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30 May 2015

Hardware, Not Humans: The U.S. Navy's History of Technology and Micro-Management

May 26, 2015

In a White Paper published in 2012, General Martin E. Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, established Mission Command as a central tenet of future military operations in an uncertain environment.[1] With an emphasis on decentralized execution, disciplined initiative, and independent and aggressive actions from subordinate commanders, General Dempsey believes that Mission Command will best position the U.S. military to conduct operations in a chaotic and rapidly changing operating environment.[2] Much of the Joint Force 2020 charged with adopting Mission Command is accurately characterized as having been “shaped by a decade of lessons learned in war.”[3]

Yet neither Operations Iraqi Freedom nor Enduring Freedom presented the U.S. Navy with major opposition at sea. Furthermore, communications and data networks that facilitate centralized control have proliferated throughout the fleet. Historical analysis of the Command and Control (C2) organizations of western navies suggests a link between advances in communication technologies and an initial tendency to centralize C2, resulting in a loss of initiative and combat effectiveness. Some may argue that the technological advancements of the Information Age have made centralized C2 an appropriate and effective framework for naval operations. However, the U.S. Navy’s success in future major combat operations may well be determined by its ability to reject centralized C2, establish tenets of Mission Command as official doctrine, and train toward its employment. 

Better C2 Through Technology? British Centralization and Nelson’s Rebuttal

Early communications technologies, such as the British Navy’s development of codified visual signals that conveyed specific tactical orders, indicate that communications advancements have often had a shaping effect on naval C2 organization vice an adaptive one. Rather than determining how these advancements could facilitate existing tactics, enhanced communications changed the British Navy’s C2 organization. Following the Seven Year’s War, the British admiralty adopted the signals books of their hated (and recently defeated) French enemy and developed a “state of the art signaling system [that] offered the comfortable prospect of centralized control from the quarter-deck of the flagship.”[4] Centralized control became widely adapted and remained the hallmark of British and French naval actions throughout the late 1700s, in fleet actions near the American colonies, the Caribbean, and the Indian Ocean.[5]

Yet even while centralized C2 possessed numerous proponents throughout the British fleets, one of its principal dissenters led the British to the most lopsided and decisive victories in the age of sail. Lord Admiral Nelson’s embrace of decentralized C2 was likely borne of a naval engagement off the coast of Cape St. Vincent, Portugal.[6] Throughout the course of the battle, Nelson repeatedly ignored the signal orders of his commander in light of his interpretation of the best course of action to defeat the Spanish fleet.[7] Nelson would later put his telescope to his blind eye in action against the Dutch after receiving an order to leave off action, saying, “Damn the signal. Keep mine for close battle flying. That’s the way I answer such signals! Nail mine to the mast!”[8] During both engagements, his refusal to follow orders that did not accurately reflect the tactical situation proved critical to British victory.[9]

Like the Prussian fathers of Auftragstaktik, Nelson adopted decentralized C2 at the Nile and Trafalgar after experiencing the failures of the alternative. At both Cape St. Vincent and off of Copenhagen, British commanders issued orders that did not accurately reflect the tactical situations of their subordinates. If Nelson attributed the fleet’s failure to achieve decisive victory in either engagement to the individual senior commanders, he would have likely pursued the same model of centralized C2 once in operational command. Rather, he faulted the model itself, and developed trusted subordinates capable of understanding and executing his intentions in battle.[10] At Trafalgar, he would transmit a solitary maneuvering command via signal, his transmission to “engage the enemy more closely,” more flourish than actual command.[11] The “Nelson Touch” was a product of his acceptance of chaos as a wartime constant that could not be mitigated by technology, but could be exploited by a decentralized C2 organization.[12]

“…going to sea used to be fun, and then they gaves us radios.” (Admiral Arleigh Burke)

