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3 December 2017

From: The Honorable Michael Bayer

Admiral Gary Roughead, U.S. Navy (Retired)

To: Secretary of the Navy

Mr. Secretary:

This report responds to your direction to conduct a Strategic Readiness Review following 

the recent tragic incidents involving U.S. 7th Fleet ships that resulted in significant loss of 

life and injury. The attached report contains specific recommendations for your 

consideration as you determine the way ahead for our nation’s Navy.

We assembled a team of senior civilian executives and former senior military officers to 

conduct the review. The team examined issues of governance, accountability, 

operations, organizational structure, and manning and training over the past three plus 

decades to identify trends and contributing factors that have compromised

performance and readiness of the fleet. We considered stresses on the force over time, 

significant changes to training, risk management processes, and how Navy culture has 

evolved. Our team reviewed past incidents and accidents and conducted numerous

interviews with subject matter experts from across the government and with relevant 

leaders from the private sector in our areas of interest. The team specifically sought

experts who have dealt with and responded to similar operational circumstances and 

events.

Our Strategic Review examined the findings of the CNO’s Comprehensive Review and 

we largely concur with its recommendations, however our assessments, judgments and 

recommendations are independent of that work. 

____________________ ______________________ 

MICHAEL BAYER 

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Table of Contents

Executive Summary.............................................................................................................. 1

Scope of the Strategic Review....................................................................................... 6

Methodology............................................................................................................................. 8

The Long Road to Degraded Readiness (1985-2017).......................................... 9

The Peace Dividend ................................................................................................................. 9

The 1990s .............................................................................................................................. 10

2001-2011.............................................................................................................................. 12

2011-Present ......................................................................................................................... 14

Introduction: Readiness as a Complex System................................................... 16

CHAPTER 1: Operations ................................................................................................... 18

1.1 A Different World: Global Trends and their Effects on Naval Operations ...................... 18

1.2 Global Force Management: From a Demand Model to a Supply Model ........................ 20

1.3 Culture and the “Normalization-of-Deviation” ............................................................... 22

1.4 Recommendations........................................................................................................... 23

CHAPTER 2: Command and Control........................................................................... 25

2.1 Organizational Structures................................................................................................ 25

2.2 Blurring of Administrative Control and Operational Control .......................................... 30

2.3 Type Commander Organizational Structures.................................................................. 31

2.4 Significant Divergence from the Comprehensive Review ............................................... 34

2.5 Recommendations:.......................................................................................................... 35

CHAPTER 3: Manning & Training................................................................................. 37

3.1 Diminished Opportunity for Officers to Master Naval Skills........................................... 37

3.2 Reduced Training and Increased Workload for Sailors ................................................... 44

3.3 Recommendations:.......................................................................................................... 49

CHAPTER 4: Fiscal Disconnect................................................................................... 51

4.1 The Mirage of the Peace Dividend .................................................................................. 51

4.2 Impact of Continuing Resolutions................................................................................... 56

4.3 Unintended Consequences.............................................................................................. 58

4.4 Recommendations:.......................................................................................................... 61

CHAPTER 5: Governance................................................................................................. 63

5.1 External Governance Structure ....................................................................................... 63

5.2 External Governance Oversight....................................................................................... 66
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5.3 Recommendation: ........................................................................................................... 70

CHAPTER 6: Industry Best Practices and Learning Cultures ...................... 71

6.1 Industry............................................................................................................................ 71

6.2 A Learning Culture ........................................................................................................... 73

6.3 Recommendations:.......................................................................................................... 76

Righting the Ship ................................................................................................................. 78

Appendix A.............................................................................................................................. 81

List of Organizations Consulted............................................................................................. 81

Appendix B.............................................................................................................................. 82

List of Individuals Consulted.................................................................................................. 82

Appendix C.............................................................................................................................. 84

Strategic Readiness Review Team Members......................................................................... 84

Appendix D.............................................................................................................................. 85

Acronyms............................................................................................................................... 85

Appendix E .............................................................................................................................. 87

Bibliography........................................................................................................................... 87
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Executive Summary

The U.S. Navy is without question the most capable in the world but its primacy is 

being challenged as it sails into a security environment not seen since before the 

collapse of the Soviet Union. Another era of sustained peer-on-peer competition 

has arrived and failing to recognize and prepare for its very different challenges 

will have severe consequences. Even in a non-peer-on-peer environment, the 

Navy and the nation can ill afford the readiness deficiencies revealed in the 

recent ship-handling incidents in the Pacific. These deficiencies are of profound 

consequence. While the shipboard causes that led to those tragic events have 

been identified, this Strategic Review finds there are institutional deficiencies

that have developed over decades that must now be addressed. 

Many of these deficiencies have been observed and authoritatively documented 

for years, however the naval capacity that had been built up for the Cold War 

masked their impact. That past margin in ships, aircraft, and sailors enabled the 

Navy to make mitigating adjustments in fleet operations, training, maintenance,

and funding to accomplish assigned missions. Today, those margins are long 

gone. A smaller fleet with fewer sailors is straining to meet the operational 

demands placed upon it. This Strategic Review examines the long degradation of 

readiness and recognizes that improvements in readiness will not happen 

overnight – they will require sustained focus, commitment, and funding. This 

Strategic Review also recognizes that necessary improvements can only occur 

with the concerted leadership of the Secretary of the Navy, the Chief of Naval 

Operations and the support of the Secretary of Defense, Congress, and the 

American public. 

The Navy assesses capability and capacity in the context of the number of capital 

assets, manning and training, equipping and maintaining, command and control, 

and operations. Those factors that drive readiness are all interrelated in a 

complex system-of-systems governed by regulations, policies, and processes that 

play out and act upon each other over time.
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This Strategic Review examined the systemic conditions of the last 30 years. The 

readiness consequences identified in this report are not traceable to any single 

policy or leadership decision. However, the cumulative effects of well-meaning 

decisions designed to achieve short-term operational effectiveness and 

efficiencies have often produced unintended negative consequences which, in 

turn, degraded necessary long-term operational capability. Simultaneously, Navy

leaders accumulated greater and greater risk in order to accomplish the missions

at hand, which unintentionally altered the Navy’s culture and, at levels above the 

Navy, distorted perceptions of the readiness of the fleet. 

Over the past three decades the Navy has maintained a fairly consistent number 

of ships on deployment despite a large decrease in the total number of ships 

available. This resulted in roughly doubling the percentage of the fleet deployed. 

The net result has been a dramatic increase in the operating tempo of individual 

ships, and accompanying reductions in the time available to perform 

maintenance, training, and readiness certification. The growing mismatch

between the supply and demand of ships taxed fleet personnel and consumed

material readiness at unsustainable rates. 

To accomplish operational demands with a decreasing number of ships, the Navy 

sought to find more efficient ways to operate its forces and get more out of its 

resources and people. Within the fleet, often the only option to meet those

demands were short-term tradeoffs to training, manning, and maintenance. 

Accepting those trades and increasing risk across the force was seen as necessary 

to get the job done. Over time, the Navy’s “must do” wartime culture was 

adopted for peacetime as long-term readiness and capability were sacrificed for 

immediate mission accomplishment. 

Gradually the Navy shifted more responsibility for certifications and readiness to 

the operating fleet, enabling further readiness tradeoffs. Training initiatives and 

time to conduct training were traded away to meet pressing short-term 

operational needs, which further contributed to the overall readiness decline and 

increased stress on the crews. With fewer resources available, ship crew

workloads grew significantly, expanding their work days and weeks to 

unsustainable levels. 
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Fleet level processes and procedures designed for safe and effective operations 

were increasingly relaxed due to time and fiscal constraints, and the

“normalization-of-deviation” began to take root in the culture of the fleet.

Leaders and organizations began to lose sight of what “right” looked like, and to 

accept these altered conditions and reduced readiness standards as the new 

normal. 

This was exacerbated by the rapid increase in new overhead governance 

structures created in response to the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense 

Reorganization Act. Well-intended implementation decisions by the Navy did not 

adequately preserve and prioritize critical service operational skills development 

and training. Staffs became distracted and inattentive to readiness and did not 

apply preventative measures to anticipate or address the increasing operational 

risk. 

The cumulative effect of these behaviors, with a much smaller fleet operating in 

crowded and sometimes contested environments, further strained the Navy and 

cultivated even greater reliance on operating beyond the boundaries of 

established standards. Reinforcing these aberrant behaviors was the feedback

that implied the risk being taken had little or no consequence – if the operation 

was a success, then the risk assumed must have been appropriate. The 

departure from a questioning culture prevented operators, leaders, and resource 

managers from stepping back and assessing accumulated risk and reinforced a

mistaken confidence that operations remained within risk boundaries. 

This period also saw frequent reorganizations within the Navy, which altered 

time-tested processes for force generation and employment. These replaced

tightly aligned responsibility, authority, and accountability with redundancies, 

overlapping responsibilities, inconsistencies, and ambiguities. These 

reorganizations led to a growth in headquarters structures with misaligned 

authorities, complicated command and control responsibilities, and diffuse 

accountability structures. With the growth of headquarters, and staff centric 

promotion parameters, staff service began displacing service at sea as a

significant driver of officer career paths, assignments, and promotions. The
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growth in new compliance requirements, generated by additional staffs and 

headquarters, competed with enduring core readiness requirements and 

activities. Additionally, congressional direction grew exponentially in breadth 

and detail, diverting attention of senior leaders away from vital responsibilities 

for readiness. 

In 2017, four surface ship accidents in the 7th Fleet, two of which resulted in loss 

of life, revealed the Navy was off course. The time to chart a new course is now. 

Failure to address the compounding factors identified in this Strategic Review will

have serious implications on the effectiveness of the Navy in the peer-on-peer

operational era it is entering. Key among them are the damaging fiscal 

constraints resulting from the Budget Control Act of 2011 and the failure of the 

Congress to produce predictable, consistent, and sustainable funding. Additional 

funding to increase capacity and maintenance can improve many aspects of 

readiness, but more money will not address the structural, organizational, 

training, and cultural facets that contribute just as significantly.

The Navy’s emphasis on readiness as the primary enabler of warfighting

capability and capacity must be re-energized, embedded, and continuously 

monitored in the culture of every community within the Navy. The Navy must 

also make clear what fully ready, capable, and certified Navy assets will be 

available for operations. Additionally, the Navy must effectively and accurately 

communicate to directing, supporting, and requesting organizations the limits on 

fleet availability that will result from this restored emphasis on readiness. 

The Navy must fully embrace a learning culture based upon data and critical 

analysis to facilitate rapid, informed decisions. Fundamental to the concept of a 

learning culture is a system of accountability. Accountability must always fall 

primarily on commanders, but accountability must also be sought and assessed in 

a systemic way, at institutional levels, in the policy decisions and processes that 

can set the conditions for aberrant behavior and negative outcomes.

There are many specific recommendations in this report, however four broad

strategic recommendations must be addressed to arrest the erosion of readiness 

and reverse the “normalization-of-deviation” that has taken hold.
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 Re-establish Readiness as a Priority: The creation of combat ready 

forces must take equal footing with meeting the immediate demands 

of Combatant Commanders. Sufficient time for training crews and 

maintaining ships is critical for restoring and monitoring readiness. 

 Match Supply and Demand: There must be a greater appreciation for 

the reality that only so many ships and sailors can be made available 

in a given operational cycle. The Navy must establish realistic limits 

regarding the number of ready ships and sailors and, short of combat, 

not acquiesce to emergent requirements with assets that are not fully 

ready.

 Establish clear Command and Control Relationships: The Navy must 

realign and streamline its command and control structures to tightly 

align responsibility, authority, and accountability.

 Become a True Learning Organization: Navy history is replete with 

reports and investigations that contain like findings regarding past 

collisions, groundings, and other operational incidents. The repeated

recommendations and calls for change belie the belief that the Navy 

always learns from its mistakes. Navy leadership at all levels must 

foster a culture of learning and create the structures and processes 

that fully embrace this commitment.

The voyage to restore readiness will take time and resources, neither of which is

abundant. Accordingly, leadership is the most important element in this journey. 

Leaders at every level in the Navy, and above, must take ownership of the 

problems, challenge evolved standards, behaviors, and thinking, and embrace the 

changes required for success. It will take leadership across the fleet to attend to 

the everyday actions that prepare the fleet to meet, and if necessary, defeat the

emerging threats that are on the horizon to ensure the Navy remains the most 

capable, combat ready force on the seas.
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Scope of the Strategic Review

The Secretary of the Navy directed this strategic review to examine the 

conditions and decisions that resulted in the inadequate performance and lack of 

readiness manifested in the recent accidents in the Pacific. Beyond those 

accidents, this Strategic Review is driven by the certainty that the Navy must 

adjust to the challenge of an enduring near-peer competition. Therefore, the 

Strategic Review examines the evolution of the Navy over the period since the 

service last faced a peer competitor – the Soviet Union. 

The Strategic Review focused beyond the particulars of individual ship and crew 

performance to examine the state of major generators of readiness - governance, 

operations, command and control, organizational structure, personnel 

management, and the fiscal environment during and since the end of the Cold 

War. To that end, this Strategic Review specifically examines stress on the force, 

operational culture, budgetary tradeoffs, accountability structures, and risk 

management. Additionally, the Strategic Review analyzed career patterns, 

manning trends, training architectures, operational tempo, and the infusion of 

new technologies into the fleet. Finally, these elements are evaluated and 

accessed for their cumulative effect on the Navy’s operational readiness against 

shifts in U.S. strategy and evolving peer-on-peer threats. 

This Strategic Review complements the Chief of Naval Operations’ (CNO)

Comprehensive Review1, which examined surface fleet operations and incidents 

at sea with emphasis on 7th Fleet operations. While this Strategic Review

considers that report, its assessments and judgments are independent of the 

CNO’s review. Moreover, the Strategic Review significantly extended the time 

horizon of its examination to enable a comparison of stress and tempo changes 

over a period of significant military and geopolitical change that shaped the 

readiness of the fleet. The lengthy time period also allowed for an analysis of the 

macro drivers of change that can only be observed, understood, and appreciated 

in a more expanded context. 

 

1 Comprehensive Review of Recent Surface Force Incidents, 26 October 2017 (referred hereinafter as the

 Comprehensive Review).
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This Strategic Review is not an investigation or a reinvestigation of the specific 

facts and circumstances surrounding the recent incidents. The Navy separately 

conducted administrative investigations to address those issues. Nevertheless, 

those tragic events served as a departure point for this assessment which looks 

beyond them to the conditions and environment that have contributed to a long 

and precipitous decline in Navy readiness.
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Methodology

This report encompasses a review of current and historical records to identify 

significant changes in policy and operations that had an impact on readiness over 

the period of examination. The team reviewed relevant data, investigations, 

studies, audits, previous reports, and incidents to identify patterns, trends, 

unintended consequences, and lessons learned. 

Military readiness is complex and embodies many interrelated functions. The 

Strategic Review examined how major functions such as operations, command 

and control, manning, training, equipping, and maintaining contribute to and 

consume readiness. Use of a systems-of-systems approach permitted an 

examination of how these functions interact and respond in a dynamic system 

affected by fiscal constraints, governance requirements, and cultural 

expectations. This system-of-systems approach highlighted the interdependence 

of each function and how they collectively affect readiness and performance.

To better understand the many factors that drove past decisions affecting fleet

readiness and posture, the Strategic Review team interviewed current and past 

senior military officers and civilians from across the Department and other 

government agencies. Also, best practices in the private sector were examined 

with industry leaders and subject matter experts to obtain insight into their 

observations when confronted with analogous situations and the strategies they 

employed in the aftermath of significant events or in high stress environments. 
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The Long Road to Degraded Readiness (1985-2017)

The Navy’s mission to recruit, train, and equip forces capable of winning wars, 

deterring aggression, and maintaining freedom of the seas has remained 

unchanged since its inception on October 13, 1775. However, the threats 

confronted and the operating environments have constantly evolved. The ebb 

and flow of those factors since the mid-1980s, when the U.S. last had a peer 

competitor, are part of that pattern. Since then, the current global environment 

has increased the demand on the Navy while the number of ships, aircraft, and 

sailors has declined. The combination of a high tempo of operations; fewer,

aging, and more heavily used ships and aircraft; fewer Sailors; declining and 

unpredictable budgets; and the current governance system have strained the 

fleet and consequently diminished operational readiness.

The Peace Dividend 

In the mid-1980s peak of the Cold War, the U.S. Navy was operating at full 

capacity, deployments were extensive and the operations were demanding. 

Subsequently thereafter, the Berlin Wall fell, the Soviet Navy disappeared as a 

peer competitor and the nation put decades of tension and the high cost of a

large military behind. The Navy’s Cold War strategy and the forces to manage 

conflict across the broad spectrum of crisis response and war were adjusted to 

meet demands of an anticipated more peaceful era that focused on presence and 

confronting civil wars and restraining rogue regimes.

The 1986 Goldwater-Nichols Act2 was enacted to address the perceived 

shortcomings in inter-service coordination and effectiveness apparent in hostage 

rescue operations in Iran (1980) and operations in Grenada (1983) and Lebanon 

(1983), and recast the nation’s military command structure to engender greater 

cooperation across the services. 

The Goldwater-Nichols Act significantly altered the Department of Defense’s

governance and command structures. Combatant Commanders, not the Army, 

the Air Force, or the Navy would now direct the operations of forces. Navy

 

2 Public Law 99-433, 4 October 1986.
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Component Commanders (Fleet Commanders) would henceforth report to 

assigned Geographic Combatant Commanders on operational matters rather 

than to the CNO. However, the administrative chain of command, which has 

oversight of manning, training, and equipping the fleet, remained intact,

reporting to the CNO.

Concurrently, the Goldwater-Nichols Act, the Defense Officer Personnel 

Management Act (DOPMA),

3 and the manner in which they were implemented,

changed the governance of the Navy’s career officer corps by adding joint duty 

requirements and establishing common career paths, promotion, separation, and 

retirement rules for all the services.

These changes were implemented concurrently with the shift to peacetime 

operations. The resulting layers of governance, the explosion of overhead and 

staffs, and the additional operational processes that evolved were never stress 

tested against a sustained global peer threat and were never assessed for their 

collective impact.

As the Goldwater-Nichols Act was beginning to reshape the organization and 

culture of the military, the Secretary of Defense decided on a leaner post-Cold 

War force with a 25% reduction in personnel from the 1989 baseline. The result, 

the “Base Force,” was a smaller military that deemphasized peer-on-peer

capability as the principal force-sizing factor, and refocused the fleet on

contingency operations and wars against regional powers. That 1991 Base Force

reduced the Navy to a target fleet size of 451 ships. 

