My father used to tell a story about a friend of his some years ago who was the High School football coach of his hometown in Lepanto, Arkansas. In Lepanto it really doesn't matter if you win all the games or none of the games, as long as you beat Marked Tree - 10 miles down the road. If you can beat Marked Tree, you have had a successful year, and more important than that my fathers friend would get to keep his job that year.Lepanto always worked hard for the Marked Tree game, but unfortunately in the game it wasn't going so well. It was the fourth quarter with about a minute to go and Lepanto was behind 12-7 and about the only redeeming thing about the situation was that Lepanto was going to receive the punt.
The coach called his star player - the quarterback - the fastest man probably on either side of the field and the best athlete on either team. He called him over to his side and said, "Son, let it all hang out. Do whatever you got to do but we have got to score on this punt return."
Marked Tree lined up and kicked the ball with a high spiral and the punt was fielded by the young man around the 15 yard line. He started up the right hand side and he felt like he could make some yardage but he saw that he couldn't score, so using his speed he reversed his field circling back into his own end zone, crossed the field, and began running up the left hand side. It looked for a moment like he was going to score but they finally ran him out of bounds on the four yard line.
The people of Lepanto were ecstatic, jumping up and down cheering and yelling - there they were first and goal on the four yard line with about a minute to go and the crowd was going wild...
Right up until the moment they discovered the crushing tackle on their star quarterback out of bounds had severed his collarbone. The feeling in the crowd was immediately washed away as they all went down in the dumps regarding the situation, all except my fathers friend (the football coach) who gathered his team together and went over and grabbed the little second string quarterback and said, "Son, it is up to you now. You have to carry the load out there. You have to be the leader out there. I'm going to make it easy for you - don't worry about calling the plays; all you have to be concerned about is execution. That is all you have to be concerned about."
The little second string quarterback ran onto the field with his hair on fire, the most excited he had ever been in his life. He gets into the huddle clapping his hands, pulls the offense together, and calls the first down play. The offense breaks to the line of scrimmage and he sets up behind center, barks the signals, and the ball is snapped to him. He whips around and fakes to one half-back and hands off to the fullback right up the middle - PERFECT EXECUTION - but they didn't make anything.
Now things are getting tough with 45 seconds left in the game - 2nd and goal on the 4 yard line. The little quarterback rallied the team back into the huddle and starts pumping them up, tells them 'we are going to win this game,' turns and looks to the bench and sees the second string guard bringing in the play. The second string guard called the play in the huddle, everyone clapped their hands and lined up on the line of scrimmage. The little quarterback lined up over the center, barked the signals again, and when they snapped the ball to him he turns to his right and fakes to the fullback - turns around to his left and hands it to the right tailback who tries to find a hole on the left hand side of the line - PERFECT EXECUTION - but the defense held and the offense was stopped for no gain.
The little quarterback got up again, its now 3rd and goal from the four yard line, about 30 seconds to go, and as the quarterback gets everyone back in the huddle he doesn't even look towards the bench as the first string guard brings in the next play. The offense breaks the huddle and lines up, the quarterback barks out the signals and the ball is snapped. The quarterback turns to his left and fakes it to the fullback - turns around to his right and hands the ball to the left tailback who tries to find a hole on the right side of the line - PERFECT EXECUTION ONCE AGAIN - except this time they only gained one yard.
Now things are really tough. About 20 seconds left to go and it's fourth and goal on the three. The little quarterback rallied the team back into the huddle and looks over to the bench. Nobody's coming. He keeps looking until he finds the coach, and when he finds the coach eyeball to eyeball those fifty yards, the coach gives him this:
*shrug*
Its the look of 'I don't know. I've called three plays and they didn't work, just call any play you want to."
The little quarterback didn't have time to think about it, he turns back into the huddle and after a few seconds the huddle breaks and the offense lines up for the fourth down play. They snap the ball to the little quarterback who turns and fakes it to the fullback, fakes to the halfback, puts the ball on his left hip and bootlegs around the left side into the ends zone for a touchdown.
Now Lepanto missed the extra point but the buzzer sounded and they won the game 13-12. All of the players picked up the little second string quarterback and carried him all over the field. The fans cheered. They made a hero out of him and the little quarterback was carried all the way to the dressing room. After he got into the dressing room it took 30 minutes before the coach was able to hry him, and when he did he picked up the little second string quarterback, embraced him, and he said "Son I am so proud of you." He said, "You saved the game. You were the hero of the game tonight and I am so proud of you."
He said, "I just have one question." He said, "Why did you decide to call play #11. We hadn't even worked on that play much this year in practice and I don't think we have run that play in a game all season, and maybe only a couple times all of last year. Why did you decide to call play #11?"
