The annual Surface Navy Association Symposium kicked off today in South Crystal City, a brisk 9 block walk from the Metro station (about three if you know how to negotiate the hamster warren that is the Crystal City Underground in Arlington). It is held at the Hyatt there, and it is something I look forward to every year. Some go for the great booths that industry sets up (along with the receptions, booze, and food), but I go to run into a ton of buddies and talk about old times. And now I go so that I can report on it to you.
I've yet to do much exploring of the wondrous booths--I've walked one lap, but find myself too often distracted by someone I want to talk with to do so with any real ambition. I spent some time at the PERS 41 booth today and ran into two great friends who sit astride the top of the Surface Warfare Detailing world. Captain Dave Steindl and his erstwhile Deputy and Assistant Commander Brad Cooper provide today's SWO's with about as positive a set of role models that you could possibly ask for in Flag-worthy guys. I'm glad to know the folks I led and mentored have these two helping with their detailing options.
There were three main speakers today; VADM DC Curtis--Commander of Naval Surface Forces; ADM John Harvey, Commander of US Fleet Forces Command, and RADM Frank Pandolfe, Director of Surface Warfare (OPNAV N86). All gave very different presentations, and I'll summarize them for you now.
VADM Curtis
Curtis gave a solid scene setter, one that "skimmed the wave-tops" of all facets of Surface Warfare. Curtis has a hand in training, readiness, requirements, manning....the whole shootin' match...and he struggled to fit it all into his allotted 45 minutes.
One facet of Curtis' presentation that I felt was inappropriate to the crowd was the focus on the activities of the Surface Warfare Enterprise (SWE). The SWE is essentially a bunch of Admirals who get together regularly to noodle through hard problems in surface warfare. It's very much "inside baseball" stuff, and I am aware of several major accomplishments of this group. But at the end of the day, the SWO community is patting itself on the back for collaborative problem solving--something that most fleet Sailors, industry types, and retired curmudgeons just sort of naturally assume has been happening for--oh, about 230 years. The fact that it HASN'T, and that we seem only in the past few years to have glommed onto the SWE as an effective interdisciplinary tool for problem solving--is notable--but it is essentially process, and therefore relatively uninteresting. Put another way, the emphasis should be on a discussion of the problems addressed, not the novelty of the process that addressed them.
Curtis spoke too long for Q and A.
ADM Harvey
ADM Harvey takes some heavy rolls from blog-master Galrahn below. I imagine if Harvey and Galrahn sat down with a sixpack between them, they'd actually be a whole lot closer in worldview and approach. But I digress.
Harvey's speech today was probably one of the most effective bits of public speaking that I've ever heard from a Navy Flag Officer. He is a strong, well-organized speaker, and his presentation was a great mix of inspiration, academia, and history.
The theme of this year's symposium is "Surface Navy: A Balanced Approach for the Hybrid War". Obviously, Hybrid War gets a lot of play this week, and the intellectual father of Hybrid War--Frank Hoffman--was mentioned by Harvey, Pandolfe and SNA President Ron Route. Harvey's speech basically centered around the proposition that the approach to Hybrid Warfare is as much about how we THINK as what we build. He asserts strongly that rapid adaptation is the most effective tool for combating the hybrid threat, and he cited two historical examples.
The first was the Mississippi Campaign in the Civil War. I'm not much of a naval historian, but Harvey laid out how the Navy created a strategy and approach to owning the Mississippi through the industry, adaptation and vision largely of one man--John Rogers (son of THE OTHER John Rogers, hero of the War of 1812). Rogers adapted a fleet of steamboats and created a riverine force that eventually helped win the Mississippi and deal a crippling economic blow to the Confederacy. The Navy at the start of the war had no experience in this--inland waterways were the purview of the Army (through the Corps of Engineers). Eventually, Lincoln transferred the responsibility (in that war) to the Navy, a credit to what Rogers and his men did. And they did what they did with what was available to them--they were flexible and adaptable, and they solved a huge problem.
The next vignette was from the disastrous Battle of Savo Island during the early days of WWII. Harvy described the movements of the fleets, both Allied and Japanese--like a skilled historian. What Harvey drew out of it--mostly from the writings of RK Turner after the battle--was the sense of "confidence without readiness" that pervaded the US Fleet. They took as a given their "technical and mental superiority" over the Japanese--without any demonstrable reason to do so. Though he did not say so, Harvey left the listener with the inescapable conclusion that there are those in our own Navy and DOD who are similarly guilty of this "confidence without readiness".
How we think about the enemy and about war, is more important than what we build--not that what we build is unimportant. We fight wars with what we have (a la John Rogers), and it is the way we think about employing what we have, and about how the enemy might employ what he has, that is the nature of a positive approach to Hybrid War.
Harvey put forward three "what to do's":
1. Get better at "adapting in real time"
2. Transition from an organization of learning individuals to a learning organization
2. Do not fall victim to the "acceptance of peacetime standards"
The speech was very interesting, very well done, informative and inspirational. Really got the blood flowing.
He took a few questions, including one from me. I asked him how Fleet training was going about promoting this kind of "rapid adaptation" in major fleet exercises. I was asking from the perspective of a guy who commanded a destroyer, thinking that in my major exercises, I was challenged, but very conventionally. No one ever asked me to do anything in a major fleet exercise that MADE ME THINK DIFFERENTLY. I think Harvey thought about it from the perspective of a 4 star, and his answer was very much aimed at how battle staffs are being put through their paces in thinking about irregular warfare. Harvey and I had a chat after his speech, and he informed me of some very interesting exercises and evolutions that some of the independent deployers had been through recently, and I was very satisfied that we're moving in a positive direction on that front.
RADM Pandolfe
RADM Pandolfe gave a strong speech without notes, a good "intro" for him as this is the first time many in the SNA audience have had exposure to an officer who has spent much of his time in the strategy and policy world. He cited Frank Hoffman's work in Hybrid Warfare, and asserted that Hybrid Warfare is NOT low end warfare. It is (as Hoffman says) the convergence of multiple levels of the hierarchy of conflict, blending the lethality of state sponsored conflict with the fervor of irregular warfare--at any level along the continuum of conflict.
Pandolfe did a good job laying out the surface warfare program (shipbuilding and modernization)--perhaps too good a job, as the Q and A--something I've seen get downright tense in past years--was really pretty tame. Retired VADM Nyquist asked about the disappearance of the CGX from the program, but Pandolfe could not comment, as the FY11 budget has not been announced.
All in all, it was a good day at SNA--nothing controversial to pass along, nothing earthshattering. Big day tomorrow and I'll update you on that tomorrow night.
Bryan McGrath
No comments:
Post a Comment