The 1990s

The first major conflict of the post-Cold War era, Desert Shield/Storm in 1990-91, 

seemingly validated a military optimized for non-peer-on-peer conflicts. Saddam 

Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait and the U.S. response refocused the nation from the 

global stage of conflict to the narrower Middle East. The fast and violent 

destruction of Iraq’s army and small coastal navy convinced many that the nation 

had more military capacity and capability than would be needed in the 

 

3 Public Law 96–513, 12 December 1980.
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foreseeable future and led to declarations that traditional warfare and force 

mass were obsolete. Expecting to benefit from a “Peace Dividend,” defense 

expenditures were reduced in real terms which resulted in a decade-long decline 

in manning and capital assets.

In 1992, in the aftermath of Desert Storm, the Navy published a joint United 

States Navy and United States Marine Corps strategic document . . . From the 

Sea4. Breaking from traditional Navy thinking, From the Sea sought to better 

align with the Department of Defense goals of shifting from peer-on-peer

capabilities to providing forward naval forces tailored to support Combatant 

Commanders’ presence and littoral combat needs. To address those needs, the 

Navy developed the Global Naval Force Presence Policy which enabled the Joint 

Staff to integrate Combatant Commanders’ naval requirements and prioritize 

forward presence in the Central, Pacific, and European Command theaters. The 

1993 Bottom-Up Review confirmed the Navy’s new focus on presence, 

projection, and crisis response, while further reducing the target fleet size to 346 

ships. 

With the focus on presence and crisis management and a greater emphasis on 

the Middle East (exemplified by the activation of the 5th Fleet for operations in 

Southwest Asia), the 1990s’ Navy operated more globally than during the prior 

decade. The 1990s’ more global, but smaller-scale, missions ranged from Balkans 

combat, to enforcing Iraqi no-fly zones, to West African non-combatant 

evacuations. While the scope of these missions was relatively small, the numbers

of operations were greater. By one count, the 1990s’ Navy conducted 85 named 

operations, up from 49 in the 1980s.

5

 These demands forced the Navy to

lengthen deployments to provide forces in more geographic areas. The increased 

operational tempo stretched a fleet that shrank from 529 ships in 1991 to 318 in 

2000, which in turn more rapidly consumed those ships’ service life. 

 

4 Navy and Marine Corps White Paper, “From the Sea, Preparing the Naval Service for the 21st Century,” 

 September 1992. 

5 Dr. Ryan Peeks & Dr. Richard Hulver, USNS Historical Overview, Oct 6, 2017, p.4
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From 1993 to 2000, Congress authorized acquisition of ships at an average of five 

per year, compared to 17 per year in the 1980s, a two-thirds reduction for a fleet

half as large, thus setting the stage for significant procurement challenges in the 

next decade. In addition to slowing new construction, the acceptance by

policymakers of the illusion of the 1990s “Peace Dividend” accelerated warship 

retirements and shut naval facilities. Among the warships decommissioned 

before their scheduled service lives in the 1990s were four Forrestal-class aircraft 

carriers, six California- and Virginia-class nuclear cruisers, and all 46 Knox-class 

frigates. 

Between 1991 and 2000, the Navy’s budget was reduced by approximately 25%. 

These reductions translated into significant maintenance backlogs, manning 

shortfalls, reduced parts availability, and diminished training – all of which 

increased the strain on the remaining fleet in its ability to meet mission 

requirements and operational demands. Increasingly, maintenance costs 

required the Navy to look for cost savings measures to offsets its funding 

shortfalls. Most significantly, the trades made to reduce manpower costs and the 

retention challenges imposed by the robust U.S. economy ultimately contributed

to a shortage of manpower for at-sea billets by mid-1998. Additionally, the

Navy’s operational tempo created significant challenges for the 24-month 

training, maintenance, and deployment cycle for ships and aircraft squadrons. 

2001-2011

A new rising wave of terrorism emerged with the Kobar Tower bombing in 1996,

followed by the 1998 East Africa embassy attacks, the 2000 attack on COLE, and 

culminating with the September 11, 2001, attacks on the homeland. On the eve 

of 9/11, the U.S. Navy had shrunk to 316 ships, and as a result, its end-strength 

had fallen by nearly 200,000 to 377,810 Sailors. In 2001, the Navy established

U.S. Fleet Forces Command, assigning it responsibility for ensuring the fleet was 

organized, trained, equipped, and ready for assignment to Geographic 

Combatant Commands. Fleet Forces Command absorbed and eventually

disestablished the U.S. Atlantic Fleet in 2006.

The Navy adopted the Fleet Response Plan in 2004 to make more forces available 

for deployment and increase the number of U.S.-based forces ready to “surge” if 
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necessary. The aim of the plan was to provide a well-trained force that was ready

and prepared to deploy promptly, yet on a predictable schedule. It aligned the 

fleet maintenance, training and deployment cycles to fit into a standard 36-

month rotational operating cycle. A new Fleet Readiness Training Program was 

integral to the Fleet Response Plan. While operational demands had increased 

time at sea, caused ship maintenance and training to be deferred, and reduced 

predictability of deployments, this new plan addressed the high continuous 

demands and attempted to better balance maintenance schedules and training

while being mindful of the effects on personnel and families.

Following 9/11 and Operation Enduring Freedom, the Navy found that precision 

strike was a critical enabler for future conflicts and shifted its focus accordingly. 

Navy carriers reprised their Korean and Vietnam War combat air patrol roles

during the initial stages of Operation Enduring Freedom. As time progressed, 

they shifted their efforts to more air-to-ground missions and away from air-to-air 

proficiency.

As the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq lengthened, the Navy drew further away 

from its peer-on-peer focus of the 1980s as it gained missions to support combat 

ashore in the Middle East. An additional personnel issue the Navy faced during 

Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom was a demand for 

Individual Augmentees tasked with relieving overburdened Army and Marine 

Corps forces by substituting Navy personnel. From 2001-2006, approximately 

60,000 Sailors of nearly every grade deployed as Individual Augmentees. Such 

deployments, which appropriately supported the war on terror, nevertheless

depleted parent units and temporarily removed junior officers and sailors from 

their career specialties. 

While engaged in combat in the Middle East the Navy continued operations 

globally. Among these missions were disaster response efforts and countering 

piracy in the waters off east Africa. By 2010, it was evident that, under the Fleet 

Response Plan, the force was being stressed with more frequent, longer 

deployments and reduced time in port during which maintenance and training 
14

were expected to occur. A 2010 review of the surface fleet (Balisle Report)6

warned that increased operational tempo and lower manning were threatening 

the long-term readiness of the surface Navy. Ships were being run harder with 

less maintenance which required the Navy to retire them after just 25, or even 

20, years rather than the expected 35-year life for which they had been procured.

2011-Present

The lean fiscal environment, worsened by the 2011 Budget Control Act, coupled 

with a high operational demand for forces and reduced fleet levels, challenged 

the Navy even more, placing a heavy strain on the service. Coincidentally, as the 

Budget Control Act of 2011 further constrained the fleet, it became clear that 

China was emerging as a peer Navy competitor. 

China’s adoption of advanced technology, its increasingly dispersed operations,

and its doctrinal writings make clear that it aspires to a more robust regional 

capacity and global reach. Moreover, North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile 

threats, coupled with China’s activities, further add to the growing demand on 

the Forward Deployed Naval Force in Japan and an increase in the operational 

tempo in the Western Pacific.

While Russia is not as consequential a peer competitor as China, Russia’s invasion 

of Crimea in 2014, recent activity in the Baltic and Eastern Mediterranean, and 

resurgent submarine activity have also added to operational demands for the 

Navy. As all these global demands have increased, ships, personnel, and funding 

available for operations have not – all were being stretched. In 2014-2015, the 

Navy embarked on yet another effort to address the growing imbalance - the 

Optimized Fleet Response Plan. This plan was implemented to better respond to 

operational demand while endeavoring to provide greater predictability to the 

fleet. 

Accordingly, a Forward Deployed Naval Force was established in Rota, Spain to 

meet ballistic missile defense requirements in the 6th Fleet area of operations. 

Similar to the Forward Deployed Naval Force in Japan, the Rota based ships were 

 

6

Fleet Review Panel of Surface Force Readiness, VADM(ret) Balisle, 26 Feb 2010
15

to provide European Command a dedicated ballistic missile defense presence 

with fewer ships than needed under a traditional rotational commitment plan. 

To date, the ships in Rota, Spain have been focused primarily on the ballistic 

missile defense mission, unlike the forward-based Japan fleet where ballistic 

missile defense was an added mission, but both are among the most heavily 

tasked ships in the Navy.

In January 2017, a new Surface Force Strategy was published in response to the

Chief of Naval Operations’ precept to “strengthen naval power at and from the 

sea.” The strategy describes the return to sea control and implementation of 

“Distributed Lethality” as an operational and organizational principle for 

achieving and sustaining sea control. This new strategy is a return to the peeron-peer fundamentals diluted in the previous 30-year shift in focus away from 

symmetrical warfare. Further, many of today’s fundamental practices, processes,

and organizations were exquisitely tuned for an environment that no longer 

exists. This transition of the Navy to meet more complex and sophisticated

challenges will take time, training, and resources. 

As this report will address, first and foremost, the Navy must recover its 

readiness and reestablish the standards that have historically ensured its 

preeminence. This is imperative for the Navy to adapt and prevail in peer-onpeer competition. This adaptation will require a fundamental understanding and 

appreciation of how much the Navy has changed over the last 30 years and how 

much those changes have impacted its ability to defeat peer threats and meet 

future challenges. 
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Introduction: Readiness as a Complex System

Readiness is a must for winning in combat. The four recent accidents involving

U.S. Navy warships are direct consequences of eroded readiness and are a 

leading indicator of unsustainable operations. Building and sustaining 

operational and combat readiness is extremely complex. To best understand the 

complexities of developing and sustaining military readiness, a thorough 

examination of the systems that contribute to, and consume, readiness is 

necessary. Examining this in a system-of-systems approach highlights the 

interdependence of each function and how subtle interactions of those factors 

can affect readiness, as shown in Figure 1-1.

Learning Culture and 

Accountability

Fiscal

Readiness System of Systems 

Governance

Operations, 

OPTEMPO

Maintaining 

and Equipping

Training

Unit/Individual

Command and 

Control 

Manning

COCOM Tasking

Funds Available Resources Available

Risk Management

Externally Directed

Navy Directed

Navy Leadership

Driven

Readiness Subsystem

= Flow of Input or 

Output

Key

Figure 1-1 Readiness system-of-systems 

The Navy assesses capability and capacity in the context of manning and training 

the fleet, equipping and maintaining the fleet, and the operations and command 

and control needed to deliver naval power. It is critical, however, to understand 

that these functional areas are a readiness system-of-systems interrelated 

through complex feedback mechanisms that impact leadership and 

organizational behavior. These sub-systems include operational tempo 
17

(OPTEMPO), command and control, manning and training (unit/individual), 

maintaining and equipping, fiscal (the apportionment of money), governance 

(policies and constraints) and culture and accountability. Further, this readiness 

system is affected by supply and demand that are driven by two other key 

stakeholders: Congress (supply), and the Combatant Commanders (demand).

The complexity of this system-of-systems and the time horizon over which 

policies and processes play out cannot be ignored if the Navy is to effectively 

address changes needed to sustain the Force. An objective of this Strategic 

Review was to 1) better understand and make recommendations concerning 

what is required to improve and better sustain Navy readiness over time and 2) 

assess the efficacy and flexibility of the Navy’s learning culture needed to adapt 

to rapidly changing strategic and operational dynamics based on leading 

indicators.7

 

This report recommends ways to improve each of these sub-systems and how 

they interact to achieve greater fleet readiness. These recommendations, 

whether executed individually or collectively, are intended to increase the 

visibility and assessment of fleet readiness to ensure leadership has a complete 

understanding of readiness and an accurate sense of the ability of the fleet to 

conduct sustained combat operations at sea – its principal mission. 

 

7 Leading indicators are typically input oriented (precursors), hard to measure and easy to influence, while lagging 

indicators are typically “output” oriented (results), easy to measure but hard to improve or influence. See 

https://kpilibrary.com/topics/lagging-and-leading-indicators.
18

CHAPTER 1: Operations

For the past 30 years, despite a large decrease in the size of the U.S. fleet, the 

Navy has maintained a consistent number of ships deployed worldwide. This 

resulted in an increasing percentage of the fleet deployed.

8

 For most of those 

years the Navy could sustain credible global presence and meet the demands of 

Combatant Commanders for specific missions while maintaining fleet readiness. 

However, in recent years demands across a greater geographic expanse have

increased substantially. Since 2013, the rapid rise in Combatant Commander 

demands has pushed the smaller fleet such that established readiness standards 

are increasingly unachievable. Despite this deterioration of readiness, the Navy 

accepted the missions and, at times, deviated from established standards and 

absorbed increased risk. Over time, this deviation from accepted standards 

increased, became normalized, and subsequently institutionalized. This

sustained acceptance of risk fits a pattern consistent with the “normalization-ofdeviation,” whereby individuals and organizations accept ever lower standards of 

performance as the new normal. A well-recognized cultural pathology in the 

private sector, this phenomenon grew in the fleet, was accepted by Navy 

leadership, and became common practice. Nowhere was this normalization 

more apparent than in the 7

th Fleet surface force where the Navy suffered the 

recent series of incidents. Changing this culture by restoring and sustaining 

readiness is vital. In turn, given the current congressional resourcing of the fleet,

military and civilian leaders must accept less Navy presence worldwide.

1.1 A Different World: Global Trends and their Effects on Naval Operations

The global environment that affects U.S. interests has changed dramatically in 

the last three decades. Despite the peace dividend after the Cold War, 

technological advances accelerated global access to, and increased sea and air 

activity in, the global commons. Globalization of markets and ideas increased the 

competition for resources. Violent ideologies emerged, weapon and information 

technologies advanced and proliferated, and partner and adversary nations 

realigned. 

 

8 Highlights of the Department of the Navy 2017 Budget, pg 1-2, Feb 2016.
19

The Navy’s operating environment also changed considerably. The respite from 

near-peer competition after the demise of the Soviet Union is over, as China

expands its maritime reach and routinely contests international norms at sea and 

a resurgent Russia challenges Europe. These peer challenges, added with the 

existing regional threats from North Korea and Iran, and the prolonged conflict 

against violent extremist organizations stress the Navy across a wide geographic 

expanse. 

Strategic national decisions have also impacted Navy operations, the most 

significant being the nation’s acquiescence to a smaller U.S. Navy. As shown in 

Figure 1-1, over the last 25 years, the number of ships decreased by nearly half. 

Despite this decrease in capacity, the expectation remains for the Navy to 

maintain presence, project power worldwide, and defend national interests. In 

fact, almost twice the percentage of the fleet is deployed today, as compared to 

the height of the Cold War, again shown by Figure 1-1. To sustain this number of 

ships deployed and operating on any given day, the Navy must allocate scarce 

maintenance and training throughout the fleet. Though different for ships in the 

U.S. and those based overseas, every ship has a maintenance, training, and 

operational cycle that is tailored to optimize its availability for operational use. 

Figure 1-1: Depicts the overall ship count from 1985 to 2017 and the percentage of those ships that have maintained presence 

overseas, including forward deployed and rotational forces. As ship count decreased and the number of ships overseas stayed 

constant, the percentage of the Force deployed increased markedly over the past 30 years.

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

Percentage Deployed

Total Ship Count

The Dramatic Rise in the Percentage of the Total Force 

Deployed: 

1985-Present
20

The proliferation of ballistic missiles in the Middle East and Northeast Asia place 

further demands on the Navy as surface combatants are the preferred, available, 

and politically unobtrusive option to provide ballistic missile defense in those 

regions. To generate this continuous and more robust presence with fewer ships 

and aircraft the Navy more than doubled its forward-based, or Forward Deployed 

Naval Forces.

9,10

 Indeed, the combination of ballistic missile defense capability 

and the geographic advantages of forward basing were the impetus to forward

deploy four ballistic missile defense capable ships in Europe. By forward basing

ships, Combatant Commanders can be provided with continuous presence and 

the Navy avoids maintaining the inventory of ships necessary to sustain a 

rotational presence force, normally four or five ships at home to provide one 

forward.

11

 Just as forward based ships count more in terms of presence, ballistic 

missile defense ships provide more capability. 

Even with the advantage of forward deployed naval forces, the operational 

tempo in the current environment that insufficiently resources training and 

maintenance is unsustainable. This has created an “operations-first” mentality

that was reinforced by the overall “must do” culture of the Navy. This, in turn, 

obscured current fleet readiness and incurred long-term risk in order to 

accomplish near-term missions. While an advantage in combat, this “must-do” 

attitude can have far-reaching and deleterious effects on overall long-term 

readiness. The Navy must restore readiness standards and the culture that 

enforces them, while informing civilian and military leadership of the 

consequential impact of less continuous Navy presence around the world. 

1.2 Global Force Management: From a Demand Model to a Supply Model

The Navy’s safeguarding of global interests and ability to confront threats away 

from home require a variety of naval assets and capabilities tailored to best 

achieve desired results. Apportioning supply to demand on a global basis is done 

 

9 The ships are based abroad, while the crews are rotated to the ship. Admiral Jonathan Greenert, U.S. Navy, Chief of 

Naval Operations, “FY 2016 Department of the Navy Posture,” statement before the Subcommittee on Defense, 

Committee on Armed Services, U.S. Senate, March 4, 2015, p. 10.

10

 U.S. Government Accountability Office, “Actions Needed to Address Persistent Maintenance, Training, and Other 

Challenges Facing the Fleet,” GAO 17-809T, September 7th, 2017.

11 Ronald O’Rourke, “Navy Force Structure: A Bigger Fleet? Background and Issues for Congress” Congressional 

Research Service Report for Members and Committees of Congress, November 9th, 2016.
21

in a process known as Global Force Management.

12 This process begins with the 

President who creates the Unified Command Plans. The Secretary of Defense 

then makes the force management decisions assigning forces to the Geographic

Combatant Commanders for use consistent with theater plans.

To define what each service provides, the service chiefs and the joint staff review 

and validate force requests (the demand) from the geographic combatant 

commanders and prioritize them for consideration. The output of this process is 

a recommendation to the Secretary of Defense regarding which naval assets will

be made available to each geographic combatant commander (the supply). This 

Global Force Management Allocation Plan is reviewed quarterly and when 

unplanned requirements arise.

13

 These unplanned requirements can be in 

response to threat increases in theater, natural disasters, or changes in force 

availability. When one of these emergent requirements arises, a geographic 

combatant commander submits a Request for Forces. 

Responding to requests for forces pressurizes the fleet, as it requires either 

diverting another ready unit that may be in line for another assignment or 

disrupting the maintenance and/or training phases of a unit not deemed ready in 

accordance with established Navy standards. Some Requests for Forces can be 

accommodated without disruption to near and long-term readiness by using only 

those units that are certified ready to deploy. However, the small fleet and the 

need for specific unit capabilities frequently limit the options to answer emergent

mission requirements. For instance, in the case of hurricane relief, amphibious 

capability and helicopter capacity are likely to be the limiting functions; on the 

other hand, certain high end threats might require ballistic missile defense 

capable ships.

