Highlighted Major Speeches
Military Leadership in a Changing Society
Naval War College Conference on Ethics
November 16, 1998
My current professional endeavors offer me a great vantage
point from which to observe the forces that are shaping the world. I
travel a lot, and often find myself in discussions with people of
widely varying backgrounds regarding the turbulence within our
society, how other countries are reacting to us, and what has
happened to leadership within our government.
Sometimes these exchanges assist me in the conduct of my trade as a
writer. At others they help me when I pursue business opportunities.
And always, because of my own life’s journey, they bring me to think
of the United States military.
Where is its place in this changing world? Where does it stand among
its own people? How do those on the outside view it? Where are
current defense leaders taking it? And how are its own leaders
honoring their sacred duty to preserve the standards handed down
through the generations?
The world has been through many changes since my time in government.
Borders and regimes have fallen. Crises have come and gone.
Political positions have ebbed and flowed. Weapon systems have
improved and become more costly. The nature of the threat has become
unduly vague. The military has shrunk and become less visible to
public debate. But the basic requirements of leadership, strategy
and even tactics remain constant, just as they have over the ages,
in the same manner that the basic elements of human character have
not altered since biblical times. And so I feel comfortable today
offering you a pair of eyes that watch from the outside, whose
interest in these matters is nothing more than the well-being and
proper functioning of the American military, an institution into
which I was born, which brought me into manhood, which tested me
under fire in combat, and which, when all the rhetoric is stripped
away, is the ultimate guarantor of this nation’s way of life.
How does the rest of the country view you, and what you are doing?
Among all the world’s nations the United States is the most diverse
in terms of ethnicity, longevity of citizenship, and ultimately, of
viewpoint. And so it is impossible to know from aggregate numbers in
polling and public opinion surveys exactly how our military is
viewed, and how those views impact on an understanding of and
respect for what you are doing. But I would like to address three
separate components today, each of which present the military and
the nation a different set of challenges. Those of the elite policy
makers (including the media), the general public, and the "new
Americans."
First, and most important to the formulation of military policy, are
the elites. At the outset I would offer you an important touchstone.
The greatest lingering effect of the Vietnam era on our society is
that by default it brought about a new notion: that military service
during time of war is not a pre-requisite for moral authority or
even respect. Indeed, every day since that era this notion has been
accorded a quiet affirmation among our elites, usually whispered to
one another, that some lives are worth more than others, that it is
right and proper for those who are the so-called best and brightest
by virtue of an elite education to be excused from the dirty work of
our society. Think of the disproportionate loss to society, the
logic goes, if a future Albert Einstein or Thomas Edison is killed
in some fruitless foreign engagement. Or, as an old Chinese saying
used to put it, one should never use good steel for nails or good
men for soldiers.
I myself, like the majority of this nation, subscribe to a different
view, in effect the reverse of that syllogism, because when it comes
to leadership as opposed to law or medicine or engineering the logic
is indeed the reverse: the hotter the fire, the tougher the steel,
and the more reliable the leader. And also because in a democracy it
is a given that the more one has benefited from the fruits of our
nation, the greater is his obligation to serve. But it is important
to recognize that our elites abandoned this position during the
Vietnam war, and it has affected policy for an entire generation. As
one example of this disparity, Harvard lost 691 alumni in World War
Two, while in Vietnam it lost a total of 12 out of all the classes
from 1962 to 1972.
This notion of special privilege has spread, not abated, over the
decades following the Vietnam war. For most elites who make policy
or provide commentary on it, you are little more than an
intellectual issue. Just as the crisis in public education is for
them a matter to be worried over in removed policy terms rather than
directly experienced by their own privately-schooled children,
almost no one in a position to affect policy has a direct human
stake in the outcome of a military engagement.
It has also created a vacuum of true understanding in the highest
places. Today, for the first time since the United States became a
major world power, none of the principals in the national security
arena -- the President, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of
State, the Director of the CIA, or the national security adviser --
have served in the military. This problem might recede when the
Clinton Administration leaves town, but it is unlikely to go away.
Twenty years ago when I was a committee counsel in the Congress a
clear majority of the Senators and Congressmen were veterans,
although most of their staff were not. Similarly, a majority of the
editors at the major media outlets had military service, although
their reporters did not. Today, the staff members and the reporters
are now the Congressmen and the editors. In the congress veterans
are a distinct minority, and in the media almost no one has served.
