You do you, Loren Thompson; You do You

I try to avoid the personal, but within the Beltway, Loren Thompson is a special kind of fella - and since he threw shade at milbloggers in such a laughable way back in '09, I've tried my best to dismiss what production he puts out.

I never want to begrudge someone earning a day's paycheck, but I'm sorry - I couldn't let this pass;

Things have not gone well for the Pentagon’s much-criticized acquisition system since the 9-11 attacks. The military got a lot more money for new weapons than anyone could have predicted when the new millennium began, but tens of billions of dollars were squandered on programs that either were canceled or delayed by controversy.

However, there are a few new combat systems that stand out as successes, and the V-22 Osprey tiltrotor is arguably the most pleasant surprise. Tiltrotors are revolutionary airframes that combine the vertical agility of a helicopter with the speed, range and fuel efficiency of a fixed-wing plane. They can land pretty much anywhere, or hover over a spot for long periods, but they fly twice as far and twice as fast as the helicopters they replace.

That makes tiltrotors so versatile that the military services which already own them are rethinking how combat operations should be conducted, and the services which don’t own them are seriously considering how to find room in their budgets for tiltrotor technology.

Loren, really. You've been around long enough. I mean; dude.

Post 9-11? "Revolutionary?"

So, I head on over to the library. I grab my acetate protected copy of the 1986 Maritime Strategy and ... well ... BEHOLD!

There we are kids, right on page 28 with a pic of its stunt double.

1986. A decade and a half prior to 9-11.

The RFP went out in 1982, 19 yrs before 9-11. It first flew in 1989, 12-yrs prior to 9-11. An entire generation of USMC aviators passed their career waiting for this aircraft that was always just a POM away deployability. 

We're here - but the hard work was all done pre-911.

Of course, Loren knows this.

This is remarkable progress for a program that was so controversial when it first began flying that Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney tried to kill it every year he held the job. Cheney managed to terminate a hundred major weapons programs during his tenure — the Cold War had just ended — but he couldn’t do in the Osprey because Congress and the Marine Corps banded together to protect it. Now, in the tenth year since Osprey first became operational, it is clear they were right and Cheney was wrong.

Those years were '89-'93 for those at home keeping score.

So, why would Loren use 9-11 as a benchmark? Why is he toot'n this horn in this way?

I'll let you figure that out.

CNA Places Rake in Yard, Promptly Steps on it

When something you care about just embarrasses itself in public, one option is to just let the moment pass. Nothing you can do can add to the shame they feel themselves.

It is something altogether different though when the act was not an accident - but was an intentional act done for what appears to be personal reasons that impact the overall organization. If something gives the impression of the later, innocent or not, you have significant problems.

When it is easy for an external eye to see obvious conflicts of interest - what does it say when internally all are blind?

As reported by Rowan Scarborough, CNA needs to clean house sooner more than later. Let's connect the dots;

The May 13 report came from the military advisory board within CNA Corp., a nonprofit based in Alexandria, Virginia, that includes the Center for Naval Analyses, a Navy-financed group that also gets contracts from other Pentagon units. CNA also operates the Institute for Public Research. 

CNA’s webpage states that it is not an advocacy group. It says it maintains “absolute objectivity. In our investigations, analyses and findings we test hypotheses, carefully guard against personal biases and preconceptions, challenge our own findings and are uninfluenced by what a client would like to hear.” 

The Center for Naval Analyses’ motto is “high quality, impartial information.”
One of the CNA panel’s vice chairmen, retired Navy Vice Adm. Lee Gunn, is president of a private think tank, the American Security Project, whose prime issue is warning about climate change. 

The other vice chairman, retired Army Brig. Gen. Gerald E. Galloway Jr., is a prominent adviser to the Center for Climate and Security, a climate change group. 

In all, four CNA board members sit on the panel of advisers to the Center for Climate and Security, whose statements on climate change are similar to those found in the CNA report.

Other board members work in the climate change world of consulting and technology.
The CNA advisory panel is headed by retired four-star Army Gen. Paul Kern, who sits on the board of directors of a company that sells climate-detection products to the Pentagon and other government agencies. At least two other board members are employed in businesses that sell climate change expertise and products.
The greatest influence on CNA reports seems to come from the Center for Climate and Security, whose position is that the debate on climate change, or man-made global warming, is over. 

“This is a world which recognizes that climate change risks are unprecedented in human history and does not wait for absolute certainty before acting to mitigate and adapt to those risks,” the center says. 

The CNA report, titled “National Security and the Accelerating Risks of Climate Change,” says: “Some in the political realm continue to debate the cause of a warming planet and demand more data.” It then quotes a board member as saying, “Speaking as a soldier, we never have 100 percent certainty. If you wait until you have 100 percent certainty, something bad is going to happen on the battlefield.”
The Center for Climate and Security has taken donations from the Tides Foundation, which gets money from Democratic Party financier and liberal billionaire George Soros. 

The CNA credits the Center for Climate and Security for helping release the report, and the center issued a press release lauding the report the day it was released.

Oh, there is a lot more there. It gets worse, and they name names. Unless CNA wants to gain the reputation as another partisan agenda driven tool in DC, selling its name and honor to the highest bidder, then it needs to do some serious thinking.

One of the big problems with this whole mess is that this isn't actually a CNA "study." If it was, it would have more rigorous analysis and data backing the conclusions. Instead it is an opinion piece by the "military advisory board," a bunch of retired GOFO who pad their resume by being "think tank guys" even though they have neither the skills nor the education/background to do real and substantial analysis. They're window dressing so CNA can say they're "in touch" with military concerns. They got away from the real analysts and did something embarrassing to themselves and those who associate with them.

This will not help anyone involved either. Having someone who used to be at the highest ranks of the military using and citing the battlefield as an analogy is a complete misuse of the public's good will. This only invites scrutiny as to their credentials and qualifications to discuss climate change. The results of that scrutiny only invites ridicule for our profession.