The little quarterback looked up at the coach and he said "Coach, when you turned your back on me out there I didn't know what to do. But I knew if we were going to score against Marked Tree, with the whole season depending upon one play, I figured we were going to need a superhuman effort. So I looked at those guys in the huddle and I saw big John over there at tight end; Captain of the Team, a Senior, playing his last game, well liked and everyone respected him; so I called the guys in the huddle and told them we were going to score on this play and we were going to dedicate this play to big John. I looked at his jersey and saw his number 84 and so I added up 84 and decided to call good ole play #11."
In Lepanto, coaches are teachers too, so the educator side came out in the coach as he looked at the little second string quarterback, and he said "Son, I don't know how to tell you this, but uh, 84 don't add up to 11." He said "84 adds up to 12."
The little second string quarterback looked up to his coach with a sheepish grin and he said, "See there coach, had I been as smart as you was, we would have lost this football game."
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In Bryan McGrath's recent post Scrap the Maritime Strategy?, Bryan forwards a premise based on his experience developing the maritime strategy that the changes resulting from the global financial crisis has changed the conditions used to develop the maritime strategy, and he believes that the Navy will be unable to afford the number of platforms necessary to meet the strategy's requirements - specifically for the "globally disbursed, mission-tailored" forces. With this argument he produces a recommendation, specifically that the Navy should perform a thorough, publicly announced review of the assumptions and conclusions CS-21 reaches.I have not read House of Cards: A Tale of Hubris and Wretched Excess on Wall Street, the book Bryan cites that has contributed to his new reflections on the maritime strategy, but I have been reading The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. The Black Swan is a term used to describe the influence of highly improbable and unpredictable events that have massive impact. I have not finished reading the book, but in the first section of the book that I have read the book explores from a philosophical view the benefits of applying skepticism to ideas that are stated to be facts. In Bryan's response to Professor Farley, Bryan reveals some of the facts he believes to be true.
When I speak of the Strategy, I can only reveal what was in MY mind in its writing--I cannot speak for Navy leadership. And what I considered essential to this requirement was a ship that could be built in numbers--not 55, but more like 155, which we could send out around the world to the very edges of the empire to work the issues of global system protection. Essential to this vision was that we would not and could not accept a diminishing of our power projection combat punch--and the only way we could do both (protect our combat punch and create the globally disbursed force) would be for the Navy to grow. And the only way for the Navy to grow would have been to wage and win a debate for resources. Given my thesis that even the Navy's power projection combat punch will soon be on the chopping block, the globally distributed mission tailored force is difficult to imagine materializing.I am skeptical of almost everything stated here. I am skeptical of the idea that the Navy will not be able to operate on the edges of the world without a significant increase in the number of Navy ships. I am skeptical that the power projection combat punch of the Navy is in decline, even a pace of relative decline compared to emerging competitors. I am skeptical of the idea that the Navy must grow in order to protect our combat punch AND create the globally disbursed force. Finally, I am skeptical of the idea that the Navy's combat punch will soon be on the chopping block, or that a globally distributed, mission tailored force is difficult to imagine materializing in the future.
The reason I am skeptical is because I believe these issues simply reflect uncertainties surrounding the US Navy today. If they hold true, they indeed would represent significant conditional changes that would demand a reexamination of the maritime strategy, but do the uncertainties he suggests have to be true? I am yet to be convinced.
On the flip side, where is the evidence that suggests developing a new fleet size of 155 smaller platforms instead of 55 smaller platforms (LCS) is the best method of executing the maritime strategy, or was ever realistic as part of the maritime strategy development? I am a supporter of the US Navy building corvettes as escorts for motherships and supported by tenders, but I do not believe such a force structure addition to the US Navy is mandatory to execute CS-21, at least in the way Bryan does.
I don't know that I'm ready to believe CS-21 is significantly flawed simply because there is uncertainty how to resource the Navy properly to provide the "globally disbursed, mission-tailored" forces Bryan believes are necessary, because I am not ready to believe that even with unlimited resources and PERFECT EXECUTION of the strategy the Navy can insure contribution to homeland defense in depth, insure the US would foster and sustain cooperative relationships with more international partners, and insure prevention or containment of local disruptions before they impact the global system. As a skeptic, I am not convinced PERFECT EXECUTION of strategy as outlined would ever insure the Navy can move the football up and down the field as theorized in this section of the maritime strategy, not even just to get the 4 yards needed for a strategic victory or to prevent a strategic defeat.
Why? Because this is the section of the Cooperative Maritime Strategy for 21st Century Seapower (PDF) that goes to the central premise of the Strategic concept that states preventing wars is as important as winning wars. One problem with CS-21 is that this mission statement was never realistically driven by policy, it was a strategic idea developed by the maritime services that was intended to push upward towards policy, but it never had the compelling intellectual energy pushing the concept to make even a dent in our nations political policy. There is no realistic evidence anywhere that Republicans or Democrats in elected power of the United States believe in an aggressive policy of preventing war, because such an aggressive policy is not intellectually promoted at the political policy level with the emphasis (mandate) and financial support necessary to execute such an aggressive position in strategy as described by Bryan.