Unfortunately, the “Nelson Touch” did not endure in practice for either the British or American fleets in the face of communications advancement. By the early 1900s, the effectiveness of the wireless telegraph in the maritime domain was validated by its contributions to the Japanese victory over the ill-trained Russian fleet at Tsushima Straits, where it was used to pass tactical directions and relay the Russian fleet’s position.[13] Yet its ability to also function as a paralytic to individual initiative was evident during the British fleet’s actions at Jutland during the First World War. With over 100 surface vessels to command, the wireless telegraph provided Admiral Jellicoe, Commander-in-Chief of the British Grand Fleet, with a mechanism to centralize control to a degree that would have been impossible prior to its incorporation.[14] Accordingly, individual initiative and aggressiveness from subordinate commanders declined, “for fears their superiors knew something they did not (or had intentions for which they were unaware).”[15] The Grand Fleet failed to achieve victory against the German Navy in large part because the British admiralty allowed emergent communications technology to determine their C2 organization and operational philosophy, rather than treating the wireless telegraph as an additive technology toward Mission Command.

The role of communications advances towards centralizing C2 in the British fleet continued into the Second World War. In one particularly egregious example of technology facilitating centralized C2, the British Admiralty ordered a convoy to scatter due to intelligence indications that the German battleshipTirpitz would sail against the convoy.[16] The escort commander possessed the on scene situational awareness and argued that clear skies in the local area would prevent the German’s from exposing theTirpitz to aerial attack.[17] The Admiralty, however, possessed the decision making authority in a centralized C2 organization. The convoy was scattered and subsequently slaughtered by submarines. TheTirpitz did not sail.[18]

The U.S. Navy’s experiences in the early stages of the Second World War demonstrated similar problems with centralized control. An After Action Report (AAR) of the Battle of Guadalcanal performed by the President of the Naval War College detailed the attempts by the Officer in Tactical Command (OTC) of Task Group (TG) 67.4 to maintain control of the assembled TG through a flurry of radio commands during a fleet on fleet action.[19] The OTC’s issuance of multiple maneuvering and firing commands in quick succession effectively splintered his fleet, reduced their striking power, and contributed to incidents of fratricide.[20]

The Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet, Admiral Chester Nimitz, would commit the same sins of micro-management on a grander scale during Admiral Halsey’s raid on the Marshall Islands.[21] Without any direct knowledge of the course of the engagement, Nimitz directed Halsey to “exploit the situation,” and “expand his operations.”[22] While Halsey chose to ignore those orders, it is likely that other subordinate commanders would have followed them and exposed the depleted U.S. carrier fleet to unacceptable risk for a limited gain.

Nimitz’ actions and the C2 failures of TG 67.4 were neither an aberration nor unpredictable. Instead, they were the inevitable by-product of the U.S. Navy’s cultural failures preceding the Second World War. The tendency to micro-manage subordinate commanders, facilitated by over the horizon communications technology, had come to dominate the service. In an admonishing message sent on January 21st, 1941, Admiral Ernest King, Commander in Chief, Atlantic Fleet, addressed the over centralization of C2 throughout the Navy, stating:

I have been concerned for many years over the increasing tendency - now grown almost to ‘standard practice’ – of flag officers and other group commanders to issue orders and instructions in which their subordinates are told ‘how’ as well as ‘what’ to do to such an extent and on such detail that the ‘Custom’ of the service’ has virtually become the antithesis of that essential element of command – ‘initiative of the subordinate’…We are preparing for...those active operations (commonly called war) which require the exercise and utilization of the full powers and the capabilities of every officer in command status. There will be neither time nor opportunity to do more than prescribe the several tasks of the several subordinates…expecting and requiring of them – the capacity to perform the assigned tasks.[23]

King, who would serve as the Chief of Naval Operations during the Second World War, understood that Mission Command was an essential cultural philosophy and doctrine for successful combat operations. Additionally, creating a force capable of executing Mission Command in combat required a significant investment in training and the willingness to accept additional risk at the tactical level of war to achieve operational ends. 

