Say Goodbye to your Morning

Have you been to maritimetraffic.com for their live AIS feed?

Well ... so long for your productivity for awhile.

USNS Rappahannock (T-AO-204) opens fire

A tough call in a tough body of water. More to follow.

From CNN:

A U.S. military supply ship fired Monday at a small boat in the Persian Gulf after it came too close, apparently killing one person on board, two U.S. officials said.

The USNS Rappahannock, a fuel resupply ship, fired on what the officials called a "small, white pleasure craft" 10 miles from the Dubai port of Jebel Ali.

The small boat appeared to be headed for that port, the officials said, adding that their information was preliminary. The U.S. ship verbally warned the smaller boat when it was 1,200 yards away and fired at least one warning shot before the decision was made to fire shots to disable the boat, the officials said.

"In accordance with Navy force protection procedures, the sailors on the USNS Rappahannock ... used a series of non-lethal, preplanned responses to warn the vessel before resorting to lethal force," the Navy said in a statement.

"The U.S. crew repeatedly attempted to warn the vessel's operators to turn away from their deliberate approach. When those efforts failed to deter the approaching vessel, the security team on the Rappahannock fired rounds from a .50-caliber machine gun."

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?

Sunday Funnies

Uncle Jimbo demonstrates leadership goes way beyond your retirement date.



Hat tip Steve.

Another LCS Shoe Drops

Go ahead. Line them up; get 'em on ice. I prefer mine European and anything "Lite" is not allowed.

So many people owe me and other members of the Front Porch beer right now it is just getting silly.

What have we been saying about the Potemkin Mission Module CONOPS from day frigg'n one? Via DefenseNews;

The original idea for the littoral combat ship (LCS) envisioned modular mission packages that could be rapidly swapped, so one ship could change missions easily from mine warfare, for example, to anti-submarine warfare over the course of a single deployment.

But instead of taking just days to make the switch, it’s now apparent it could take weeks. An LCS assigned to a particular operation will likely operate in a single “come-as-you-are” configuration, requiring additional ships equipped with other mission modules to provide the flexibility the concept once promised.
...
The classified study, known as the OPNAV report (referring to staff reporting to the chief of naval operations), was headed by Rear Adm. Samuel Perez. Beginning in January, Perez and a 10-person team looked at all aspects of the fleet’s “readiness to receive, employ and deploy” the LCS.

USFFC in January conducted a “sustainment war game” to understand the issues and risks in manning and supporting an LCS across the Pacific Ocean — a key concern with the Freedom, the first LCS, scheduled to deploy to Singapore in the spring of 2013. It will be the first time an LCS has operated outside the Western Hemisphere.

Another war game, focusing on operations and war fighting, was held in mid-June. The results of that effort are still being analyzed, Navy sources said.

While the Navy would not release the OPNAV report, a number of sources familiar with both LCS and the report said it lays out in greater detail the problems and issues confronting the entire LCS effort, including the concept of operations (CONOPS), manning shortages, maintenance and training concerns, modularity and mission module issues, and commonality problems between the two LCS variants.

It also cites problems with how the LCS is perceived in the fleet, how leadership presents LCS capabilities, and the need to effect changes in virtually every operational area.

This is just rich.

“As I looked at some of the draft documentation to say how we’re going to run LCS, what I thought we needed to do was a rebaselining, understanding how much information we’ve generated on how we’re going to operate these ships, and take that and build a foundation,” said Rear Adm. Thomas Rowden, OPNAV’s director of surface warfare, during an interview at the Pentagon. “I will call this a concept of employment, or CONEMP.”

Rowden is leading the work to coordinate and compile the LCS analytical efforts.

“The reality of it is, it’s time to step back and say, what did we get wrong here?”

Admiral - you could have been reading CDRS for the last six years to get the answer to that question (maybe you have, natch) - and even better you can ask why we had a command climate that didn't allow these concerns to come to the front? Nothing put on CDRS was not said early on in the program along the big table - with concerns moved to "back up slides."

None of this is new. Welcome aboard.

Hat tip Claude.

The Naval Author, on Midrats

The naval experience is fertile ground for an author of both fiction and non-fiction. How does real world experience inform that author, and how does fiction and non-fiction writing inform those serving today?

This Sunday, 15 July from 5-6pm EST, join EagleOne and me with our guest, author R. L. Crossland, Captain, USN (Retired). A SEAL, Captain Crossland served 35 years service, active and reserve, from Vietnam to Afghanistan.

Widely published on maritime unconventional warfare and naval history, he holds a merchant marine captain’s license and is a practicing trial lawyer. He resides in New England.

A graduate of Columbia College with a degree in history, and the Naval War College Command and Staff Course, in addition to his previous novel Red Ice, Crossland has written internationally on the subject of maritime unconventional warfare and includes U. S. Naval Institute Proceedings and the New York Times among his credits. His articles “Rusty Hand of Steel” (Proceedings, December 1979) and “Unconventional Warfare Afloat” (Proceedings, November 1981) were required reading at the Naval War College for several years after their publication. His most recent article (Proceedings August 2009), "Sometimes the Insignificant is Significant," analyzes aspects of the rescue of the Maersk Alabama from Somali pirates.

His recent second novel, Jade Rooster, a mystery set in the 1913 Asiatic Fleet, allows him to apply his experience to the elements of intrigue that grow when the daily life of a sailor of an emerging navy in the age of coal-driven ships crosses courses with the then growing cross-tensions in the Far East.

Join us live if you can, but if you miss the show you can always listen to the archive at blogtalkradio - the best way to get the show and download the archive to your audio player is to get a free account and subscribe to the podcast on iTunes.

Listen to Midrats

Russian Navy in the raw

Nice. No sketchy sound track. Just Sailors and their ships.

Me? I like it because it reminds me of one of the best views in my Navy career - early AM when an UDALOY and a RAPUSHKA came out of the fog off Portugal en route to the STROG.

This is the ADMIRAL CHABANENKO of Udaloy II class. The Russians do make attractive ships.