I wait for the CNA to report on the military implications of the expected increasing light in the morning, and the gathering gloom of darkness later in the day.

When the Holiday Season Becomes Scandal Season

Last week we discussed the foolishness with Fat Leonard a bit. Well, that frag pattern is still moving out;

Two U.S. admirals — including the director of naval intelligence — are under investigation as part of a major bribery scandal involving a foreign defense contractor, Navy officials announced Friday night.

Vice Adm. Ted “Twig” Branch, the service’s top intelligence officer, and Rear Adm. Bruce F. Loveless, the Navy’s director of intelligence operations, were placed on leave Friday, and their access to classified material was suspended, the Navy said in a statement.

Both admirals are being investigated for their ties to a Singapore-based defense contractor, Glenn Defense Marine Asia, whose chief executive was arrested in September on charges that he bribed other Navy officers into giving him classified or privileged information in exchange for prostitutes and cash.

For the sake of the Navy - and the two Flag Officers - I hope this has all been a mistake. But ...



But wait! There's more. Via Craig Whitlock at WaPo.

None of the three Navy civilian intelligence officials has been charged in the investigation, which is ongoing. Their names are redacted in most of the court documents, which refer to them as “Conspirator #1,” “Conspirator #2” and “Conspirator #3.”

But in one affidavit, federal investigators neglected to black out the name of Conspirator #2, identifying him as Lee Hall of Virginia. Hall is a longtime defense intelligence official who now works for the Navy. An attorney for Hall, Danny Onorato, declined to comment.

The same affidavit identifies Conspirator #1 by his first name, David. Three people familiar with the case said that person is David W. Landersman, the senior director for intelligence in the Navy’s directorate for plans, policy, oversight and integration intelligence.

The Federal government cannot even redact things correctly - but they are going to protect my medical privacy? OK, I won't change the subject.

The banality of corruption.

Court records describe Mark Landersman as a down-on-his-luck mechanic who struggled to keep his Temecula repair shop in business. He and his wife declared personal bankruptcy in July 2012.

A month later, according to charging documents, Mark Landersman received a series of e-mails from his brother at the Pentagon about firearm silencers, including a link to a Web site with do-it-yourself instructions for building a certain model.

“Wow! Very simple,” Mark Landersman replied in an e-mail on Aug. 14, 2012, according to the charging documents.

The next day, Navy finance officials informed David Landersman that they had approved a $2 million budget supplement he had requested for “studies, assessments and research.”

Two days after that, Landersman’s office transferred almost all of the money to a preexisting Navy intelligence contract with CACI, a major contractor. According to court documents, Hall and Conspirator #3 then directed CACI to buy the silencers from a California company newly incorporated by Mark Landersman.

Hall also told CACI to award the business without seeking a lower bid, according to investigators. In e-mails, Hall said that Landersman’s fledgling company was “the only responsible source for the engineering expertise sought” and that “their product is first that incorporates a unique design that significantly reduces the decibel ratings to near background noise levels.”

To manufacture the silencers, Landersman turned to Carlos C. Robles, a machinist who used to work in his auto repair shop. He gave Robles blueprints for what he called “a small-engine muffler” and asked him to make 349 of them, according to charging documents.

Robles later told agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives that he built the mufflers and that Landersman paid him $8,000 to cover parts and labor. He acknowledged to the agents that the mufflers closely resembled silencers.

ATF firearm examiners tested the devices and concluded they were functioning silencers.

In an interview with The Washington Post, Robles said he was stunned to learn that Landersman had resold the silencers to CACI and the Navy for $1.6 million.

“Are you kidding me?” he said.

1. You are not the only one saying that Mr. Landersman ... and, ohhhh,
2. You should move out of CA if you want to go in to the firearms business.

I think CHINFO and his Shipmates will have a very interesting 1QFY14 trying to keep this from smearing the rest of the Navy.

People need to go to jail for a long time. When people do things like this, it smears everyone with a "USN" attached to their name.

How Lenny Got Fat

What I thought was a typical case of a fallen CDR with at great backstory just might be a bit larger than I thought. Via S-n-S;

Nicknamed "Fat Leonard," the gregarious Malaysian businessman is well known by U.S. Navy commanders in the Pacific, where his company has serviced warships for 25 years.

But prosecutors in court papers say Leonard Francis worked his connections to obtain military secrets by lining up hookers, Lady Gaga tickets and other bribes for a U.S. commander, in a scandal reverberating across the Navy.
...
Navy commander Michael Vannak Khem Misiewicz passed confidential information on ship routes to Francis' Singapore-based company, Glenn Defense Marine Asia Ltd., or GDMA, according to the court documents.

Misiewicz and Francis moved Navy vessels like chess pieces, diverting aircraft carriers, destroyers and other ships to Asian ports with lax oversight where Francis could inflate costs, according to the criminal complaint. The firm overcharged the Navy millions for fuel, food and other services it provided, and invented tariffs by using phony port authorities, the prosecution alleges.

Here is my concern - I don't think Misiewicz was the only pony in the stable.

Francis is legendary in military circles in that part of the world, said McKnight, who does not know him personally. He is known for extravagance. His 70,000-foot bungalow in an upscale Singapore neighborhood drew spectators yearly since 2007 to its lavish, outdoor Christmas decorations, which The Straits Times described as rivaling the island city-state's main shopping street with replicas of snowmen, lighted towering trees, and Chinese and Japanese ornaments.

"He's a larger-than-life figure," McKnight said. "You talk to any captain on any ship that has sailed in the Pacific and they will know exactly who he is."

You don't get that from just an isolated deal. Also, 70,000 sqft? That has to be a type ... or at least don't call something that big a "bungalow."

The company bilked the Navy out of $10 million in just one year in Thailand alone, U.S. Attorney Laura Duffy said.

In December 2011, the two exchanged emails about the schedule of the USS Blue Ridge, investigators say. According to court documents, Francis wrote Misiewicz: "Bro, Slide a Bali visit in after Jakarta, and Dili Timor after Bali."