The urgency of emergent demands and the “must do” culture of our military 

often outweigh the imperative for individual ships to be “fully mission ready” 

prior to use. Accepting deficiencies in readiness, rather than a decreased Navy 

presence worldwide, normalizes a lower standard for our forces on the front 

lines. Indeed, provisions exist to purposefully and thoughtfully waive 

certifications and accept shortcomings in training and maintenance to respond to

emergent demands when the supply is inadequate. When used sparingly and 

 

12

 DoD Instruction 8260.3, Global Force Management Data Initiative, 9 February 2014.

13 DoD Instruction 8260.3, Global Force Management Data Initiative, 9 February 2014.
22

prudently, waivers dampen the mismatch between supply and demand. When

unchecked, the excessive use of waivers and an unbridled “must do” attitude 

compromise established Navy readiness standards, and cause senior 

commanders to inadequately appreciate the risks they are accepting. This 

defined a new normal, especially in the 7th Fleet.14

1.3 Culture and the “Normalization-of-Deviation”

The U.S. military has always put mission first. This attitude gives our forces a 

dominant edge and, in combat, must never be lost. Increasingly over the past 

decade, in response to growing worldwide security challenges, leaders asked the 

Navy to do much more with significantly less. As the Government Accountability 

Office reported, “The Navy has increased deployment lengths, shortened training 

periods, and reduced or deferred maintenance to meet high operational 

demands, which has resulted in declining ship conditions and a worsening trend 

in overall readiness.”15 This “normalization-of-deviation” began gradually 

without apparent effects, as lower operational tempo environments and a larger 

fleet masked its consequences. However, in the face of today’s high operational 

tempo, especially in the 7

th Fleet, failing to maintain standards and limit waivers 

to established standards produced tragic results.

The Navy’s readiness standards for training opportunities, certifications, 

maintenance availabilities, and manning quality and levels, have been 

thoughtfully established. However, the Navy allowed these standards to erode to 

the point that they are nearly ineffective, especially in the case of Forward 

Deployed Naval Forces in Japan. As an example, the number of expired 

certifications in Japan skyrocketed from 6% in 2015 to nearly 40% in 2017.

16

 

Additionally, in 2016, a ballistic missile defense ship in Japan was underway for 

235 of 366 days, and has been underway for 231 days of 2017.17 Finally, and 

contrary to established standards, Forward Deployed Naval Forces in Japan are 

manned at levels well below the established fleet average.18 These deviations 

 

14 Comprehensive Review, pg 65.

15 U.S. Government Accountability Office. “Actions Needed to Address Persistent Maintenance, Training, and Other 

Challenges Facing the Fleet,” GAO 17-809T, September 7th, 2017.

16 U.S. Government Accountability Office. “Actions Needed to Address Persistent Maintenance, Training, and Other 

Challenges Facing the Fleet,” GAO 17-809T, September 7th, 2017.

17 Comprehensive Review, ANNEX.

18 Comprehensive Review, pgs. 69-71.
23

from the standard where ships were employed, ready or not, became accepted 

and normalized. The erosion of standards and good practices exemplified by the 

widespread lapse of certifications, unsustainable operational tempo, and 

insufficient manning levels, marginalized the training necessary to meet

operational requirements and subsequently inculcated a culture that undervalues

adherence to standards, safety, and readiness. 

In an environment where this “normalization-of-deviation” has taken hold, ships 

and their crews perceive the certification process as merely a burden to their 

success, rather than the key to achieving individual, ship, and fleet readiness. 

This culture ultimately bleeds over into every facet of ship training, operations, 

and maintenance. Unfortunately, the tragic incidents in the forward deployed 

naval forces are but one symptom that this larger problem has manifested in the 

fleet. Military and civilian leaders must accept less presence around the globe as 

a primary pillar to restoring readiness in the fleet. The Navy must eliminate the 

“normalization-of-deviation” and, in doing so, reduce the probability of more

tragedies.

1.4 Recommendations

1. Condition congressional and executive branch leaders to accept that the 

higher cost and time to achieve established readiness standards will mean 

less Navy presence worldwide.

2. Instill a culture that recognizes and rejects the “normalization-ofdeviation” by not defaulting to consuming readiness in favor of 

operations. To do this, Navy must:

a. Set a “Readiness Standard” for operating forces that is achievable 

and strictly enforce it.

b. Ensure Navy leaders are fully aware of the consequences of their 

decisions regarding near and long-term readiness and operations.

3. Establish the Global Force Management availability as the maximum 

supportable peacetime force and limit additional demands for forces to 

the redeployment of existing Navy assets among theaters rather than 

using non-deployed, unready forces. 
24

a. Alternatively, withhold a greater number of ready forces from the 

force allocation process to be used to respond to emergent 

requirements.
25

CHAPTER 2: Command and Control 

In the decades since the end of peer-on-peer competition the number of Navy 

ships, aircraft, and sailors has decreased and the number of installations and 

shipyards has declined, but the number of Navy headquarters and their staffing 

increased. These now very large headquarters that administratively control and 

manage Navy forces are mired in an ambiguous system of authority, 

accountability, and responsibility for readiness. This Strategic Review

recommends a resizing of these Navy headquarters and a revised organizational 

construct for the administrative control of Navy forces.

The Comprehensive Review also recommended changes to Navy organizational 

structures. This Strategic Review concurs with those findings but differs in its 

approach to addressing two of the recommendations identified in the 

Comprehensive Review. 

2.1 Organizational Structures 

In recent years the Department of Defense and the Navy adjusted to changing 

geo-political and fiscal environments and external governance direction with 

repeated changes in organization and processes. Some of these reorganizations 

made interactions with external organizations easier, however they often diluted 

and confused Navy command relationships and readiness management. 

The Navy has two hierarchical structures that exercise the functions of command 

and control – one that oversees administrative tasks and another for operational

functions.

19

 The Secretary of the Navy exercises authority and direction over the 

administration of subordinate Navy organizations through the Chief of Naval 

Operations. This authority is known as Administrative Control (ADCON).

20

 The 

operational chain of command flows around them from one of several

geographic or functional Combatant Commanders to assigned subordinate 

forces. Operational Control (OPCON) is the command authority for organizing 

and employing commands and forces, assigning tasks, designating objectives, and 

 

19 DoD Instruction 8260.03, Global Force Management Data Initiative, 19 February 2014.

20 Joint Pub 1, Doctrine of the Armed Forces of the United States, with Change 1 through 12 July 2017.
26

giving authoritative direction over all aspects of military operations and joint 

training necessary to accomplish an assigned mission.

21

 

These two reporting chains, 

ADCON and OPCON

(reflected in Figure 2-1),

create tension in readiness 

risk management. “Supplyside” readiness is led by the 

Chief of Naval Operations 

(administrative control), 

who is responsible for 

generating forces ready for 

tasking. As a result of the 

Goldwater-Nichols Act, the 

Combatant Commander 

leads the “demand-side” 

employing the joint force in operations. Therefore, the Combatant Commanders

are the consumers of readiness of the forces they commit to execute missions. 

The process for balancing these organizational objectives is the Global Force 

Management process, described earlier in section 1.2. 

Each of the Combatant Commands has an assigned Navy Component Command 

to support operational control functions and tasking for Navy forces for joint 

missions, as shown in Figure 2-2. 

 

21 Joint Pub 1, Doctrine of the Armed Forces of the United States, with Change 1 through 12 July 2017.

Figure 2-1: Administrative and Operational Chains of Command in 

the US Navy
27

Figure 2-2. Combatant Commands and Naval Components

In 1986, the Navy supported the five then extant Geographic Combatant 

Commanders with three regional Navy Component Commanders,22 under which 

four numbered fleet commanders operated a fleet of 556 ships. 23 The numbered 

fleet staffs were size-limited to operate afloat from command ships. Alignment 

of responsibility, authority, and accountability was clear. 

In Fiscal Year 2018, the Navy is comprised of 279 ships,24 about 55% of the 1987

Navy. Despite a reduction in operating units, there are now ten combatant 

commanders (six geographic and four functional commands) and six Navy

Component Commanders under which five numbered fleet commands operate 

naval forces25. In the Pacific, U.S. Pacific Command is the Geographic Combatant 

Commander with U.S. Pacific Fleet as the assigned Navy Component Commander. 

 

22 1986 Numbered Fleet Commanders: 2nd Fleet, 6th Fleet, 3rd Fleet, 7th Fleet; 1986 Naval Component Commanders: U.S. 

Atlantic Fleet, U.S. Pacific Fleet, U.S. Navy Europe; 1986 Unified and Specified Commands: Atlantic Command, Pacific 

Command, European Command, Central Command, and Southern Command; Functional Combatant Commander was 

Strategic Air Command .

23

 Ronald O’Rourke, Navy Force Structure and Shipbuilding Plans, Congressional Research Service Report RL32665, 20 

September 2017. This number excludes mine warfare ships and patrol craft.

24 Navy Fact File: Status of the Navy, http://www.navy.mil/navydata/nav_legacy.asp?id=146%E2%80%9D, accessed 16 

November 2017.

25 2017 Unified Combatant Commands: Northern Command, Southern Command, European Command, Africa 

Command, Central Command, Pacific Command; Functional Combatant Commanders: Strategic Command, Special 

Operations Command, Transportation Command, and Cyber Command. 2017 Numbered Fleet Commanders: 3

rd

Fleet, 4

th Fleet, 5th Fleet, 6th Fleet, 7th Fleet; 2017 Naval Component Commanders: Pacific Fleet, Fleet Forces 

Command, Naval Forces Europe/Naval Forces Africa, Naval Forces Southern Command, and Naval Forces Central 

Command. 
28

There are also sub-Unified Commanders operating as U.S. Forces Korea and U.S. 

Forces Japan, each with its own Navy component staff.

While headquarters staff manning at all levels has grown, this has not been the 

case for ships. The Navy reduced crew manning based on expected efficiencies 

that would be gained by substituting technology for manpower and reducing 

maintenance requirements. These efforts were aimed at bringing the costs of 

manning the Navy’s fleet in alignment with the resources available. A portion of 

the manpower savings was retained to meet the increasing staff manning 

necessary to support coordination and integration at the joint and strategic level.

Many of the additional Navy headquarters staffs were established in response to 

the changing Combatant Commander structure. These Navy staffs respond to 

joint force demands and, with the smaller fleet, seek to synchronize planning and 

execution of assigned missions across organizational “seams.” In their efforts to 

meet the demands of the many commanders who value Navy response and 

presence, these headquarters are themselves additional seams, which further 

blur and compromise readiness responsibilities. 

Over the last 30 years the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations has expanded 

its staff positions and their seniority. The staff in 1986 was organized around the 

platforms the Navy operates: ships, aircraft, submarines, with each senior 

platform sponsor being a Vice Admiral who reported directly to the Chief of Naval 

Operations for management of the current and future readiness of the platforms 

for which he was responsible. In the early 1990s, the Chief of Naval Operations’ 

staff was expanded and reorganized along functional lines that paralleled the 

organizational structures of the Army, Air Force, and Joint Staffs. As a result, the 

principal advisors to the Chief of Naval Operations, the Deputy Chiefs of Naval 

Operations, were assigned exclusively to functional responsibilities (Manpower, 

Policy and Plans, Resource Integration, Logistics, etc.) rather than platforms. This 

structure provided greater clarity and commonality between the Navy and 

Joint/Unified Commanders facilitating increased interoperability and delineation 

of authorities. However, it also reduced the visibility, at the most senior Navy 

staff, into the readiness conditions of the platforms the Navy operates.
29

Simultaneous with the growth in the Chief of Naval Operations’ staff, staffs 

expanded dramatically in the Office of the Secretary of the Navy, the Fleets, the 

Combatant Commanders, the Joint Staff and the Office of the Secretary of 

Defense. While ship count no longer has a direct relationship to the number of 

staffs or their relative size, the smaller fleet responds to the requirements and 

tasks of these staffs. The overall effect is ships having to do more in response to 

more staff demands, which reduces the time available for crews to tend to the 

operational needs of the ship such as training, readiness, and certifications. 

To manage the expansion of headquarters and staff organizations, many senior 

Flag Officers have been tasked with multi-hatted authorities, including multiservice, multi-national, and service-specific roles to meet both operational and 

administrative control responsibilities and manage both current and future 

readiness. As pointed out in the Comprehensive Review, these many “hats” 

compete for the commanders’ time and divert attention away from ensuring a 

ready and sustainable force is available to meet the needs of Combatant 

Commanders. 

As part of a Secretary of Defense effort to reduce staffs, U.S. Joint Forces 

Command, which provided clear lines of authority and accountability, was 

disestablished in 2011 and its functions were absorbed by the Joint Staff in 

Washington, DC. Therefore, the Chief of Naval Operations’ staff, as well as other 

service staffs, became more involved in the Global Force Management process 

within the Pentagon. This had the effect of further increasing the number of 

organizations involved in both force generation and force employment 

responsibilities. Specifically, force employment decisions are now resident in the 

Pentagon and are increasingly focused on satisfying current and emergent 

contingencies for employment. This high-level focus on the current demand 

obscures long-term fleet sustainability.

In addition, the 2nd Fleet headquarters was disestablished splitting the training 

and fleet experimentation responsibilities among the Commander Fleet Forces 

staff and that of the Chief of Naval Operations. Unlike the west coast fleets,

which retained the pre-deployment training and certification responsibilities in 

3

rd Fleet, the east coast’s only numbered fleet, 4th Fleet, has no such 
30

responsibilities. The lack of an accountable commander responsible for training 

and certification is another facet of staff reorganizations that has obscured the 

focus on fleet readiness and contributed to the normalization of deviation in the 

Navy. 

The growth of the entire staff enterprise has caused a shift from a commandcentric to a staff-centric culture in the Navy and, more broadly, the military

officer corps. This is exacerbated by the joint duty imperative that draws many 

experienced officers away from Navy critical operational, maintenance, and 

training assignments necessary to enhance mastery of the naval profession and 

readiness of the fleet. 

2.2 Blurring of Administrative Control and Operational Control 

Many commanders have both administrative control and operational control 

responsibilities. Some of this comingling was an outgrowth of ensuring joint 

interoperability and coordination for global force management, and some from

an evolutionary attempt to improve readiness generation. Managing both 

"supply-side" force generation and "demand-side" force employment in a single 

organization can lead to a loss of an independent assessment of readiness and an 

erosion of the standards that define whether a ship is available for tasking. This 

duality conflates administrative and operational responsibilities comingling 

training and certification authorities with those for operational employment. 

This is facilitated by existing instructions that do not clearly delineate command 

relationships and often define “support” roles without adequately defining 

accountability.

There are several organizational layers that have administrative and operational 

control of individual ships or aircraft squadrons. These are organizations to 

generate and monitor individual sailor readiness, unit level training, and predeployment readiness as well as organizations to develop operational warfighting 

readiness and sustain deployed forces while executing peacetime missions. The 

Commanding Officer of a destroyer, over the course of a normal deployment 

cycle, might easily have to interact with administrative and operational control 
31

chains of command with direct or indirect reporting lines to more than a dozen 

higher headquarters.26 Although this staff overhead less directly affects 

operations on a ship’s bridge, it does challenge that ship’s leadership team to 

meet all the information demands, or compliance regimes, of these oversight 

organizations. It can also delay or dilute the picture of readiness seen by the type 

commander and fleet commander. 

With the surface fleet as small as it is today, replicating the process the Navy 

Nuclear Propulsion Program employs for direct and regular communication from 

Commanding Officers of nuclear ships to the Director, Naval Reactors, is worth 

considering. In the Naval Reactors model, Commanding Officers communicate 

via letter with the Director on a quarterly basis (monthly while in an extended 

maintenance period), discussing manning issues, training requirements/

assessments, overall readiness status, and any major deficiencies in equipment or 

performance. This model has proven valuable in providing the Director with 

clarity concerning the readiness and training status of nuclear powered ships. An 

analogous model could be employed in the surface force to transparently 

communicate manning, training, and readiness conditions to the respective type 

commander beyond what is currently provided in the Defense Readiness 

Reporting System, Navy (DRRSN). 

2.3 Type Commander Organizational Structures

The primary authority for managing the current readiness of each warfare 

community’s forces is the type commander. When the surface, aviation, and 

submarine type commander relationships were revised, some of the authorities 

of the platform sponsors moved from the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations

to these type commander staffs. Coincident with the establishment of Fleet 

Forces Command in 2001, the Navy further refined the type commander 

relationships establishing a “lead-follow”27 arrangement for each surface, 

 

26 The total of layered headquarters in the chains of command may include a Squadron Commodore, a Group 

Commander, one Type Commander, between one to four Numbered Fleet Commanders, at least one, and perhaps up 

to four Navy Component Commanders; two or three Geographic Combatant Commanders, and the Office of the Chief 

of Naval Operations, Office of the Secretary of the Navy, and Office of the Secretary of Defense.

27 Lead Type Commander responsibilities are currently assigned to: Commander Naval Surfaces Forces (San Diego), 

Commander Naval Air Forces (San Diego), and Commander Naval Submarine Forces (Norfolk); Follow assignments 

are: Commander Naval Surface Forces Atlantic (Norfolk), Commander Naval Air Forces Atlantic (Norfolk) and 

Commander Submarine Forcer Pacific (San Diego) 
32

submarine, and aviation community, whereby one type commander, either 

Atlantic or Pacific, is designated as the senior commander, or lead, who assumed 

responsibility for overall platform community health.

In 2010, the Pacific Fleet and Fleet Forces commanders, with dual-hatted 

responsibility for force generation and force employment, grew concerned over

blurred authorities and responsibilities, to include those of type commanders and 

Warfare Community (business enterprise) Leaders. As a result, they issued 

clarifying guidance in an attempt to return to core principles for command and 

control.28 This guidance established the “litmus test” framework for defining 

command relationships and avoiding ambiguity. 

1. Two Commanders may not exercise the same command authority over 

the same force at the same time (Unity of Command)

2. Operational and Administrative Authority must be commensurate with 

responsibility.

3. Command relationships must be:

a. Effective – Facilitate mission accomplishment

b. Unambiguous – Emphasize clarity and simplicity

c. Hierarchical – Reinforce Unity of Command

d. Documented – allow verification

This was an attempt to overcome the detractors to readiness through 

organizational change. Nonetheless, the number of stakeholders and complexity 

of the readiness system has continued to grow. The accumulation of these

changes to organizational structures, command relationships, and multiple 

attempts to clarify command authorities suggests that a clean-sheet review is 

needed to identify the optimal administrative organization.

