How Do We Fix The Navy? — Free advice worth lots more than you paid for it

“How do we fix the Navy?” Asked David Ignatius of the Chief of Naval Operations. Ignatius, once a friendly conduit for CIA leaks, was conducting the interview at the CNO's request for The Washington Post. The CNO, Admiral Gilday, covered several critical topics, but only one interested me. It had been my pet peeve for twenty-five years, and though the admiral hadn't made it the centerpiece of his comments, he had pushed it. For me, an obscure retired commander from a small state, that was gratifying.

The subject, and the peeve, is the Goldwater-Nichols Military Reform Act. This law does several things, but I'm concerned with only one, that which does the greatest damage to the US Navy. The bare bones of the law require that all US military officers become joint duty qualified, which means an officer must attend two levels of joint political military eduction (JPME), to wit, war colleges, and serve at least two joint tours of duty (the Joint Staff will do, but there are field commands as well).

How did this come about? I won't say that your guess is as good as mine; I believe I know. Back in the early 80s we invaded the island of Grenada in order to free it from the clutches of Cuban influence, and rescue American medical students studying there. During the invasion, the Navy couldn't communicate with the Army or Air Force, and the panacea that would fix the resulting minor public scandal was Goldwater-Nichols.

Here's the real story. By the time the US had decided to invade Grenada, we had discovered the existence of the John Walker spy ring. As a result we knew that the Soviets were able to read much of our military communications, especially our Navy comms. Prior to the invasion, an amphibious ready group departed the east coast en route a previously scheduled Med deployment. After departure they assumed complete electronic silence, communicating via flag hoist, flashing light, and messages exchanged by helicopter. This was to be the Grenada invasion force. They were a true covert force. Operating in such secrecy, they were in no position to coordinate with outside forces, but they were adequate to the task, and their secrecy meant that the Cubans on the island had no idea they were coming. The problem: Given that this was the only war to be had, the Army and Air Force insisted on getting a piece of the action.

From the confusion of not being able to coordinate operations due to radio silence came the theory that our forces couldn't work well together. The reason the “joint” side of this operation was such a mess was the necessity of maintaining the covertness of the amphibious force. Normally, a joint operation would have involved advanced operational communication and planning that wasn't feasible under these circumstances.

From this has evolved the current jointness craze, and the bureaucratization of warfare into such memorable ideas as “Joint Concept for Access and Maneuver in the Global Commons.” Prior to this it would have been known simply as “Maritime Operations.”

Why is this so toxic to the Navy — more than to the other services? Naval officers don't just fight their ships, they must sail them in peace and war. They are mariners as well as naval officers. When an armor officer concludes an operation, his tanks go on transporters or rail cars and are ferried back to post to minimize wear. Naval officers deploy their ships for six to nine months at a time, in peace and war. They must contend with maritime traffic in the sea lanes under all circumstances, day and night. They occasionally must enter strange ports, often under hazardous navigational conditions.

All this requires broad training and experience afloat that develops not just leadership skills, but seamanship skills and judgement. No amount of schooling can substitute, nor can a short refresher afloat replace years of experience as a seaman. It is true that the chief and senior petty officers are the technical experts of the Navy, but the Navy's excellence has always rested on the fulcrum of its officers' command of its complex technical systems as well as their strong leadership. Though Navy leadership may deny it, the fact of life in an officer's career is now to not spend any more time at sea than is absolutely necessary in order to ensure he or she can punch critical joint career tickets on the way to a hoped for advancement to flag rank.

Fixing this would require a true rebellion. The jointness craze (and it is a craze — everything must incorporate the joint term in its name to succeed) has been ongoing for so long that the entire US military is transfused with true joint believers. They shuffle through tours in the ever more bloated Joint Staff and Combatant Commanders (the Flag Officers who were called CINCs until Rumsfeld decided that there could be only one Commander in Chief). They produce more and more 'plans' and 'position papers' in the approved format. It's too bad they can't shoot that stuff from artillery tubes.

