Everyone thinks they’re an interior decorator and you see
the results almost every time you visit someone’s home. They’re generally pretty poorly decorated.
Similarly, everyone thinks they’re a leader or know what
makes a good leader … but they aren’t and don’t.
Breaking Defense has an article on the Navy’s vacancy at the
Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) position which attempts to point out the
problems with a vacancy for CNO.[1]
Consider the following statement
Think about that for a moment. How has having a CNO worked out for the Navy these last several decades? The Navy’s CNOs have guided the Navy straight into the toilet. I’m not going to bother listing all the problems. You read this blog so you know what they are. If that’s what having a CNO gets us, maybe we’re better off without a CNO?
We have an acting CNO, Adm. James Kilby, Vice CNO.
Wouldn’t that be a great opportunity for Kilby to give us an
on-the-job audition? After all, he
was/is the VCNO so he should be more than capable of stepping in and showing
outstanding leadership, right? Here’s
what Breaking Defense and Mr. Wills think,
Why would decisions need to be postponed? If they’re good decisions, they should be implemented immediately and decisively. Why hesitate? If they’re not good decisions then you shouldn’t be in the position.
Take bold, decisive action until someone stops you. Don’t cower in fear that someone might
disagree. Don’t wait for approval from
above. You’re the highest ranking Naval
officer there is. Act like it.
Here’s yet another person who doesn’t understand what
leadership is.
If you’re reluctant to make tough calls then you shouldn’t be in that position. Step aside and let someone else take over the acting CNO job.
Congress doesn’t understand leadership or how bad the Navy’s
CNOs have been, either.
Nervous about the lack of a CNO???? Given their record, I’d be more nervous about having a CNO! Heck, paralysis would be better than the incompetence we’ve seen from our CNOs.
Here’s a few sentences that should tell us everything we
need to know about Navy leadership and officer ranks.
Isn’t the entire idea of the Navy (or any military combat structure) that you’re always ready to step into the next highest job, at a moment’s notice? Sure, you may lack experience and maybe you’ll make a mistake but hesitation shouldn’t be one of your problems. If you’re a professional warrior, you’ve been studying naval warfare your entire career. You should know what needs to be done. If not, you’re a failure and in the wrong line of work.
There’s nothing magic about being CNO … as our string of
abject failures confirm. CNOs have no
special knowledge or capabilities.
They’re just the guys who played politics better than the rest.
Consider this damning statement,
Shouldn’t that have told us what kind of CNO she’d be? ComNavOps predicted her pathetic failure almost on day one because ComNavOps understands what leadership is and can recognize the glaring lack of leadership qualities in others.
Where’s the next Halsey?
Where’s Nimitz? Where’s Willis
‘Ching’ Lee? Instead, we get Franchetti
and Kilby.
I’m not worried about the absence of a CNO; I’m worried about having a CNO … another
stinking, steaming pile of CNO since no one around the Navy seems to understand
what real leadership is.
___________________________________
“It’s not good,” Wills [Steven Wills, naval historian and associate at the Center for Maritime Strategy] said flatly, “to be operating without a CNO.”[1]
Think about that for a moment. How has having a CNO worked out for the Navy these last several decades? The Navy’s CNOs have guided the Navy straight into the toilet. I’m not going to bother listing all the problems. You read this blog so you know what they are. If that’s what having a CNO gets us, maybe we’re better off without a CNO?
But even with Kilby in place, Wills and others said major strategic or programmatic decisions will likely be postponed with no empowered, confirmed CNO to back them up.[1]
Why would decisions need to be postponed? If they’re good decisions, they should be implemented immediately and decisively. Why hesitate? If they’re not good decisions then you shouldn’t be in the position.
Even the best acting leaders are reluctant to make tough calls on hard issues,” Erik Raven, former under secretary of the Navy, told Breaking Defense.[1]
If you’re reluctant to make tough calls then you shouldn’t be in that position. Step aside and let someone else take over the acting CNO job.
Sen. Tim Kaine, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services seapower subcommittee, told Breaking Defense he was “nervous” about the lack of a CNO.[1]
Nervous about the lack of a CNO???? Given their record, I’d be more nervous about having a CNO! Heck, paralysis would be better than the incompetence we’ve seen from our CNOs.
To cope with the strain of doing two jobs at once, the acting service chief must delegate tasks to subordinate officers, who then do the same as they become overburdened with new responsibilities. Those officers also become reluctant to act when asked to make decisions that are historically above their paygrade.[1]
Isn’t the entire idea of the Navy (or any military combat structure) that you’re always ready to step into the next highest job, at a moment’s notice? Sure, you may lack experience and maybe you’ll make a mistake but hesitation shouldn’t be one of your problems. If you’re a professional warrior, you’ve been studying naval warfare your entire career. You should know what needs to be done. If not, you’re a failure and in the wrong line of work.
“When Adm. Franchetti was the vice chief, and acting as CNO, she was hesitant to roll out a plan for the Navy under her term of leadership,” Wills added.[1]
Shouldn’t that have told us what kind of CNO she’d be? ComNavOps predicted her pathetic failure almost on day one because ComNavOps understands what leadership is and can recognize the glaring lack of leadership qualities in others.
http://breakingdefense.com/2025/05/what-a-historic-absence-of-its-top-officer-means-for-the-navy/
My recommendation: bring in a retired admiral who has actually seen combat and has never served on the CNO staff.
ReplyDeleteADM William McRaven would be my choice. He's a SEAL and led JSOC. He turned that organization into a lethal killing machine. One of the few flag officers that I've met who I'd actually follow into combat (yes, I know that is not the CNO's job).
