By CDR Paul W. Viscovich, USN (ret.)
Vale la pena (“It’s definitely worth the effort”) was the motto of Naval Particular Warfare Group EIGHT when it was stationed in Panama some 30 years in the past. It was an acceptable philosophy for a tip-of-the-spear warfighting unit, they usually lived as much as it in operations all through the U.S. Southern Command space of accountability. Can these SEALs educate us methods to prioritize warfighting, and might their unit-level classes be utilized all through the fleet?
As a way to prioritize one factor – warfighting – it’s essential to diminish the significance of conflicting necessities. As a result of distinctive nature of their mission, and with the unyielding help of their NAVSPECWAR chain of command, the SEALs are largely insulated from the executive distractions that bedevil the opposite warfighting communities. Their upkeep, coaching, and safety applications are all consciously vectored towards supporting their one precedence – offering warfighting functionality.
Two issues permit the SEALs to perform this. First, their complete neighborhood is culturally targeted on warfighting. Second, their senior management is uncompromising in eliminating something that distracts from this precedence.
This management doctrine is at such variance from the remainder of the Navy that any fast try to use this mannequin on a fleet-wide scale will fail. The eight-decade absence of lethal battle with an enemy of equal or superior functionality has eroded the warrior ethos in generations of naval officers and senior enlisted leaders. Its absence has prompted perverse incentives to metastasize, corresponding to an administratively-obsessed tradition that usually defines excellence by way of passing rote inspections, and scripted drills that masks warfighting deficits however make for optimistic reporting. Though particular person commanding officers might try mightily to create a warfighting focus inside their items, the chain of command’s overriding insistence that they examine all of the superfluous administrative packing containers will proceed to doom their efforts and overwhelm the time of warfighters on the deckplate. At greatest, unit leaders can solely put warfighting first on the margins of an already thinly-stretched crew and schedule. Whether or not aviators, submariners, or floor warfare officers, U.S. Navy flag officers at the moment are largely educated, groomed, and chosen to perpetuate this forms that’s top-heavy with administration.
On this setting, virtually any program to refocus the fleet on warfighting is prone to be little greater than window dressing. An institutional initiative to place warfighting first may simply end in much more required record-keeping and reporting on high of what has been accumulating for many years. As we speak’s tradition will self-perpetuate till some main calamity pushes the fleet into an existential struggle, and eventually forces the Navy to sharply consolidate its priorities towards warfighting.
The crucible of fight shortly shines a light-weight on incompetence. It is not uncommon for warring nice energy militaries to fireplace and exchange quite a few commanding officers after poor fight efficiency, whether or not they be unit-level leaders, or senior flag and normal officers. Those that extra successfully put warfighting first in peacetime often is the Halseys that exchange the Ghormleys. The Navy ought to take nice care to study the distinction earlier than its subsequent warfare, and develop higher warfighting-focused incentives and standards for promotion and health reporting.
If senior Protection Division civilian and army leaders don’t significantly convert organizational priorities towards warfighting, any lower-echelon try and refocus combating forces on their core accountability will obtain solely marginal impact. Senior leaders should grasp how deckplate-level actuality has grow to be suffocated by miscellanea accumulating from a long time of poorly prioritized necessities. Senior leaders should take decisive possession of the issue and return sufficient time and focus to warfighters to allow them to really put warfighting first.
Paul Viscovich is a retired Commander and Floor Warfare Officer with 20 years energetic service. He graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1975 and earned a Grasp of Sciences diploma from the Naval Postgraduate Faculty in 1987. From 2013-2021, he authored a month-to-month political column revealed in a south Florida journal, at the moment writes a present occasions publication on Substack.com, and is engaged on an anthology of quick tales, many with a nautical theme. He lives along with his spouse Christine in Weston, FL.
Featured Picture: PHILIPPINE SEA (Sept. 19, 2016) The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Benfold (DDG 65) fires a normal missile (SM 2) at a goal drone as a part of a surface-to-air-missile train (SAMEX) throughout Valiant Protect 2016. (U.S. Navy picture illustration by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Andrew Schneider/Launched)
