As you know, the Navy suffers from a steady, never-ending
stream of firings of Commanding Officers (CO), Executive Officers (XO), and
Command Master Chiefs (CMC) … the leadership triad. Given the steady drumbeat of firings and the
resultant poor public relations, the Navy has now opted to stop releasing
information about XO and CMC firings.
According to Navy spokesman, Cmdr. Clay Doss,
I
think you’ll see CO/Flag Officer relief announcements as press releases more
frequently/consistently than the past few years but not necessarily other triad
members. (1)
You’ll recall that several years ago the Navy suffered a
spate of INSURV inspection failures. As
pressure mounted from Congress and the public to explain the failures, the
Navy’s response was to classify INSURV inspection results. When that didn’t completely work, the Navy
changed the inspection from a pass/fail to a mere advisory report. If you have a problem, hide it, don’t fix it.
Each time the Navy gets a new Chief of Naval Operations
(CNO), my hopes go up. Unfortunately,
each new CNO seems worse than the preceding one. When CNO Gilday took office recently, my
hopes went up and now he implements a policy of hiding failures to start his
tenure. Looks like another failed CNO.
(1)Navy Times, “Mystery relief of carrier’s command master
chief revealed”, Staff, 14-Nov-2019,
https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2019/11/14/mystery-relief-of-carriers-command-master-chief-revealed/
We need to list our next 5 CNO choices, that should see us thru 2024. Or just press gang Jeff Bezos, at least the logistics issues would get fixed.
ReplyDeleteLike so many things inside the US, I've given up hope that anything will change for the better on the macro level....as for US military, only way things will change is when we get our asses kicked.
ReplyDeleteI would say that's generally how things and people change, after massive defeat or hitting rock bottom.
The thing is the Pentagon seems to have an immunity card. Unlike in a say a Marriage or Friendship. In those you do the hide thing and tell yourself you will fix it and sooner latter the result is far worse than honesty.
ReplyDeleteThe Pentagon however never really pays the price. Is a sacred cow with Congress. It looses money, can't find money, almost never has a cost projection work out and yet is untouched. Even when it does this:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kotlikoff/2017/12/08/has-our-government-spent-21-trillion-of-our-money-without-telling-us/#1acbc5d67aef
Nobody else in the US government gets that kind of latitude.
"Nobody else in the US government gets that kind of latitude."
DeleteI would argue that the entire government gets that kind of latitude. IRS targeting of conservatives, the Post Office is a money pit, the VA is horrible failure, Social Security is going broke, etc. The list includes nearly every government program.
Our government is badly broken and the fault is ours. We elect that same failed representatives over and over. We fail to impose accountability.
I'm not disagreeing with your point, just expanding the scope!
Government is working fine, the people paying the reelection bills are getting what they want.
DeleteCongress critters votes are on the record, if they weren't doing what election-payers wanted they wouldn't get their re-election monies.
The British had a version of this called "Rotten Boroughs"
ComNAvOps
DeleteSo you really don't know any government scientists or anyone who get NIH grants then?
The Post office is a money pit because it asked to job that is inherently not a business.
The VA likewise is put in a fantastically bad situation. Does it get off budget funding to deal with the results of wars fought off budget. No. When its funding is as elastic as the one that sends soldier off to war it will be fair to criticize it.
Addendum does FedEX deliver 35 cent post cards from your kid on a senior trip on Saturday to you door in rural Colfax WA?
DeleteMore sorry grew up in Detroit. You might not be familiar with Highland park. But for its warts it does have a USP office for it rather not well to do citizens. UPS store, Fed EX location not so much from the for profit industry.
Delete"put in a fantastically bad situation."
DeleteThat's the point! Governments create bad solutions and then make them worse by not applying accountability (which was your original point). How many people have been fired from the IRS or VA or wherever?
Anyway, this is heading down a political discussion so I'll drop it there.
Fair enough. But simply Congress alone allows endless war on credit but only allows a fixed VA budget. That flaw is one at the door of Congress.
