Now that we have ratings...

...can we refocus on technical training?

While we can go back and forth about whether the rating removal was aimed at the word "man," or helping Sailors land civilian jobs, or some other reason, we missed that ratings were more than just a nice way to address ourselves.  Enlisted ratings linked Sailors to a promotion exam, which required them (at least up to E-6) to be knowledgeable in their rating.  The whole point of that was to keep our Sailors studying and staying sharp in their job.

What's in a warfare device?

A few weeks ago I was rewarded by the NEX with a 300 dollar uniform bill when I had to purchase new sets of khakis and NWUs (losing over 30 pounds will do that to you).  I was able to take all my old patches in to save a few dollars, but I had to explain why I had two different secondary warfare devices.  For officers, its already rare to have more than one warfare device, and having three is even more rare.

Which begs the question: what's in a warfare device?  Why do we wear these small pieces of metal?  It hasn't always been that way.  The Navy operated up until the 1900s without any sort of warfare device.  Naval aviation was the first (as far as I can tell) to begin using a warfare designator, which they established in 1918.  Submarines followed suit in 1923.  Some are far more recent: SWOs didn't have a pin until 1975, and the Information Dominance Warfare Device is only a few years old.

Why we need technical leaders

Electromagnetic Maneuver warfare not important? Ask the Japanese, whose broken code was used to cue submarines. From National WW2 Museum.

It's World War Two in the Pacific.  The US is fighting a desperate battle against Japan.  US submarines coming home complain that their torpedos aren't working.  The torpedo manufacturers say they are fine.  You're in charge.  What do you do?

1. Tell your people to get er done? 
2. Tell your people to bring you "solutions, not problems."?
3. Quote "Message to Garcia?"

If you're Charles 'Swede' Momsen, you do none of these.  You take a bunch of torpedos, shoot them into a Hawaiian island, find one that doesn't work, dive in yourself to save it, and figure out that the firing pin wasn't igniting properly.

Asia Pacific Hands (APAC) Program

Flags from APAC Hands Handout

The Asia-Pacific Hands Program is a four tiered program designed to build regional expertise in the Pacific Region. The idea is to get officers into NPS for regional studies and then place them in billets where their expertise is useful. It'll go on your record as a series of AQDs as you get more expertise.

You can get more information here: http://www.public.navy.mil/bupers-npc/career/language_culture/Pages/APACHands.aspx

I personally think it's a good idea, but the real kicker will be whether the communities place any value on it. If it goes into the priorities list on the LCDR, CDR and CAPT selection boards and actually results in preferential promotions, then it has a real chance of being viewed as important. One of the biggest flaws in the AFPAK Hands program was that the expertise wasn't valued and personnel often missed career milestones, so very quickly the hot running folks avoided it like the plague. Hopefully that is changed with APAC Hands.

IDC collaboration site

The IDC has started a collaboration site on MilSuite. Check it out here:

https://www.milsuite.mil/book/groups/navy-information-dominance-outreach

I'd encourage all people, even non-IDC personnel, to check it out.

They had two articles of interest for me.  One discussed the Pacific Fleet Intelligence Federation, which I left a positive comment on since I'm working in it right now.

The other was EIDWS.  I'm not a huge fan of how I've seen EIDWS rolled out anywhere, since it does not resemble how the Navy does normal qualification processes, and the changes aren't good.  I left the following comment:

Failure to select

 The O-4 results are out, and there are lots of high fives and "Good job, SIR!" going around for those selected.  But there are plenty of people that didn't select, and for many of them it was a punch in the gut. I'm not the only one saying it.  So for the folks that didn't select, what do you say?

Luckily, a fan of this blog sent me a letter that really summarizes it well.  I'm reprinting it here in its entirety, as there was no piece I could bring myself to cut out.  While it's Information Warfare centered, it's not hard to replace a few words and make it apply to any warfare area.

50,000 pageviews

Pop the bubbly...the blog has rolled over 50,000 pageviews (and yes, I don't track my own views!) according to Google Analytics. What have I learned about blogging during this time?

- It takes a lot of continual effort. I started way back in January of 2012. Looking at Google Analytics history, I didn't get any real pageviews until a month in...so I essentially blogged for 30 days with almost no one seeing the site. Now I'm getting about 5-7K pageviews a month...and it's still growing!

- I had to learn about blog design. I first just simply blogged and didn't pay any attention to what my Google Analytics data was telling me. Then I started working to ensure my site was in Google, Bing, and Yahoo searches. Then I added trackbacks via the Facebook page. Then I redesigned the layout in January of 2013, which significantly reduced the bounce rate. Over time, I had to learn more and more about blog design and how to design it so that the people who want to find you can. While it helped me get more traffic, more importantly it lead to people finding the information they wanted and helped people achieve their goals.

- I learned what people like. My most popular post is still about House Hunting Leave, but a close second is How to Write a NAM. Some things I thought would be popular aren't, and others are massively popular (people liked my links on Tuition Assistance).

- I learned to love blogging. I enjoy writing short articles, and it gives me a way to practice writing, so that EVALs, FITREPs and awards are easy to write now.

It's been a blast...and I don't intend to stop anytime soon!

Users that care

 One of the benefits of being a web-junkie is that I read a lot of websites (although I really do need to better configure my RSS reader) and stumble across all sorts of ideas, seemingly at random. Today's random idea was at the Center for International Maritime Security, in a post titled Tools of the Trade.

http://cimsec.org/tools-of-the-trade/

You think fast paced life is new?

XKCD points out that speeding up life, and longing for the good old days, is nothing new.

Are you on Intelink yet?