All this shows clearly in the accident rates of surface ships at sea. Those familiar with the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea are aware of how fundamental were the mistakes in recent Navy incidents, and how preventable the deaths and millions of dollars lost repairing damaged ships due to collisions.

There is no substitute for experience.

Another Sad Day

Between the plague and the corrosive antics of the President I haven't felt like writing. Today I buried a beautiful calico who had been hit by a car on Weakley Hollow Rd. She is the third one buried this month in the new plot in front of the house. One was a very young kitten Laurie found abandoned, who lived the night and died in the morning. The other was hit by a car on Rte 609. 

If the country had been in the Big Sort before, we are now facing each other with clenched fists. Donald Trump really could commit murder and not lose a supporter. However, the same is true for Joe Biden at his point. The camps are that far apart. The smart money isn’t waiting for the election; it’s waiting to litigate the election. 

Post debate, my money will be on Donald Trump unless he has an uncharacteristic meltdown, which his brain may be moving toward. Yesterday he was barely coherent, but tonight's Mark Levin show will probably dub him a genius. For those who don’t tune in to right wing radio, I will quote Sun Tzu: “Know your enemy.” Joe Biden’s measured, shaky responses scare me. They sound like a guy who used to have it.

The Virus Chronicles (continued)

I haven't written anything in over two weeks, not because nothing has happened, but because the same thing happens each day. The single change is the President figured out that he looked ridiculous in his daily press briefings, so he changed them to 'occasional.' That didn't last long. He had become addicted to the attention. Now things are really happening. He slipped intentionally that he is on hydroxycloroquine, and had been for some time. That's his game changer, his miracle drug that will bypass the need for a vaccine, because it already exists, and permit him to get back out on the campaign trail. And he's a believer (smart guy), &c. The fact that the drug has been shown to not be a game changer, but rather a source of harm to the patient, is irrelevant to the President. Not only does he know what he knows, an army of his supporters goes forth to prove every point that he makes, even if it's wrong. They will find a doctor who agrees with absolutely everything the President says. There is a doctor or scientist somewhere willing to do it, too. A fellow at Stanford has become the current preferred go-to guy.

This has become the new battleground; find the expert who supports your side's opinion. It doesn't matter what the opinion is — hydroxychloroquine (even whether or not it's been given to the Australian population at large — that itself is a point of contention), climate change, whether Dr. Fauci has invested in vaccine firms, the efficacy of masks, abortion, the list goes on. The battle of the experts on a president who is a certifiable fool, and his equally foolish followers, harks back to he influence of Trofim Lysenko on Joseph Stalin and Soviet genetics in the 1930s and 40s. The only discernible difference is that Donald Trump has not the power to sentence those scientists he disagrees with to prison or death. The party where sixty per cent believe that God created man 6000 years ago without the need for evolution is now constantly searching out scientists to make its points.

We do indeed live in interesting times. Has no one noticed China gobbling up the South China Sea, destroying Hong Kong's independence? Has no one noticed the balance of power in the Middle East? Lebanon is dissolving.

No, it's all virus, all the time, unless the President acts out some other way.

The Virus Chronicles (continued)

There are a number of crazy cures and treatments out there for the virus, but one thing distinguishes them. Support for the cure(s) has coalesced about political lines. My sister has gone further. Not only does she support any kooky cure that the President supports, she believes that Dr. Fauci, a highly respected epidemiologist, has somehow invested in a counter cure that will make him wealthy; that's why he isn't touting “the President's cure.”

The Republican Party has been the anti science party for a long time, rejecting evolution and climate change, but they've now drunk a very different Kool Aid, one prepared by a narcissist with the maturity of a twelve year old who periodically points to his head and says “smart guy” in street corner New Yorkese.”