Had U.S. Navy forces at Leyte Gulf failed to embrace Mission Command, it is unlikely that it would have achieved victory in the last major surface engagement of the war. Success during the Battle of Surigao Strait depended on the ability of subordinate commanders to aggregate their tactical decisions towards an operational end. Admiral Jesse Oldendorf, left to cover the Japanese fleet’s approach to Leyte, possessed a make-shift Allied fleet comprised of over 40 major surface combatants, 39 torpedo boats, and 2 scout submarines.[24] The submarines, USS Darter and USS Dace, independently made the decision to delay their attacks against the Japanese to report the position and composition of the enemy fleet.[25]Furthermore, the commander of Destroyer Squadron 54, Captain J.G. Coward, coordinated his plan of attack with Oldendorf, despite not being under his command: 

At 1950 October 24 he sent ‘Oley’ this message: ‘In case of surface contact to the southward I plan to make an immediate torpedo attack and then retire to clear you. With your approval I will submit plan shortly.’ Fifteen minutes later, Oldendorf radioed his approval. At 2008, Captain Coward sent the Admiral his basic plan, details to follow shortly. Coward did not merely volunteer; he announced that he was going in.[26]

Coward’s actions are only one example of the displayed initiative and decentralized decision making and execution that was the hallmark of the U.S. Navy’s fleet employment at Surigao Strait. Senior commanders used communications technologies to establish their intentions, and subordinate commanders understood their operational objective and coordinated their tactical actions towards that end. 

The decentralized C2 organization used by the U.S. Navy in its victory at Surigao Strait resulted from its informal adoption throughout the fleet throughout the war. The “intelligent initiative displayed” by subordinates characterized the U.S. Navy’s operations in the Gilbert Islands, and was noted as a redeeming feature of the long naval campaign of Guadalcanal.[27] However, by November 1944, the U.S. Navy’s tacit adoption of Mission Command was formalized in the War Instructions provided to the fleet.[28] Specific provisions emphasized the senior commander’s responsibility to ensure subordinate commanders understood his intent, a subordinate commander’s responsibility to deviate from orders to better meet the senior commander’s intent, and the value of initiative.[29] The U.S. Navy’s communications capabilities had not changed significantly throughout the war; its understanding of centralized C2’s inherent limitations in a dynamic battle-space had. 

Kill TV, Satellites, and Tactical Admirals

Although modern technology provides commanders with a means for centralizing C2, the decision to centralize or decentralize C2 and to what degree to do so is ultimately the commander’s. Accordingly, that decision should be shaped from a thorough understanding of both the operating environment and the strategic, operational, and tactical objectives. Additionally, commanders need to understand the limitations and vulnerabilities of the technologies that enable centralized control. Finally, commanders must understand the long range implications of centralized C2 on the development of future operational commanders.

The networks and space-based technologies that provide U.S. Navy commanders with the ability to centralize C2 are vulnerable to attack and will likely be high priority targets for China in potential future combat operations.[30] Accordingly, the fleet’s ability to network data for force disposition, detection, and targeting is both a critical strength and a critical vulnerability. If centralized control is rigidly enforced throughout the fleet, the successful disruption or destruction of Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites and computer networks by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) may severely limit the U.S. fleet’s combat effectiveness.[31]

Yet even if the U.S. Navy constructed a network architecture that was impervious to attack, the second and third-order effects of rigid centralization should be considered. Technological innovations coupled with a lack of trust in the judgment of subordinates can invert the commander’s role in war, leading to what Peter W. Singer, director of the Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence, has coined as the rise of “the tactical general”:

The four-star general proudly recounts how he spent ‘two hours watching footage’ beamed to his headquarters. Sitting behind a live video feed from a Predator unmanned aircraft system (UAS), he saw two insurgent leaders sneak into a compound, openly carrying weapons…Having personally checked the situation, he gave the order to strike. But his role didn’t end there; the general proudly tells how he even decided what size bomb his pilots should drop on the compound.[32]

In the two hours that the general spent at the tactical level of war, what analysis and consideration did he pay to the operational and strategic levels of war?[33] The U.S. Navy faces the same danger of a loss of focus at the higher levels of war if commanders spend time and energy on tactical events.

Furthermore, rigid centralization destroys the subordinate’s ability to develop their decision making at the tactical level. Without the experience of decision making at the tactical level of war, what lessons will they draw on to make decisions at the operational or strategic level?[34] In “Role Making and the Assumption of Leadership”, Bruce T. Caine, a former U.S. Army officer and current professor of organizational psychology, states that there is an explicit linkage between autonomy and leadership development.[35] The progression of a subordinate to a leadership position relies upon the continuous assessment of their ability to perform tasks, with the successful completion of those tasks resulting in a decrease of supervision.[36] Implicit in this model of command organization is a concept for leadership renewal. Subordinates are provided with the opportunity to build the experience that they will need to move into a leadership role at a higher level.