The complaint alleges Misiewicz followed through on the demands: In October 2012, the USS George Washington was scheduled to visit Singapore and instead was redirected by the Navy to Port Klang, Malaysia, one of Francis' preferred ports where his company submitted fake contractor bids.

After Francis offered Misiewicz five tickets to a Lady Gaga concert in Thailand in 2012, Francis wrote: "Don't chicken out bro we need u with us on the front lines," according to court documents.

Innocent and all until proven guilty etc ... etc ... but, in the end no one is going to come away looking all that well, and there will be a frag pattern when it is finally put away.

How many more names will drop? I hope I'm wrong, but I don't think so - the guy was way too connected.

Why are student loans so high?

Part of it is a lack of discipline and cost control at both public and private universities. By either tuition or taxpayer direct support - to administrators, it is just OPM.

... City University of New York ... is apparently paying CIA Director General David Petraeus $200,000 each year to teach for three hours per week. His class will be largely filled out by graduate student staff, who will handle “course research, administration, and grading.” Normal adjunct professors at CUNY make approximately $25,000 per year.

More info at the link, including a quote from Petraeus that won't make him your favorite retired public servant anytime soon.

Bloomberg's LCS 2-minute Hate

Byron and and the rest of the Front Porch should feel free to preen ... our "Little Crappy Ship" is now more or less a mainstream description of LCS.

Enjoy the vid.



Sooooo many people owe us sooooo much beer.

Diversity Thursday

This DivThu is a bit different - I'm a bit pi55ed off. I don't want this to get personal against a man who had a hard job and did the best he could do - but now he's just another retired guy in line at the Commissary ... so here you go.

While he was CNO, Gary Roughead couldn't have a bowel movement without playing Great White Father and paternalistically prattling on about (D)iversity like it was 1973.

All the time he was doing this, our Navy stumbled through a lost decade, left with an unaffordable string of ships and a too-big-to-fail F-35 program along with other areas of institutional delamination issues from preventative maintenance to, well ... pick your topic.

So, he takes a break from the food trough to pump out his wisdom. Was this what you heard from him when he was in uniform? Ponder ...

Good googly moogly man - if you were pounding this drum while you were in CNO, you would have had everyone with you - you could have moved mountains. I'm sorry Admiral, your record on these from optimal manning on, but - this.was.not.what.you.invested.your.
professional.capital.in.while.you.were.CNO.

Certain internal cost pressures in the defense budget make reductions in
spending especially difficult, but unless these areas of cost growth are addressed, they will crowd out spending in other areas and begin to remove military capacity and capability. This paper lays out a strategy to address these challenges in three parts:
(1) design a force better aligned to face future challenges,

(2) improve the efficiency and efficacy of the acquisition system, and

(3) control rising personnel costs.

Together, these reforms set the stage for a sustainable defense budget—one that preserves our capability both to face challenges in the near future and to rebuild as new challenges arise.

Here - read it all shipmates. Frankly, it has no credibility with me. He had his chance. This wasn't his priority when he was CNO, I'm not interested in his views on it now.

Gary, where were you when we needed you? Amazing, in uniform - it was all (D)iversity, all the time. You pump this out - and not one mention about (D)iversity, not one. A simple word search gets the word once - and for once you use it in a proper military context.

But our margin of error is also quite wide because of the diversity of tools we are now bringing to the fight: increased surveillance and more precise and timely intelligence attention, better border and immigration controls, layered defenses that provide more than one opportunity to identify and prevent access to suspicious individuals and organizations, and greater public awareness and resilience.

I'm going to stop now - I can't see more through the rage - and that is my problem, I know. I'll pray on that, maybe it will get better. 

The lost decade is on you. Until you address your failings, I'm not interested in your proposals to fix them. If you care so little now for what was your #1 priority when you had power - without telling us why you are changing - well - that is on your conscience, not mine.

Here it is folks, for what it is worth. Just remember - his actions are pierside now. If you find something of use, please share it in comments. I'm shifting fire and am going to look for some smart ideas from the under-40 crowd.

Again .... We're Not Doing This?

Someone please, please, give me more details.

As our war(s) wind down, we are coughing up a half-a-billion-dollars to Booz Allen to do ... what the fracking Chain of Command and the Family Services/Medical masses are supposed to do?

Hey, I love me some SOF too, but?

Defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton has won a $475 million contract from the U.S. Special Operations Command to offer assistance services to Special Forces soldiers and their families. The Pentagon announced the contract Wednesday. It runs five years and could total as much as $475 million. Virginia-based Booz Allen has other Special Forces contracts but also provides technology, consulting and security to military customers as well as other government agencies and the private sector. The new contract entails Booz Allen helping the U.S. military to craft services and assistance for Special Forces soldiers who have seen combat and multiple deployments, as well as their families.

Why we Need Plan Salamander for GOFO Now

How long have I been calling for Congressional action on the food trough issue, eight years? I'll say it again; GOFO shall not work for a publicly or privately held company that has business with the Department of Defense for a period not less than five years following their effective date of retirement.

If GOFO want to know where the raft of cynicism in the Fleet comes from, if they really want to know why people don't really trust their motivations and decisions, if they want to know why their motivations are questioned .... well ... here is a start.

New research by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) found 70% of the 108 three-and-four star generals and admirals who retired between 2009 and 2011 took jobs with defense contractor or consultants. In at least a few cases, the retirees have continued to advise the Department of Defense while on the payroll of defense contractors, suggesting the Pentagon may not always be receiving unbiased counsel.

A Boston Globe investigation revealed the number of retired three-and-four star generals and admirals moving into lucrative defense industry jobs rose from less than 50% between 1994 and 1998 to a stratospheric 80% between 2004 and 2008.

Here is the full report. CREW Strategic Maneuvers Pentagon Generals Revolving Door 11-15-12 Hat tip ZeroHedge and the Front Porch.