Meanwhile former Vice President Joe Biden, the probable Democratic nominee for president, is in his basement rec room making youTube videos, while the President campaigns every night with a new virus press conference. Biden has avoided answering accusations of sexual assault; he shouldn't worry. The friendly press will give him a pass, in spite of today's culture supposedly saying “believe the woman under all circumstances.” He is the great liberal hope, after all. I expect he is a loser. This race is one codger against another — who will become a doddering fool first?

75th Anniversary of the Liberation of Dachau

29 Apr 2020

Those of us who lost family in the Shoah generally cannot know where or how they perished. We have an eye witness account of my Aunt Zina's death. She was shot while taking a heavy coat to her husband, who had been taken by the Germans in the latest transport. The last report had her body left to rot in the snow. We don't know about the rest of the polish branch, but given geography, they probably perished in Auschwitz if they lived long enough to get there.

My late Aunt Marion knew something of the German relatives, but all that information is gone now. Considering the number of Misches living in Berlin and its environs, the chances are good that some made it to Dachau.

Rabbi Eli A. Bohnen entered the Army in 1943 after graduating from the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City. He was a chaplain with the 42nd (Rainbow) Infantry Division during the liberation of Dachau on April 29, 1945. The following is a description of his experiences taken from a letter written to his wife, Eleanor, May 1, 1945.

"Nothing you can put in words would adequately describe what I saw there. The human mind refuses to believe what the eyes see. All the stories of Nazi horrors are underestimated rather than exaggerated. We saw freight cars with bodies in them. The people had been transported from one camp to another, and it had taken about a month for the train to make the trip. In all that time they had not been fed. They were lying in grotesque positions, just as they had died. Many were naked, others in thin clothing. But all were horrible to see.

We entered the camp itself and saw the living. The Jews were the worst off. Many of them looked worse than the dead. They cried as they saw us. I spoke to a large group of Jews. I don't remember what I said, I was under such mental strain, but Heimberg (my assistant) tells me that they cried as I spoke. Some of the people were crying all the time we were there. They were emaciated, diseased, beaten, miserable caricatures of human beings. I don't know how they didn't all go mad. There were thousands and thousands of prisoners in the camp. Some of them didn't look too bad but most looked terrible. And as I said, the Jews were the worst. Even the other prisoners who suffered miseries themselves couldn't get over the horrible treatment meted out to the Jews. I shall never forget what I saw, and in my nightmares the scenes recur. When I got back I couldn't eat and I couldn't even muster up enough energy to write you. No possible punishment would ever repay the ones who were responsible ......"

Chaplain Bohnen later served as an advisor to the U.S. military regarding displaced persons. He worked with Jewish displaced persons in Salzburg and Bad Gastein, Austria, helping them to regain a semblance of normalcy, and assisting in their resettlement.

GIs Remember National Museum of American Jewish Military History

Rabbi Bohnen was my childhood rabbi.

The Virus Chronicles (continued)

Quo Vadis?

Yesterday, Patrick Buchanan, the far right commentator wrote the following:

"After the Great Pandemic has passed and we emerge from Great Depression II, what will be America's mission in the world?

What will be America's cause?

We have been at such a turning point before.

After World War II, Americans wanted to come home. But we put aside our nation-building to face the challenge of a malevolent Stalinist empire dominant from the Elbe river to the Barents Sea.

And after persevering for four decades, we prevailed.

What, then, did we do with our epochal victory?

We alienated Russia by moving our NATO military alliance into the Baltic and Black Seas. We launched bloody, costly crusades for democracy in the Middle East that, invariably, failed. We exported a huge slice of our manufacturing capacity and economic independence to a coddled China.

Historically, blunders of such magnitude have undone great powers."

Sometimes Pat not only doesn't sound all that radical, he sounds a lot like the noises in my head, and some of the things I've written. After World War I British imperialists didn't want to come home, nor did they welcome the League of Nations mandates that drained the treasury rather than enriching the motherland as other overseas possessions were designed to do.

