Sea Power 21, Version 2.0 Part 2

In October 2002 Admiral Vern Clark introduced the Sea Power 21 concept in Proceedings Magazine. It was billed as a vision statement for the 21st century, and in general it was a combination of lessons learned since the last maritime strategy (1986), but also it carried with it buzz from the "transformation" idea that was just beginning to come from the Pentagon. The Sea Power 21 vision statement was the first official naval document that included the word "transformation."

This post represents the second installment of Sea Power 21 version 2.0 (Part 1 here). The topics discussed within are presented last in Sea Power 21, so in effect I am skipping ahead a bit only to return to parts skipped in part 3.

Strategies are enduring, and effective strategies are almost timeless, and while they account in many cases for the environment of the time, politically, technically, and professionally to an extent, they don't require much revision to be relevant to other time periods. The last Maritime Strategy for the US Navy dates to 1986, 5 years before the fall of the Soviet Union. In September of 2007, that strategy remains the foundation for the US Navy today, for at least another month anyway, and for its 21 years the outcome is unquestionably the most powerful naval force in the history of mankind in today's US Navy.

Concepts of Operations (or visions), like Sea Power 21, are not as enduring. They should be constantly reevaluated to determine what is working, and what isn't. Being that we are approaching 5 years of Sea Power 21, I suggest it is time to evaluate what has worked and what hasn't, why, and what needs to be 'tweaked.' In this section there is a need for major change, or what I would call a reevaluation of the major changes implimented, and where the path is unclear I suggest consulting history as a guide. This process of reevaluation would lead to Sea Power 21 v2.0. In part 2, I will focus on the following areas of Sea Power 21:

• Sea Trial: The Process of Innovation
• Sea Warrior: Investing in Sailors
• Sea Enterprise: Resourcing Tomorrow's Fleet

Sea Trial

In March of 1922, the US Navy converted the collier USS Jupiter (AC-3) in to the US Navy's first aircraft carrier, commissioned the USS Langley (CV 1). What followed was the steady innovation of aircraft carrier operations. Starting with the launch of a a Vought VE-7 from her deck on October 17, 1922, followed by the landing of a Aeromarine 39 while underway on October 26th, 1922. Testing, analysis, and demonstrations followed until the USS Langley was taken back to Norfolk for repairs and modifications, where she was then transferred to the Pacific fleet arriving in November of 1924. For the next 12 years the USS Langley (CV 1) operated off the Pacific west coast and Hawaii innovating carrier aviation, a development process that ultimately took 14 years to understand the concepts. Unfortunately, the US Navy never truly understood or embraced the concept of carrier aviation until December 1941, when Japan introduced the true capabilities of carrier aviation in Pearl Harbor, after which the aircraft carrier became the center of the US Navy, a position it holds to this day.

The aircraft carrier for the US Navy was an innovation over time, the evolution of technology that really wasn't fully understood by Navy leaders until after Midway in 1942, around 20 years after those early flights off the Langley.

Technology has seemingly increased the speed of the innovation process, but perception isn't always reality. In reality, not much has changed. As an example, the MV-22 concept dates to 1986, meaning it has taken 21 years and 22 billion dollars to date to bridge the gap between two very well understood technologies, airplanes and helicopters. The biggest two innovations of the last decade is Cooperative Engagement Capability and technologies enabled by satellite communications, neither of which are innovations specific to the Navy.

Sea Trial is to identify innovations with the greatest potential to provide dramatic increases in warfighting capability, and it appears in part this specific role is being achieved. Modular configuration is the major innovation in the LCS, while the DD(X) introduces a number of innovations. While the extent to which these innovations will increase warfighting is still unclear, what is missing from Sea Trial is the stated process by which innovations 'should be' incorporated into the Navy. Innovation in and of itself is critical, but equally important is deciding what innovations should be included in new projects, and to what extent the maturity of an innovation is required before committing the investment to innovation.

To me this is the weakness of the Sea Trial process. There appears to be a prudence in evaluation regarding how to incorporate innovations, with the standard operating procedure currently in practice to include everything in new hulls, regardless of its level of maturity as a technology, and despite prudent experimentation to determine effectiveness. The key element missing from Sea Trial is actually in the paperwork, but doesn't exist in form. The Langley was built on a converted collier hull, so I ask the question, where are the operational prototypes?

The lack of prototyping large capital investments that include large numbers of innovations has driven costs up in procurement, but where it has been done costs have been kept manageable. The UCAS-N is a good example where a prototype matters. Sea Trial ultimately is ineffective if dedication to innovations becomes too cost prohibitive to integrate effectively into the warfighters arsenal, Sea Power 21 version 2 would focus on testing innovations similar to the model utilized for the SSGN, which instead of a "Deep Change" approach that transformation describes, instead utilized an evolutionary approach by testing and integrating mature technologies to enhance existing capabilities, which ultimately proved to be a fiscally responsible approach as well.