Triple Dip for Fun and Profit

I had to check the commas twice. How many seagoing billets can you fund with this?

Nice work if you can get it.

Booz Allen Hamilton, McLean, Va. (N00189-12-D-0024), and CACI-CMS, Chantilly, Va. (N00189-12-D- 0025), are each being awarded indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contracts with cost-plus-fixed-fee, firm-fixed-price pricing provisions. The contract shall provide leadership teams, providing expertise in change management, barrier identification and removal, and key enterprise performance metrics. The contractor will focus efforts on applying the key tenets of a structured, process-focused, metrics-driven enterprise approach to determine required output, identify and remove barriers, develop and analyze measures of performance, and manage the cultural changes necessary to reach enterprise objectives. Booz Allen Hamilton is being awarded $22,748,505 and CACI-CMS is being awarded $23,440,323. Both contracts contain four one-year options periods, which, if exercised, will bring the contract ceiling amount value for Booz Allen Hamilton to $119,291,843 and for CACI-CMS to $121,446,377. Work will be performed at various sites inside the continental United States to include Patuxent River, Md.; San Diego, Calif.; Norfolk, Va.; and Washington, D.C. The contractor shall perform this work primarily at government sites with recommendations for alternative sites offered for consideration at the task order level. It is estimated that the work will be performed on-site at government sites (86 percent) and off-site at contractor sites (14 percent). Work is expected to be completed June 19, 2013. Funding in the amount of $25,000 for the minimum guarantee, will be divided equally between both contracts, from the Operations and Maintenance, Navy fund, and will expire at the end of the current fiscal year, Sept. 30, 2012. The contract was competitively procured. The requirement was issued under full and open competition and solicited through the Government-wide Points of Entry, Navy Electronic Commerce On-line and Federal Business Opportunities websites. Four offers were received. The Fleet Logistics Center Norfolk, Va., is the contracting activity.

Remind me what all our senior officers with advanced degrees are for again?

Hat tip Mike.

Power vs. Stewardship

Packed away in one of my boxes is a speech I outlined back in 2004. It was concerning a concept, a word, that with the last few generations we seem to have forgotten about.

This forgetfulness manifests itself in different ways and in different degrees throughout history’s path. This isn't the first time - but in our living memory it is acute.

It was on a word that is both a concept and a worldview; stewardship. I can’t find my outlined speech, but I was reminded of it Friday when I read this line from David Brooks article, Why Our Elites Stink:

… today’s elite lacks the self-conscious leadership ethos that the … old boys’ network did possess. If you went to Groton a century ago, you knew you were privileged. You were taught how morally precarious privilege was and how much responsibility it entailed. You were housed in a spartan 6-foot-by-9-foot cubicle to prepare you for the rigors of leadership. The best of the WASP elites had a stewardship mentality, that they were temporary caretakers of institutions that would span generations. … they … believe(d) in restraint, reticence and service.

Today’s elite is more talented and open but lacks a self-conscious leadership code. The language of meritocracy (how to succeed) has eclipsed the language of morality (how to be virtuous).

Stewardship in question is defined as;

stew·ard·ship
noun
\ˈstü-ərd-ˌship, ˈstyü-; ˈst(y)u̇rd-\
...
2: the conducting, supervising, or managing of something; especially : the careful and responsible management of something entrusted to one's care

Stewardship in practice is something more, something deeper. Stewardship is more often than not a hidden thing, an undercurrent.

A person or an organization who practices good stewardship often does so without being noticed by those looking for the "flash" for the squirrel that is all so interesting. Stewardship isn’t flashy, it isn’t zippy, it isn’t apparent – it just is. Good stewardship is, “what it should be.” One does not see it, as it is expected.

Many failings we see, from painting over rust, to selecting the best case scenario to plan from, to having a command climate that only allows concurrence – all derive from a desire to have the appearance of stewardship, but to not suffer the effort of actually practicing it. It is easier to paint than to do preservation. It is easier to ignore risk than to mitigate it. It is easier to say “yes” and let someone else’s PCS cycle clean up, than say “no” and work towards a better solution for others to enjoy.

That is the difference between being inwardly focused towards self, vice outwardly focused towards the institution. It is the difference between a love of the narcissism of now, vice the respect of the legacy of stewardship.

Where is our focus, and what is the focus of our Commands? Do we have the personnel, funds, and time to properly take care of our equipment – or do we simply slap some paint on it? Are all the spaces well taken care of – or only those that will be seen immediately? Do we have our ships in the best condition for the stage of the cycle they are in, or do we have “Tiger Teams” that rush to get things INSURV ready? Are we in an organization that never wants to CASREP an important item, or one that CASREPS now to make sure those in the future are ready? “Now” doesn’t, as that might imply up the chain of command something negative. “Stewardship” does as they know that it is the future that matters, not the now.

Here and at Midrats, we’ve discussed the General Board and the successful programs of the past. Is a General Board part of a culture of stewardship? Would a new General Board be the answer to the system that brought us the parade of program horrors of the last decade? Perhaps, it all depends though on who is on the board, what their charter is, and what the focus is of the individuals and the board.

Regardless if we have a new General Board or the system we have now, it isn’t the name that is so important, but the mindset of the individuals who make it up. If we have people who are directly or indirectly ear-deep in the food-trough, we will have no improvement. If we have people who continue to promote the plague of buzzwords, repackaged concepts, and a historically ignorant transformationalist mentality, we will have no improvement.

The intellectual adhesions we have accrued over the last few decades must be broken. Just taking the next group off the established conveyor belt that gave us everything else will not get different results.

Let’s get back to Brook’s article. Where is the sense of an ethos of stewardship in some of our decisions? In the 1990s – was a culture of stewardship responsible for the half-baked JFK yard period? Was it stewardship that in both name and concept ignored decades of history in the development of LCS? Was it stewardship that allowed LPD-17 & DDG-1000 cost to saddle future budgets?

