while the navy had more ships in the 1930s than it does today, there were fewer people in the navy. That's because back then 80 percent of navy personnel were assigned to a ship and had plenty of time to learn how to keep it clean and operational. With that much less practical experience it's understandable that more captains would prove unable to do the job.
Back To TopCountering Iranian Threats
U.S. can't afford to meet threat to Strait of Hormuz with appeasement
(WASHINGTON TIMES 20 JAN 12) ... Adm. James A. Lyons
A recent 10-day naval exercise by Iran was intended to display a capability to close the strategic Strait of Hormuz should further sanctions be imposed that would affect Iran's oil industry. The exercise was accompanied with the usual bluster, even threatening some unspecified action should the attack carrier USS John C. Stennis return to the Persian Gulf. Suffice it to say, the U.S. Navy will continue to operate its ships in international waters, which includes the Persian Gulf, whenever necessary to carry out its mission.
A more recent report indicates that Iran's parliament is preparing a bill that would prohibit all foreign warships from entering the Persian Gulf unless they first request and receive permission from the Iranian navy. Such a flagrant violation of the internationally recognized "freedom of the seas" concept was likely sanctioned by the fanatical Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. It should be made patently clear to the Iranian theocracy that any interference with the peaceful movement of civilian vessels or warships in or out of the Persian Gulf will be considered an "act of war" and be dealt with promptly.
There should no doubt of our resolve and the U.S. Navy's capability, along with our allies, to protect freedom of the seas and keep the Strait of Hormuz open. Soon the United States will have three carrier battle groups in the region: the USS Abraham Lincoln, USS Carl Vinson and the John C. Stennis. This awesome capability is similar to three battle groups we had assembled in August 1987, when we were prepared to shut Iran down for its aggressive actions in the Gulf reflagged tanker war, but could not get authorization to execute our plans. Had we attacked, we would not be in the position we are in today.
Now that all troops are out of Iraq, we still must not only address Iran's latest maritime threats, but its expansionist agenda and its drive to achieve a nuclear weapons capability. The liberal foreign policy establishment has already leaped on the mistakes of the Bush administration for its controversial decision to invade Iraq as well as its conduct of the war. The case is being made that we should have learned our lessons and not forget the more than 4,400 American lives lost as well as the tens of thousands injured and the almost trillion dollars expended. They have a point. However, Iran was always the main threat.
There is no question that the bastion of democracy did not materialize in Iraq as the Bush administration has hoped. Instead, we now have an Iraqi administration, dominated by Iran, helped by the ineptness of the Obama administration.
The liberal foreign policy establishment thinks a wiser course for resolving our issues with Iran should be diplomacy rather than military action. They acknowledge that President Obama tried to engage the Iranian leadership with no preconditions, but was not only rebuffed, but ridiculed. Further, two letters said to have been sent to the Iranian leadership went unanswered.
The establishment should remember that Iran has been at war with the United States for more than 30 years. Its direct involvement in the bombing of our U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut in October 1983, as well as the Khobar Towers bombing of June 1996 in Saudi Arabia and the direct assistance it provided the Sept. 11 hijackers, cannot be dismissed. Nor can their direct assistance to the Iraqi militias, which accounted for many of the more than 4,400 fatalities we suffered.
With the latest Iranian bluster threatening U.S. warships, plus moving to declare de facto control over the entire Persian Gulf, the United States is being directly challenged. In the past when we have been challenged by the fanatical Iranian leadership, our leadership - from the Carter administration to the current one - has backed down. It is to be hoped that this great nation will not be let down again.
With our continued groveling, a window might be opened for direct negotiations, but what would it really mean? We are viewed by the fanatical mullahs as "infidels," and therefore, any agreement would be meaningless. Furthermore, if our apparent negotiations with the Taliban are any indication of how the Obama administration would approach the Iranians, I fear "appeasement" would be the least of our concerns. Capitulation would most likely be the outcome.
At the end of the day, our issues with Iran can only be resolved by regime change. Our diplomatic and military actions must be coordinated to bring about such a change. They must include as a minimum the following:
- Bring action before the U.N. Security Council to condemn Iran's latest potential intentions to interfere with either civilian or military ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz.
- Have the Security Council announce a declaration to keep the Strait of Hormuz open by all means available.
- Support the European Union in imposing sanctions on Iran's oil industry both for exported and imported fuels.
- The U.S. and its allies should be prepared to enforce the "freedom of seas" concept throughout the Persian Gulf.