In terms of attitude, the elites fall into three categories. Some, I
should say many, do have a sympathy and respect for what you do. But
with a few exceptions they lack a referent -- in their own
experience, among their peers, and in their families -- to place
what you are doing in an understandable context. A second category,
despite their public rhetoric, views you to be merely firemen and
policemen of a different order, hired for a job, however dangerous,
and expected to do it without complaint. This notion was reinforced
during the Gulf War, when the Bush Administration often pointed out
with pride that the war wasn’t costing the United States anything,
because other countries were footing the bill. What does it make you
when a national leader places your wartime service in the context of
a bill for services rendered? And finally, there is a small but very
powerful minority that believes you are dangerous, that you must be
continually humiliated and subdued, that militarism is an American
disease, that the more empowered and respected you become, the more
you threaten pet political issues and even the fabric of society. Do
not underestimate these people. Despite the absurdity of their views
they are intelligent, well-positioned at the power centers of our
culture, and intent on marginalizing your sacrifices.
This bifurcation of our society causes some otherwise well-meaning
people to put modern military service into a false context. Recently
William Bennett gave a lecture on ethics at the Naval Academy, in
which he compared the World War Two and Vietnam generations by
focusing on twin events that took place in 1994: the 50th
anniversary of the D-Day landing at Normandy, and the 25th
anniversary of Woodstock. One celebration, according to Mr. Bennett,
mirrored a generation that understood sacrifice and service. The
other illuminated an age group consumed by drugs and
self-absorption. To Mr. Bennett, who in 1969 was a student at
Harvard Law School, this was probably an apt comparison. But for
those who graduated from the Naval Academy during that era this
speech bordered on insult.
If Mr. Bennett had wanted to reinforce the value of service and the
notion of sacrifice in front of that audience, he could have
compared the two elements of his own generation, and discussed what
each were doing during the summer of 1969. I personally was leading
a rifle platoon in the An Hoa Basin of Vietnam, and spent part of
that summer in recuperation after being wounded. And I was hardly
alone. 500 thousand other Americans -- far more than turned out for
the party made famous for its drugs, sex and rock and roll -- were
serving there with me. But who on the national scene saw this, or
remembers it, even among conservative commentators? And who truly
understands what it means to deploy to sea again and again in the
1990s, leaving family and friends behind for months at a time?
Next, the general public. In the aggregate they like you, they
support you, and they respect you. But in reality they know less and
less about what you are actually doing, and fewer and fewer among
them have a human stake if what you’re doing goes wrong. When we had
the draft, families throughout the nation paid close attention,
because nearly all of them were at risk when troops were sent into
harm’s way. Additionally, a constant stream of veterans was
returning to communities throughout the country, and despite
persistent media reports to the contrary they were bringing home a
positive story about military service and the challenges of wearing
the uniform. Those who are veterans are still able to communicate
these messages, but with a smaller military, longer enlistments and
higher retention the veteran population is dwindling. As one
example, a thousand World War Two veterans are dying every day.
And what of the "new Americans?" Our country is so vastly rich and
powerful, so dominant in the world’s cultural centers through its
impact in film, music and fashion, that it is difficult for many
newcomers to understand that it was built from nothing, on the backs
of individuals who carved out a wilderness, designed a unique system
of government, and along the way had to be willing to take time from
their lives and serve the larger good.
Many recent immigrants come from cultures that do not
respect their military, or from societies where the military is
viewed as corrupt and authoritarian. They do not understand the deep
sense of patriotism and tradition that is at the bottom of our most
dedicated military people’s service. Indeed, they have been given no
reasons to see military service as a duty of citizenship. And a lost
opportunity lurks here -- the chance to embrace these new Americans
as equal citizens, and to reinforce the notion that being an
American brings with it a shared history, no matter at what point
one’s own family arrived, as well as an obligation to serve the
greater good. Being an American is more than paying taxes and
obeying the speed limit.
The sacrifices of the past inform the greatness of the
present, and the sacrifices of the present provide security for the
future, and it is above all the military services which connect us
all in such a way.
