During my first year in the Navy, onboard USS Ranger, I saw something that I have never forgotten: an officer, a fellow just a few years older than I, sent home because he couldn’t make the cut. LT X, had made it through the F-14 replacement squadron – though I later learned he had made it through because there were a few folks – senior folks – in the chain of command who wanted more “graduates.”

“Too many people were failing.” The instructors, several of whom became close friends, were quite adamant that LT X simply wasn’t able to fly the F-14 on and off the ship. He was a quite decent fellow, smart, personable. He just wasn’t cut out for flying fighters. The higher ups insisted; they needed their numbers, quantity counts, they said. LT X tried. But in the real world he scared too many people – to include himself. And so, he was sent home.

Point is, you can plan for all sorts of numbers. And there is obviously a very real requirement for baseline force size. But what counts in warfare, in the end, is quality; quality is more important than quantity.

We just observed the 78th anniversary of Pearl Harbor. With everything else going on in the world – to include some tragic events on Naval bases in Pearl Harbor – perhaps it’s appropriate to take a hard look at our Navy.

The Navy has been much in the news of late: one carrier (USS Truman) suffered some sort of mysterious problem and spent three months in an unscheduled yard period rather than deploying; USS Ford continues her sad (and seemingly never-ending) story, reports of training problems, several quite prominent court martials, some Presidential / Commander-in-Chief displeasure, the service Secretary being fired, etc., etc., etc.

What’s this all about?

I read an interesting article the other day about what’s wrong. The article, written by James Durso, in Real Clear Defense, makes the case that the Navy has deep problems in moral and managerial leadership. I would agree. Strongly. But there’s more to it, and it occurred to me after spending a week working with some folks in special operations. Specifically, I had a chance to work with four men who spent their careers in one of those small units that represent the creme de la creme of special operations, as they trained other special operations personnel in certain aspects of the “business.”

One thing stood out, in glaring juxtaposition to the larger services that make up the rest of the DOD: quality. Quality of training, quality of leadership, quality of personnel. The difference is so jarring as to be almost painful. What’s accepted in other segments of the services is simply not tolerated in special operations. There are other elements that also insist on very high standards: submarines, tactical aviation, in particular fighter aviation and some elements of helicopter aviation, especially Army helicopter aviation that supports special operators.

Make no mistake, there are problems in the Special Operations community. But there are far fewer there than in the rest of the services. The fact that perhaps 2% of the DOD is responsible for perhaps 95% of combat operations over the past two decades goes a long way to explaining those problems.

The rest of the services don’t have the excuse of being over-taxed.

Durso, in his article, recounts how Vice Admiral Phil Balisle warned in 2009 that there was a serious training and readiness problem in the Navy’s surface force. But the fact is there was a recognized problem in the surface forces as far back as the 1970s. For more than 4 decades there’s been recognition that the Navy surface force needed the same sort of standardization, and substantially higher standards, such as those found in submarines and in aviation.

Naval Aviation had this very problem, many decades ago. The result, after many problems, many crashes – and many deaths, was something called NATOPS – Naval Air Training and Operations Standard Procedures, which became formal in 1961. NATOPS standardized basic operating procedures across the Navy and Marine Corps aviation communities, and while it dramatically improved safety, it also dramatically improved the baseline of operational and combat effectiveness.

Submarines, and the nuclear power schools and the SUBSAFE programs run by the US Navy, have made US Navy submarines the best in the world, and the reactors the safest in the world.

And particularly in special operations are both rigorous selection processes and even more rigorous training processes that feel little remorse in adhering to very high standards, even if that means lots of folks don’t make it all the way through.

And then there’s the surface fleet, where no standards seem to exist, and where operational mediocrity is only matched by maintenance apathy from the admirals.

And who’s to blame? Navy leadership. This isn’t a failure of senior enlisted, or junior officers; they don’t control training or maintenance standards, the admirals do. Secretary Spencer’s maneuvering behind the Secretary of Defense’s back, and apparently planning to gun-deck a review board may have been the straw that broke the camel’s back, but he deserved to be fired for not taking hold of the Navy training, personnel and maintenance programs and taking the aggressive steps needed to fix them.

The Navy needs to stop “playing nice” with training, especially surface warfare training, set high standards, and enforce those standards. Staffs need to be cleaned out, and some admirals need to be given the boot for not addressing these ills. Tens of billions of taxpayers’ dollars are going into the Navy every year, the nation deserves better. The President should give Admiral Gilday 90 days to set a new, aggressive, quality over quantity course, or give him the boot and try the next guy.

Let’s fix the Navy.

Copyright 2019 Arrias
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