I had several commitments today that kept me from enjoying the full lineup of activities at SNA. Others who attended may wish to comment in order to fill in some of the huge blanks. Additionally, the banquet/CNO speech goes on a bit late for this early Taps guy, so I'll write about CNO's remarks tomorrow if warranted.
COMMANDANT OF THE MARINE CORPS
Missed it. Sorry.
UNDERSECRETARY OF THE NAVY--BOB WORK
Did not miss it. Was there and loved it. It was largely Bob Work talking, not the Undersecretary of the Navy. By that, I mean that is was Bob Work the Analyst, the Historian, the Navalist. The towering intellect and superb communicator--not the XO of the Department of the Navy. The speech contained elements of Work's work before taking his current job, in which he credited the Surface Navy with moving forward the age of battle networks and guided missiles working in tandem. It was notable that the most inspiring speech to a room of SWO's came from a former Marine.
Work was blunt about what he considered to be the Navy's over-focus on land attack in the 90's, and he was just as blunt about the Navy's move away from small combatants in the 80's and 90's.
He was very enthusiastic about the future prospects for LCS.
I've always known Bob Work to have a nimble mind and a confident intellect--but my interactions with him have always been one on one or in small groups. Watching him work the room like he did today makes me wonder if there is a "Toastmasters" course classing up in the next week or so, as the prospect of serving on a panel with him at USNI/AFCEA WEST in the first week of February suddenly seems a bit daunting....
PANEL: SUSTAINING TODAY'S FORCE STRUCTURE AND BUILDING THE FUTURE FORCE
I only got to watch a bit of this panel. It was an all-star cast of one and two star SWO'S in the acquisition and maintenance world, including moderator RDML David Lewis (Vice Commander, NAVSEA), RADM Terry Bendedict (PEO IWS); RADM Phil Cullom (Director Fleet Readiness, OPNAV N43); RADM Kevin Quinn (SURFLANT) , and a civilian SES Chief Engineer at NAVSEA whose name now escapes me.
This was really, truly inside baseball, maintenance, readiness and acquisition stuff. Lots and lots of talk of how important the "Surface Warfare Enterprise" is to making improvements in this and that. I honestly don't know what to make of this; on the one hand, it gives me great hope that the flags are truly working together to find efficiencies and optimize readiness and training. On the other hand, I find it somewhat offensive to think that this wasn't going on all along.
RDML(S) Kevin Scott--Acting Director OPNAV Expeditionary Warfare
Scott gave a presentation entitled "Expeditionary Warfare's Role in Hybrid Warfare". An aviator, I had never run across him in the Fleet--but he's a pretty impressive guy with a great operational and ashore resume.
His presentation was fairly formulaic though, heavy on programmatics, light on any real relation to either the theory or practice of Hybrid Warfare--though this is a global criticism largely relevant to almost all of the presentations.
WHAT I MISSED TODAY (Others comment as desired):
Commandant of the Marine Corps
Most of the Readiness Panel
N8's Programmatic Update
Again, will pipe up tomorrow should CNO's remarks warrant.
Bryan McGrath
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