These are all, as we used to say in the Pentagon, disconnects. And
there is a further disconnect embraced by all three of these groups,
that frequently distorts or submerges the importance of national
defense. It can be summarized in one word: internationalization. We
live in an age of multinational corporations, heightened economic
interdependence, instant global communications on the internet. It
can be argued that the ability of powerful investment engines to
withhold capital or to shift its flow from one country to another is
the most visible form of raw power in the world today. And people
across America want a piece of the pie. They want to become
well-off. They want to do business. They don’t want to be told that
in five or fifteen years the business they are pursuing might in
some vague way hurt the country. And so in a world where the threats
to our national security have become arguable and blurred, money has
become amoral, refusing to recognize national borders, and
investments repudiate the notion of loyalty. Our government leaders
have consciously ignored this phenomenon, hidden from it, sometimes
even fed it for fear that their campaign contributions would dry up
if they did otherwise. And American business has become almost a
caricature of Lenin’s famous taunt that the last capitalist would be
hung from the rope he sold for a profit.
Is it really that bad? Well, the short answer is "yes."
One can see the dangers of this lack of strategic thinking in the
present administration’s China policy, for I cannot imagine a
greater example of what can happen when conscious strategic
ignorance creates a disadvantage for those who must wear the
uniform. I spend a lot of time in Asia, usually with Asians rather
than Americans, and it was clear that the President’s announcement
of a "strategic partnership" with China during his trip last summer
sent chills through the region. He spent nine days in China and did
not visit Japan, in my view our most important ally. His rhetoric
and his actions went far beyond normal bounds to reward the policies
of a repressive regime that has been a nuclear proliferater and has
developed a dangerous strategic axis through the Muslim world for
more than a decade. Why? Everybody knows why. Trade.
A recent New York Times investigation spelled out just how far this
obsession with China has gone. Looser regulations regarding American
export policies have enabled Chinese companies to obtain a wide
range of sensitive, sophisticated technology -- worth billions of
dollars. The new rules allowed American companies to sell many of
these products without prior government approval, and the President
decided to change these rules without a rigorous review by
intelligence officials or other national security experts. The new
policy was anchored in the fantasy that industry executives would
raise questions about their own sales, requiring them to seek a
Commerce Department license only if they believed the equipment
would end up in military hands. And now it’s been revealed that some
of the high-speed computers sold to civilian customers -- ostensibly
for predicting weather patterns but also capable of scrambling
secret communications and even designing nuclear weapons -- are
being used by the Chinese Army.
As my thirteen year-old daughter would say, like, DUH. Even those
with a passing knowledge of China know that in matters of security
and technology its government is a monolith, and that the Chinese
military itself has operated dozens of shell corporations involved
in everything from selling AK-47s and SKS rifles on the streets of
Los Angeles to obtaining just this sort of technology. And that this
travesty occurred at the same time the Chinese were enabling
Pakistan to develop a nuclear capability, thus setting off the
dangerous exchange of nuclear explosions between Pakistan and India
last summer, and were assisting Iran and North Korea with their
missile programs. I can think of no greater example of calculated
stupidity and unthinking betrayal over the past forty years.
But who benefits from it? And who pays if these sorts of
miscalculations go wrong? A memory lurks here, of World War Two
soldiers lamenting that the Japanese artillery coming their way was
made from scrap metal that American businessmen had sold a few years
earlier for a profit.
But let us now speak of the present, and of the future. Does our
nation have a strategy in the wake of the Cold War? How is the
military being used, and positioned for future use?
From this outside observer’s studied referent, there is not a clear
strategy, particularly one that is driving the makeup of our armed
forces. The last clearly enunciated strategy of this sort was the
Nixon Doctrine, announced in 1969, which laid down three bench marks
for American defense policy: that we would provide a nuclear
umbrella for our non-nuclear allies and work vigorously against
nuclear proliferation, that we would honor our treaty commitments,
and that we would provide assistance to other friendly nations
defending themselves from external threat if such actions were in
the national interest of the United States.
The American military is becoming quite sophisticated in meeting
lower-end threats such as those it recently encountered in Haiti,
Somalia and Bosnia, and has made impressive doctrinal strides in
such areas as the potential use of force in littoral areas. But
focusing on these scenarios in the absence of a clearly enunciated
global strategy actually puts our overall force structure at greater
risk. We can do this job well and so we fund it, but we should be
careful about when we do it: the fruitless commitment to Somalia,
where we have no treaties, no national interest, and initially had
no forces at risk, is perhaps the classic example of how not to use
the American military.
On the larger scale, in the face of truly serious threats, we are
the only credible guarantor of deterrence and stability in the free
world. The potential for such threats is real, and their dynamics
are unpredictable. Korea is as always a tinderbox. The Islamic world
is galvanizing and gaining ever more sophisticated weaponry.
