On Naval Officer Career Paths: Stavridis Speaks

I hope that this article hasn't already had coverage here in ID; Galrahn runs a thorough blog, so the chances that it has already appeared are high.

That said, I have some thoughts on ADM Staviridis' and Captain Hagerott's excellent article on fundamentally re-working the career path of Navy line officers. The article is called "The Heart of an Officer", and it appeared in the Spring 2009 Naval War College Review. It is well worth the read before going on with my analysis here.

Stavridis and Hagerott recognize something first off that is clear to anyone who has served in the post Goldwater-Nichols Navy--the career path is already packed with "wickets", and simply adding more is no path to excellence. By more, the authors believe that the leaders of tomorrow must be more fundamentally grounded in Joint and Interagency operations, and to that end they propose a thorough overhaul of the line officer career path to create three "tracks"; one track would be a Joint/Interagency Track, one would be a "technical" track, and one would be a "general operations" track. I won't go into these here (again, read the article), but suffice it to say that these tracks are to some extent laid down while the officer is still in his/her commissioning source, and officers would rise through their respective tracks meeting the requirements of each as laid down by community managers.

There is a lot of goodness in the points this article raises, but in the end, I found myself thinking it was simply too much, too fast. The Navy doesn't change this quickly, and implementing something as sweeping as this is likely to prove unsatisfactorily disruptive. I think there is another way to get at what Stavridis and Hagerott are looking for--and it starts near the top.

I advocate leaving the career path alone--for the time being--up until an officer selects for one-star Admiral. From that point on, Flag Officers would be detailed along one of two tracks--a "Naval Staff and Operations" track and a "Joint/Interagency" track. This way, officers detailed to key flag positions in the Joint/Interagency world would by definition have displayed a mastery of their service-based craft--something that we cannot forget is ESSENTIAL to the smooth functioning of Joint/Interagency operations. Their job--until retirement--would be to master Joint/Interagency operations. Flag Officers from both communities could rise to 4 star rank.

What this would create (my view) is a "market-based" reform of the career path for officers by creating an incentive in junior officers to "specialize" in "Navy" or "Joint" operations. Clearly, Congressional mandates on joint education and billeting would have to be addressed, but the likely outcome would be officers competing for "Joint" flag who would have attained language and cultural proficiency along the way, while officers who focused on requirements, personnel, acquisition and the like would "stay Navy".

Obviously, there are lots of problems with my proposal. What is the CNO to be considered--a "Navy" flag or a "Joint" flag? Will Congress allow the Navy (and other Services) to pull back from "Jointness" for all in order to "rightsize" jointness? And probably many others I haven't considered.

That said, I think we'd get a good bit of what Stavridis and Hagerott are after without diminishing the fundamental and essential "naval" qualities an officer should have when representing the Navy in the Joint/Interagency arena.

And there you have it, the first time I've ever disagreed with Jim Stavridis on anything.

Bryan McGrath