Specifically, the Fleet Commanders wanted to standardize the type commander 

roles in the area of readiness governance. As a result, the type commanders on 

 

28 Commander U.S. Fleet Forces Command naval message 131600Z January 2010, Subject: Core Command and 

Control Principles; Commander U.S. Fleet Forces Command naval message 291313Z March 2012, Subject: Scope of 

Authority of Warfare Enterprise Leads; and Commander U.S. Fleet Forces Command naval message 051200Z October 

2010, Subject: Revision to COMPACFLT and USFLTFORCOM Missions, Functions, and Tasks; Commander U.S. 

Fleet Forces Command and Commander U.S. Pacific Fleet joint letter, Subject: Direction to Address Deviations from 

Command and Control Guidance, 4 May 2012.
33

each coast establish policies and standards that can be different due to the 

disparate demands for routine peacetime and potential wartime requirements 

and for training and operations tuned to their respective areas of operation. 

With the evolution of the lead-follow type commander construct,29 there remain 

cultural and administrative differences between east-coast and west-cost

organizational structures, policies, and authorities. There have been several 

studies aimed at refining the lead-follow relationship. These studies have run the 

gamut from restoring both commands to the Vice Admiral level and doing away 

with the lead-follow relationship to combining each into a single command and 

retiring the “follow” organizational construct.

None of the studies has been able to fully address all of the concerns associated 

with the current type commander construct. Each has identified a specific 

challenge of the existing structure and attempted to find ways to address that 

challenge without adversely affecting other functions of the type commander 

relationships. Rather than continuing to study this effort, and consistent with the 

intent of the Comprehensive Review recommendations to consolidate authority 

for readiness under Commander U.S. Fleet Forces Command, the Strategic 

Review finds that the realignment of the type commanders may be the more 

effective path. Specifically, aligning all the “follow” type commanders to the 

Pacific would permit them to focus exclusively on the readiness of assigned 

forces without the distraction of community management. Further, co-locating 

all the type commander leads with the Commander, U.S. Fleet Forces Command 

would enable greater involvement in the development of standardized policy and 

consistent readiness requirements across the fleets while still permitting 

operational commanders to tailor their assigned forces to the unique needs of 

their respective theaters of operations.

An additional change that is hindering the Pacific Fleet Commander’s ability to 

achieve readiness standards is the unique structure in which control of Pacific 

Fleet forces are maintained and allocated. Within the global force management 

process, ships and aircraft based in the Pacific area of operations are assigned to 

the Commander, Pacific Command rather than to the Pacific Fleet Commander. 

 

29 COMUSFLTFORCOM/COMPACFLT letter, Subject: Memorandum of Agreement Regarding Supporting/Supported 

Relationships of Type Commands, 11 October 2012.
34

This prevents the fleet commander from making decisions about fleet availability 

during training or maintenance cycles. As in the Atlantic Fleet, the Navy should 

give the type commanders and the Commander Pacific Fleet more ability to 

manage readiness and availability of forces. This would permit the fleet 

commander to better control when forces can be assigned to U.S. Pacific 

Command.

 

The three senior platform type commanders are also their warfare communities’

primary advocates, business enterprise leaders, and visionaries for the future 

force and its enabling concepts. Their influence, advice, and leadership would 

have the most impact on decisions affecting current and near-term readiness by 

being co-located with U.S. Fleet Forces Command, and asserting their authority 

on community readiness as the global force management process is carried out. 

Furthermore, having these senior type commanders execute their community 

leadership roles in closer proximity to the Chief of Naval Operations provides a 

readily accessible and value-added ability to influence a number of ship, aircraft, 

and sailor resourcing decisions shaping the requirements and procurement of the 

future fleet. 

2.4 Significant Divergence from the Comprehensive Review

The Comprehensive Review concluded that the Japan-based force generation 

model was stressed beyond the capacity to satisfy demand without the pro forma

acceptance of waivers. This Strategic Review concurs with the Comprehensive 

Review and recommends that accountability for force generation and force 

employment must be separated. However, this Strategic Review does not concur 

with the Comprehensive Review recommendation to “Establish a single Echelon II 

higher headquarters responsible for the readiness generation of all Navy 

forces”.30 This Strategic Review makes alternative recommendations that would 

meet the same objective, while retaining separate fleet responsibilities and 

authorities for managing readiness in the east and west coast fleets. 

 

30 Comprehensive Review, Section 6.3.2, Recommendation #3.
35

An additional recommendation from the Comprehensive Review31 was to 

introduce greater independence in readiness assessments and improve the

clarity of command relationships by permanently establishing Naval Surface 

Group Western Pacific.32 The Pacific Fleet Commander completed this action on 

31 October, to “address an organizational gap in Forward Deployed Naval Forces 

– Japan that allowed a culture to grow myopically focused on operations to the 

detriment of readiness.” This Strategic Review concurred with the 

Comprehensive Review’s finding that there has been ambiguity in command 

relationships, duties, responsibilities, and authorities, as found in instructions 

governing the missions, functions, and tasks of those commands exercising 

administrative or operational control. However, the Strategic Review does not 

concur with establishment of Naval Surface Group Western Pacific. Standing up 

an additional oversight layer provides another headquarters staff and 

administrative control function that is likely to perpetuate ambiguous and 

conflicting authorities. Organizational structures already exist within the type 

commander staff at Commander Naval Surface Forces Pacific, and its subordinate 

Afloat Training Group organizations for appropriate responsibility.33 The 

manpower used to establish Naval Surface Group Western Pacific, is better 

applied to fully and competently staffing the existing training commands and 

squadron staffs in the Western Pacific. 

2.5 Recommendations:

1. SECNAV direct a “clean sheet” review of the administrative chain of 

command in the Navy to best and most efficiently organize and man 

headquarters to generate sustainable readiness. In addition to holding to 

the command and control core principles, specifically:

 

a. Provide type commanders with clear responsibility and 

accountability for force generation, especially for training and 

developing and certifying mission readiness for tasking.

 

31 Comprehensive Review Section 6.3.1, Recommendation #3.

32 Commander Naval Surface Force, U.S. Pacific Fleet Public Affairs article, Accessed at: 

http://www.public.navy.mil/surfor/Pages/Organization-to-Oversee-Readiness-in-the-Western-Pacific-Established.aspx; 

last accessed on 31 October 2017.

33 COMNAVSURFPAC/COMNAVSURFLANT Instruction 5450.2B, Missions, Functions, and Tasks of Afloat Training 

Groups, Pacific, and Afloat Training Groups, Atlantic, 9 November 2011.
36

b. Relocate the three “Lead” platform type commander positions 

under U.S. Fleet Forces Command, to provide better focus on 

overall fleet readiness generation.

c. Consolidate the three subordinate “Follow” platform type 

commanders under the U.S. Pacific Fleet, to focus solely on 

readiness management and enforcing established standards.

2. Reduce the number of staff headquarter layers and manning to improve 

“bottom up” situational awareness of readiness through shortened chainsof-command and reduced infrastructure for management oversight and 

compliance regimes. Specifically, disestablish Commander Pacific Fleet 

Detachment Commander Naval Surface Group Western Pacific. Realign 

these billets to Afloat Training Groups or Destroyer Squadrons, in order to 

focus talent on fundamentals and developing mastery of the naval 

profession.

3. Reestablish Commander U.S. 2nd Fleet as the operational and training fleet 

commander, under U.S. Fleet Forces Command, and symmetric to U.S. 3rd

Fleet, to reduce overlap between administrative and operational 

responsibilities, and better respond to the changing security environment. 

4. Disestablish and absorb U.S. 4th Fleet functions into a reestablished U.S. 

2

nd Fleet, similar to the U.S. 6th Fleet construct. Establish task forces as 

needed to execute operations for U.S. Naval Forces Southern Command, 

when Navy forces are temporarily allocated or assigned.

5. Create a simplified means for surface ship Commanding Officers to have 

direct access to their respective fleet’s type commander in a way that 

gives the type commanders adequate visibility into the facets of readiness 

generation that matter most. The goal should be to provide the type 

commanders with a thorough understanding of the actual material, 

manning, training, and logistic readiness of the ships for which they are

responsible. This should be informed by the process used by Naval 

Reactors for aircraft carrier and submarine Commanding Officers.
37

CHAPTER 3: Manning & Training

The Comprehensive Review examined manpower and training primarily at the 

individual ship level, examining, for example, which billets were filled and which 

were gapped on the ships involved in collisions. This review takes a more 

strategic examination, exploring whether the Navy has the right mix of sailors

with the right training and experiences for their assignments.

Since the peak of the Cold War in the mid-1980s the number and mix of sailors

needed to operate and maintain the fleet has changed considerably. Today’s

fleet is comprised of fewer, more complex ships spending a greater portion of 

their time at sea with smaller crews. The growing technical complexity of the 

equipment, systems, and ships and their reduced manning increased the Navy’s 

need for more capable and experienced sailors who are serving at higher grades 

and are more expensive to recruit and retain. This, in turn, drives up the average 

cost per sailor. 

In response to decreasing budgets, the Navy made a series of decisions that

increased operating tempo, reduced manning levels, and changed career 

progression patterns resulting in significantly diminished opportunities for Navy

officers and enlisted sailors to master operational and maintenance skills. Other 

well-intended personnel management decisions resulted in higher workloads 

placed upon more junior personnel led by officers with less service experience 

and expertise. This review finds that tangible negative consequences remain as a 

result of not correctly anticipating and monitoring the effects of reducing 

manning and training in the fleet. 

3.1 Diminished Opportunity for Officers to Master Naval Skills

Automation and technological advances can reduce the number of sailors

required to operate a ship but they do not reduce the need for deep naval

mastery, in fact, quite the opposite. Smaller crew sizes increase the need for 

officers who are incentivized to invest in careers at sea. Over time, however, 

Navy choices in response to the combined effects of the Defense Officer 

Personnel Management Act, the Goldwater-Nichols Act, and Department of 

Defense guidance shifted the focus of officers’ careers toward more joint and 
38

broader experience at the expense of honing deep maritime operating skills. 

Navy policy and practice account for much of the shift in priority among junior 

officers, while external requirements and regulations account for most of the 

shift among officers at the rank of Commander and above.

The Defense Officer Personnel Management Act was an attempt, in part, to 

standardize military career progression throughout the Department of Defense. 

Its actual legal constraints on officer career management are minimal but, as

implemented by all the services, the effects on officers’ careers have been

profound. The up-or-out requirements of mid-grade promotions create

enormous pressure to achieve each career milestone on time, without deviation 

from the standard path. The Goldwater-Nichols Act, known for its effect on highlevel command and control and the relationships among the military services, the 

Joint Staff, and the Office of the Secretary of Defense (discussed elsewhere in this 

report) also profoundly affected career progression, education, and training of 

mid-grade and senior officers. The Act allows certain exceptions and waivers, but 

basically requires that officers with qualifying joint experience be promoted to 

the ranks of Commander and Captain at rates at least equal to those of officers 

without joint experience and that all officers promoted to flag rank have such 

experience. The intent of these Goldwater Nichols provisions was to ensure that 

Flag Officers had joint experience and that lower ranking officers with joint 

experience remained competitive for promotions. However, the implementation 

of the Act resulted in each of the services making an unnecessarily large number 

of their officers joint qualified.

The Defense Officer Personnel Management Act and Department of Defense

policies created the standard timeline for promotion and retirement, while the 

Navy’s implementation of Goldwater-Nichols added specific requirements to 

each career path. As early as 1989, a Naval Postgraduate School study warned 

the Navy that joint duty and education requirements could lead to significant 

deterioration of Navy warfighting skills or personnel shortages in operational 

fields,34 yet the Navy reacted to Goldwater-Nichols Act requirements by assigning 

as many promising officers as possible to joint duty so that they would be eligible 

 

34 Joseph L. Johnson, Jr., Analysis of the Joint Reorganization Act’s Impact on Personnel Flow in the Surface Warfare 

Community, March 1989.
39

for promotion to Commander and above without the need to request joint duty 

waivers. While waivers are allowed by the Act, the Navy has not sought a waiver 

to promote any non-joint qualified officer since 2010.

35

 The effect is more 

officers being diverted from assignments of fleet mastery to joint training and 

joint duty assignments necessary for flag careers. The Navy was able to 

accommodate this diversion in the time and focus of many of its officers during a 

period with moderate operational tempo, more ships, aircraft, and sailors, and 

no near-peer competitor. Today’s more frequent deployments performed by a

smaller number of ships have largely eliminated any flexibility and redundancy in 

the fleet. Diverting fewer officers from tours within the Navy would allow more 

of them to develop the deep experience and talent needed to meet the Navy’s 

emergent operational needs and to instruct and mentor those who follow. The 

Navy could then identify and appropriately train the smaller number of officers 

needed to lead joint and interagency operations later in their careers. A

relaxation of Goldwater-Nichols Act provisions, combined with a reduction in 

joint headquarters’ billets, would enable the Navy and the other services to be 

more selective in grooming officers for leadership of both service and joint 

forces. 

A comparison of the nominal surface, submarine, and aviation community career 

paths between 1985 and today (Figure 3-1, Figure 3-2, and Figure 3-3) shows 

that, while aviation and submarine paths have changed little in 30 years, the 

surface warfare career path has been less stable. For all three major warfare 

communities, however, the nature of their assignments ashore changed.

 

35 Based on data received from the Secretary of Defense’s General and Flag office.

YCS 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25

PCC Shore Tour Major Command

SWO 

Pipeline 

(1985)

10 11 12 13 14 15 16

1st DH 

Tour

2nd DH 

Tour Shore Tour XO Tour Shore Tour CO Tour

SWO 

Pipeline 

(2017) Basic Div. Officer Course 1st Division Officer Tour

2nd 

Division 

Officer 

Tour

Shore Tour SWO DH School PCO

Shore 

Tour PCOCO Tour PCC Shore Tour

Major Command

XO/CO Fleet Up PCC Shore 

Tour

PCC Shore 

Tour

2nd 

DH 

Tour Shore Tour 

(XO/CO Fleet Up)

Shore Tour (XO 

Afloat Screened)

Shore Tour 

(XO/CO Fleet Up)

XO Tour

Shore Tour SWO DH School 1st DH Tour Command Assessment Basic Div. Officer Course 1st Division 

Officer Tour Advanced Div. Officer Course 2nd Division Officer Tour
40

Figure 3-1 – Nominal Career Paths for Surface Warfare Officer Community

Figure 3-2 – Nominal Career Paths for Submarine Officer Community

Figure 3-3 – Nominal Career Path for Aviation Officer Community

Since 1985, each community has adjusted its career path by repurposing one or 

more shore tours to accommodate joint tours. Officers now spend less time in 

Navy commands that address training, maintenance, and oversight where they 

would develop skills useful in subsequent sea tours. 

Joint staffs are disproportionately comprised of senior personnel, therefore the 

diversion of unrestricted line officers to tours outside the Department of the 

Navy is more pronounced in higher grades. The percentage of the Navy’s 

unrestricted line Flag Officers serving outside Department of Navy roughly 

doubled between 1985 and 2016, and the effect was greatest among surface 

warfare officers. In 1985, only 7.3% of surface warfare Flag Officers were serving 

YCS 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 PCO Training CO Tour

PCC Shore 

Tour

PCC Shore 

Tour Major Command Advance Officer Course DH Tour Shore Tour PXO Course XO Tour Shore Tour

CO Tour

PCC Shore 

Tour

PCC Shore 

Tour Major Command

SUB 

Pipeline 

(1985) Nuclear Power School Nucler Prototype Training Basic Officer Course Division Officer Tour Shore Tour

DH Tour Shore Tour SCC as XOXO Tour Shore Tour PCO Training (Includes SCC as CO)

23 24 25

SUB 

Pipeline 

(2017) Nuclear Power School Nucler Prototype Training Basic Officer Course Division Officer Tour Shore Tour Advance Officer Course

10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 YCS 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Fleet Replacement Squadron XO/CO Fleet Up PCC Shore Tour Major Command

Major Command

Flight 

Training Fleet Replacement Squadron 1st Division Officer Tour Shore Tour

2nd 

Division 

Officer Tour Fleet Replacement Squadron DH Tour Shore Tour

Flight 

Training Fleet Replacement Squadron 1st Division Officer Tour Shore Tour

2nd 

Division 

Officer Tour Fleet Replacement Squadron DH Tour Shore Tour Fleet Replacement Squadron XO/CO Fleet Up PCC Shore Tour

AVN 

Pipeline 

(2017)

AVN 

Pipeline 

(1985)

10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
41

outside Navy, and by 2016 it had more than tripled to 25.5%.36 This does not 

mean the Navy has a shortage of admirals to fill its service billets, but the 

increasing focus on joint assignments pulls away some of the Navy’s best officers

and further incentivizes the pursuit of staff vs maritime mastery. Also, largely 

because of the Goldwater-Nichols Act, virtually all unrestricted line officers 

promoted to the rank of Captain, whether or not they are flag bound or assigned 

to joint duty, will have spent several years in joint billets and joint education 

programs. The optimization of career paths for all to flag rank by each 

community incentivizes joint experience for many more officers than are needed

in joint assignments to the detriment of other technical and operational 

warfighting skills. 

An increased focus on graduate education further decreases opportunity for 

officers to gain proficiency working with the fleet. Graduate education provides

great benefit to the services by providing a cadre of officers with broadened 

critical thinking skills and knowledge such as financial management, operations

analysis, and geo-political expertise and may help with officer retention. Often,

however, these graduate degrees do not directly contribute to a deepening naval 

or tactical mastery and for many officers a master’s degree requires an additional 

tour away from operational assignments. While some officers, particularly Flag 

Officers, make use of the skills acquired in graduate school, obtaining a graduate 

degree is now perceived by the officer corps as necessary for promotion beyond 

the grade of Commander. In 2015, 85% of the commanding officers in the 

unrestricted line communities had at least one master’s degree. Of those who 

had master’s degrees, approximately half received their degrees while attending 

an in-residence program during a shore tour.

 

In addition to the changes in career patterns created by the Navy’s 

implementation of the Goldwater-Nichols Act, several changes to the surface 

warfare officer training pipeline in the early 2000’s created a generation of 

surface warfare officers without “the correct baseline knowledge of surface 

warfare fundamentals.”37 Navy’s 1995 elimination of Readiness Squadrons, the 

organizations responsible for material readiness training and oversight, removed

 

36 Center for Naval Analyses Master Personnel Files.

37 Fleet Review Panel of Surface Force Readiness, VADM(ret) Balisle, 26 Feb 2010.
42

a key training and experience pathway for junior officers. In 1996, the Surface 

Warfare Community discontinued the Senior Officer Material Readiness Course,

which provided prospective Commanding Officers with the skills needed to 

understand and effectively manage their material and equipment. The loss of the 

Readiness Squadron billets combined with the loss of the Senior Officer Material 

Readiness Course led to fewer officers with a thorough understanding of how to 

maintain increasingly complex warships. 

