Developing Senior Navy Leaders

The array of expertise required to be a successful leader in the U.S. Navy has become more complex. To be a successful Navy leader, it is no longer sufficient to be skilled only at surface, submarine, or air warfare. Additional kinds of expertise are needed to lead and manage the Navy of today and the Navy of the future. Furthermore, like its sister services, the Navy also has a large and distinct core of senior civilian leaders that continues to provide a broad array of in-depth business skills, as well as the continuity and stability of senior leadership.

We examined the Navy’s structure, its force development, its doctrinal documents, and its technology acquisitions for the past decade and the next decade to forecast how the demand for domain-specific expertise may change in the future. The areas of domain-specific expertise with the strongest evidence of increasing future importance to the Navy are:

Information Warfare
Information Operations
Information Technology
Surface Warfare
Submarine Warfare
Special Warfare
Expeditionary Warfare
Intelligence
Logistics and Readiness
Anti-Submarine Warfare
Littoral Warfare
Sea Basing

From the RAND Sjtudy: Developing Senior Navy Leaders – Requirements for Flag Officer
Expertise Today and in the Future

Information Warfare Leadership

Some have expressed confusion about the leadership and seniority of Flag officers and Senior Executive Service (SES)/Defense Intelligence Senior Level (DISL) in the Information Warfare community.

Here is the line-up as I see it. As always, your comments are welcome.

1. VADM Jack Dorsett – 1630
Overarching Leader of the Information Dominance Corps – OPNAV N2/N6

2. RADM Ned Deets – 1610
Information Warfare Officer community leader – Vice Commander, NNWC

3. RADM Michael A. Brown – 1610
Deputy Assistant Secretary for Cyber Security and Communications – Department of Homeland Security

4. RDML Mike S. Rogers – 1610
Joint Staff, J2 Director of Intelligence

5. RDML William Leigher -1610
Deputy Fleet Cyber Commander/Deputy Commander 10th Fleet

6. RDML (Sel) Sean Filipowski -1610
Director, Cyber, Sensors and Electronic Warfare OPNAV N2N6F3

7. Mr. Mark Neighbors – Former 1610
Chief of Staff (N2/N6S)

8. Mr. Jerome Rapin – Former 1610
Deputy Director – Cyber, Sensors and Electronic Warfare – OPNAV N2N6F3B

9. 50 or so 1610 Captains.

10. 100 or so 1610 Commanders.

Optimizing Navy Information Warfare for MCS21

The Navy Information Operations force and its capabilities are an important means for the new Maritime Strategy to meet the challenges set forth by the CNO. The Navy’s Information Operations architecture requires modifications to optimize its role in the CNO’s new Maritime Strategy. For the new maritime strategy Navy Information Operations should be optimized at the theater strategic and operational levels of command/war.

To optimize Navy Information Operations to achieve the high expectations of the CNO, three areas require improvement: the organizational alignment, the development of a career force and finally the degree of integration and interoperability.

To ensure that Navy Information Operations are better positioned for the new Maritime Strategy, a new echelon two Information Operations command needs to be established.

With the organizational power that comes with this level of command will give the Information Operations establishment more leverage within the Navy and maybe more importantly within the Joint environment.

The Navy Information Operations Career Force is making slow progress. The benefits of a strong and dedicated force are apparent but the pace must increase in educating and training officers, with the focus on the art of Influence operations and Information Operations planning.

Finally, the capabilities of Navy Information Operations need to be releasable to our Allies, Partners and friends to the greatest extent possible. Their better understanding of our Information Operations capabilities will build stronger alliances and partnerships required for the new Maritime Strategy.

CDR Greg Haws’ NCW Paper

Optimizing IO for the New Maritime Strategy

Optimizing Navy Information Warfare

“In September 2007, Rear Admiral Edward Deets, the Naval Network Warfare Command Vice Commander and leader of the Navy Information Warfare Community, articulated a new strategic plan to ensure that the new naval warfare area of IO was being developed and integrated to offer maximum capability to military commanders. The community vision was stated as follows:

“The Navy’s Information Warfare (IW) Community delivers overwhelming information superiority to naval and joint commanders. We do this by leading the integration and application of the core capabilities of Information Operations and Signals Intelligence to shape, influence, and defeat select audiences in support of commanders’ objectives. Our community applies signals and information expertise, and attacks, defends and exploits networks to pursue and capitalize on opponent vulnerabilities in the information environment.”

Prior to RADM Deets’ guidance, many wondered where the Navy IW Community was headed. Would it completely abandon its SIGINT roots in favor of the new warfare area of IO? This document clearly delineated that SIGINT, in conjunction with IO, would comprise the Information Warfare domain with Naval Network Warfare Command being the executive agent.

In today’s information age, Information Warfare has gained prominence as an effective means of waging war. From a service perspective, the Naval Network Warfare Command and specifically the Navy Information Warfare Community has been tasked to lead in providing manning, training, and equipment to make this form of warfare a reality.

While this relatively new requirement brings tremendous opportunity to the community, it has also presented many challenges. Specifically, effective Information Operations integration and a well-defined career path that provides officers with experience, education, and skill sets in both Signals Intelligence and Information Operations have evaded the community.”

Click on the link below to read the rest of LCDR Chad Smith’s, Sep 2008 NPS Thesis –
“OPTIMIZING NAVY INFORMATION WARFARE: A SYSTEMS ENGINEERING APPROACH”