What was it then that brought these and others? What is the underlying intellectual basis of our decision making processes? Are our leaders focused on building a legacy for themselves, or for those who follow?

William F. Buckley had a phrase,

“I'd rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University.”

He knew his "elites." What about our elites?

What results, priorities, and D&G would you get by pulling the first 40 officers coming through the gate a Norfolk? Would their decisions have been any better or worse than those of the last decade and a half?

Why?

A Conspiracy of Compliance

Do we demonstrate organizational discipline, or show an organization that aggressively disincentives dissent?

Are we so convinced that our ideas are correct that it is natural that all right-thinking individuals believe in them, or do good people smile and nod while trying to do good while surviving in a culture dominated by the intellectually insecure who will not tolerate open disagreement by those who they control?

Do we have a culture based on the creative friction and intellectual vibrancy of a free republic, or a culture based on fear?

Is there a point where supporting the boss comes at the cost of the organization and country everyone serves?

It there a power imbalance that manifests itself in Soviet like lockstep?

Over at USNIBlog, our Galrahn has seen behind the curtain - blinked his eyes hard - and lets what comes in to focus sink in.

... I took the opportunity to solicit opinions from several students regarding this years Current Strategy Forum, and everyone tended to focus on one specific panel of General and Flag officers that was moderated by Undersecretary of the Navy Bob Work. The single most noted characteristic of this particular panel was how one could not slide even a piece of paper between the opinions and positions of the uniformed officers; they all spoke from the same piece of paper.
...
We are seeing a wider variety of different opinions publicly in print today from the Peoples Liberation Army Navy even under existing Chinese censorship laws than we are from leaders of the United States Navy in a land of free speech ...

There is no defense for solidarity of mind among leaders for any organization intrusted with so much responsibility. Under no theory of order has solidarity of opinion been a strength in a free thinking society, and in the highest funded government agency where national security and means of arms is stated as purpose, that kind of oligarchy is dangerous to any free society.

What we are looking at is the simple result of a toxic command climate that stresses loyalty to individuals over loyalty to institutions. It has taken the wartime and/or intra-staff dictum to "argue behind doors and come out in agreement" as a universal.

It is the result of a culture where it is all about not having you or your boss getting "the phone call."

It cannot deal with open negative information and will twist itself into self-parody in order to avoid it - either by making INSURV classified, or by sitting on a panel where all they do is agree how perfect their agreed policy is.

Most of us have noticed "The Craddock Effect." On the path to promotion and positions of more authority, most leaders avoid public and even private friction with others with a goal to get to a point they can do something with their position of power.

They never have enough, of course, and right before they lose it all they finally throw off some sparks before they get the gold watch.

Young leaders see the habits of those who are promoted - and for better or worse benchmark that behavior. They also see what happens to those who speak up - and keep quite to avoid those consequences.

In a way then, this conspiracy of compliance is based on fear. How do you fix it? Simple - it has to take place at the top - as in people wearing civilian gear.

Having contrary opinions has to be rewarded. Give a demand signal for melee - and you'll get one. Give a signal for North Korean like concurrence, and you'll get it.

What Galrahn saw is a signal that we all do agree that everything we are doing is actually the best thing in the world and of course we all agree. We are all equally perfect as our plans, policies, and programs. After all, if we disagreed, then someone would have to be wrong, or at least less correct than someone else.

We can't have that. Much better to get out our little notebooks.

I don't know about you - but when I look at the record of the last 20 years when it comes to how we are running our Navy and its programs - I think we could use a little creative friction. I think we could use a bit more respectful discourse. I think, well I hope, that we have leaders with the intellectual security and ego to take a little challenge in public - if for no other reason than to let people know that we too believe in the marketplace of ideas - to let the power of our ideas win the day, not the power of fear.

While others flatten, we fatten

There are a very few basics when it comes to a successful organization in the second decade of the 21st Century, one of which is the following.

1. If your income producing divisions are shrinking due to the economy, the non-income producing supporting divisions must shrink as much if not more than the income producing ones.

If you add to that a simple fact that due to technology and advances in management best practices - organizations are removing layers and thinning out overhead staff.

Both the above seem logical - but in unaccountable organizations a lack of focus on their core competance and corrupt "empire building" can warp what needs to be and should be done for the organization in order to meet the myopic desires of individuals who have motivations more personal than corporate.

That is a long warn path to irrelevancy, inefficiency, and eventual bankruptcy. Just ask the Jannisarries. Few can get away with "Though I should only spend a dollar, last year I spent $2. Next year I will spend $1.95. Wow, look at all the money I'm saying." Most of those few work inside the beltway.

Via Walter Pincus at WaPo:

BEHOLD

The first thing that former senior military and civilian Pentagon officials of the Cold War era mention, when discussing reductions to the defense budget, is cutting the inflated size of the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Joint Staff.
...
... in the defense secretary’s office ... The fiscal 2013 budget for the office projects a reduction of $186.6 million from this year, but it may turn out to be less, say $121 million, because of inflation. Nevertheless, the office’s fiscal 2013 budget will still be $2.1 billion for the 2,124 civilians and 405 officers and enlisted personnel who work primarily in the Pentagon. Ten years ago there were 1,489 civilians and 481 military personnel on that office payroll.

The Joint Staff has also ballooned.It has substantially increased the past two years, apparently with the absorption of functions from the controversial closing of the Joint Forces Command. The Joint Staff grew from an average of 1,007 officers and enlisted men in 2011 to 2,089 in 2012. Civilian employees on the Joint Staff also grew in the past year, from 364 in 2011 to 693 in 2012, according to Pentagon figures.

We are shedding Sailors and actual operators left and right - but the bloat bloats. It also plays games.

While the plan is to cut the Joint Staff military numbers by 683 next year, the number of civilian employees is projected to grow to 923 by the end of 2013. Some 465 of that military reduction represents a transfer of personnel to Transportation Command, part of the realignment of Joint Forces Command personnel, according to Pentagon documents, Another 137 of the military reduction represents a transfer of personnel to the Air Force as part of the realignment of work by the Joint Information Operations Warfare Center.

