The Absence of a Strategic Message

The DDG-1000 discussion has been extraordinarily revealing, and we believe a very important lesson will be overlooked unless we shoot straight and get blunt.

We begin with a quick review of what we are seeing. According to Google News search, there are less than 2 dozen total unique articles regarding the DDG-1000 discussion. We find that amazing, for a number of reasons, but most of all because it highlights how absolutely nobody in America cares at all if the Navy's 21st Century surface combatant flagship sinks.

There are two articles that are probably the most viewed by readers regarding the DDG-1000 discussion, the same article written by Christopher p. Cavas here and here. We are making an assumption that the combined audience of those news websites is high, an assumption that may not be accurate. However, consider for a moment that the next four most likely places that Americans are reading about and discussing the DDG-1000 issue is here, here, here, and here.

Why does that matter? Because it reveals how completely ineffective this process was:

Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Mullen defended the process of creating a new national maritime strategy in a speech here at the Naval War College, saying the year of “conversations with the country” was the best method to figure out the way ahead for the Navy in the 21st century.

The “Conversations with the Country” became random seminars in various cities for the purpose of involving the American people in the discussion of the Navy and maritime strategy. It was never intended to influence the development of the strategy, we learned that here and here (PDF) which exposed the process for what it was: a think tank process that ultimately avoided as many strategic issues as it embraced. The "Conversations with the Country" were essentially intended to be a marketing strategy to connect with the American people with the intent of teaching the Navy's role towards the national interest, and expanding an understanding of why the Navy is important to the nation. This outreach marketing attempt to engage the population can only be described as a total failure.

How obvious is the failure? The flagship program for the 21st century fleet, the DDG-1000, is on life support as of last weekend, and over a week later so many people could not possibly care less about it that news articles on the subject of a $25 billion dollar tax payer project a week later are barely evident.

In developing the Maritime Strategy, the expectation was a document that outlined Ends, Ways, Means, and Context for war and peace in the 21st Century, and the process was described as a connection between the Navy and the American public for education and communication towards the ends of US maritime strategy. The Navy desired the American people to embrace the maritime strategy for its vision of the 21st century maritime environment, but it is the lack of clarity an incomplete strategy gives that has created the biggest problems selling the vision.

The Navy has neither produced a complete maritime strategy for the public, nor engaged in a discussion that comes close to reaching enough people to observe even anecdotal evidence the Navy left an impression on the greater population. The links provided highlight how people only see two things with the Navy today, a Navy absent a strategic vision they understand, and a Navy absent a resource strategy that makes sense. Strategy is not rocket science, if it was Danger Room would be talking about strategy every day.

The Navy, by being either unwilling or incapable to engage the American people in a constructive, instructive discussion on the resource strategy in the context of the released Maritime Strategic Concept (PDF) has left these blog authors, as well as other blog authors noted, in an interesting position. Bloggers are reaching more people with opinions and analysis of Naval issues (including maritime strategy) on any given day than the Navy has throughout the entirety of its "Conversations with the Country" marketing strategy. To put that into perspective, this blog alone has over 26,743 visits from people searching Google and finding their way here with terms like "Navy" "maritime" "strategy." I'd wager that is at least ten thousand times more people than have ever attended a "Conversation with the Country" seminar.

If the “conversations with the country” was really the best method to figure out the way ahead for the Navy in the 21st century as Mullen suggested, or even discuss the maritime strategy, or discuss resource plans like the DDG-1000 and LCS, or otherwise highlight the importance of the Navy to the citizens of the United States...

Then it must be difficult for Navy leadership to see straight with such an obvious lack of vision.