3rd Fleet Focus: Interview With Vice Admiral Samuel Locklear

I really don't know as much as I should about Hugh Hewitt. I know he is a conservative talk show host, I know he worked in the Reagan administration, and I know I have never heard his talk show or knowingly read anything he has written. Clearly I'm out of touch...

Recently he had Vice Admiral Samuel Locklear, Commander US 3rd Fleet, on his radio program to discuss the sonar issues the Navy often finds itself in court over. Of all the discussions I have read on the issue, this one sounds like it would have been the easiest for the average American to understand. Adm. Locklear does an excellent job summarizing a number of important anti-submarine issues into an easy to understand message for a general audience. If Hugh Hewitt does more interviews like this, he is likely to win over me as a listener, even if there isn't a radio station anywhere close to where I live carrying his show.

You can read the entire transcript here, and I think it is an excellent interview worth a full read, but I have quoted a key part of the Q&A.

HH: I appreciate the time, Admiral. I think this is riveting, actually. So we’ve got about 280 ships, 58% of which have sonar capacity, about half of which are at sea at any time, it’s about 85 ships then. And they’re only using their active sonar about 1% of the time they’re at sea. So let’s pick up there, that’s where we left off. And so is that a rising number or a falling number, in terms of use of active sonar?

SL: Well, over historical numbers of our Navy, it’s fallen. I mean, in the Reagan era, you know, we were building to a 600 ship Navy, which active sonar was a preeminent weapon system in that force. Today, we’re a Navy of about 280 ships, highly capable, but still a smaller Navy. So I guess historically, you’d say it’s fallen.

HH: And how much time does it take to train a sailor in the use of sonar?

SL: It could take upwards of twenty years…

HH: Wow.

SL: …to produce, I would say, an effective artisan. I mean, there’s really an art to this. We start them out early through a very aggressive classroom training, where they go off to schools, where they’re learning the classification of contacts, because remember, they’re learning both the passive and the active side. But it can take up to twenty years to produce someone that I would say was proficient in being able to understand the art, where you could take a ship or a group of ships into littorals, and you could be effective at finding and being able to manage extremely quiet diesel submarines.

This is a serious issue nobody is talking about, and credit Hugh Huwitt for opening up his radio program, an excellent medium to discuss and highlight the topic. Anti-Submarine warfare is hard. Mine warfare is hard. If you think you can sit some 19 year old into a chair with a pair of headphones, turn on the active sonar to full power, and have him identify something underwater you are woefully mistaken. I don't know what the cost of a good sonar operator, but after 20 years American citizens need to understand that sailor is worth a fair amount of national treasure.

The big issue here is that there aren't enough people who highlight the lawfare on the Navy's use of sonars in training as a method of attack against the United States, because it really is. For example, a recent case of lawfare to prohibit the Navy from using low frequency sonar was issued by a non profit organization called the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). The problem is, just about anyone can donate to these action groups, and based on who their business partners are one can raise some legitimate questions whether they are being exploited for strategical gain by the nations competitors.

NRDC works at the national level in China with key agencies and organizations, and also works with their local counterparts in several regions and cities, including Beijing, Chongqing, Jiangsu, Shandong, Shanghai, Zhejiang, Shanxi and Shenzhen.

How many of these environmental groups are funded by nations that are peer competitors. More than you think, it is why none of them, READ NONE OF THEM, are critical of China on the environment. Never shit on the hand that feeds you.

I don't think anyone at the NRDC has motives alternative to helping their environmental cause, well, other than the motive of making money for all those attorneys (I am married to a lawyer, and know too many not to be jaded. Sorry Eagle1, your occupation attracts strange folk). However, I also don't think anyone at the NRDC is going to turn down a donation from someone if the sole intention is to stop the US Navy from using sonars, under any condition. Most environmental organizations believe the worst of military intentions, which is ironic in my opinion, because these same folks will defend intentions of government otherwise.

The rest of the transcript is a must read for environmental advocates, or interested Naval observers who want to get a deeper understanding of the mid-frequency sonar issue. Your opinion will likely be shaped based on whether you think the Navy is out to kill animals on purpose or not, because it appears pretty clear the Navy is trying to find a middle ground. If you believe otherwise, please don't land your black helicopter in the comments, while I welcome environmentalists who genuinely care, I have no time for conspiracy theorists who cannot understand the importance of mid-frequency sonar to the Navy.

As a fisherman who is concerned about the ecology of the oceans around the US, I think the middle ground is important. As a Naval analyst, I think sonar is critical to our national defense, and the 9th Circuit Court, particularly in how it overrules way too many popular votes in states, is the best example of an insurgent operating within the US government at the federal level, a much more blatant example than the political charges both sides of the political isle have leveled at the spy agencies the last several years.