Some credit is due for some cuts - some - we think.

The Joint Staff had almost 1,100 contractors working full time in 2011 and 2012. Reducing 180 of them next year, who work under five joint staff programs, is expected to save $45.2 million, according to Pentagon materials. That averages out to almost $250,000 per person. The Pentagon notes the average salary of Joint Staff civilian employees is $145,500 and justifies that “premium” pay because they possess Top Secret/Special Compartmented Intelligence security clearances, which could get them higher salaries from private sector firms.

Read Walter's whole thing.

Much more work to be done. Much more.

Hat tip Paul.

Roughead to the Food Trough

It is time to revisit the Salamander Rule (Rev. 2).

Congress should enact in to law that retired General & Flag Officers are not allowed to serve in a paid or unpaid position in any publicly or privately held company incorporated in the United States of America that have pending materiel or consulting contracts with the Department of Defense for 5-years from their retirement date. The time period will be 10 years for foreign held companies.

Penalty for violating this restriction will be full and permanent forfeiture of all pay and allowances.

Why? Well - we all know that companies are looking for one thing when they hire a 4-star; they are buying influence and a network of contacts. In this specific case, if you look at the rolling train wreck that is the Navy shipbuilding and maintenance record while he was CNO - it sure isn't anything related to performance.

Behold all that is unclean.

Former U.S. Navy Chief of Naval Operations Gary Roughead Joins Northrop Grumman Board of Directors.

Man has to earn a living ... right?

Have you seen how much we pay GOFO in retirement? They get a lot for a reason; so that they won't sell themselves to the highest bidder and add to an appearance of corruption and influence peddling; even if, as in this case, there is no reason to suspect anything untoward is going on.

If you want GOFO to have respect - they have to earn it. Standing on a street corner in Alexandria flashing your DD214 to passing cars won't do it.

Let's see. Gary is a retired O-10. He graduated from Annapolis in 1973 and retired in SEP 2011; 6-months ago. That puts him at 38 years of service.

Go to your retirement pay calculator. He is under the Boomer final pay retirement system, unlike you Gen-X, Gen-Y, and Millennial Serfs so ... wait for it ... that comes to ...

Gross Retirement pay:
$14,536.38 a month.
$174,436.56 a year.

That does not include whatever disability pay he is getting extra from the VA. Yes, he is getting pocket change from the VA on top of all that too.

How much is he being paid by NG? Doesn't really matter - does it? $0 or $100,000 - it smells the same.

Hat tip, beltway bandit.

Love that revolving door?

Me? Notsomuch. I'm talking about it at USNIBlog.

Say it ain't so Joe!

Who is Rep. Sestak (D-PA) protecting .... and if this crime (which it is) is alleged - where is the investigation?


Via RedState;

In the wake of Tuesday’s Pennsylvania Democratic Senate primary, a top House GOP legislator is renewing his call for an ethics probe into allegations the White House offered Rep. Joe Sestak an administration post in exchange for foregoing his primary bid against Beltway-endorsed Sen. Arlen Specter.

California Rep. Darrell Issa, the ranking Republican member of the House Oversight and Government Reform committee, said Sestak, who on Tuesday bested Specter by nearly 8 points, must identify the job he was allegedly offered and who in the administration proposed it. Issa has been a one-man firing squad on the point since February, when then-dark horse Sestak claimed in a radio interview an Obama aide had offered him a “high-ranking” federal gig at the onset of his Senate bid.

“Was Joe Sestak embellishing what really happened, or does he have first-hand knowledge of the White House breaking the law,” asked a statement from Issa’s office. “If what he said is the truth, Joe Sestak has a moral imperative to come forward and expose who within the Obama administration tried to bribe him.”

Yes, I will say this .... if this was the Bush Whitehouse ... say it ain't so Joe.

Give Sen. Webb (D-VA) a cowbell ...

Because I want to hear him bang it again, and again, and again.

Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., is pressing the Defense Department for justification of why the military has so many flag and general officers, ... In the case of flag and general officers, Webb said he wants an explanation why the number of senior officers continues to grow. He has not concluded there are too many, but is asking why there are so many, and what exactly they are all doing. Those kinds of questions began Glenn’s multi-year push to reduce the number of admirals and generals, which he based on the officer-to-enlisted ratio and termed “brass creep.”

Defense Department statistics show there were 38 four-stars, 149 three-stars, 299 two-stars and 464 one-stars on active duty at the end of March.

Webb also said he is not happy to have learned that there are officers taking part in fellowships at advocacy think tanks in the Washington, D.C., area, receiving full military pay and benefits, while the government is paying tuition to the think tanks. He has been trying for months to get details from the Defense Department about the number of officers involved, and an explanation of how the fellowships benefit the military more than the think tanks, but he said he has received only a small amount of information that did not answer his questions.

He warned that he might resort to holding up all Defense Department civilian nominations if he does not get the requested information. “The Department of Defense invented computer technology and the internet, despite what some other people might claim. This kind of information should not take three months to get. I should not be put in a situation where I have to put a hold on nominations to get it,” he said.

After recovering from his Iraq epic fail, unfortunate amnesia about strategic homeporting, and the fact that he no longer has to defend Murtha - I think Senator Webb (D-VA) may have found his grove.

Senator - BZ - and keep digging. It gets nastier the deeper you go.

+1.

The truth about Sestak

I am no apologist for Sen. Specter (D-PA) - but this ad is spot on.

Well - Sestak is having a hissy fit over the ad - and responding lamely.

In response to the ad, Mr. Sestak said in a phone interview on Tuesday, “I was given a tough job in the Navy,” and was assigned to challenge the establishment.

Take a number shipmate. Here are the facts.

As we covered here almost five years ago, the first day on the job you were fired by the Chief of Naval Operations (now Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Admiral Mullen) for being a tool and a retention issue.