The surface fleet aggravated experience loss by eliminating the sixteen-week 

Surface Warfare Officer School basic course in 2003. The basic course was 

removed in favor of on-the-job and computer-based training, colloquially known 

as “SWOS-in-a-Box,” for new surface warfare officers. The elimination of the 

course and its instructor billets meant fewer officers returned to sea with the 

enhanced in-depth knowledge derived from that teaching experience. 

Accordingly, junior personnel with minimal training and experience were 

expected to provide on-the-job training to those who entered the fleet after 

them. Formal training for surface warfare division officers has been restored to 

fourteen weeks38 but the generation most affected by the lack of formal training 

is now serving as executive and commanding officers. 

A second issue contributing to declining surface warfare officer naval operational

expertise is the long-term Navy practice of over accessing junior officers. For 

more than 20 years the number of junior officers commissioned into the surface 

warfare community has exceeded the number of ensigns required in afloat 

billets.

39 This helps ensure an adequate number of surface warfare officers are 

available later for department head tours at sea. The Comprehensive Review 

recommended aligning “the number of SWO [surface warfare officer] candidates 

assigned to ships with the billet requirements.” While the Strategic Review 

concurs with the intent of that recommendation, it would have to be 

implemented in a way that ensures it would result in a sufficient number of 

officers progressing to department head.

 

38 14 week course length is 12.5% shorter than 2003 Surface Warfare Officer School curriculum. 

39 August 2017 Officer Inventory /Authorization (Tricolor).
43

Uniquely, the excess junior officers in the surface community serve as the 

primary source of new officers for restricted line communities such as 

intelligence and information professionals. While assigned to ships, these junior 

officers, many of whom are designated at commissioning to convert to another 

community, are given equal access to limited underway watch standing 

opportunities and training evolutions, experience they may never need in their 

later careers. This limits the opportunities for career surface warfare officers to 

develop these formative skills. The surface warfare community also absorbs

many of the officers who fail to complete the training programs of the 

Unrestricted Line community.

40 These practices represent an institutional 

devaluing of the surface warfare specialty. 

A third compounding factor for the surface warfare community is the practice of 

using junior officers to fill staff positions during one of their early sea tours. 

Junior officers who have completed their surface warfare qualifications can 

request assignment to an embarked staff in lieu of a ship’s company assignment

for either their second division officer tours or their second department head 

tours. Particularly in the case of division officers, this practice significantly 

reduces their opportunity to hone their seamanship skills.

The Navy’s 2008 decision to adopt the Executive Officer to Commanding Officer

fleet-up model for surface warfare officers may also be impacting surface warfare 

officer proficiency development. This model, in which an officer moves directly 

from Executive Officer to Commanding Officer of a particular ship, was intended 

to provide greater leadership continuity and, in turn, improved readiness. While 

this fleet-up model has long been used successfully in the aviation community, 

opinions regarding the success of the program in surface warfare are mixed.41 

 

Of particular concern in the fleet-up model is the lengthy gap it creates between 

surface warfare officers’ second department head tours and their executive 

officer tours (See Figure 3-1). In most cases, a new executive officer following the 

 

40 The lateral transfer rate out of the SWO community has not changed significantly from 1985 (2.4%) to 2017 (2.1%). 

The loss is largely counteracted by the significant number of officers who transfer into the SWO community each year 

from other communities. 

41 A 2014 Center for Naval Analyses review found the model had some secondary positive effects, but no measurable 

effect on material readiness, while some recent command climate surveys suggest potential problems.
44

standard career path will not have been on sea duty for about five years.42 That 

long period of shore duty, at a crucial stage in their careers, may enhance surface 

warfare officer retention but it comes at the expense of currency in operations at 

sea. By selecting officers for command prior to their commencing executive 

officer tours, the fleet-up model also reduces flexibility and quality control 

because it becomes highly disruptive to pull an executive officer out of the path 

to command.

The Navy’s choices with regard to implementation of the Goldwater-Nichols Act,

combined with multiple surface warfare officer community changes over time,

resulted in an officer development cycle that is creating ever decreasing surface 

warfare officer mastery at a time of increasing complexity in naval warfare. 

Repurposing shore tours and elimination of readiness schools and commands in 

favor of joint duty removed a means for developing deeper Navy expertise. At 

the same time, removal of the Surface Warfare officer Basic School forced more 

reliance upon on-the-job-training and further decremented opportunities to build 

naval expertise. Meanwhile, over accession of junior officers limited the practical

experiences available to each officer. Over time, officers with less experience 

were promoted into leadership positions where they were training the Navy’s

newest junior officers. The result was a decline in surface warfare officer skills. 

The pendulum has swung too far and a lower level of training and experience was

normalized. A rebalancing is needed to ensure the Navy has an officer cadre 

comprised of officers with deep naval expertise and a more appropriate number 

of joint-qualified officers with the breadth of experience needed to succeed in 

joint operations. 

3.2 Reduced Training and Increased Workload for Sailors

At the time of the 9/11 attacks, Navy personnel end strength had been declining 

steadily for more than a decade.

43

 Response to those attacks halted strength

reductions for a few years, but combat operations required sailors who might 

otherwise have been given regular fleet assignments be assigned to unrelated 

functions supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom. 

 

42 In the aviation community the standard gap between department head and Executive Officer is significantly shorter.

43 The reductions stemmed from both a reduced number of ships and the closure of multiple maintenance facilities.
45

These cumulative reductions in sailors available for fleet duty were 

accommodated by the adoption of the 2002 Optimum Manning initiative, which

reduced destroyer and cruiser manning by 18% and 12% respectively. The 

reductions were rationalized primarily by basing manning only on the watch 

standing and operational requirements of each ship.

44

 Time needed for routine

maintenance, divisional responsibilities, in port requirements, and personal and 

unit training was not included resulting in increasing individual crew member 

workloads. In its May 2017 Navy Readiness assessment, the Government 

Accountability Office found that reductions to crew sizes made in the early 2000s 

were not analytically supported and in congressional testimony stated the 

reductions “may now be creating safety risks.” The Government Accountability 

Office went on to say, “With fewer sailors operating and maintaining surface 

ships, the material condition of the ships declines, and we found that this decline 

ultimately contributed to an increase in operating and support costs that 

outweighed any savings on personnel.” The Strategic Review agrees.

Fleet experience levels decreased as fewer personnel spent shore tours gaining 

additional technical mastery from work in maintenance billets. In the end, the 

surface fleet was conducting more maintenance with fewer personnel who were 

trained and supervised by leaders with less relevant experience. The Navy has 

since reassessed and restored a portion of fleet manning but continues to use a 

model that does not reflect the actual time sailors spend working nor does it 

account for shipboard work while in port,

45 both of which may be leading to 

sailors being overworked. The acceptance of these deviations from normal,

masked deeper problems while allowing the Navy to meet its manning and 

training requirements.

The combined effects of Optimum Manning and the Navy’s implementation of

the 2001 Revolution in Training significantly degraded enlisted expertise. 

Revolution in Training was intended to overhaul the Navy’s schoolhouse-centric 

individual training system by transitioning to a lifelong-learning continuum reliant 

on computer-based and on-the-job training. However, before computer-based 

 

44 Fleet Review Panel of Surface Force Readiness, VADM(ret) Balisle, 26 Feb 2010.

45 U.S. GAO Accounting Office, “Actions Needed to Ensure Proper Size and Composition of Ship Crews,” GAO-17-413 

Navy Force Structure, Government Accountability Office, pg 20.
46

training was fully implemented Revolution in Training development and 

improvement funds were redirected to other programs. This led to a 21% 

decrease in schoolhouse instructor funding.

46 Further cuts were taken in 

schoolhouse instructors to fund emergent issues.

47

 The loss of instructor billets 

led to fewer sailors with instructor experience returning to the fleet while more

on-the-job-training was imposed on operational units. In the long-term, this

reduced the level of technical knowledge at the senior enlisted level.

The Navy recently embarked on a new training modernization effort titled Ready 

Relevant Learning. Similar to the vision that drove Revolution in Training, Ready 

Relevant Learning recognizes that Navy’s training still does not take full 

advantage of technology and the science of learning. It is another attempt to 

establish a career-long learning continuum of delivered integrated content. 

Ready Relevant Learning is also intended to shift portions of initial accession 

training to later in a sailor’s career when it is more relevant thereby minimizing 

knowledge decay. If fully funded, Ready Relevant Learning has the potential to 

markedly improve training Navy-wide. However, it is important to emphasize, as 

described in the Vision and Guidance for Ready Relevant Learning, this “will 

require significant effort over a sustained period of time by multiple 

stakeholders, so it is important that we are clear about the reasons why we are 

doing this, and we must keep these operational imperatives continually in mind 

as we work through the challenges of execution.”

48

 As in the previous training 

reform, the Navy has already reduced the number of instructors based on the 

planned shift in training delivery. Further, while the Vision and Guidance

articulates a need for commitment, the funds made available by those instructor 

reductions are not being protected for reinvestment into Ready Relevant 

Learning. The Navy removed $70M from Ready Relevant Learning’s Fiscal Year 

2018 budget in a re-phasing that will slow the program. The Office of the 

Secretary of Defense and Congress recently proposed additional cuts to the 

initiative totaling approximately $400M over six years.

49 Failure to preserve the 

resources required to implement and sustain Ready Relevant Learning will 

 

46 VADM J.K. Moran, Commander, NETC, State of Training Memorandum, 01Feb 2007.

47

 VADM J.K. Moran, Commander, NETC, State of Training Memorandum, 01 Feb 2007.

48

 Vision and Guidance for Ready Relevant Learning.

49 Ready Relevant Learning Funding Profile, PB 19.
47

inevitably recreate and exacerbate the shortcomings experienced with 

Revolution in Training. 

As a complement to Ready Relevant Learning, the Navy could make greater use 

of training simulators, particularly for the surface warfare community. Modern 

simulators provide operators with realistic training experiences while their ships 

are in port. To take full advantage of this technology, performance must be 

measured and action taken when deficiencies are noted. The Comprehensive 

Review came to a similar conclusion. High quality simulators must not be used 

just for training. The Surface Warfare Community should use them as a “go, no 

go” assessment for officers assigned ship control responsibilities. 

 

The decisions made during the acquisition and fielding of new ships and 

equipment also limited the fleet’s ability to develop deep expertise. The annual 

cost per sailor has increased by more than 25% since 1998, making manpower 

reductions a tempting way to reduce costs in the long-term. However, use of 

technology to reduce manpower is effective only if the technology operates as 

planned. History shows the potential for technology-enabled manpower savings 

were routinely overestimated. Three of the last four ship classes required 

increases to crew size after fleet delivery. These ship designs focused on 

reducing manpower through new technology, shifting maintenance requirements 

to shore facilities, or a combination of both. Both versions of the Littoral Combat 

Ship required significant increases in personnel beyond original estimates, and 

the Zumwalt-class guided missile destroyer already experienced a crew size 

increase of 11% with the full extent of needed manpower increases unknown 

until its systems are fully tested and operational. The Gerald R. Ford-class nuclear 

aircraft carrier may well follow a similar pattern. In short, reducing manpower 

during the design process to save money is not effective unless the models are 

built on valid assumptions. Overly optimistic workload assessments create a 

cycle of unbalanced manpower allocations, unachievable individual ship 

workloads, and eventual increases in ships’ crew size. Sailors being overworked, 

or perceiving themselves to be overworked, also effects retention, leading to a 

fleet with less average experience and requiring increased recruiting expense. To 

guard against the continued pressure to add one more rock to the pack, and not 

normalize deviation, Navy manpower models must be detailed enough to 
48

account for all requirements levied on sailors. The models must further include a 

process that deliberately and accurately accounts for any additional hours and 

compensates by requiring either elimination of other requirements or increases 

in manning. Failure to establish and maintain such guardrails at the highest levels 

of the Navy will invariably lead to untenable increases in sailor workload.

Due to the complex mix of pressures and constraints on the personnel system 

over the last few decades there is no single area of personnel development, 

manning, or training where isolated action is likely to create lasting 

improvements or compensate for previous shortfalls. Personnel assignments, 

career paths, and training of Navy personnel changed over time to accommodate 

varying requirements and constraints. Some of the changes were successful and 

others, such as the elimination of Surface Warfare Officer School for newly 

commissioned officers, proved to be ill advised and were reversed. Others, such 

as overly optimistic assumptions about the ability to reduce crew sizes and lack of 

institutional commitment to long-term training reform, appear likely to be 

repeated if systemic change is not undertaken.

Achieving and sustaining an acceptable level of readiness in the fleet requires 

personnel who have training and experience adequate for mastering their 

assignments. It requires manning levels adequate to operate and maintain ships 

and other equipment and must allow for a balance between sea duty and time 

ashore with assignments that enhance seagoing experience and competence. 

Efforts to save money by reducing training time or crew sizes have been counterproductive in the long-term. Nearly universal efforts to provide unrestricted line 

officers with joint training and experience and with civilian education beyond 

that utilized in subsequent assignments, take them away from the fleet and 

reduce the opportunities to develop deep naval mastery and maritime acumen. 

Overall, the opportunities to, and the emphasis on, developing deep naval

expertise have diminished over the last 30 years. Protracted reductions in 

instructor and maintenance billets hinder enlisted personnel and officers from 

gaining additional service-relevant experience during shore tours. Clearly, the

Navy’s focus on overly broad joint qualification reduced the time officers spent

focusing on maritime expertise. 
49

Changes in the area of personnel policy are difficult and can take many years to 

implement. Policy changes must be considered in terms of their effects on 

retention, morale, cost, and on generating the appropriate number of sailors with 

the right mix of skills and experience. A thorough examination of the Navy’s 

human capital strategy to the meet current demands, particularly peer-on-peer 

competition, is beyond the scope of this Strategic Review, but such an 

undertaking is needed to ensure the Navy meets the demands of the current and 

future security environments with what could be a smaller Navy in the near term.

3.3 Recommendations:

1. Restructure officer career paths, particularly for surface warfare officers,

to refocus on mastering skills crucial to the Navy.

a. Seek legislation to relax Goldwater-Nichols Act promotion 

requirements by lowering the required percentage of joint qualified 

officers. In the absence of relaxed legislation, take maximum 

advantage of the waiver provisions in the Goldwater-Nichols Act. 

Simultaneously, work with the Office of the Secretary of Defense

and the Joint Staff to reduce the number of staff tour billets, 

particularly officer billets, outside the Department of the Navy. 

b. Amend Defense Officer Personnel Management Act related statutes 

and policies to allow the Secretary of the Navy to retain a modest 

number of qualified Lieutenants and Lieutenant Commanders to 

serve extended careers without convening boards for their 

selection and annual retention. 

c. Amend Defense Officer Personnel Management Act related statutes 

and policies to remove Limited Duty Officers from control grade 

table strengths (O4 to O6) and allow the Navy to build more deep 

naval expertise.

d. Discontinue the fleet-up model for surface ships and place a shore 

tour between Executive Officer and Commanding Officer tours, 

except in exceptional cases mandated by unusual career paths or 

needs of the Navy. The Strategic Review recognizes that there are 

likely costs associated with such a change, including the potential 

for lower retention, greater permanent change of station costs, and 

the need for longer or additional screening boards each year.
50

e. Restrict the practice of surface warfare officers serving their second 

division officer tours on embarked staffs to those who were 

preselected to convert to a restricted line community.

f. Review the number/length of department head tours and the 

number of department heads required per ship.

2. Establish a process to measure the true workload of ships’ crews, both 

periodically and after upgrades and modernizations, to determine if 

manpower models adequately predict personnel requirements at sea and 

in port. This should include identification and quantification of added 

demands and additional work that affect readiness and technical 

qualifications. 

a. Adjust ship manning levels to allow for adequate crew rest, 

performance of extraneous and collateral duties, training (routine, 

on-the-job, and new hardware/software) that occurs while aboard 

ship, and should include some excess capacity.

3. Require officers to maintain a career record of watch-standing hours and 

specific operational evolutions for surface ship watch standers, similar to 

naval aviator flight hour logs and separate from current deck logs. 

 

4. Establish minimum hour and evolution requirements to become/remain a 

qualified Officer of the Deck, Combat Information Center Watch Officer 

and Tactical Action Officer.

5. Require successful completion of relevant simulator training scenarios to 

maintain watch-standing qualifications.
51

CHAPTER 4: Fiscal Disconnect

The Comprehensive Review was not tasked to delve into the impact the Navy’s 

budget had on the recent spate of operational incidents. This Strategic Review

considered the ramifications of resourcing decisions on readiness, particularly

those affecting manning, maintenance, and operations of the fleet. Ultimately, 

the funds appropriated for the Navy enable all the Navy does. There is no 

specific or direct tie between the Navy’s funding levels, the Budget Control Act,

or the recurring use of Continuing Resolutions and the incidents in the Pacific , 

but there is a correlation between resourcing levels and the priority the Navy 

places on various operating, manpower, and recapitalization accounts that make 

up the Navy’s Budget.

4.1 The Mirage of the Peace Dividend

In the late 1980s, the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union imploded resulting in a 

unipolar world with the U.S. as the sole remaining superpower. Desert Storm

seemingly validated the idea that there were no militaries in the world capable of 

competing with the U.S. on any front or in any domain. The conviction that the 

resources required for Cold War-level peer-on-peer competition was a costly 

anachronism was the basis for the national decision to pursue a “Peace Dividend” 

that would reduce spending on the military.

Between 1990 and 2000, spending on Defense was reduced from $299.3B to 

$294.5B (baseline Fiscal Year 1990$). Adjusted for inflation, this is a real decline 

of between 20 and 25 percent (depending on the standard used to measure 

inflation over this period).

50

 This budget reduction resulted in a significant 

downsizing from 570 ships in 1990 to 318 ships in 2000.

51

 This reduction in force 

structure had significant negative impact as the number of deployed ships

remained constant at pre-Peace Dividend levels of about 100 ships worldwide,

increasing the percentage of the fleet that was deployed.

52

 

50 David R. Henderson, US Federal Budget Restraint in the 1990s: A Success Story, Mercatus Research Center, George 

Mason, University, Jun 2015.

51 Department of the Navy, Ship Annual Supplemental Data Tables (SASDT), dated 7 Jul 2017.

52 Highlights of the Department of the Navy 2017 Budget, pg 1-2, Feb 2016.
52

This fiscal reset caused the smaller Navy to pursue a number of models for 

conducting maintenance, training, modernization, and manning of its fleet in 

order to sustain the high operational tempo that continues today. Consequently, 

the Navy shifted from long-duration periodic maintenance overhauls to a concept 

of a “Continuous Maintenance Plan” where maintenance was performed in 

shorter duration, more frequent, higher intensity periods. Additionally, the Navy 

increased the number of forward deployed forces to generate greater presence 

from the smaller fleet. Finally, the Navy expanded the number of rotationally 

crewed ships and introduced the concept of Optimal Manning to reduce the cost 

of sustaining the ships in the fleet.