Every defense policy decision of both political parties reflects a strategic concept centered on the importance of winning wars with emphasis given to programs that defeat major weapon systems of the nations most capable competitors. When the strategic concept of preventing war is reflected in policy of either political party in the US, it is reflected as a passive policy.
Ballistic missile defense and nuclear deterrence are examples of passive policies towards the strategic object of preventing war, and I note, these capabilities are supported with the hoped intent they will never need to be used. There are no current policy examples of aggressive war prevention; not with Iran, North Korea, Somalia, Darfur, or anywhere else. There is no active protection of US offshore energy investments around other continents, and there is no evidence of any such policy mandate forthcoming without being forced by new conditions.
The fact is, enormous numbers of smaller "globally disbursed, mission-tailored" forces would represent an aggressive policy of peacemaking that simply doesn't exist, but a passive policy of peacemaking does exist. Therefore "globally disbursed, mission-tailored" forces will not be executed as strategy in the aggressive manor Bryan has developed a conceptual vision of unless there is a significant change in political policy in this country. Instead, preventing wars "globally" to the maritime services carries a policy priority well below what is being demanded in the policy priority of winning current wars, and even when those wars are over, there is no evidence that preventing war will be elevated to a higher policy priority or be conducted with a more aggressive posture.
Looking for proof how strategy is out of alignment with policy? Somalia represents the perfect example. Al Shabaab represents the known terrorist organization on land where we know Al Qaeda is taking sanctuary (Taliban post 9/11), thus a known risk to our homeland defense in depth. Our policy is to work with partners to fight them, and our strategy is executed in a passive way that gives support for those who fight Al Shabaab, but any direct fighting done against Al Shabaab by us is done very selectively, and certainly not at a level that would eliminate Al Shabaab as a threat. The US Navy is working hand in hand with naval powers from all over the world in dealing with piracy, indeed it is one of the most impressive maritime coalitions in my lifetime, and yet ships continue to be hijacked. Instead of containing the problem to just Somalia, we now include Yemen as part of the discussion as it relates to the growth of regional terrorist networks.
The maritime strategy is experiencing PERFECT EXECUTION in regards to how the situation in Somalia is dealt with, but as a reflection of policy, the effort is being executed in a passive way as opposed to the aggressive way Bryan conceptually believed was necessary to properly execute the maritime strategy. The question I have is: how is it that PERFECT EXECUTION of the maritime strategy in regards to Somalia is clearly failing in the one place it is being executed on a large scale, within the desired partnership system, as specifically described by CS-21? Would a significant change in force structure make a significant difference? I don't think so, I think more ships could help fight the symptoms originating from Somalia, but there is no evidence anywhere suggesting more ships to execute the maritime strategy with would help the US achieve a meaningful strategic objective.
And that's the problem I have.
The way I see it, CS-21 does not accurately reflect political policy in the United States, and the problem begins with the mission statement: Preventing wars is as important as winning wars.
Lets be realistic for a minute, we have a hard enough time simply defining what winning a war means in the 21st century (see Iraq and Afghanistan), and yet we expect to also execute a strategy on the prevention of war? As we are unable to intellectually define what "winning war" means, I submit we also lack the necessary intellectual rigor to define as a political policy what "preventing war" is in the 21st century. As a result we are left with a maritime strategy built on two strategic concepts that struggle for definitions in the 21st century. When applied to complicated actions of opponents, I do not believe the US Navy is capable of articulating how to execute their own maritime strategy when it comes time to apply it (like Somalia), nor can anyone imply easily based on the maritime strategy what equipment would be necessary to execute the maritime strategy. Whether one has 55 ships or 155 ships to perfectly execute the maritime strategy, the problem would be the same: the maritime strategy is not in alignment with political policy.
Which is why ultimately, I agree with Bryan on his concluding point. The point of the story told to begin this post is that as conditions change, we will not always have all the answers, indeed at any given time we will not even know all the right questions. I am not convinced the conditional change is the global financial situation, rather I believe the conditional change is the realization that the maritime strategy does not accurately reflect US political policy, and is not likely to without significantly more intellectual energy promoted to very basic concepts like what "winning war" and "preventing war" means in the 21st century.
Bryan is absolutely right to call for a thorough, publicly announced review of the assumptions and conclusions CS-21 reaches, and the Navy would be wise to do it every two years as VADM Morgan (ret) suggested. The way I see it, the absence of a force structure/resource component in CS-21 is the least of our concerns; the bigger concern is that CS-21 does not appear to be in alignment with American political policy as it relates to the use of naval power.
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