A source within the Navy Department said there were no allegations of misconduct on the part of Sestak. Rather, he said, the move is being made because of poor command climate.

Being that Sestak won't talk about it more - he is using proxies.

Former Skippy-san Battle Buddy and CNO Clark (who I might add was a founding member of the Food Trough) has decided to throw a little love at Joe - I guess he wants some more paying gigs, ego strokes, and good will for his clients.

In an interview with The Philadelphia Inquirer this month, Admiral Clark defended the work of Mr. Sestak, who was described as his protégé: “He did what I asked him to do; I wanted straight talk, and this put him in the cross hairs,” Admiral Clark told the newspaper. “People are going to say what they want to say, but he challenged people who did not want to be challenged. The guy is courageous, a patriot’s patriot.”

That has nothing to do with the topic at hand Vern - pathetic - almost as pathetic as the Borg recruiting drive.

Sestak's campaign sought to rally veterans to defend him by recalling how the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth tried to discredit Democrat John Kerry's service in a Navy patrol vessel in Vietnam during Kerry's 2004 presidential race against George W. Bush.

About two dozen veterans gathered Wednesday in an American Legion Hall in Clifton Heights to rebuke Specter and demand that he stop running the ad.

"We're all here because we're enraged at the fact that someone, anyone in the United States today, would question someone with 31 years of service," said Robert E. Kelly, a retired Air Force lieutenant general who flew 119 combat missions in Vietnam.

"We ought to get our act together in this country and recognize that the people who are serving today, who served yesterday, and will serve tomorrow deserve our respect," Kelly said.
...
"It's not as flagrant. It's more subtle," Tom Clay, 61, a Vietnam veteran and former Army helicopter door-gunner from Media, said about Specter's ad. "But it's there. A veteran should not attack another veteran's record."

Mike Hall, commander of the Clifton Heights post, agreed. "Vets don't go against other vets like that. It's a brotherhood."

Yes - let's validate every stereotype of the mindless, easily led, incapable of independent thought vet. Pardon me if I don't take a glass of your kool-aid - click the Sestak link to get the history from here.

---

UPDATE: ....and yes, we can mark another Salamander Front Porch victory. After years where the only place that regularly discussed Sestak's false pimping of his "Retired former VADM" status - the mainstream media is not properly referring to him as a Retired RADM.

Senior Mentors at the Food Trough?

Is there a problem in the "Retired GOFO Military Industrial Complex?" Do we have a people problem, or a process problem?

The latest in a series of articles on the subject from USAToday, let's review.

In a marketplace awash in consulting firms that help defense companies sell to the Pentagon, the Durango Group has a unique advantage.

The Colorado-based firm has become a base of operations for retired officers who also are handsomely paid by the military for their advice. No other defense consulting firm employs more "senior mentors" than Durango. Of the 59 former officers who work for Durango, 15 also serve as mentors, a USA TODAY investigation found.

As Durango associates, the retired officers are paid to help private companies win and administer Pentagon contracts. As mentors, the retirees are paid by the military to help run war games, which also gives them access to classified strategies and weapons systems. Durango cites these mentoring assignments on its website as signs of its associates' unique connections.

Along with their work for Durango and the military, these retired officers, mostly from the Air Force, are paid advisers, consultants and corporate directors on the boards of at least 20 companies, according to public records. Three of them work for private equity firms to help them identify, buy and then run defense contractors.

Durango's ability to mix mentoring and consulting work illustrates how closely the private interests of some mentors overlap with their military advisory jobs. The firms' mentors move seamlessly between roles as paid advisers to the services and paid consultants to defense companies in the same subject areas, USA TODAY found.

As a result, Durango and the mentors it employs draw income from multiple sources. Both get paid by the military for advice and by defense contractors who want consulting help. The firm also benefits from having its mentors serve as corporate directors or advisers for other companies.

That kind of overlap is not illegal. But some analysts say it should be.

"That is an amazing conflict of interest," said Craig Holman of the non-partisan watchdog group Public Citizen. "They are working for two masters. Are they pursuing the public interest, or are they pursuing the contractors' interests? ... The conflict of interest law ought to be expanded to cover this."

Craig needs to take a powder - or at least talk to some Senior Mentors - he really doesn't know what he is talking about. Then again, Public Citizen it he left-wing squaking organization founded by Ralph Nader, no don't expect educated nuance WRT military matters from them. Bad on USAToday for even interviewing them. At first, I almost stopped reading the article .... but I smelt something and kept going.

We really have two issues here; first Senior Mentors and second retired GOFO working for defense companies. Let's start with the second, and then move back to the first.

To avoid conflicts of interest, what do we have right now? Well - there is a one-year "cooling off period" right now.

... federal ethics law prohibits newly retired senior employees from representing a company before their former agency for one year.

As long-time readers know, I think that is lame. The Salamander Bill has yet to find a single sponsor in either the House or the Senate (of either party). Sad, as for years it has remained roughly unchanged:

"No General or Flag Officer, or SES, shall for a period of five years following retirement, serve in any capacity with a publicly or privately held company which does business with the Department of Defense - or receive any remuneration of cash, cash equivalents, or services from any officer, consultant, or employee of same."

...or something like that. That's my initial guidance; I'll let the lawyers make sense of it.

So, if you have an issue with GOFO influencing DOD decisions - start there and leave the Senior Mentors alone - though you may want to look at how you source them; more on that in a bit - but let's spend some time on what Senior Mentors are.

Senior Mentors are retired GOFO who, in theory, are no longer part of the Byzantine intrigue of the uniformed GOFO herd and as a result can provided clear, direct, and unbiased advice. The Executive Summary of what they do is that they shadow a GOFO and/or Command Group during an exercise, work-up, or development program to provide advice and perspective --- and more often than not --- tell that GOFO what those in his Staff either cannot or will not tell them.