Even with these changes, the Navy was unable to address the mismatch in its 

resources and missions. On the eve of the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the Navy had 

reached a tipping point and could no longer continue to provide ready forces 

forward within the existing funding. The morning of 9/11, the Chief of Naval 

Operations was considering retirement of an entire Carrier Battle Group to 

rebalance the size of the fleet with the resources available.

53

While the events of 9/11

changed the trajectory of 

the nation’s military and 

increased the resources 

available to support the 

global effort that 

followed, there were two 

significant impacts on the 

Navy different from the 

other services. First, 

because Operation 

Enduring Freedom and 

Operation Iraqi Freedom were both principally land wars, the additional

supplemental funding, and later the Overseas Contingency Operations funding,

 

53 Admiral Vern Clark remarks, "Meeting the Homeland Defense Challenge: Maritime and Other Critical Dimensions", 

Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, March 26, 2002.

Figure 4-1: Overseas Contingency Operations Distribution in the Department 

of Defense
53

were rationally, yet disproportionally, aligned to the land components of the 

warfighting effort – Figure 4-1 is germane.54

Second was the impact of increased tempo of Navy operations supporting

Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom. What funds the Navy 

did receive through Overseas Contingency Operations only paid the operating 

bills for ships and aircraft when in theater doing something that was war 

related.

55

 As the basic deployments to these areas were “included in the cost of 

the Navy,” the only costs that were reimbursed were those that could be 

delineated as being more than the normal cost of deployed operations for the 

fleet. As reflected in the results of the February 2010 “Balisle Report,

56

” the 

overall material condition of the fleet suffered as readiness and training levels fell

to unacceptable levels.

The impact of post 9/11 increased service-life consumption of ships and aircraft

was unaddressed; as was the throughput of the repair industrial base that was 

inadequate to account for the accelerated rate at which the ships and aircraft 

were aging from high utilization rates. While the Navy sought budgetary “reset” 

relief from Overseas Contingency Operations, it received it for only those repairs 

that represented combat zone losses or deferred/delayed surface ship 

maintenance. The remaining reset needs were not funded. 

Though the 9/11 surge was 16 years ago, ships are still deploying for seven 

months or more in each cycle; deployed aircraft are still operating at 

approximately 120% of planned levels, and operational demands remain above 

those provided in the Global Force Management process.

57

 The constrained 

repair industrial base, resized during the Base Realignment and Closure actions 

incident to the Peace Dividend, is still inadequate to meet the current 

maintenance throughput demand.

 

54 US Government Accounting Office, “Overseas Contingency Operations: OMB and DoD Should Revise the Criteria for 

Determining Eligible Costs and Identify the Costs Likely to Endure Long Term,” GAO-17-68: Published: Jan 18, 2017; 

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE FISCAL YEAR 2015 BUDGET AMENDMENT, UNDER SECRETARY 

OF DEFENSE (COMPTROLLER), JUNE 2014.

55 US Government Accounting Office, “Overseas Contingency Operations: OMB and DoD Should Revise the Criteria for 

Determining Eligible Costs and Identify the Costs Likely to Endure Long Term,” GAO-17-68: Published: Jan 18, 2017

56 Fleet Review Panel of Surface Force readiness, VADM(ret) Balisle, 26 Feb 2010.

57 Chief of Naval Operations, ADM John Richardson, Oral Statement to Senate Armed Services Committee, US Navy 

Posture Hearings, 15 Jun 2017.
54

The mismatch in requirements and throughput capacity is most evident in the 

inability of the Navy’s Aviation Depot Repair facilities to meet the maintenance 

demand. It has resulted in a backlog of almost 300 F/A-18C/D Hornet aircraft, 

about half the inventory of these aircraft, awaiting induction into repair.

58

 

Additionally, the F/A-18 E/F Super Hornet aircraft, procured at a rate of 48 per 

year, are projected to enter the maintenance pipeline at ~60 aircraft per year. 

That pipeline is also inadequately sized for what will be required.

In addition to these aircraft challenges, the attack submarine force is 

experiencing an equivalent mismatch between capacity and required throughput. 

A maintenance backlog has idled 15 nuclear-powered attack submarines for a 

total of 177 months, which amounts to about 15 lost submarine-years. The 

approximate 18-month delay of BOISE59 is the most visible instance of this 

backlog. While the Navy could outsource more of this work, the capacity of the 

ship maintenance sector has been reduced by consolidations and changes in the 

Navy’s maintenance philosophy over the years.

60,

 Driven by limited funding, a 

smaller Navy, and changes in the way the Navy maintains its ships and airplanes, 

many of the private-sector repair activities that supported Navy maintenance in 

the 1990s are no longer in business. Those that remain have limited capacity to 

absorb new production work without impacting planned work. Even if the Navy 

could shift work to them, and people could be hired to do the work, there would 

still be a lag in the time it takes to recover the maintenance backlog. 

 

58 VADM William Moran Testimony and Remarks, House Committee on the Armed Services, State of the Military 

Hearings, 7 Feb 2017.

59 Statement Of VADM Grosklags, Commander, Naval Air Systems Command, And VADM Moore, Commander, Naval 

Sea Systems Command, Subcommittee On Readiness And Management Support, Senate Armed Services Committee, 

On Depots, Shipyards, Arsenals And Ammo Plants, March 29, 2017.

60 Opening Statement by Ranking Member Reed at Senate Armed Services Committee Hearing on US Navy Posture, 15 

Jun 2017 ; Chief of Naval Operations, ADM John Richardson; Oral Statement to Senate Armed Services Committee, 

US Navy Posture Hearings, 15 Jun 2017; VADM William Moran Testimony and Remarks, House Committee on the 

Armed Services, State of the Military Hearings, 7 Feb 2017; US Government Accounting Office, “Naval Shipyards, 

Actions Needed to improve Poor Conditions that Affect Operations,” GAO-17-548, Sep 2017, pages 20-21.
55

As indicated in the graph at Figure 4-2, the discussion and actions by Congress 

have been focused on where the Department of Defense, and by inference the 

Navy budget, has gone since the inception of the Budget Control Act. As noted

earlier in this report, the Navy has become inculcated with the “normalization-ofdeviation.” That is also how leadership has come to view the Navy’s funding 

level. The last budget submitted by the Navy prior to the Budget Control Act was 

the President’s Fiscal Year 2012 Budget Submission. This was also the last time 

the Navy had sufficient resources to operate at its present levels without having 

to markedly decrease funding for ships, weapons and aircraft procurement, 

equipment modernization, shore infrastructure, and the maintenance backlog.

61

Since then the Navy has accumulated an approximately $102B shortfall between 

the enacted base budgets and what the budgets projected in Fiscal Year 2012

would have been.

The Budget Control Act impacted every Navy appropriation. However, its 

greatest impact occurred in the Operations and Maintenance, Navy account, 

which has a one-year service life and is the primary readiness account supporting 

 

61 Statement of Vice Admiral Joseph P. Mulloy (et al) before the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Readiness, 16 

Mar 2017.

Figure 4-2: Department of Navy Budget Fiscal Year 2012-Fiscal Year 2018
56

maintenance, steaming days, flight hours, spares replenishment, and unit 

training. The long-term effect of budget shortfalls, sequestration implications, 

risk mitigation strategies, and trades-offs made to finance deployed fleet

readiness levels was the Navy’s battle-force ship inventory continuing to fall until 

it reached a low of 271 ships in 2015.62 

Nevertheless, the Navy continues to operate at or above the levels required in 

Fiscal Year 2012, thereby accumulating a readiness debt associated with the lack 

of maintenance availability and inadequate training time.

63

 More resources can

alleviate this problem, however, until the Navy’s budget is increased by the 

Congress, it is imperative the Navy’s operational tempo be lowered to bring it

into line with the level of funding appropriated.

4.2 Impact of Continuing Resolutions

The ingrained expectation of a Continuing Resolution continues to push the Navy 

toward increasingly inefficient decisions in the way it operates.

64

 Today the Navy 

is at the minimum sustaining rate in almost all weapons procurement programs, 

which has resulted in companies being required to shrink and consolidate since 

they cannot remain fiscally viable at the low procurement levels extant in today’s 

environment. Even though the Navy is expending ordnance at higher rates than 

planned, the Navy is unable to easily address the problem as the precision 

weapons in highest demand are production limited, not appropriations limited.

Navy’s modernization efforts are yet another example of the impact of 

unpredictable funding and timing. The low rate at which the Navy installs crucial

ballistic missile defense system upgrades and its inability to procure and install 

efficient quantities of Consolidated Afloat Networks and Enterprise Services are 

indicative of the limitations on the Navy’s ability to make sufficient numbers of 

ships available for extended modifications and the lack of sufficient resources 

necessary to support these needed warfighting upgrades. The most significant 

limitation is the lack of ship availability for upgrades, which derives from those 

 

62 Ship Annual Supplemental Data Tables (SASDT) of July 2017.

63 Statement of Vice Admiral Joseph P. Mulloy (et al) before the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Readiness, 16 

Mar 2017.

64 Statement of ADM Jonathan Greenert before the Senate Committee on Appropriations, Subcommittee on Defense, 4 

Mar 2015.
57

ships being needed to support planned and emergent operational requirements. 

These delayed upgrade installations cause the overall modernization effort to be 

drawn out resulting in multiple configurations, more unique training, inadequate 

supply and maintenance support, and, in some cases, obsolescence upon 

installation.

The Navy has been able to meet the requirement for “forces forward,” but it has 

come at a significant cost. There have been reductions in, or suspension of,

operations not considered necessary to fulfill on-going missions assigned to 

deployed forces supporting Combatant Commanders. If a unit is not on 

deployment or in a “next-to-deploy” status, its stock orders have been put on 

hold, some training opportunities deferred, and its maintenance delayed until the 

Navy was certain funding would be made available. Most significantly, the Navy’s 

Facilities Sustainment, Restoration, and Modernization accounts were used as 

the perennial “bill payers” to meet the needs of forces forward. The net result is 

that these accounts are at the lowest level they have been in many years.

65

 At 

some point, the decline in readiness of facilities will manifest itself as another 

example of “normalization-of-deviation.”

While the standard for facilities sustainment should be in the range of 85% of the 

sustainment model funding levels, the Navy is only reaching the 70% level.

66

 

Since the facilities that directly impact ship and aircraft operations (e.g. piers, 

runways, aprons) are fully funded within this account, this means the remaining 

infrastructure (e.g. barracks, family service centers, training facilities) is limited to 

funding at about half the prescribed level. As a result, these accounts can no 

longer be raided to pay the bills for the operating forces forward. The material 

condition of the shore infrastructure must now be addressed as well.

67

 

65 House Committee on the Armed Services, State of the Military Hearings, 7 Feb 2017, VADM William Moran Testimony 

and Remarks.

66 Statement of Vice Admiral Joseph P. Mulloy (et al) before the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Readiness, 16 

Mar 2017.

67 Statement Of VADM Grosklags, Commander, Naval Air Systems Command, and VADM Moore, Commander, Naval 

Sea Systems Command, Subcommittee On Readiness And Management Support, Senate Armed Services Committee, 

On Depots, Shipyards, Arsenals And Ammo Plants, March 29, 2017.
58

4.3 Unintended Consequences

Sequestration and the Budget Control Act: While the Budget Control Act and 

Sequestration are the most visible examples of recent budget actions that have 

affected the Navy’s ability to meet its mission demands, the core issue is the 

imbalance between the level of funding made available to the Navy and the 

operating tempo it is being required to support.

68

 Without additional long-term 

funding, the Navy must balance the fleet size, manning levels, readiness, and 

training needs with the resources being made available and the missions it is 

being assigned. Ultimately, the capacity of the Navy is a function of the money 

appropriated by Congress. The Navy cannot reasonably be expected to continue 

to “do the same with less.” 

Continuing Resolutions: The Navy relies on Congress to pass budgets, which it 

has repeatedly failed to do in a timely manner in spite of the arguments of some 

Senators to return to timely Appropriations Bills and away from continuing 

resolutions.

69

 Continuing resolutions are not new. In fact, the Department of 

Defense has operated under a continuing resolution for 33 of the last 42 years.

70

A continuing resolution is particularly problematic for the Department of 

Defense. As a highly capitalized department, a continuing resolution frequently 

results in funding being in the wrong appropriation account or not permitting

ramp-ups in procurement quantity or program new-starts as planned for in

upcoming budgets. This inability to align funding to the correct area presents a 

particular challenge for the Navy since many of its programs are supported by 

line-item appropriations, depriving the Navy of flexibility in addressing continuing 

resolution shortfalls. Additionally, since it cannot plan for ramp-ups, or take 

advantage of savings opportunities, the Navy is limited to executing contracts 

that may not be a “best value” to the Department of Defense.

71

 

68 Statement of ADM Jonathan Greenert before the Senate Committee on Appropriations, Subcommittee on Defense, 4 

Mar 2015.

69 John McCain slams Congress for “failure” of another continuing resolution, Washington Examiner, Pete Kasperowicz, 

Sep 7 2017.

70 What the Continuing Resolution Means for Defense Spending in Fiscal Year 2018, Center For Strategic and 

International Studies, 27 Sep 2017.

71 Statement of ADM John Richardson before the Senate Committee on Armed Services, 15 Sep 2016.
59

The limitations of continuing resolutions have created a culture that behaves in 

ways that are not aligned with achieving “best value” for the government since 

the combination of the delays from the continuing resolution and the limitations 

on appropriation life do not afford the Navy adequate time to engage in “best 

value” practices. As appropriations have “life limits,” contracting officers must 

reach a negotiated agreement before funding expires - even if the negotiated 

position is not a “best value.” Since the continuing resolution cuts into the 

available life of the Operations and Maintenance, Navy appropriations, it is a 

major contributing factor in this unintended “normalization-of-deviation”.

Surface Ship Steaming Days: Steaming Days is a fiscal calculation that is used to 

budget for ship fuel expenditure rates. This fuel computation has always been

burdened with all the ancillary costs associated with sustaining a ship, such as 

consumables, utility payments when in port, and spare parts. As the funding is 

only tangentially related to the actual number of days a specific ship is underway,

it is only a partial indicator of the level of operations and training provided to that

ship. Furthermore, Steaming Days has come to be accepted as the standard by 

which ships are assessed for readiness even though it actually has very little 

direct correlation to that readiness. The failure to recognize this difference has 

resulted in a misunderstanding of what it really takes to make a ship ready for 

deployed operations. Compounding this misunderstanding is the aggregation of 

data resident in Steaming Days, hampering senior leadership’s ability to 

differentiate the individual readiness levels of the forces assigned to them while 

simultaneously providing a false sense of overall fleet readiness. 

Ship Depot Maintenance: Funding enables the Navy’s ability to conduct 

maintenance. However, it is what maintenance is performed that is most 

important. The Navy must address the accelerated consumption of service life 

that is occurring while simultaneously meeting the operating demands on its

smaller fleet. Just like any other equipment, the more a ship is used, the more 

cycles placed on it, the greater the likelihood it will fail - and fail earlier than 

planned. Unlike aircraft that have very well-defined end-of-life criteria (total 

number of catapult assisted takes-offs, arrested landing limits, and flight hour 

end-of life criteria) or submarines that have an engineering limit (reactor 

operations or hull submerge/surface cycles) with which the Navy sets safety 
60

limits for continued operations, surface ships are built with redundancies to 

degrade gracefully. It is this very characteristic that makes them survivable in 

combat – there are almost no single-point failures. However, the resiliency of 

surface ships is a double-edged sword. The Navy has a long established standard 

that surface ships can get underway if they meet “minimum operational 

equipment” standards. As long as they are certified in the mission area upon 

which the Navy is sending them, the Navy can waive the remainder of the 

certifications. It is this permitted alteration of standards that is at the very core

of “normalization-of-deviation”.

Since 2009, the actual execution of funds in the ship maintenance account has 

exceeded the requested amount by a cumulative $4.63B72 (Figure 4-3 is 

germane). While some of this difference is attributable to collisions, groundings 

and other casualties (fire/flooding), it is indicative of the inaccuracy of the models 

in their ability to predict actual maintenance requirements when the Navy is 

operating the fleet continuously at higher than expected levels.

The Navy assesses and funds a ship’s maintenance requirements two years prior 

 

72 Historical Readiness Funding Data Provided by Captain Kott, OPNAV N801, Branch Head, Navy Program Planning and 

Development, 12 Oct 2017

Figure 4-3: Ship Depot Maintenance Funding Fiscal Year 2009-Fiscal Year2017
61

to inducting the ship into its maintenance availability. When the ship is finally 

entered into the maintenance period the Navy invariably finds emergent 

problems not identified in the planning process. Since ship maintenance 

availabilities (as described in section 4.1 above) are now intentionally shorter, the

capacity of facilities and personnel are limited by the system’s ability to accept 

and adjust for these emergent issues. The emergent problems have not had

planning and design work done to fix them; the parts have not been ordered; the 

job has not been efficiently sequenced into the scope of work nor has it been 

included in the overall production plan. Overcoming all of this ultimately makes 

the total bill higher than planned.

The reality is that today’s smaller fleet, like its larger predecessor, is supporting a 

100-ship deployed force worldwide, which has accelerated the consumption of 

ships’ service lives. Moreover, it is taxing the crews of today’s 279 ship73 fleet to 

maintain these assets while working to keep up the pace of operations that the 

~594 ships did in 1987.

4.4 Recommendations:

1. Establish a better fiscal balance among the requirements for the operating 

tempo of the existing fleet, maintenance and material reset, required 

training and manning, and the resources necessary to accomplish these 

functions.

2. Seek to extend the expiration date of the Operations and Maintenance, 

Navy appropriation from Congress - either by getting language that begins 

the 1-year appropriation life at enactment; or by proposing a 2-year 

Operations and Maintenance, Navy appropriation life to accommodate the 

habitual practice of continuing resolutions.

3. Adopt a Training & Readiness matrix (similar to the aviation Training and 

Readiness matrix) to define what each ship must accomplish in each phase 

of training, the number of times it has to be demonstrated, how many 

 

73 Ship count effective 17 Nov 2017 as reflected in the Supplemental Ship and Aircraft Data tables.
62

times it can be simulated, and what the external grading criteria are for 

meeting the requirements for each level of certification.

a. Develop effective measures of overall ship readiness that accurately 

describe what is necessary to achieve and maintain certification in 

each warfare area.