The unintended consequence of a strategic or operational commander making decisions at a tactical level is the inhibition of the development of future strategic or operational leaders. Using Caine’s framework for assessment with the example of the four star general and the pilot, to what degree did that pilot learn from the execution of his or her bombing mission? Inhibited from making even the most basic decisions about the weaponeering of his or her attack, to what degree will they be able to make more difficult decisions at the higher levels of war? Furthermore, divorced from the responsibility inherent to autonomous decision making at the tactical level, how can their commander even determine their suitability to serve as a decision maker at the operational or strategic levels of war? 

Net-working is a Capability, C2 Organization is a Choice

The U.S. Navy’s surface fleet may find itself engaged in major naval combat in the near future. While the modern fleet possesses highly advanced communications and data-networking technology, centuries of written history suggest that no advance in technology has successfully eliminated the fog of war. In contrast, victory is often gained by the force best able to exploit it. By training and educating its personnel on the tenets of Mission Command and embracing it as a critical component of its service culture, the U.S. Navy can create a human network of initiative, ingenuity, and lethality. 

End Notes

[1] General Martin Dempsey, Mission Command: White Paper, p. 3, Joint Chiefs of Staff, Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, April 3rd, 2012.

[2] Ibid, p. 2.

[3] Ibid, p. 2.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid, p. 135, 145, 158.

[6] Ibid, p. 170, 175-177.

[7] Ibid, p. 175-176.

[8] Ibid, p. 191.

[9] Ibid, p. 176, 191.

[10] Ibid, p. 207.

[11] Ibid, p. 206.

[12] Ibid, p. 13.

[13] Timothy Scott Wolters, “Managing a Sea of Information: Shipboard Command and Control in the United States Navy, 1899-1945,” p. 59, Doctoral dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technologies, September 2003

[14] Ibid, p. 94-95.

[15] Ibid, p. 95

[16] Norman Friedman, Network-Centric Warfare: How Navies Learned to Fight Smarter Through Three World Wars, p. 30-31, Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Maryland, 2009

[17] Ibid.

[18] Ibid.

[19] W.S. Pye, President of the Naval War College, Comments on the BATTLE OF GUADALCANAL, Nov, 11-15, 1942, Serial 2238, p. 4, June 5th, 1943

[20] Ibid.

[21] Michael A. Palmer, Command at Sea: Naval Command and Control Since the Sixteenth Century, Harvard University Press, p. 260, Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England, 2005

[22] Ibid.

[23] Admiral Ernest King, CINCLANT Serial 053 of January 21, 1941

[24] Samuel Eliot Morison, Leyte: June 1944 – January 1945, p. 199, 203-210, Little, Brown and Company, Boston, 1958

[25] Admiral Frederick C. Sherman, Combat Command: The American Aircraft Carriers in the Pacific War, E.P. Dutton and Company, Inc., New York, 1950

[26] Samuel Eliot Morison, Leyte: June 1944 – January 1945, p. 203, Little, Brown and Company, Boston, 1958

[27] Admiral Raymond Spruance, “Galvanic Operations – Report On”, Serial 06156, p. 4, December 10th, 1943 and Vice Admiral William Pye, President of the Naval War College, Comments on the BATTLE OF GUADALCANAL, Nov, 11-15, 1942, Serial 2238, p. 8, June 5th, 1943

[28] “War Instructions United States Navy 1944”, Section II. Command, 207, Section III. Inititiative, 214, 215, The Navy Department Library

[29] Ibid.

[30] Jan Van Tol, “Air Sea Battle: A Point-of-Departure Operational Concept”, p. 20-21, 27-28, Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, 2010

[31] Ibid.

[32] Peter W. Singer, “Tactical Generals: Leaders, Technology, and the Perils of Battlefield Management” Air and Space Power Journal, Brookings Institute, Summer 2009,http://www.brookings.edu/research/articles/2009/07/summer-military-singer

[33] Ibid.

[34] Author’s personal experience.

[35] Office of Military Leadership, United States Military Academy, A Study of Organizational Leadership, p. 367, Stackpole Books, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, 1976

[36] Ibid.

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