...In Which I Respond to Mike Burleson at "New Wars"

Fellow Blogger Mike Burleson at New Wars blog has posted on my piece yesterday questioning the continuing relevance of CS21 in view the nation's dramatically altered fiscal landscape. His post entitled "Maritme Strategy Architect Changes Tune" is deserving of response because it springs largely from a fundamentally false presumption.

First--a quibble. In his post, he introduces me thusly: "...here is Bryan McGrath, who says he is “most closely associated with that strategy’s development and defense”, writing in the ID blog:"

I'm not sure whether this cherry-pick was designed to skewer me on point of my own self-importance, but actually wrote that I was the "...worker-bee most closely associated....". Clearly the CNO, VADM Morgan and countless other flag officers would more appropriately be considered under his more limited grab.

Initially, Mr. Burleson attempts to deflect any credit due him or his website for my Road to Damascus conversion and for the rich debate ongoing in the navalist community about the role of the Navy in the modern world and force structure appropriate to it. And then he spends a good bit of the remainder of the post reminding us of how prescient and sagacious he was all along the way--presumably that we might all now in light of my great revelation conclude that he and his blog should indeed be considered the source of future strategic and force planning assumptions.

Mr. Burleson's fundamental error of logic is that in order for his view of my present position to be true, I would have to be making the argument that the Strategy we developed was not only increasingly difficult to defend in the current budget environment--but that it was the wrong strategy when we wrote it. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Strategy the CNO put forward in the Fall of 2007 represented--I believed then and I believe now--the very best way to articulate the Navy's role in the defense of the United States and its way of life in the world in which we then lived.

One of the FUNDAMENTAL assumptions we made in CS21 was that defense spending would be relatively static. Mr. Burleson will have to take my word for it--or perhaps others involved in the debate withing the DC strategy community will pipe up and confirm it--but my narrative in briefing the strategy was ALWAYS that we had largely bought and paid for the "regionally concentrated combat credible" force but that we needed additional investment to plan and procure the "globally distributed mission tailored force" that he seems to believe I am some kind of recent convert to. In a flat line defense spending environment, this additional investment was going to be a difficult row to hoe--but I believed that we had produced the justification for it (anyone remembering my "two ellipse slide" can attest to this line of thinking).

What's changed is my perception that the Navy is in for a huge budget hit--along with the other services. If the additional investment to build out the regionally distributed force was going to be tough to get in the previous environment (remember--S and P at 5000, Dow at 14,000, GDP at $13.5 T?) , it is going to be virtually impossible in this environment. Make no mistake--I still believe that the central tenets of the Maritime Strategy represent what our Navy should be doing, and if the fiscal crisis had not happened, I would still be a vocal proponent of it. I simply question whether the coming mis-match in resources to strategy renders the vision less relevant--and more importantly--I believe that the process of strategic thinking DEMANDS that there be a regular, thorough review of an organization's assumptions and environment.

Such at re-evaluation could result in the finding that the Strategy remains relevant--but that more operational risk would have to be assumed. I assume this is in line with what Professor Farley and others stated yesterday.

In addition to Mr. Burleson's fundamental error in my view of the strategy, he thoroughly misinterprets both what the strategy sought to do AND how I believe the current environment impacts it. For example, he quotes me: "…sharing the burden with allies often means being right there with them….and if we are fiscally constrained from such operations, the inducement for cooperation will diminish." This statement--written YESTERDAY, is a statement pointing to the dangers that could flow from an inability to fund operations consistent with the Maritime Strategy--including fighting terrorism, piracy, counter-proliferation, etc. It seems clear to me that such a statement points backward at a strategy for whom those missions were central and critical. Yet Burleson unfurls the "I told you so" flag by quoting himself from a piece written soon after the Stratgy debuted: “It becomes clear that America’s sea services intends to leave fighting terrorists in shallow seas to our allies.” Was he reading the same document I was? I thought that CS21 was thoroughly concerned with the importance of coordinated operations with allies, friends, partners, and marriages of convenience--across the spectrum of operations. Whereas Burleson incorrectly interpreted CS21 as giving short shrift to those operations, I would suggest that exactly what he predicted COULD come to pass in an austere fiscal environment. Put another way, he could be right, except two years too early.

Finally, Burleson pays me a backhanded compliment that I must respectfully decline, writing "Whew! You have to admire someone who will admit a mistake." While I hope in general to be worthy of such encomium, I will admit nothing of the sort here. The Maritime Strategy was the right vision for its time--and if we're able to get our fiscal house in order, I would suggest that it is the most appropriate strategy for the maritime forces of the United States.