United States overseas overseas operations are different. Every one of them drains the treasury. Of course many of them have been for good. The entire NATO project, up until the fall of the Soviet Union, was an exercise in preserving Western Civilisation, something considered a worthy cause until the recent political correctness. Now, between the western hating youth, cheered on by their left wing professoriate, and the near collapse of society under the weight of the COVID-19 lock down, we should take care to not take for granted our country's priorities

Buchanan continues:

"Even before COVID-19, Americans had begun to realize the folly of decades of mindless interventionism over matters irrelevant to our vital interests. "Unsustainable" was the word commonly associated with our foreign policy.

But if our foreign policy was unsustainable during President Trump's economic boom, with unemployment at record lows and a bull market to rival the Roaring '20s, can an interventionist foreign policy be sustained after the losses of this major depression we have induced to kill the pandemic?"

No matter how many times scientists, politicians, and commentators speak of the new normal, I suspect most Americans still expect to wake up one day to the world they left before the plague of COVID-19 descended upon us. The descent was curious. One might say it descended with Donald Trump kicking and screaming that the whole thing was fake, until it became intuitively obvious to the most casual observer that it was here.

When we do emerge, the world must be different. Whatever it looks like, one question Americans might ask is "what are all those troops doing in all those places around the world?" I don't mean NATO, or even Korea or Japan, but Niger, Djibouti, Afghanistan, and dozens of other places where America has carved out enclaves to hold back an enemy (or perceived enemy), assist an ally in doing the same, or maintaining a drone facility to seek out new enemies for our now famous targeted killings.

All this money, poured into all those places, doesn't seem to have delivered any increase in safety or security. It has produced violence, but little more. As we slip into what might become our new routine, it is time to decide what our new priorities are. Each time a feather merchant from the Pentagon comes to Congress looking for funding for his talking dog, and says we can't afford not to fund it, we need to break out the slide rules and green eye shades. There might be more power in ensuring that we have a strong industrial base in the U.S. rather than in bleeding ourselves white to ensure we can kill every last jihadi within seconds of detection by buying every last fancy weapon and stationing it with our troops in every last far off place. China is in fact nipping at our heels, but we won't prevail if our country is a carcass of consumer stuff with no foundation, core, or heart.

The Virus Chronicles (continued)

It's easy to keep the radio off while at home, I have plenty to do. But in the car, I tend to listen to all sorts of channels. It's a window into the world of a nation that is in the midst of a nervous breakdown. Led by a president with the emotional makeup and discipline of a toddler, who careens from one perceived slight to another, and who cannot wait for each adventure to be over as soon as he senses a bit of triumph, the United States is adrift and failing. Every government department appears to be led by a Trump acolyte who understands how the facts of every situation bend to a singular polestar — the phrase “Thank you, Mr. President, for your great leadership in this crisis.” After that phrase has been uttered, there is no critical content remaining to the briefing. One might as well read the phone book. That way there is no chance of contradicting the Trumpkin.

The President has thrived in the daily five o'clock follies, which often begin around six in order to gain a larger audience. He talks and talks, then fights with the press, acting as the national epidemiologist, while the real scientists watch him act out. But his advisors say he's tired of the game. He just wants the governors to fix it, and do it with their money. He didn't expect a marathon. This king is a sprinter; marathons are for slugs and chumps. Testing, so critical to success, is boring. He seems to be saying “why do we have to do it?” He wants to just cut the ribbon of success. It's what he does best.

How many times can one reaffirm that we now appear to have a country ruled by a toddler. The surrealism smacks one in the face daily, but what also smacks one is the chorus of supporters, those who find him "the greatest president ever." Therein lies proof of our decline.

He would especially like to bully Michigan, Minnesota, and Virginia into 'liberation', or so he tweeted, throwing in Second Amendment liberation in the case of Virginia.

Today's briefing included a long soliloquy on how relations with a laundry list of nations, all evil, would go sour and damage the US if 'Slow Joe' wins [the presidency].