4. Implement a maintenance standard that returns to longer depot 

maintenance periods rather than the current continuous maintenance 

philosophy to deal more efficiently with the impacts of emergent work 

and work delays.

a. Create a means to articulate more comprehensive work packages.

b. Reinstitute a ship-check validation process.
63

CHAPTER 5: Governance

Unlike the Comprehensive Review, the scope of this Strategic Review includes 

“stresses on the force and the overall culture of operational risk management, 

training and department organization.”74 This Strategic Review also considers 

governance structure and oversight external to the Navy.75

5.1 External Governance Structure

The Goldwater-Nichols Act, originated as a reform effort in the aftermath of the

failed Iran hostage rescue (1980), the Beirut bombing (1983), and Grenada 

operations (1983). With bipartisan support, Congress passed the GoldwaterNichols Act, fundamentally changing the Department of Defense. The

congressional intent was straightforward -- the Goldwater-Nichols Act was 

intended to “. . . place clear responsibility on the commanders of the Unified and 

Specified Combatant Commands for the accomplishment of missions assigned to 

those commands, and to ensure that the authority of the commanders . . . is fully 

commensurate with the responsibility of those commanders for the 

accomplishment of missions assigned to their commands . . . “

76

 

The effect of the Goldwater-Nichols Act was to augment command relationships, 

strengthen the role of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, enhance joint 

procurement, and redesign personnel incentives to prioritize “jointness” among 

the services. However, the Goldwater-Nichols Act did not expressly define 

responsibility for readiness, or whether readiness should be considered part of 

the mission. To be clear, this Strategic Review sees the balance between mission 

demands and mission readiness (short term vs long-term attributes) as vital and 

complementary. 

A primary impact of the Goldwater-Nichols Act was to effectively remove the 

Military Department Secretaries and Service Chiefs from the operational military 

chain of command. The Service Chiefs were assigned an advisory role to the 

 

74 Governance structure and oversight, internal and external to the Navy, was not within the scope of the Comprehensive 

Review.

75 These conclusions and recommendations apply to external governance. Findings and recommendations relating to 

internal Navy command and control are explained in Chapter 2 of this report.

76 Congressional Declaration of Policy, Public Law 99-433, Section 3; 10 U.S.C. § 111 Note.
64

President and the Secretary of Defense and were given the responsibility,

delegated from their Service Secretaries, for manning, training, and equipping 

units for use by the Combatant Commanders. However, while the assets are 

being operationally employed by the Combatant Commanders, the Secretary of 

the Navy and Chief of Naval Operations relinquished decisional authority over 

managing the continued readiness of those assets.

The first opportunity to test the effectiveness of the Goldwater-Nichols Act was 

Operation Desert Storm (1991) at the end of the Cold War. Since then, Congress 

and the Department of Defense have continued to refine the Goldwater-Nichols 

Act’s relevance and implementation for post Desert Shield/Storm expected 

peacetime environment and the post 9/11 world of Counter-Terrorism campaigns 

that followed. At the same time, without the global pressures of the Cold War,

full spectrum operational demand materially changed, masking any ambiguities 

of operations-readiness responsibilities against a peer competitor.

While appropriately correcting the operational deficiencies of the Department of 

Defense, the Goldwater-Nichols Act retained the basic organizational framework 

established by the National Security Act of 1947. The provisions of the 

Goldwater-Nichols Act legislation having a major impact on the Services include 

strengthening and expanding the "full operational command" authority of 

Combatant Commanders and specifying that the functions of the Military 

Departments (to recruit, organize, supply, equip, train, etc.) are undertaken to 

meet the operational requirements of those commands. This division of labor 

required Combatant Commanders to focus on warfighting while the Service 

Secretaries and Service Chiefs focused on preparing forces and apportioning 

resources. To coordinate these two distinct functions, the responsibility and 

authority of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was expanded. 

The two areas that the Goldwater-Nichols Act profoundly impacted were officer 

career paths77 and chains of command and associated authority. With respect to 

lines of authority, although military advice often comes through the Chairman of 

the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the operational chain of command runs from the 

 

77 Findings and recommendations relating to manning and training are explained in Chapter 3 of this report.
65

President to the Secretary of Defense to the regional Combatant Commanders. 

Service Chiefs, who best understand the capabilities and readiness of their forces

and who are supported by the significant doctrine development and tactical 

expertise of their school houses, and the strategic insights from their staff and 

war colleges, are not part of that process. 

The Goldwater-Nichols Act’s concept of “jointness” has been effective in the 

areas of ongoing operations and contingency planning. It addresses the 

immediate issues, often in crisis situations, but has no stake in the balance of 

current needs against the need for sustained capability to defend or deter an 

agile peer by working the painstaking effort to sustain readiness. The Combatant 

Commanders are invested appropriately in deploying the most effective force 

now, rather than focused on what must be available for the future. As the 

Government Accountability Office has repeatedly pointed out, the Department of 

Defense has struggled with readiness. The Strategic Review found that this 

struggle is, in part, an outgrowth of an imbalance between operations and longterm readiness embedded in the Goldwater-Nichols Act authorities.

Specifically in the area of readiness, under the Goldwater-Nichols Act, there are

confusing lines of authority and separation of, and competition between,

readiness and operational responsibilities.78 In the Navy, multiple organizations, 

such as the Naval Sea Systems Command, shipyards, U.S. Fleet Forces Command, 

Pacific Fleet, type commanders, and overlapping Office of the CNO and 

secretariat organizations (e.g., Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Manpower and 

Reserve Affairs and N1 for training; Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, 

Development, and Acquisition and N9 for procurement), bear some responsibility 

for readiness. When Combatant Commanders ask the Navy to assign forces there 

is a conditioned presumption that the ship or aircraft squadron will be ready for 

safe and effective operations in the manner the Combatant Commander requires 

during the entire time of its assignment. However, the current layers of authority 

and control on Navy forces removes the Chief of Naval Operations and Secretary 

of the Navy from the decisions made regarding extensions of ship on-station 

time, length of deployments , mission assignments, and training certification 

 

78 “The Force We Have: Jointness hobbles the services in a decentralized fight,” Armed Forces Journal, June 1, 2006. 

http://armedforcesjournal.com/the-force-we-have/,
66

extensions. Unless the authority over these decisions can be restored, ships will 

continue to be operated when they are no longer fully certified in all their 

respective primary missions or have inadequately trained crews to meet the full 

range of operational assignments.

The Goldwater-Nichols Act was enacted in 1986, when the nation had a nearly 

600-ship Navy. The number of ships has been declining since then and the Navy 

currently has only 279 deployable battle-force ships79. If a ship does not, or 

cannot, maintain readiness standards during its operational employment, there is 

no clear authority advocating for further readiness development before 

deployment or corrective action while employed. In a peer-on-peer environment 

there is no margin for error or delay and it is critical that warfighting readiness be 

established as a key parameter in considering mission requirements.80

While the Goldwater-Nichols Act has been effective in enhancing current joint 

force operations, after more than 30 years of existence it and its implementing 

details have not been substantially reviewed for its overall effectiveness for a 

return to peer-on-peer competition.

5.2 External Governance Oversight

While the size of the Navy and the number of personnel has steadily declined 

since 1985, the oversight and direction by external entities has significantly 

increased. External oversight and direction comes in the form of legislation 

(such as the annual National Defense Authorization Act), and major enduring 

legislation (such as the Defense Officer Personnel Management Act and the 

Goldwater-Nichols Act), regulations (such as regulating operations through State 

Coastal Commissions) and directives from the Department of Defense. Congress

has become increasingly directive in National Defense Authorization Acts, 

managing Navy affairs to small details. Annual National Defense Authorization 

Acts grew progressively more complex and were frequently accompanied by 

House and Senate language that mandated additional reporting. The Navy is also 

 

79 Ship count effective 17 Nov 2017 as reflected in the Supplemental Ship and Aircraft Data tables

80 In contrast, in the nuclear Navy, Naval Reactors has the authority and responsibility to take decisive action for the 

ship’s readiness, even if that means informing the Combatant Commanders the assigned asset is unavailable until it is 

ready for the specific mission needed.
67

subject to complex regulatory regimes in the areas of personnel, acquisition,

operations, and the environment.

With respect to congressional oversight and direction, the Navy is a compliancebased organization and dedicates whatever resources, including staffing, 

necessary to respond to oversight and direction. Such compliance is resource 

intensive and frequently distracts leadership’s attention from its primary 

responsibilities. Responding to ever-increasing National Defense Authorization 

Act direction, environmental, safety, and acquisition requirements, as well as

other legal obligations, requires significantly increasing involvement by the 

Secretary and the Chief of Naval Operations.

81

 

The annual National Defense Authorization Acts have grown increasingly 

voluminous and complicated. As a frame of reference, the Fiscal Year 1985 

National Defense Authorization Act82 was 169 pages and contained 211 

provisions. By contrast, the Fiscal Year 2017 National Defense Authorization 

Act83 was 970 pages and contained 929 provisions.84 The accompanying 

congressional reports for the Fiscal Year 2017 National Defense Authorization 

Act, which are also directive in nature, totaled nearly 3,100 pages.85 

Similarly, reporting requirements to Congress have also grown significantly. In 

Fiscal Year 2015, Congress mandated 69 reports from the Navy. This number 

increased to 109 in Fiscal Year 2016, and to 135 in Fiscal Year 2017. In 

comparison, at the height of the Cold War, the Fiscal Year 1985 National Defense 

Authorization Act required submission of fewer than 25 reports to Congress from 

the entire Department of Defense.

86

 In Fiscal Year 2016, the Navy responded to 

 

81 Statutory, regulatory and policy requirements addressing personnel (including training and the Defense Officer 

Personnel Management Act) and budget (including the Budget Control Act) are addressed in Chapters 3 and 4 of this 

report. 

82 Public Law 98-525.

83 Public Law 114–328. 

84 While the growth has been steady since 1985, the increases in the complexity and volume of annual NDAA’s have 

increased rapidly since Fiscal Year 2005, which consisted of 389 pages and 458 provisions, and Fiscal Year 2014, 

which consisted of 494 pages and 552 provisions. The accompanying reports for Fiscal Year 2014 about 1,000 pages. 

Senate Report 113-44; House Report 113-102. There was no conference report accompanying the Fiscal Year 2014 

NDAA. 

85 Senate Report 114-255; House Report 114-537; House Report 114-840 (Conference Report).

86 The Navy started maintaining records of reports submitted to Congress in Fiscal Year 2000. Between Fiscal Year 2000 

and Fiscal Year 2015, the number of reports the Navy submitted to Congress each fiscal year were between 51 (in 

Fiscal Year2002) and 88 (in Fiscal Year2006). Since Fiscal Year 2015, there has been a significant spike in the 

number of reports submitted to Congress from the Navy. 
68

867 hearing-related taskers from Congress, and 1,656 Requests for Information, 

briefings, or visits. All of these took time and the attention of senior leadership.

In addition to direct congressional oversight, the Navy complies with a 

comprehensive set of external requirements relating to the environment and 

safety. The Navy must comply with at least 20 federal environmental and safety 

statutes, plus state statutes and policies directed by Executive Order or 

Departmental regulations. These statutes are complex and accompanied by 

comprehensive regulatory schemes established and enforced by multiple federal 

and state agencies. In addition to significant staffing to comply with these 

requirements, compliance with these statutes and regulations can require 

additional time, funding, and restructuring of programs and assets that can have 

a direct impact on readiness.

Similarly, the total number of provisions in Title VIII (Acquisition Policy, 

Acquisition Management, and Related Matters) of the National Defense 

Authorization Acts has risen significantly. The Fiscal Year 2016 and 2017 National 

Defense Authorization Acts contain nearly 200 acquisition provisions, each 

requiring compliance.87 Those Acts include a general policy of increasing Service 

Chief authority and accountability for acquisition programs. The Fiscal Year 2016 

National Defense Authorization Act (§§ 802, 825) mandates Service Chief 

involvement in decisions regarding resources, priorities, trade-offs, and 

milestones for major defense acquisition programs. The Fiscal Year 2017 

National Defense Authorization Act (§ 925) emphasizes the Service Chiefs’ 

responsibility for service-specific performance requirements. 

Since the Goldwater-Nichols Act was enacted, Congress has continued to conduct

detailed legislative oversight affecting the Department of Defense and the Navy 

leaderships’ flexibility to organize. An amendment to the Fiscal Year 2006 

Department Of Defense Appropriations Act88 mandated separation of U.S. Fleet 

Forces Command and Pacific Fleet functions. That provision was repeated each 

 

87 The Fiscal Year 2018 NDAA bill, H.R. 2810, contains 73 new acquisition provisions in Title VIII. Section 833 continues 

to increase the roles of the Service Chiefs in acquisition. Conference Report, H.R. 2810. 

88 Public Law 109-148, Section 8106. 
69

year, and required an act of Congress to change.89 The Fiscal Year 2017 

Consolidated Appropriations Act amended the provision:

Sec. 8058. None of the funds available to the Department of Defense may 

be obligated to modify command and control relationships to give Fleet 

Forces Command operational and administrative control of United States 

Navy forces assigned to the Pacific fleet: Provided, That the command and 

control relationships which existed on October 1, 2004, shall remain in 

force until a written modification has been proposed to the House and 

Senate Appropriations Committees: Provided further, That the proposed 

modification may be implemented 30 days after the notification unless an 

objection is received from either the House or Senate Appropriations 

Committees: Provided further, That any proposed modification shall not 

preclude the ability of the commander of United States Pacific Command 

to meet operational requirements.90

Fundamental to any chief executive officer’s authority is the ability to organize 

their enterprise to accomplish the selected vision and objectives. Similarly, in 

that capacity, the Secretary of the Navy needs such authority. So while this 

annual provision was well within the constitutional powers of the Congress, this 

Strategic Review finds such restrictions to be far removed from this fundamental. 

While in this case the Navy no longer is required to seek an act of Congress in the 

event it concludes change is warranted, congressional notification and 

acquiescence is still required. 

These increasingly detailed taskings and requirements stand in contrast to the 

Senate Armed Services Committee leadership’s recent return of acquisition 

responsibilities to the service chiefs and holding them accountable for improved 

acquisition performance. The Strategic Review concurs with this approach for 

 

89 This provision was repeated in the Fiscal Year 2007 Appropriations Act, Public Law 109-289, Section 8095; Fiscal Year 

2008 Appropriations Act, Public Law 110-116, Section 8082; Fiscal Year 2009 Appropriations Act, Public Law 110-329, 

Section 8078; Fiscal Year 2010 Appropriations Act, Public Law 111-118, Section 8077; Fiscal Year 2011 Appropriations 

Act, Public Law 112-10, Section 8073; Fiscal Year 2012 Appropriations Act, Public Law 112-74, Section 8072; Fiscal 

Year 2013 Appropriations Act, Public Law 113-6, Section 8071; Fiscal Year 2014 Appropriations Act, Public Law 113-

76, Section 8071; Fiscal Year 2015 Appropriations Act, Public Law 113-235, Section 8071; Fiscal Year 2016 

Appropriations Act, Public Law 114-113, Section 8056. 

90 Section 8054 of the Fiscal Year 2018 Appropriations Bill, H.R. 3219, repeats the language in section 8058 of the Fiscal 

Year 2017 Appropriations Act.
70

reducing the imposition of detailed direction beyond the specification of 

guidance, direction and objectives. This approach is more akin to the level of 

detail Congress used to guide the Department in the existential consequences of 

the peer-on-peer era of the Cold War. The level of authority and autonomy at 

that time drew some of the nation’s finest to civil positions in the Department of 

Defense and, with their uniformed leaders, the country ultimately prevailed in 

the great contest of ideologies that animated the Cold War.

5.3 Recommendation:

1. Submit a tightly drawn legislative proposal to delineate clearly the 

responsibility, authority, and accountability of Service Chiefs to declare an 

asset unavailable due to readiness shortcomings. As warfighting capacity 

and readiness are complementary, this recommendation does not imply 

reducing warfighting capacity while placing greater attention on readiness. 

The proposed legislation should require the Secretary of Defense to 

adjudicate any disagreements between the Service Chiefs and Combatant 

Commanders.

2. Seek relief, in coordination with the Office of the Secretary of Defense, 

from excessively detailed external oversight and reporting requirements.
71

CHAPTER 6: Industry Best Practices and 

Learning Cultures

The Comprehensive Review was focused primarily on the individual mishaps in 

the Western Pacific and, therefore, did not explicitly consider higher level 

accountability. While it noted systemic problems associated with risk mitigation 

that precipitated the recent mishaps and identified a number of corrective 

actions that may allow for some short-term improvement in reporting and 

analysis, it did not consider or evaluate holistic solutions to risk management. 

The Strategic Review evaluated the issue from a more long term institutional 

basis, considering best practices from industry that can inform the Navy’s 

approach to improving as a learning organization and addressing individual and 

institutional accountability in the context of readiness risk management. 

Well-intentioned, dedicated Navy leaders, faced with complex, near-term 

problems, have made difficult decisions over many years using the best available 

information. There is no single policy or leadership decision that caused the 

degradation of Navy readiness. Rather, it was a combination of Navy decisions 

made over time, without a full appreciation of the interrelated nature of the 

readiness components that contributed to the operational mishaps of the last 12 

months. 

 

The Navy is not unique in operating in complex environments challenged by 

compressed timelines, budget and resourcing constraints, rapid technological 

evolution, complex governance structures, and the independent actions of 

competitors. The accumulated weight of these factors stresses many 

organizations and, unless checked, often results in ineffective short-term 

solutions with unforeseen long-term impacts. In many cases, the impacts of 

expedient solutions are not apparent until examined after a tragic event.

6.1 Industry

To better understand the dynamics of how large complex organizations, like the 

Navy, learned and adapted following a tragic event or series of safety mishaps, 

this Strategic Review included discussions with key leaders of leading global 
72

companies in the aerospace, maritime, and medical industries.

91

 They were 

selected because they are recognized global leaders in their respective fields and 

because of their records of learning and changing after tragic events. Each 

company official articulated that, in retrospect, their tolerance for, and 

accumulation of, multiple, seemingly minor, decisions made to “get the job 

done”92 degraded recognition of unsafe daily operations. In every instance the 

consequences were the same – costly accidents, tragedies, and loss. Another

recurring theme was the tendency of organizations to develop a zero-defect 

culture that precluded identification of errors, omissions, and safety violations 

since there would be adverse impacts on the careers and jobs of those involved

in such events. This zero-defect mentality led to a lack of appreciation among 

corporate leaders concerning the number of near-misses that were occurring and 

might have proved useful as leading indicators of future potential problems.

These companies concluded that an expectation of perfection was not realistic,

nor was it reflective of actual practice. Each sought to change the zero defect 

mentality that did not support a culture of learning, trust building, or teamwork. 

Each company realized that if it was going to be competitive in a fast-paced 

environment, highly reliant on technology, their organizational culture had to 

change. Central to that change had to be leadership’s commitment to learning 

from near-mishaps in order to develop preventative measures that would avoid 

tragedy. This could only be achieved if leadership created the trust at the 

operational level necessary to report and learn from those near-misses. 

Additionally, each of the key company leaders recognized and appreciated a 

change was necessary. They took ownership of these problems, developed 

programs to address them, and then exercised direct oversight to initiate 

corrective action and created sustainable corrective action. 