Historical references are always flawed but Russia increasingly
reminds one of Weimar Germany, and China of Japan in the 1930’s. If
we cease to structure our forces in a way that can defeat these and
other threats, the probability of their occurrence will increase.
And to state the obvious, it is impossible to rebuild and train a
larger Navy in six months or a year if the world turns ugly again
and requires us to sustain a large-scale military presence in a
vital region. And nowhere are we so vulnerable in this new era where
so few Americans understand the nature of war and military
operations than in the reduced size of our Navy.
This is not to diminish the difficulties of the Army and the Air
Force, which have seen dramatic reductions since the end of the cold
war. But these changes were largely the product of our reduced
presence in NATO Europe, and that presence was an historical anomaly
for the United States. Never before 1949 did our country occupy
large positions in foreign countries solely for the purpose of local
defense. By contrast, for more than a century we have recognized
that the Navy connects us to the world and is essential to its
day-to-day security as well as our own. Just as Russia, China and
Germany are traditional continental powers, the United States is a
maritime nation, by virtue of its geographical position, economic
and security interests, cultural ties, and treaty obligations with
other countries. The NATO reductions were actually a return to
historical normality for the U.S. military. And it should be
remembered that in the decades before World War Two the Navy
received roughly half of the national security budget.
The end of the cold war brought very few changes to the obligations
faced by the Navy. It must operate continuously in the present
low-threat conditions, and it must be capable of doing even more at
the turn of a switch. Its presence around the world on the calmest
of days is a signal of global stability, a message that the United
States is looking after its economic and security interests. Its
ability to maneuver and respond at crisis points is the single most
important measure of our day-to-day credibility. If the threat
increases, the Navy-Marine Corps doctrine of amphibious power
projection in the littoral regions of the globe allows us to assert
our interests without the diplomatic frustrations and operational
vulnerability of ground bases. And the capability of putting a
sustainable logistical train in place during major engagements,
coupled with the power of the fleet, is an essential ingredient of
national strategy.
But what has happened to the Navy in the last ten years?
Our effort to build a 600 ship Navy during the 1980’s was in reality
a rather modest comeback from a period of serious neglect. I had
argued in writing -- before becoming Secretary of the Navy -- that
we should return to historical normality by reducing our presence in
NATO and increasing the size of the fleet. The morning I resigned as
Secretary rather than agreeing to a reduction in the fleet I made a
half-joking comment to Larry Garrett, then my undersecretary, that I
did not choose to be remembered as the father of the 350 ship Navy.
But never did I imagine that the Navy’s leadership would allow the
devastation that has now resulted in a 300 ship Navy, with the
numbers continuing to sink. If present construction schedules hold,
we may be headed for a 200 ship Navy.
By FY 2001 the Navy will have reduced the size of the fleet by 45
percent since my resignation -- if it meets its procurement goals --
and funding for procurement is lagging far behind those goals. Since
1992 alone, the size of the fleet has decreased by 31 percent while
optempo has increased by 26 percent. More than half of the ships in
the Navy are at sea on any given day, and a majority of those are
forward deployed. The aircraft mishap rate is nearly double last
year’s, the highest level in the last five years. Recruitment is
dramatically off, 7,000 below requirements, the worst of all the
services. Enlisted retention is below requirements and all the
officer war fighting communities forecast serious retention
problems. Funding for ship and aircraft modernization has decreased
by more than 50 percent since 1990. The people who are leaving cite
more and more frequently that their greatest reason is a
disappointment in the quality of leadership they are receiving from
above.
These are all signs of a force that is growing tired, fraying around
the edges. And what is the Navy’s leadership proposing in response
to this dilemma? The answer on the table right now is to cut back
infrastructure -- that is, to size down the bases so that they meet
the reductions in the fleet. In other words, rather than argue the
dangerous reduction of the size of the fleet, they are accepting
permanently its reduction by removing the infrastructure that
supported larger numbers. Their only other substantive proposal is
to bring back the 50 percent retirement package, as if 10 percent
more in retirement pay alone is going to keep the overworked and
under-appreciated 25 year-old in the system.
Those of us who have been around for a while -- including today’s
admirals -- have seen all of this before, although not at this truly
dangerous level. When I was commissioned in 1968 there were 930
combatants in the Navy. We had the high optempo of Vietnam but we
did not have the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf. In the
post-Vietnam malaise the traditional strategic arguments were
discredited, the careful warnings were disregarded, and by 1979 the
Navy had bottomed out at 479 combatants. Then the Indian Ocean
commitments began after the twin crises in Iran and Afghanistan.