Sea Warrior

This section is intentionally short. Timing is everything. This story and this story raise new questions regarding the effectiveness of Sea Warrior in Sea Power 21. When it comes to the Navy and its people, there are better sources than I. Things aren't all bad, there is no question the Navy has committed to the excellence of its sailors, and there are programs that have helped. I only have one piece of advice on this subject, when it comes to people and skills there is a high cost in low quality, and the costs increase or decrease in direct proportion to the quality (or lackof) of leadership.

In a Navy where the only way to lose command is to be too politically incorrect, or to be in command when a mishap occurs while underway, these relatively random standards for leadership across the fleet, not only at sea, highlight why the results from leadership are, random. While lip service is paid and all the right things are written down and highlighted in Sea Warrior of Sea Power 21 as the process to follow in producing highly capable sailors, the efforts of the bottom up approach only go so far in a top down Navy.

Ultimately, I don't know what can be done here. Clearly the existing process is flawed, but the alternatives are complicated for both the enlisted sailors and officers. I'll let smarter, better informed advice flow from those who would know better than I.

Sea Enterprise

In downloading the US Navy official brief on Sea Enterprise, you might be shocked to learn the first thing stated after the cover page, it reads "We must drive down our costs!" The next two items listed as follows:

Sea Enterprise is focused on doing just that: Transforming Navy business processes… driving enterprise-wide effectiveness/efficiency

It sounds great, but the very next page sums up the problem.


I get the part about "new ways of thinking and behaving," progress usually involves a process of developing better methods for approaching solutions, and when progress is effective, it will also require a culture change within an organization that is reflected in 'behavior.' Culture change always meets resistance, so turbulence should be expected. However, at what point did radical, "deep change" involving a process that is discontinuous with history involving surrendering control for irreversible change sound smart? The Navy is over 200 years old, the suggestion that processes refined over centuries that have been successful to the point they have achieved the very best in all categories relative to its competitors shouldn't serve as a guide is not only blatantly stupid, it requires the absence of wisdom.

The results speak to my point. Since this 'discontinuous of the past' process has been implimented, costs in every category in business management has skyrocketed. While there are individual examples where Sea Enterprise is effective, that recapitalization of costs has occurred at individual dept levels, and while this is done top line items have increased which has the effect of ultimately diminishing gains.

Sea Enterprise in action is currently a failure, period. Fiscal discipline in the Navy does not exist, and without fiscal discipline Sea Enterprise simply cannot achieve the first stated goal of driving down costs. The Navy needs to adjust its process for business, which means Sea Enterprise needs a new approach that reflects the environment.

To build the definition, the Navy needs to understand the environment, which was recently outlined by David M. Walker, Comptroller General of the United States, in terms of America's four deficits.

First, there is a federal budget deficit. The Federal government continues to spend money without regard to consequences. The unfunded commitments for Social Security and Medicare in the future has risen to almost 50 trillion dollars, and yet nobody in Washington is concerned.

Second there is a savings deficit. Americans are living well above their means, and the US now ranks at the bottom of savings among all industrialized nations. Given the problems in our public retirement system, personal savings become more important, except they are generally non-existent.

Third, without savings the US has a balance-of-payments deficit. the US is spending more than it is producing. This leads to a trading deficit which ultimately reduces the value of the dollar.

Finally, there is a leadership deficit in Washington. US leaders have chosen to use creative accounting techniques to hide the problems from the American people, and have not confronted the reality of the challenges ahead. This isn't an idealogical problem, as both sides of the political spectrum are guilty.

These problems are national, and will directly effect the US Navy. The problems will ultimately reduce the budget of the Navy, and it will likely happen quickly. There is no indication the Navy has developed business plans to deal with this reality, instead the Navy is engaged in fiscal irresponsibility in virtually every program, yet to produce a single accurate estimate of any major procurement item since the inception of Sea Enterprise. With risk a major part of the environment, more risk in business processes simply doesn't appear to be a wise coarse of action, but with transformation as a guide, this is exactly the path the Navy is taking.

The results to date of Sea Enterprise speak louder than my words. The record of transformation in Sea Enterprise is one of failure, and the future doesn't look good. Perhaps it is time to listen to those who suggest looking to history as a guide to move forward, this isn't the first time the Navy has faced major budget reductions nor the first time the Navy faced enormous procurement challenges, the only distinguishing factor about this era is that it is the first time the Navy decided to give up control of the process to others as a business model, where in the past it took a very hands on approach and applied attention to detail. Despite what transformation suggests, there are lessons in US Naval History worth looking back to for consultation before moving forward in an uncertain era.