If not, you're missing out.

No one expects

what actually ends up happening in warfare...

No respect for China?

Short term memory loss on the part of China.

Sharing the tactical lessons

Maybe we don't do it because we're really tired...

Cyber Operations Fundamentals Course

Yes, a post with how to register for COFC.

Don't try to change it all at once

Too much change will never stick...

Gaming the EM environment

The robots are coming...to Jacksonville

 

With all the room created by getting rid of the EP-3E, I guess they now have room for unmanned squadrons.

Information Professionalism

Everyone likes to speak to buzzwords. Right now, it's cyber. Too many people have visions that they are somehow a cyber expert, despite the fact that most of them don't actually know anything about cyber. This quote from an older defensetech.org article is telling:

An Air Force officer, who asked not to be named, said as he walked out of the speech that he was surprised to hear the Air Force chief of staff plead ignorance.

“Can you imagine if he said something like that about aircraft or weapons or nuclear weapons?” the Air Force major said. “It would never happen. They’d run him out of the Pentagon.”

Crowd-Sourcing a Navy exercise

Well, the Navy is giving crowd-sourcing a try with an upcoming, electromagnetic war game:

http://www.navy.mil/submit/display.asp?story_id=71607

I went ahead an registered, figured why not give it a try. Hope to see some of y'all there!

Full article:

Norfolk, Va. (NNS) -- To generate ideas from a broad field of participants, the Navy Warfare Development Command (NWDC), the Office of Naval Research (ONR) and the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) are partnering to conduct a crowd-sourcing online war game on electromagnetic maneuver (EM2) starting Feb. 4.

Electromagnetic Maneuver Massive Multiplayer Online War Game Leveraging the Internet - or em2 MMOWGLI - will be played in three one-week phases:

1) Know the EM Environment: Understanding EM Energy, from
February 4, 2013, to February 10, 2013

2) Be Agile: C2 in the EM Environment, from February 18,
2013, to February 24, 2013

3) Change Our Paradigm: Tactical Employment of EM Weapons,
from March 4, 2013, to March 10, 2013

To facilitate global participation, the game will be open 24-hours a day during the game phases. Interested players can request to register at https://mmowgli.nps.edu/em2/signup. After registration, the game can be played on any web browser.

"The electromagnetic spectrum and cyberspace are key differentiators for winning future Navy battles," said Rear Adm. Terry B. Kraft, commander, NWDC. "em2 MMOWGLI is designed to bring together a massive, distributed audience focused on helping the Navy operate in the EM environment."

"Communications, electronics, and sensor systems aboard U.S. naval ships and submarines must operate effectively in order to support the execution of military missions and operations," said Rear Adm. Matthew L. Klunder, chief of naval research. "We're looking to the experts in electromagnetic warfare from across military, government, academia, industry and think tanks to actively participate and make meaningful contributions in the game which could ultimately improve warfighter effectiveness."

Each phase of the game will start by the partners posting 'root' cards which pose questions on the topic for that phase. Players then post 'idea cards' that other players can respond to by either building on, countering, redirecting, or calling for further expertise. Points are earned based on each idea card's influence and perceived value. Individuals contributing to particularly intriguing concepts are invited to collaborate on an "Action Plan" to move that idea forward. Published action plans are awarded further points by all players providing ratings and additional comments. Significant achievements will be recognized.

In addition to the unclassified em2 MMOWGLI game, a blog on NWDC's Navy Center for Innovation classified website at http://fims.nwdc.navy.smil.mil/nci/bloglist.aspx will allow players with SIPRNet access to continue game discussions in a secure environment.

Results from the game will inform Navy innovation concept development and experimentation efforts.

Further details about em2 MMOWGLI can be found at http://portal.mmowgli.nps.edu/em2.

For more news from Navy Warfare Development Command, visit www.navy.mil/local/nwdc/.

Attacking the root of a problem

Interesting article about the information warfare going on between Israeli and Palestinian forces:

http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htiw/articles/20121229.aspx

The key point isn't the technology here...rather, it's the approach. Israel is good at killing people. They have the technology, weapons, people and know-how to kill any number of Palestinians. But the reality is that they won't win their war by killing Palestinians alone. They have to get the population to quit fighting them, and get enough international pressure on the Palestinians to stop fighting...a pretty hard task, considering how biased most of Israel's neighbors are against it's existence.

The approach they are taking is unique. Rather than continue to simply kill Palestinians, they seek to undermine their willpower by breaking down their arguments of mistreatment, and using the internet and social media to quickly disburse the results.

The takeaway here is that they are going after the real problem. We often get told to solve the superficial problems, and forget to target what is really wrong. Take morale, for example. I've heard the complaint that morale was low at my command when I first showed up, but what surprised me the most was that the complaints mainly came from divisions that never deployed...meaning the folks working a 9-5 job were less happy than the 70% OPTEMPO deployers leaving their families. How can this be?

From the questions we had to answer on a site survey (such as: do you trust your chain of command?) you'd never find the answer. I simply sat down with a lot of sailors and just asked the question: what at this command makes you unhappy?

The number one answer: I feel my job is meaningless.

Now it all makes sense. The deploying sailors feel they have meaningful jobs (since they see up close the effects), so they are happy at work, while the desk-bound sailors on their first tour hate everything, because they don't see where all their efforts go.

Knowing this, dumping money into MWR and taking more days off doesn't solve the problem. Engagement by mid-grade leadership (chiefs and division officers) and explaining to sailors why their efforts matter make all the difference...and is a far cheaper solution.

Are you fixing the right problems at work, or are you just fixing the symptoms?