I spent the morning in company with a goodly number of those who Frank Hoffman refers to as "the prophets and disciples of Seapower" at the Naval Institute's 2013 Defense Forum Washington. Entitled "Shaping the Maritime Strategy and Navigating the Budget Gap Reality", the morning program included speeches and Q/A from HASC Seapower Subcommittee Chairman J. Randy Forbes (R-VA), Virginia Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA), Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus, the aforementioned Frank Hoffman, and New Hampshire Senator Kelly Ayotte. It was good to see a number of friends and colleagues, and the hyped-up blizzard did not seem to hurt attendence a bit. The folks from the Naval Institute put on a good presentation in a stunning venue (the Newseum near the Navy Memorial).
But the prophets and disciples are restless. There was a discernible sense from the sidebar conversations, the break chatter, and the conversations conducted after the forum that we (if I can humbly count myself among them) aren't making a difference. That no one is listening. That those who on the Hill we most count on to "get it" sometimes don't really seem to get it. That we can conduct as many of these "choir practices" as we want, and we will make no headway. I had several conversations with people I admire greatly, some of whom are in positions today of great responsibility, who wondered aloud whether anyone cared about questions of great power conflict, a rising China, a declining U.S., and so on. Whether we as a people, have simply reached a point in which we no longer care about the things that made our country great, that we may be headed for a period of isolationism, that the present instantiation of our system of government is simply not up to the task.
One friend said something like, "I just don't think there is any utility to what we are doing" (in this case, advocating for clear-thinking on strategy, resource allocation, coherent fleet design, you know, the stuff we talk about here on this blog all the time). It was a pretty powerful moment, as this guy is not a Cassandra. And this is (pretty much) what I told him:
"Epictetus tells us (through Admiral Stockdale) that good things happen to bad people, and bad things happen to good people. Do good anyway. We need to do good anyway. We need to keep doing what we do, keep thinking about what we think about, keep raising these issues to the attention of those who need to hear it because someday, these ideas will be needed. I don't know how, and I don't know when. But they will. And we (this group of prophets and disciples) need to have good ideas and plans and strategies and fleet architectures standing at the ready and we need to have thought long and hard about how we would do the things we talk about doing and how we would fight the wars we think about fighting. Do good anyway."
I think that's what we need to do.
Bryan McGrath
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