Standards, and the manner in which they are enforced, drive execution in 

industry, as in the Navy. Successfully transformed companies recognized that 

ineffective systemic risk management practices are always at the root of their 

safety failures. Although each company had risk management programs in place,

 

91 The members of industry were forthcoming and transparent with the Strategic Review, including sharing proprietary 

information when relevant. The Review benefitted from their candid assessments and insights. This report does not 

include any proprietary information, which remains protected. A list of those consulted is contained in Appendix A.

92 This focus is similar to the “can do” or “mission first” focus noted by the Comprehensive Review.
73

these proved unsuccessful, resulting in lost revenue, time, and, lives.93 They 

became overly reliant on lagging indicators to manage their risk decisions. They 

also recognized they had to strengthen and refine their risk assessment and 

measurement processes, as well as accompanying safety practices, to be 

proactive vice reactive. That change required going beyond merely reporting 

incidents to consistently and aggressively searching for leading indicators to

enable process changes that could prevent undesirable incidents from 

happening. 

To survive, and thrive, attitudes regarding safety and risk management had to 

change at an individual level. For that to happen, employees had to trust that 

organizational leadership would focus on fixing the systemic contributors to 

mishaps or unsafe practices rather than searching for the personal failures that 

lead up to an accident or incident. Furthermore, company leaders had to 

convince their personnel that there was a culture of learning that embraced 

improvement rather than “indictment of the guilty.”

They established procedures to allow early identification and course correction of 

management decisions to effect safe operations, ensure corporate survival, and 

promote progression. Further, they realized that those changes must be processdriven if they are to be enduring. 

6.2 A Learning Culture

The Navy has a culture that currently prioritizes immediate mission 

accomplishment over long-term sustainable readiness. While the Navy espouses

a learning culture — and there are pockets of excellence — a myriad of previous 

readiness reviews, when viewed holistically, indicate there is much work to be 

done. There have been similar, repeated, conclusions and recommendations 

made over the years for improving Navy's overall readiness.

94

 A more structured, 

data-driven system for ensuring attention to, and learning from, the lessons of 

the past can only increase institutional attention to the core fundamentals of 

 

93 The Comprehensive Review noted similar problems in its review and concluded the Navy does not have a 

comprehensive effort to track indicators of risk, trained people to assess that information, nor an effective mechanism to 

share lessons learned across the spectrum. 

94 Fleet Review Panel of Surface Force Readiness, VADM (ret) Balisle, 26 Feb 2010; See also the series of GAO Reports 

focused on Navy Readiness from 2010 to the present.
74

safety, seamanship, and training. The Comprehensive Review echoes previous 

report findings and correctly identifies the Navy, in the aggregate, has not truly

embraced a culture of learning. 

A learning organization is an enterprise that encourages, and ultimately 

embraces, learning through systems thinking, personal mastery, mental models, 

shared vision, and team learning.

95 Faced with a dynamic environment, a

learning culture is critical to ensuring adaptability of the organization. A culture 

that makes people eager to understand risk enables early identification of 

systemic risks and behaviors before problems occur. It is a culture that embraces 

a willingness to investigate, analyze, assess, and learn from mistakes. 

Such a culture depends upon data and critical analyses to facilitate rapid, 

informed decisions. Leaders need objective, qualitative and quantitative data to 

identify potential risks. These are leading indicators, vice post-event trend 

analysis of lagging indicators the Navy uses now. Learning organizations 

anticipate human and system errors before they become critical. The Navy’s 

Digital Warfare Office is an example of an organization transitioning from lagging 

to leading indicator data analysis. Pilot programs are demonstrating that 

problem solving based on lagging indicators and insufficient data, fail to expose 

complex, underlying problems. By expanding their data sets, the Digital Warfare 

Office was able to identify leading indicators that allowed it to systemically 

address causal factors and avoid specific problems from being repeated. 

As previously stated, Navy readiness is a complex system-of-systems.

96

 Inherent 

in that construct is an interrelationship among multiple internal organizations 

and operations.97 Successfully achieving a culture of learning requires

implementation of a comprehensive system with clear lines of authority, 

accountability, and responsibility.

98

 With respect to risk management, the 

system must facilitate and engender the flow of information to the right people 

 

95 P.M. Senge, The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization. New York, NY. Doubleday (2006). 

96 N. W. Porter, N. W., The effects of system dynamics modeling on systems thinking in the context of strategic planning. 

Calhoun, Dudley Knox Library, Defense Technical Information Center (2014).

97 As this construct applies to the Navy and risk management, see the Figure I-1 on page 16.

98 Sydney Dekker, Just Culture, Restoring Trust and Accountability in Your Organization, Third Edition, CRC Press, 2007; 

A Roadmap to Just Culture: Enhancing the Safety Environment, Global Aviation Information Network (GAIN), Working 

Group E, Flight Ops/ATC Ops Safety Information Sharing, September 2004.
75

at the right time so the right actions can be taken. Further, a culture of learning 

will lead to a system that empowers, and incentivizes, people to maintain a 

questioning attitude, object to changes that adversely affect standards, or say no 

when conditions dictate. Designed and implemented correctly, a system with 

these characteristics would facilitate good decision-making that supports safety 

and effectiveness. Such a culture will improve more than risk management and 

safety, it will improve readiness, performance, and output at all levels. 

At the core of the learning organization is a process that correctly allocates 

responsibility for events, or near misses, whether caused by the system’s 

structure, or by individuals within that structure. If individuals are going to 

become a Team, and the Team’s culture is to be aligned throughout the 

organization, the institution has to share accountability. Accountability for 

repeated mishaps must assess the role played by policy decisions and processes 

extending far back in time that have resulted in, or inadvertently incentivized,

aberrant behavior and outcomes. Like the company leaders the Strategic Review

Team spoke with, Navy leadership must now take ownership of the issues and 

lead the corrective action not only in the specific shortfalls identified in the 

various investigations, but by addressing the decisions, programs, policies, and 

systemic gaps that would have avoided and/or arrested them.

Principles of accountability should embody the awareness that people make 

mistakes. Like current military justice principles, a learning culture will hold 

people accountable, but will not automatically punish them for every mistake.99 

Individual accountability for human error, alone, is insufficient and hollow. 

Institutional accountability, which addresses the underlying systemic contributors 

to the event, is, in many cases equally culpable.

100

 Findings from discussions with 

companies indicate a learning culture, with appropriate institutional and 

individual accountability, will lead to better decision making and improved 

performance. It will also engender individual trust in the institution leading to

 

99 Under the UCMJ, each commander and commanding officer has the authority to dispose of alleged offenses as he or 

 she sees fit, and has authority to dispose of allegations at the lowest appropriate level, from “no action,” to formal 

 disciplinary action. 

100 Sydney Dekker, Just Culture, Restoring Trust and Accountability in Your Organization, Third Edition, CRC Press, 2007.
76

increased reporting, sustained learning, and more effective readiness, safety, and 

risk management.101 

As indicated in the Comprehensive Review, flaws have been identified in the 

underlying systems, organization, processes, regulations, and culture that 

diminish Navy readiness. A shift to a learning culture will not happen overnight 

or with the stroke of a pen. As this Strategic Review gleaned from industry, it 

requires strong, committed leadership at every level to sustain the drive to a 

cultural change throughout the organization. More importantly, this cannot be 

lost as the responsibilities of command pass from one leader to another. The 

Navy must invest adequate time and resources in identifying, analyzing, and 

addressing the leading indicators that can be a precursor to catastrophic events 

or unintended consequences. To become a learning organization, leadership’s 

words and, more importantly, actions are critical to success. Leaders must not 

only direct cultural change, they must be unwavering advocates for change. 

If the Navy becomes a true learning organization, it can avoid the systemic pitfalls 

that have accumulated and that have led to the “normalization-of-deviation” that 

has taken root in the Navy. To achieve this, the Secretary of the Navy and the 

Chief of Naval Operations need to drive the effort for the Navy to become a true 

learning organization and embrace a culture of institutional accountability. 

6.3 Recommendations:

1. The Secretary of the Navy and Chief of Naval Operations, with the support 

of the Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy, must personally lead the 

Navy to a forward-looking learning culture. The authorities required to 

lead this change are directly resident within the positions of the Secretary 

of Navy and the Chief of Naval Operations. 

2. Create a forward-looking learning culture built upon systemic data 

analyses focused on leading indicators acquired throughout the Navy. 

 

101 A Roadmap to Just Culture: Enhancing the Safety Environment, Global Aviation Information Network (GAIN), Working 

 Group E, Flight Ops/ATC Ops Safety Information Sharing, September 2004.
77

3. Employ system dynamics modeling and simulation, projected over a 

protracted time, to assess the potential systemic effects of policies and 

force planning that impact the system-of-systems identified in this 

Strategic Review. 

4. Direct the Naval Safety Center to leverage and expand upon the work 

being done by the Digital Warfare Office to better identify leading 

indicators for use in predictive analysis.
78

Righting the Ship

The Navy is at its best when its institutional decision-making systems, its

organizations, its ships, and its people work together as a team. Just as it takes 

teamwork and a well-functioning system to succeed, major failures or tragic 

events are most often attributable to the confluence of human error, teamwork

failure, and larger systemic breakdowns.

Many of the problems noted throughout this report resulted from the 

“normalization-of-deviation.” Repeated well-intentioned individual management 

and risk-tradeoff decisions accumulated over the years, have layered one-uponanother without leaders duly considering the combined effects and second order 

implications of those decisions in changing security, funding, and governance 

environments. Whether driven by operational urgency, the demands of the 

mission, or the needs of the Navy, these decisions culminated in a Navy culture 

replete with examples of accepting “good enough” for the moment rather than 

the imperative of what is vital for the future until the organization could no 

longer identify “what right looks like.” This culture became the norm, and the 

leaders entrusted with defining the standards by which the fleet would operate 

came to see these manifested exceptions as the rule. As a result, safety and 

readiness eroded over time.

Righting the ship, to ensure the larger Navy deserves the trust of the officers and 

enlisted members who have put their trust in it, requires immediate, public, and 

sustained and committed leadership of the Secretary of the Navy and Chief of 

Naval Operations. Accountability must always fall primarily on commanders, but 

accountability must also be sought and assessed in a systemic way, at 

institutional levels, in the policy decisions and processes that can set the 

conditions for aberrant behavior and negative outcomes. Institutional

accountability to reverse the multi-decade encroachment of the “normalizationof-deviation” is where the Secretary of the Navy, Chief of Naval Operations and 

Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy must start.

Re-establish Readiness as a Priority: The ships, aircraft, and men and women of 

the Navy are finite resources. Those who man our ships are limited in the 
79

amount of time they have to perform equipment maintenance and build their 

warfighting skills. Those tasks must be on equal footing with “answering the bell”

to peacetime presence demands. There are only so many ships and sailors that 

can be made available in a given operational cycle. The in-stride reset of 

forward-deployed Navy forces needs a break in stride. Time must be set aside for 

crews to train on their equipment, to master its operation and maintain it, and to 

learn its, and their own, limitations. The core and primary competence of sailors

must be mastery of naval warfighting skills. While there is no substitute for atsea training for maintaining proficiency, some necessary building blocks require 

time in port to achieve and maintain. It takes time and repetition to master 

tasks such as navigation in heavily trafficked waters, alongside replenishment, 

anchoring, and making an approach to a pier. Failure to commit to readiness as a 

priority will inevitably reproduce the mistakes of the past. 

Match Supply and Demand: A significant reduction in the number of ships 

available, combined with an increasing operational tempo, forced the Navy to 

make hard decisions regarding the balance between operations and readiness. In 

that environment, a culture evolved that normalized the deviance associated 

with prioritizing current operations at the expense of future readiness. Global 

Force Management practices further exacerbate this, as Navy leaders 

consistently acquiesce to meeting emergent requirements with assets that are, at 

times, not ready. Leaders, both civilian and military, must accept that to restore 

the readiness of the fleet and eliminate the culture that normalizes deviation, the 

Navy will sometimes have to say no, ultimately meaning less short-term presence 

worldwide.

Establish clear Command and Control Relationships: Reorganizations within and 

above the Navy have changed force generation and employment processes and 

procedures. Cumulative changes have created redundancies, overlapping 

responsibilities, inconsistencies, and ambiguities that undid tightly aligned 

responsibility, authority, and accountability standards. These reorganizations led 

to a growth in headquarters with misaligned authorities, complicated command 

and control responsibilities, and diffuse accountability structures. Headquarters 

staffs acquired more personnel and became a significant driver of career 

patterns, promotions, and assignments. A growth in compliance requirements, 
80

accelerated by the growth in headquarters, competed with core readiness 

activities. The Strategic Review recommends a “clean sheet” review of Navy 

administrative organization and offers a revised organizational construct and 

authorities for managing Navy forces.

Become a True Learning Organization: Military operations are inherently risky. 

Human error will always exist; equipment will always fail; the strategic 

environment and adversaries will change. Organizational systems must be 

designed to anticipate and mitigate against these realities. Individual 

accountability for human error, alone, is insufficient and hollow. It rarely 

produces lasting organizational effects or betters the affected individuals in the 

absence of accompanying institutional accountability that addresses underlying 

systemic contributors to the event. Independent checks and balances must be in 

place and continually evaluated, thereby guarding against the “normalization-ofdeviation” that has been the thread running throughout the Strategic Review. 
81

Appendix A

List of Organizations Consulted

The Boeing Company

British Petroleum North America 

Carnival Corporation & PLC

Center for Naval Analyses

Crowley Maritime Corporation

Delta Air Lines, Inc.

Maersk Line, Limited 

Mayo Clinic

Naval Reactors

Naval Inspector General

Naval Safety Center

U.S. Government Accountability Office
82

Appendix B

List of Individuals Consulted

Hon. Richard J. Danzig, former Secretary of the Navy; Senior Advisor to the 

John Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (JHU/APL)

Mr. Gene L. Dodaro, Comptroller General of the United States, and Head of 

the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO)

Admiral (ret.) Kirkland H. Donald, former Director of Naval Nuclear 

Propulsion and Chief Executive Officer and the President of Systems Planning 

And Analysis, Inc.

Hon. Michèle A. Flournoy, former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy; 

Chief Executive Officer for the Center for a New American Security (CNAS)

Admiral (ret.) Edmund P. Giambastiani Jr., former Commander U.S. Joint 

Forces Command (USJFCOM) and Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff 

(VCJCS); Board of Trustees at The MITRE Corporation

Dr. John J. Hamre, former Deputy Secretary of Defense; Chief Executive 

Officer and President of Center for Strategic and International Studies, Inc. 

(CSIS) 

Admiral (ret.) John C. Harvey Jr., former Commander U.S. Fleet Forces 

Command; Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA)

Dr. Laura Junor, Institute for National Strategic Studies Director, National; 

Defense University, former Principal Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for 

Personnel & Readiness 

RADM (ret.) Anthony M. Kurta, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for 

Personnel & Readiness
83

Hon. John F. Lehman Jr., former Secretary of the Navy; Founder and Partner 

of J.F Lehman & Company

Mr. Troy J. Mueller, Naval Reactors

Hon. Sean C. O’Keefe, former Secretary of the Navy and Administrator of 

NASA; University Professor at Syracuse University Maxwell School of 

Citizenship and Public Affairs

Dr. Randy Papadopoulos, Historian, Department of the Navy

VADM Herman A. Shelanski, USN, Naval Inspector General
84

Appendix C

Strategic Readiness Review Team Members

Co-Leads

The Honorable Michael Bayer Admiral Gary Roughead, USN (ret)

Team Members

Dr. Russell Beland FLTCM Scott A. Benning, USN (ret)

Ms. Juliet Beyler VADM John T. Blake, USN (ret)

LCDR Adam R. Bush, USN RDML Hal H. Dronberger, JAGC USN (ret)

LT Nicholas W. Grady, USN YN2 Joshua E. Jenkins, USN

YNC Gracie D. Mancini-Rosas, USN LCDR Damon M. Melidossian, USN

CAPT James F. McCarthy, Jr., USN (ret) Dr. Wayne Porter, CAPT USN (ret)

Mr. Frank A. Putzu CAPT Paul Schmitt, USN (ret)

Ms. Sharon H. Smoot CAPT Philip E. Sobeck, USN

MCPON Rick West, USN (ret) Mr. Bryan Whitman
85

Appendix D

Acronyms

The following is a list of acronyms used in the report: 

ADCON Administrative Control

AOR Area of Responsibility

ASN Assistant Secretary of the Navy

ATG Afloat Training Group

BCA Budget Control Act

BMD Ballistic Missile Defense

C2 Command and Control

CCDR Combatant Commanders

CFFC Commander Fleet Forces Command

CJCS Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff

CLASSRON Class Squadron

CMC Commandant of the Marine Corps

CNO Chief of Naval Operations

CNSL Commander Naval Surface Force Atlantic

CNSP Commander Naval Surface Force Pacific

COMAIRFOR Commander Air Forces

COMNAVSURPAC Commander Naval Surface Force Pacific

COMPACFLT Commander Pacific Fleet

COMSUBFOR Commander Submarine Forces

CPF DET 

CNSGWP

COMPAC Fleet Detachment 

Commander Naval Surface Group Western Pacific

CR Continuing Resolution

DoD Department of Defense

DOPMA Defense Officer Personnel Management Act

FDNF Forward Deployed Naval Force

FFC Fleet Forces Command

FRP Fleet Response Plan

FY Fiscal Year

GCC Geographic Combatant Commander

NDAA National Defense Authorization Act
86

O&MN Operations and Maintenance, Navy

OCO Oversea Contingency Operations

OEF Operation Enduring Freedom

O-FRP Optimized Fleet Response Plan

OIF Operation Iraqi Freedom

OPCON Operational Control

OPNAV Office of the Chief of Naval Operations

OPTEMPO Operational Tempo

 SECNAV Secretary of the Navy
87

Appendix E

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3. Boning, Brent and Gelhaus, Raymond, Material Condition Analysis of Cruisers 

and Destroyers, 2017.

4. Campbell, Mark A., et al., A Persistent, Effective, and Affordable Global Fleet 

Station Concept, American Society of Naval Engineers #4, 2001.

5. Campbell Institute, National Safety Council, Practical Guide to Leading 

indicators: Metrics, Case Studies & Strategies.

6. Campbell Institute, National Safety Council, Transforming EHS Performance 

measurement Through Leading Indicators.

7. Carter, Walter E., RADM, USN, President US Naval War College, Ethics in the 

U.S. Navy, 18 Mar 14.

8. Clark, Vern, ADM, USN, Meeting the Homeland Defense Challenge: Maritime 

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9. Dekker, Sydney, Just Culture, Restoring Trust and Accountability in Your 

Organization, Third Edition, CRC Press, 2016.

10. Dolfini-Reed, Michelle A., et al., Alternative Sea Manning Concepts: Practices 

and Policy Implications, 2006.

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