Senior Mentors bring broad experience and provide leavening to many GOFO as they build needed depth and experience at their new level of command responsibility. It doesn't matter if you are a One-Star or a Four-Star: a wise word from a respected elder is worth its weight in gold when you are alone in your decisions, especially for a junior GOFO who has perhaps spent too much time in DC as of late, and too little time Operationally.

At least in my experience, there has never been a Senior Mentor that was selling soap. There is too much feedback and too many well tuned BS meters to let any of that get traction if it started.

The use of Senior Mentors by itself is a non-issue. So, why is this coming up so often as of late? Ungh. The fallen nature of man - best understood by the Jesuit trained - comes in to play.

So, who runs the Senior Mentor Program? Some Old Horse Col.? A retired O-6 GS-14?

Sigh, no.

... the service's program is run by a defense contractor, Northrop Grumman..

... and it seems that this is what creates the problem - and everyone is trying to work around it.

The Army used a loophole in federal ethics law to award lucrative contracts to two recently retired generals, departing from its standard practice for hiring senior advisers, according to public records and interviews.

During the past two years, the Army wanted to bring back two former generals, John Vines and Dan McNeill, to advise commanders as part of its "senior mentor" program.
...
The Army found a way around the rule. Instead of hiring them as defense company subcontractors, as it does for roughly two dozen other Army mentors, the service contracted directly with McNeill and Vines. McNeill received his contract after the Army wrote specific bid solicitations that applied to him and perhaps a few other retired generals. Vines received contracts without competition, records show.

Well - if it went off that way - then "you" just lost my support. There is being "in DC," and being "of DC."

That is "of DC" - and it is a classic case of quasi-benign corruption. If as reported, some people need to be fired and if needed - charged - and the way we run the system changed. For goodness sakes - get some retired old-goat USMC Col. with broad Major Staff experience to run the thing and be done with it.

Back to the fallen nature of man. Review what a retired GOFO makes from the taxpayer. Now soak in what we are talking about.

All told, the Army paid McNeill $281,625 from December 2008 through August 2009, federal records show. McNeill told USA TODAY he also consults for defense firms but declined to name them. He isn't required to tell the Army about them, either.

Over a quarter-million dollars for nine-months work. That whole thing stinks - which is why you have this.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates has ordered a high-level review of the military's senior mentor programs, including whether retired officers hired as advisers are overpaid and whether their private work for contractors poses a conflict of interest, his spokesman said Wednesday.

Gates "has real concerns about the levels of compensation, and the potential for conflict of interest" in the mentor programs, Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell told reporters.

So far, it looks like USAToday is the only one really tracking on this story. This is a story. BZ to SECDEF for looking in to this. It makes all retired officers look bad.

The problem isn't the Senior Mentor Program - it looks like the problem is who is running it and the rules it is being run under.

Money can be a cancer - the first thing it can consume is your good name. Let the investigation go forward ... and someone sponsor the Salamander Bill.

DOD basic research - DOA

In a page from the shipbuilding handbook - the Pentagon is hiding a cancer with bandaids again hoping no one, including themselves, will look at it.

...DOD basic research programs are ‘broken’,” according to an assessment performed by the JASON defense science advisory panel earlier this year, and “throwing more money at the problems will not fix them.”

Does this sound familiar?

But that rather significant conclusion was deliberately suppressed by Pentagon officials who withheld it from public disclosure when a copy of the JASON report was requested under the Freedom of Information Act. Instead, it was made public this week by Congress in the conference report on the FY 2010 defense authorization act, which quoted excerpts from the May 2009 JASON report, “Science and Technology for National Security.”“Basic research funding is not exploited to seed inventions and discoveries that can shape the future,” the JASONs also determined, as quoted in the congressional report (in discussion of the act’s section 213). Instead, “investments tend to be technological expenditures at the margin.”Furthermore, “the portfolio balance of DOD basic research is generally not critically reviewed by independent, technically knowledgeable individuals,” and “civilian career paths in the DOD research labs and program management are not competitive to other opportunities in attracting outstanding young scientists and retaining the best people.”
...
The DoD research laboratories should be abolished, the late Gen. William Odom suggested some years ago. “Few of them have invented anything of note in several decades, and many of the things they are striving to develop are already available in the commercial sector,” he wrote.

“Sadly, these laboratories not only waste money on their own activities; they also resist the purchase of available technologies from the commercial sector. Because they are generally so far behind the leading edges in some areas, they cause more than duplication; they also induce retardation and sustain obsolescence,” Odom wrote (”America’s Military Revolution,” American University Press, 1993, p. 159).

This may be part of a larger problem.

Citing a 2008 report in Science magazine, for example, the JASONs noted that “Peking and Tsinghua Universities have now overtaken Berkeley and Michigan as the largest undergraduate alma maters of PhD recipients in the U.S.”

Bingo. Back to our public school system and the burearcracy that promotes mediocracy.

We are getting the expected result.

There is something else here though, methinks. While reading in the magazine The Week, I ran across a review of Neil Sheehan's new book about the development of the ICBM, A Fiery Peace in a Cold War: Bernard Schriever and the Ultimate Weapon. In the review there is a great quote from USAF then BG Bernard Schriever when he was tasked with building what would take out the heart of LeMay's bomber force, the ICBM. He would do it under one condition -

"... (no) interference from those nit-picking sons of bitches at the Pentagon."

Is that the core of the problem? Do we have a system in place that prevents you from putting the right leaders with the right skills in the right position - and once they are there the ability to build the team they need to get the job done? Do we have as system that is so rigid, micro-managed, and full of HR non-sense from a personnel management that the best and brightest simply don't get involved because they don't want the aggravation? As a result, they go elsewhere?

We have great and good people in important places - but do we put them in a system that pulls them back from doing the right thing? Do we reward the right things - and create professional obstacles that either push the great away - or keep the great to only a good?

Well, I think some of those questions might give answers to the problem. When you look at what Schriever and his team did, you have to ask yourself - could he do it in the system we have today?

Hat tip ADB