"Pentagon Leaders Have Taken Lead in Crafting Future Fleet From Navy". https://news.usni.org/2020/06/24/pentagon-leaders-have-taken-lead-in-crafting-future-fleet-from-navy?utm_source=USNI+News&utm_campaign=e841b95e0c-USNI_NEWS_DAILY&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_0dd4a1450b-e841b95e0c-231518613&mc_cid=e841b95e0c&mc_eid=e6ef0937cb

Several forces at work here. 1) Well-intentioned desire to push the Navy in directions it may not want to go. 2) A healthy dose of "we know better than you" on the part of OSD. 3) Institutional weakness in the Navy after three years of pounding in the news (collisions, removal

of a CNO nominee, two Navy secretaries fired, Covid-related carrier CO removal). 4) Concomitant leadership inconsistency/lack of stability at the top. 5) USMC Commandant came in with a bang and had a plan that captured imaginations; Navy seems flat-footed by comparison. What's

to be done? 1) Lower your institutional head (Navy) and get the work done you are assigned. The Navy has a rep for superb supporting analysis, keep doing that and get these architecture studies done sooner rather than later 2) Go on the offensive. A charm offensive. Never good at

public messaging and strategic narratives, the Navy MUST refine and develop its story and evangelize it. Good news and positive stories MUST get out there. The image of a service that cannot get out of its own way has to be actively contested. 3) You have friends on the Hill,

treat them better. The charm offensive must include a more active posture on the Hill. Every O6 in DC needs to have his/her whites hanging in the office and be ready to grab their program/area brief and go give it. There is no harm in telling the Hill what the status of things in

progress is, and there is no harm in sharing with the Hill the menu of things you are considering at any one time. Ok--maybe there is some harm. But you've become so risk averse in how you deal with them that you are in danger of losing a powerful constituency for American

Seapower. I've attended dozens if not hundreds of wargames in DC in my time, and I have never, ever, seen a Congressional staffer present in even one. Why is this? I've seen this process up front, I've seen the Navy analytical muscle move--these are things of which to be proud.

let the "bankers" see the way you make sausage. Finally--and this won't win you (Navy) any friends on the 3rd Deck (OSD)--but you need to be more sophisticated about "unofficial" discussions with members and staff. We're all adults here. We understand that OSD wants a strangle

hold on Leg Affairs. But there is a world of good that comes from good relationships, pick-up-the-phone-and-call relationships, on the Hill. The system is overpressurized right now and there are no relief valves of recirc lines. Start to use them.