Delete"Some 4,300 Veterans Affairs (VA) workers have been demoted, fired, or suspended since President Donald Trump took office, Vice President Mike Pence told a room of veterans caregivers on Nov. 26.[2018]
Deletehttps://www.theepochtimes.com/4300-va-workers-fired-demoted-suspended-for-negligence-under-trump_2724418.html
I think a lot of the VA problems arose because it was given its own separate department. So you have this army of bureaucrats driving LMDs (large metal desks) around DC and thinking that they are invincible and can do no wrong. They are more interested in preserving their power base, staffing, and budget, than in doing their jobs. It's endemic among all bureaucracies. Just look at the Pentagon. I don't have a ready solution, but some kind of accountability is badly needed in every federal bureaucracy.
DeleteLet's not forget how the head of Naval Intelligence spent like two years just sitting in a desk and not doing his job because he was implicated in the 7th Fleet Fat Leonard bribery scandal and so lost his security clearance.
ReplyDeleteIt's shameful how 7th fleet was compromised so badly.
Delete"It's shameful how 7th fleet was compromised so badly."
DeleteIt is but what's worse is that it was not a secret. Many, many flag officers knew of it even if they didn't participate and yet none spoke out. Multiple CNOs have come and gone without doing anything about it. As badly as 7th fleet was compromised, our flag ranks were even worse.
I shake my head when i read about the Fat Leonard scandal. So much entitlement going on in there.
DeleteCompetition fosters improvement and cost containment.
ReplyDeleteMonopoly fosters stagnation and no thought to cost.
The majority of the spending by the Pentagon is with a monopoly or a monopoly like cartel (Duopoly) with division of the spending between companies without competition.
New Land based nuclear missiles - single contractor/possible duopoly.
Nuclear carriers- single contractor
Nuclear submarines- cartel duopoly
Zumwalts- duopoly
National security satellite launch - until space x - cartel duopoly.
tanks- monopoly.
cruise missiles- duopoly
You want more ship builders go back to subsidizing ship building like every other major ship producing nation otherwise all you get is the one or two that can survive on USN contracts.
DeleteAlas the pursuit of profits and the almighty dollar means that this isnhighly unlikely. Why pay more to subsidise american shipbuilding when you can buy just ss good and cheaper in Korea?
Delete@JMD Well I suppose if you want buy subsidized product from another country that's OK , but the Congress has frowned on that.
DeleteThe reality is Japan is the most efficient producer when you net out all the various subsidies so I would rather buy Mitsubishi Heavy Industries if we are going to out source
@kath: I think he's talking about corporate commercial perspective. You're right that Congress would never settle for US buying warships from South Korea or Japan*, but corporate America would rather buy merchant shipping cheaply from South Korea (which to be fair, they do make good ships).
Delete*Any foreign buy of warships would have building in America as a requirement - note the many US partners for the foreign offerings in FFG(X). A fair bit of american military equipment is foreign in origin, but made on american soil: Belgian machineguns, German rifles and grenade launchers, German tank guns, Norwegian antiship missiles... these are just the examples that immediately spring to mind.
@Wild Goose
DeleteI got that. That corporations buy the best deal. Its easy to have the best deal when countries subsidizes their industry. The US unilaterally disarmed in 1980 for no apparent good reason.
This has nothing to do with the current post, but I wanted to alert CNO and the others here about a website you might be interested in.
ReplyDeleteAngrystaffofficer.com has some really interest article about combat of the non water based sort, and some fun stuff too, like their analysis of the tactical errors Captain Rogers made in the defense of Wakanda, or the Empire's strategic procurement errors.
Vaguely on topic as fun. Looks like China will be burying some claims as well.
ReplyDeleteIt looks like China has decided it can't just jump right into a fleet of super CVs...
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military/article/3039653/chinese-navy-set-build-fourth-aircraft-carrier-plans-more
https://thediplomat.com/2019/12/technical-problems-slowing-economy-cut-chinas-carrier-ambitions/
So now when I close my eyes I will open them and learn that the Ford was elaborate trick to sucker the Chinese into building techno wonder CVs too soon. And in fact the follow on ships (to the Ford) laid down are really incrementally upgraded Nimitz types at an expected at 9 billion... leaving the Ford as a test bed for future tech.
They're already a quarter decade late on their roadmap, whats a few more years of delay!
DeleteGives the USN a few more years to figure out if thay can still run a carrier strike group with real power projection. At this point they need the time out.
Delete