- The U.S. and its allies should be prepared to implement a coordinated strike plan against Iran's nuclear infrastructure. Iran's oil industry infrastructure should be held hostage to limit Iran's response.
- The U.S. and its allies should be prepared to assist the "Green Revolution" opposition force uprising against the regime by both covert and overt means, including financial support.
Keeping the Iranian theocracy in power cannot be an option if any sense of stability is to be achieved in the Middle East. Further, any resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict cannot be achieved with the Iranian theocracy remaining in power.
Retired Adm. James A. Lyons was commander in chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet and senior U.S.military representative to the United Nations.
In defense of the aircraft carrier fleet
The Virginian-Pilot
© January 15, 2012
By Michael R. Groothousen
A recent column ["Challenging the Navy's numbers," Walter Pincus, Jan. 4] advocated a course of action that, if followed, would have harmful consequences for American national security and damage our country's standing in the world. The author advocates reducing the size of the bulwark of America's global defense capability - our aircraft carrier fleet - without addressing the dire results of such an action.
Ninety percent of international trade moves safely and freely over the world's oceans and seas, much to America's - and the free world's - benefit. A significant part of the reason is because American aircraft carriers provide us with the capability to defend our interests, neutralize our foes and deter would-be enemies in any corner of the globe more rapidly than other forces, without the permission of foreign powers.
But our ability to do all of this is entirely predicated on the current carrier force structure, which is barely sufficient to meet our combatant commanders' needs, even though the Navy has already significantly increased the frequency and duration of deployment for our carrier sailors.
America is the strongest, most prosperous and most free country in the world. With our strength comes responsibilities that we can shirk only at our peril. The larger, wealthier and stronger we grow, the more we become a target for current and would-be rivals and opponents worldwide who seek to challenge us, if not to usurp our dominance for economic, strategic and/or ideological reasons.
For at least five centuries the global maritime commons has been guarded by a maritime "superpower." As that mantle has passed among nations such as Portugal, Spain, the United Kingdom and the U.S., so has each country's era of greatness. Our decision now is whether, in the future, this will be our role or someone else's.
To cite but one example, let's consider the Asia-Pacific region. The Navy's Pacific fleet protects America's key allies, deters rivals and keeps open vital shipping lanes over more than 100 million square miles - more than half the surface of the planet. This region is also home to one of the greatest economic and military challengers to American supremacy, the People's Republic of China. It is home to that country's client state, North Korea. China already has nuclear missiles capable of targeting our country, and soon North Korea may, as well.
Our capacity to mount sufficient combat capability to deter these rivals - much less engage them successfully in the case of hostilities - while at the same time ensuring the security of Middle Eastern oil and worldwide seaborne commerce, in spite of an increasingly belligerent Iran, is clearly and unquestionably tethered to maintaining our carrier fleet.
It is precisely for these reasons and despite our current domestic economic woes (and the defense budget-slashing atmosphere on Capitol Hill), that the most recent Defense Strategic Review wisely concluded that an increase in America's Asia-Pacific military presence is essential. Without the necessary aircraft carrier-based force, that presence would be impotent. It is a testimonial to the flexibility of the carrier and a key statement of its value that the "strategic pivot" to the Asia-Pacific areas will require little more than steaming our flat-tops in a different direction.
Volumes could be, and have been, written about the vulnerabilities of shore-based, fixed airfields compared to the less vulnerable mobile platform at sea. In today's environment, access to foreign airfields is neither assured nor often politically tenable or expedient. What might be a politically achievable military base today may be an untouchable airfield tomorrow.
There is no doubt that we must ensure that the cost of defense procurement - and every single other expenditure of taxpayer dollars, for that matter - is made as predictable and reasonable as possible. And, at a moment of great economic distress, we will surely have to make painful choices. But such decisions must not come at the expense of our national security.
Since our carrier capability was forged in World War II, America's ability to use them to rapidly deploy superior military power in defense of our interests (or for humanitarian efforts) has been repeatedly demonstrated and used by every single president since; in Korea, Cuba, Vietnam, Lebanon, Libya, Kosovo, Grenada, Afghanistan, Iraq and in the war on terror, among others. As global threats increase, the carrier's role will become more vital than it is today. Plainly put, aircraft carriers cannot be cut without abandoning a key element to our security at home and abroad.
Michael R Groothousen, a retired rear admiral, lives in Virginia Beach.