1/ Former CNO ADM John Richardson has released a short paper called "Navy Force Structure in the Next National Defense Strategy" as part of a @CNASdc series of papers as we head to the election. Richardson is on the CNAS Board of Directors.

2/ The purpose of this tweetstorm is to take a look at this largely unobjectionable work and assess its contribution to the debates that it alludes to.

3/ I congratulate ADM Richardson on putting his thoughts down for the rest of us to read, but now comes the part of evaluating the degree to which what he says stands up to scrutiny. Let's start with the act itself.

4/ There is a good bit of debate as to whether it is helpful to current CNO's for former CNO's to opine in public. As there (again) is little objectionable in this piece, it is hard to imagine ADM Gilday objecting to what is here.

5/ Additionally, since much of what Richardson includes in this report mirrors the guidance he gave while CNO ( https://www.sdmac.org/media/uploads/a_design_for_maintaining_maritime_superiority_ver_2.0..pdf ) I imagine there is little tension created.

6/ But there were problems with ADM Richardson's "design" when it was created, and those problems re-assert themselves in this CNAS report.

7/ The first serious objection I have to Richardson's thinking is on page 2/4, where he lays out what the Navy "must be able to (do):" Order does not always convey priority, but having followed Richardson's thinking for years, I think I can assume that it is conveyed here.

8/ Winning wars is first. Undersea strategic deterrent is second. Where does one go to find what the overwhelming bulk of the Navy does the overwhelming bulk of its time--conventional deterrence--? Fifth priority.

9/ "Play a role in deterring major conflict on terms favorable to the United States and Allies. This "waging of peace" is hard to measure, but it is one of the unique and important roles the Navy must perform.

10/ It boils down to providing the nation's decisionmakers with credible, timely, and relevant options to take a stand and favorably de-escalate tensions early." Play a role? What does this mean?

11/ A few words later he gets closer to the truth when he says "unique and important", but even that understates the degree to which the nation's conventional deterrence by denial posture rides on the back of its forward deployed Navy. And unlike the Cold War, where strategic…

12/ …deterrence WAS our nation's first line of conventional deterrence, the likelihood of the decapitating nuclear "bolt from the blue" strike has so thoroughly declined (as the ability to pull it off without a counterstrike has dramatically declined), that the most likely…

13/ …source of a nuclear exchange with either of our great power adversaries is a conventional war gone wrong. Put another way, our main strategic deterrent is our conventional deterrence force, and not to put too fine a point on it, the precedence of strategic forces over…

14/ …conventional in this prioritization tends to increase the very likelihood of the nuclear war that the SSBN's are being built to deter because of the enormous expense associated with recapitalizing one of three delivery mechanisms for nuclear weapons, at the cost of the…

15/ …platforms and systems and weapons necessary for a stronger conventional deterrent.

16/ Richardson then goes on to describe his comprehensive approach to naval power, and begins with the statement that "...when cuts are necessary, they should begin with things that deliver the least naval power".

17/ This is a problematic statement, mostly because it is unclear what is meant. I am unaware of the nation's SSBN force every having "delivered" naval power, yet it remains the service's number one acquisition priority.

18/ But if what is meant here is the delivery of strategic deterrence, then one must also be ready to grant to conventional forces their own deterrence value, which in my estimation (see above) has moved ahead of strategic deterrence in THIS round of great power competition.

19/ I am not saying that we do not need a robust strategic deterrent. I am saying that if the Navy's investments therein place an inordinate constraint on the fielding of a conventional deterrence architecture, we are making a mistake.

20/ The next part of his paper puts forward Richardson's views of the importance of innovation, prototyping, experimentation, and exercises. And coming from anyone else, the thinking contained therein would be straightforward. But John Richardson is not just anyone.

21/ He spent several years in at the center of all of these processes, and none of the pathologies he points to were unknown to him then.

22/ He identifies two obstacles to change as "significant", the first being that that the American public is disengaged from the geostrategic challenge, and the second is that the U.S. miiltary is unable to field decisive technologies at relevant speed.

23/ Let's take the second first, and we'll go back to ADM Richardson's citation of C4ISRT networks as critical. This is from something I wrote a few years ago for the U.S. Naval Institute: "Why then, is all this important?

24/ It is because this system of systems is not going to engineer itself, and doing so begins with considering current requirements that are unmet by existing solutions and then thinking about future requirements that can only be met by such a system.

25/ The problem is, the requirements (and the solution) exist within many stake-holding organizations in the Navy bureaucracy. The director of surface warfare (N96) has some influence in deriving traditional combat systems requirements, however his portfolio does not include…

26/ …requirements for the networks that these capabilities must ride on, or the requirements for the multi-intelligence networks that operate in the highly classified world essential to providing “traditional” combat systems with precise targeting.

27/ These requirements are shared on the OPNAV staff between N9 and N2/N6, and they levy a mandate for those organizations to work together to ensure a coherent requirement is produced.

28/ On the acquisition side, there are also two organizations primarily involved—PEO IWS, which handles most of the traditional combat systems functions, and PEO C4I, which honchoes the multi-intelligence fusion side of the house.

29/ These organizational dualities must also begin to converge if we are going to move methodically forward to field this set of capabilities."

30/ Who better than the CNO to advocate for the organizational change necessary to achieve requirement rigor and systems engineering excellence?

31/ We keep pointing at the product and complaining about it (over cost, late, ineffective) without really breaking some china in changing the process. As for the first obstacle--the disengagement of the American public--I find myself baffled by this one. Anyone -- and I mean…

32/ …anyone -- associated with the Navy and naval programs during John Richardson's tenure as CNO has either first or second hand experience with the degree to which Navy flag officers, program officers, and senior civilians felt pressure from above (re: CNO) to say little of…

33/ …interest at public forums (Sea Air Space, Surface Navy Association, etc) because of a fear of letting too much out to adversaries. So instead of looking hard at how to communicate strategically, the word went out to clam up.

34/ The American public was not taken seriously, and I'm afraid it still isn't. The Navy's bankers on Capitol Hill aren't in much better shape, and they are not being quiet about their frustration with the Navy. https://news.usni.org/2020/06/18/lack-of-future-fleet-plans-public-strategy-hurting-navys-bottom-line-in-upcoming-defense-bills

35/ I applaud ADM Richardson's voice in this debate. He has a valuable and unique perspective, and he has the scars earned in obtaining it. He and I will continue to disagree on the primacy of Navy investments in strategic deterrence over conventional deterrence, but I welcome…

36/ …his energetic advocacy of American Seapower, and I hope his new position of leadership in the Navy League helps propel that organization forward in its insufficiently executed mandate for maritime advocacy. Fin.