Open Letter to the Board of the United States Naval Institute by John Byron

John Byron is a retired Captain of the United States Navy. He is the author of about 100 articles & essays for Proceedings and was Proceedings Writer of the Year in 1983 and 1992. John wrote prize-winning essays in the US Naval Institute’s Arleigh Burke Essay Contest (1998, 2002, 2004, 2005) and was the first Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Strategic Essay Contest winner in 1982. Additionally, John was the primary adviser to Naval Institute Press on publication of The Hunt For Red October.

A life member, I write to ask that you reconsider two disastrous decisions: changing the Institute’s mission; firing its CEO. My right to address you is found in the attached document: I’m a minor representative of the many who’ve given this institution meaning over its long and venerable life.

Many years ago I heard Lieutenant General Brad Hosmer, the President of National Defense University, offer a challenge to the assembled faculty and students of his colleges that perfectly sums up the meaning of the Naval Institute’s established mission: “Never be afraid to take risks with ideas.” Generations of naval officers, aided by editors of extraordinary grace and competence, have challenged orthodoxy and taken the sea services safely through uncharted seas through nearly fourteen decades of change and turmoil that shaped the world we live in. They — we — “dared to read, think, speak, and write” concerned only with the judgment of our peers and the challenge of advancing the conversation and our profession positively and well. To quote another NDU President, Lieutenant General John Pustay speaking to my graduating class at The National War College, we took up his charge: “Shake the steeples!”

All that now changes, goes away, is obliterated and destroyed forever by this ill-considered initiative to turn the Naval Institute into something it has resisted becoming since its founding: just another damned advocacy group. It’s an easy exercise to highlight the flaws in the proposed new mission:

Just ‘global sea power?’ What if sea power is not the best tool? What of jointness and fighting together? What if the advance of sea power has an opportunity cost that weakens national defense? Etc.

Just ‘economic prosperity?’ What of democratic freedoms? What of human rights? What of protecting the earth’s environment, dealing with global climate change? And whose economic prosperity? All citizens? All people? Corporate America? Who?

It’s all in the eye of the beholder and this proposed mission statement establishes the official beholder’s position as paramount. The more serious concern, the aspect fatal to the Institute, is the inevitable and chilling push for mission correctness that will infiltrate and pervert every aspect of Institute business. “Good essay, lieutenant, but it doesn’t really advocate the necessity of global sea power the way we think best. Go read the CNO’s Posture Statement and try again.” Once. Just once. Do that once and you’ve lost the fleet. And it’s certain to happen; it’s baked into the proposed mission statement and intrinsic to the thought behind it. The next generation of Hollands and Stavridises and Wrights and Owenses and — yes — Byrons will be lost to the pages of Proceedings and the mission of the Institute.

The current situation has three possible outcomes, two unacceptable and one the best of a bad lot:

1. The mission-statement fails. This would lead to the resignation of six Board members, their only honorable option, and then a governance crisis compounded by the lack of experienced executive leadership. That’s an unacceptable outcome fraught with risk to the Institute.
2. The mission-statement passes. This would produce wholesale resignations from members (I’d be one), the end of fleet-derived manuscripts, the departure of all but the wage slaves on the Institute’s wonderful staff, and a governance crisis postponed to next year when a member-nominated slate takes over the Board, one well intentioned but inexperienced and unable to deliver the financial resources the Institute needs. The Institute Press and Naval History would lose their academic underpinnings. The Institute would be forced to remove from Academy grounds. The new rivalry with the Navy League would weaken both organizations. Court challenges might come along to test the Institute’s governance and challenge the Board’s actions. This is even more unacceptable, a death knell.
3. The Board withdraws the mission initiative and offers General Wilkerson the opportunity to return to the CEO position permanently. This would restore the status quo ante, though with the deck littered with broken crockery and a long stretch of healing ahead. Still, it’s the best we can do at this pass, an acceptable resolution of a crisis perpetrated on the Institute by six perhaps well-meaning but seriously misguided Directors stunningly out of touch with the membership that placed its trust in them.

The uproar around this initiative is certainly a surprise to its proponents. Take it as a portend. Perhaps the individuals pushing this invidious bad idea are cocksure in their position … but they are not the majority of the Board. Even if we can’t unring this bell, we need not sink the ship. The Board should undo the tragedy in play and give the Naval Institute back to its members.

A personal note: I’m astonished and saddened by the Institute’s fragility revealed in this crisis. Imagine: three denizens of Wall Street and three retired flags can tear down an institution that’s the envy of the other Services and respected by navies around the world, a mainstay in the life of my navy. Six head-strong individuals can destroy the United States Naval Institute. Shameful.