Optempo became unbearable as it became necessary to keep carriers
continually on-station. The Independence made a 210-day deployment
with eight days ashore. The Nimitz made a 146-day deployment with no
days ashore. Ships fell into disrepair. People voted with their feet
until the Navy was short 23,000 petty officers. My Navy peers came
up with a cynical slogan: make Commander and get your divorce.
This vision haunted me in late 1987 and early 1988 when we were
faced with again reducing the size of the fleet. As we argued the
issue I had my staff come up with a chart that covered several
decades. On the chart I had them plot three curves: the size of the
fleet, the operational commitments assigned to the Navy by the
national command authority, and retention. Predictably, it was shown
that operational commitments did not vary with the size of the
fleet. And retention went down along with the "bath-tub" effect of
fleet reduction. And so after three attempts to meet budget
reductions without reducing the size of the fleet were rejected, I
decided that I would not walk the fleet back from our goal of 600
ships, into the bath tub where the Navy now resides.
Why is this happening again?
The answer is that it was allowed to happen by leaders who were
unable or unwilling to make the case for a larger Navy, and as a
result failed to educate the congress and the public. They didn’t
fight at 600 ships. They didn’t fight at 500. They didn’t fight at
400. They’re telling the world that 300 is fine and doable, while
they’re on the way to 200. And so I return to my initial
observation. In a world where fewer and fewer policy makers have any
connection to the military, and where the political process knows
less and less about matters of strategy, leadership and the
intricacies of force structure planning, whose duty should it be to
bring forward the logic and the answers? The senior admirals should
not be selling 300 ships to the Navy. They should be arguing 400
ships, or more, to the nation.
Those leaders who comfortably claim that the notion of civilian
control precludes them from arguing their own case should study the
success of the Marine Corps, for this is exactly what it did in the
late 1940s when it was threatened with extinction, and in different
form it is what Marine Corps leaders continue to do today. Military
subservience to political control applies to existing policy, not to
policy debates. The political process requires the unfettered
opinions of military leaders, and military leaders who lack the
courage to offer such opinions are in my view just as accountable to
their people as the politicians who have secured their silence.
The silence of the admirals as the fleet shrinks and their sailors
continue to do more with less has not gone unnoticed. A recent Naval
Institute Proceedings article pointing out that only one in ten Navy
junior officers in a recent study aspires to command -- and that
number not even addressing the issue of quality -- is an ominous
warning. A lot of reasons were given, but two messages came through
loud and clear. The first was that money alone won’t solve the
problem. Americans have never been mercenaries, and although it is
the duty of their leaders to provide for their well-being, they
can’t simply be bought. The second was an overwhelming
disenchantment with the Navy’s senior leaders. I recently heard
these same two messages again and again during a discussion with
junior aviators in Japan.
This evident breakdown in the junior officer corps is deeply
troubling, for it hints of a fundamental change in the Navy’s
culture, probably fueled in equal parts by the Goldwater-Nichols
legislation and the effect of the Tailhook scandal on Navy
leadership. Command is tough, risky, lonely, the most challenging
job an officer can have. But it is also the very emblem of
traditional military service. It is what dedicated officers have
always lived for and aspired to. The greatest experience of my
professional life has been the privilege of commanding marines at
the platoon and company level. And what is a military service whose
leaders do not aspire to command? It becomes a gutless bureaucracy,
pushing papers and taking a paycheck.
These young officers did not come into the Navy with this attitude.
The circumstances of their careers have inflicted it upon them.
When leadership fails, sometimes a fundamental shift overtakes a
unit, or a military service, or a nation that is so profound that it
can indeed change an entire ethos. Most often the sea change takes
place gradually, not because of decisions taken by senior leaders so
much as from their inaction, an acquiescence to insistent,
incremental pressures generated from the outside. Usually the
leadership, reacting to and sometimes overwhelmed by these outside
pressures, are the ones who comprehend the changes the least, and in
some cases cannot perceive what has happened until it is too late
for them to protect even their own legacy.
Let’s hope that this will not be the epitaph for a United States
Navy on its way to 200 ships and a third-rate future. Its history,
its traditions, its special place at the center of all that is great
about this country, demand that those who serve, of whatever rank
and level of experience, do what they can to explain to the American
people that the Navy must be led from within, that what has happened
over the past ten years is not right, and that what is left is not
enough.
