@Jim123 posted over in the
CJCS vs Rep Gaetz thread but I thought it warranted breaking out into its own:
A new report details a culture of bureaucracy and risk-aversion that is corroding readiness.
www.wsj.com
The WSJ article talks about this report:
A Report on the Fighting Culture of the United States Surface Navy Fleet. A lot of talk about readiness, culture, morale, and a money quote of "The Navy treats warfighting readiness as a compliance issue", ouch.
The article's author has an interesting
Twitter thread that summarizes her views. (If you can't get through the WSJ paywall but use Chrome, I recommend the excellent
Cookie Remover plugin to clear cookies on a per-site basis.)
Haven't seen many SWOs respond so I figure I'll jump in:
1. "The number of GMTs is too damn high" mantra is spot on. Really, it seems repetitive and an administrative burden. Most of the time, the operational commanders don't care, but it's the admin chain of command that does and the admin chain of command never stops. Skippers get tired of getting poked in the eye by the commodore over the DNQ list because that's ultimately who's writing their FITREPs.
2. The zero defect mentality is very real but it doesn't get applied uniformly. Again, many of the "zero defect" decisions that are getting made seem to be driven by how visible the incident is/was or how visible the ISIC thinks it will be. That's a political game that is as old as the sea service and I don't think will change. What I do see is a reticence to make decisions without buy in from higher command or to provide COs with the autonomy they may have once enjoyed. I think this is a symptom of how connected we are with C5I systems and media, but I'm not sure how you fix it. Either way, it makes us reactive instead of proactive and hampers our ability to seize the intitiative.
3. I couldn't tell you if the surface maintenance plan is on an uptrend or not, but every one of their criticisms and accusations is spot on. This is a symptom of our inability as a nation to wean ourselves off of the world police bottle and accept that Cold War paradigms are not applicable to the world at large anymore. We don't need a 2.0 presence in the Persian Gulf any more and we don't need to be involved in all the different bush wars and regional feuds stretching from West Africa to Bangladesh. We need to reduce deployments, put more money into maintenance, and recapitalize our public and private shipyards and industrial infrastructure.
4. SWO training is pitiful. It usually amounts to death by powerpoint for a month or so before going to your ship and learning while on the job. Strides have been made with simulators but nothing replaces the hands-on experience of driving, fighting, and commanding a ship. I think the YP program at the Academy and the Year at Sea program at the maritime universities are the correct direction to go. Really, SWOSDOC, BDOC/ADOC, or whatever it's called these days needs to have hands-on learning with time "at sea" even if it is only in the Chesapeake Bay. We also need more junior commands. The experience I got as an XO on a PC has been invaluable to me, exposing me to larger Navy programs/processes, leadership mentoring from my CO, and learning what does and doesn't work as a leader in a Command Triad position. Junior SWOs need to be able to go and get their hands dirty and skin their knees as leaders where the stakes are lower before being thrust into a sink-or-swim scenario as a DIVO, DH, or CO/XO.