Not sure you want a combat commander in the CNO role. The CNO is responsible for providing the required Naval Forces (people, ships, planes, subs, etc.) NOT fighting those forces. The CNO needs to understand naval combat but the unified commands use the Naval Forces. Remember when CMC Grey tried to get an amphibious assault in the first desert storm, mad no sense other than for budget and USMC political positioning in Wash DC.
DeleteI like your idea of a retired commander of whatever rank. Hopefully, they would be past any political career concerns and immune to outside influences.
DeleteMcRaven, in particular, would not be my choice. As far as I can tell, he has zero fleet experience, being 100% spec ops focused.
The only retired officer I can think of, offhand, that would be even remotely suitable is Adm. Thomas Copeman. I did a few posts on him when he did some noteworthy things.
Since Command Authority as absented itself,
ReplyDeletejunior officers can flow to the work.
Who ever makes the most headway, becomes CNO.
A plenary indulgence for the runners up.
The Navy should have one leadership structure for peacetime and another for war.
ReplyDeleteWartime leadership needs to be more centralized in a CNO or "Grand Admiral" position. Peacetime leadership should dispense with this and be more decentralized, diffused, and with a much, much smaller number of Flag Officers. The position of CNO isn't really necessary during peace.
Currently, the CNO controls both Strategy & Operations, but doesn't control Personnel or Training. During peacetime Naval Strategy (and thus, Fleet Design) should be in the hands of a Naval General Board, as it used to be. Operations AND Training should be the total responsibility of the various Fleet Admirals. It's silly to ask them to lead men into battle if they didn't train them and forge them into a strong team? At the same time, the CNO, and his staff, are too focused on "the current crisis" to have the perspective to think about long-term strategy and fleet design. The two important functions need to be separated during peace so they can both be done correctly.
During wartime, this must obviously reverse: the Fleet Admirals focusing completely on Strategy & Operations, while others train crews for them.
You've got a few good thoughts, here, but I've got to disagree with the general concept. You don't want to separate responsibilities based on war or peace. You wouldn't train a football player to play offense during the week and then when the game comes, have him play defense. Similarly, you don't want to raise a group of fleet admirals for ops and training all their career and then throw them into strategy when war comes.
DeleteStrategy derives from geopolitical goals (strategy) and must be set at the highest level.
War should be decentralized UNDER THE GUIDANCE OF AN OVERALL STRATEGY. Peacetime should be centralized to ensure that everyone is preparing for war the same way. We don't want one fleet to have one doctrine and training and another fleet another doctrine and training. That would eliminate interfleet transfers. We've seen exactly this phenomenon occur on an individual ship scale with most of the collisions and groundings. There's usually a finding that recent crew transfers resulted in people who don't know the equipment and procedures of the new ship they just transferred to.
Your criticisms of CNO are completely justified. Where our CNOs have failed is by focusing on the current crisis instead of the enduring objective of preparing for war. That's a flaw in the CNOs (and the people who choose them) rather than the system, itself. The system didn't focus the CNOs on gender and climate and diversity, the CNOs did that themselves, for political career gain.
One of the major, overarching problems is that the Combatant Commanders are running the fleet instead of CNO. We need a CNO who has the courage and integrity to say no to idiotic requests and is willing to fight the battles to focus the Navy on war instead of side issues. We know it can be done because the previous Marine Corps Commandant did exactly that. Yes, his solutions were idiotic but he single-handedly reshaped the Corps. A similarly strong willed CNO could do the same for the Navy.
Thank you for the constructive criticism, CNO.
DeleteMy idealized Navy would have the NWC resurrected as the home of the General Board, not a "college" where people go to "get a degree", but solely a place where strategic plans are constantly war gamed against our top 3 to 5 potential adversaries. Our Fleet Admirals would be showing up regularly to fight War Plan Orange or War Plan Black, etc... against the staff experts. The basic war strategies against our potential adversaries would be well known by all top combat leadership. In fact, they would do yearly free play exercises to access the feasibility of the War Plans. As Adm. Nimitz stated during the war:
"The enemy of our games was always Japan, and the courses were so thorough that after the start of World War II, nothing that happened in the Pacific was strange or unexpected."
And after the war:
"The war with Japan had been enacted in the game rooms at the War College by so many people and in so many different ways that nothing that happened during the war was a surprise..."
My other idealized concept would be we should scrap all the Combatant Commands and go back to the old structure:
C-in-C Pacific - Led by a Navy Admiral
C-in-C Atlantic - Led by an Army General (w/ a Naval Adm. as his Vice Commander
All of this would be under the guidance you have set out in many posts for the various Battle Group Commanders to focus on and practice: Train how you fight and fight how you train.
Peacetime "patrols" would be a completely separate Fleet command of Corvettes and true Cruisers working closely with the State Dept and the ONI. This would allow the Battle Groups to be constantly practicing for war, close to their home ports.
"solely a place where strategic plans are constantly war gamed"
DeleteThat's good but we do need a place for students to study naval warfare in addition to wargaming scenarios. If all you do is wargame then you're only using what you already know and you aren't building new expertise beyond the trial and error learning of the wargames. It's necessary to study the history of naval (and land!) warfare to learn lessons the others have already paid for in blood. This expands your knowledge base so that when you go to wargame you have even more expertise and can put more into the game and get more out of it.
I like the NWC as long as they stay focused on naval warfare and de-emphasize the woke crap and even the international geopolitical stuff. Leave that to the State Dept.
I would rather see a completely separate General Boad whose thinking feeds into the NWC for wargaming. This is how the GB functioned in the past and it worked well. The results of the wargaming then fed into, and generated, the yearly Fleet Problems that proved so prophetic and useful.
And former Vice Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Robert P. Burke has been convicted of 4 Charges in Federal Bribery Trial this week. https://news.usni.org/2025/05/19/former-vcno-burke-convicted-of-4-counts-in-federal-bribery-trial
ReplyDelete