If I Were Secretary of the U.S. Navy for Just One Day

James Holmes

Security, America

What one of the world’s leading naval experts would change.

Riddle me this: what one thing would you change about the U.S. Navy if you were appointed Secretary of the Navy for a Day? And not just any garden-variety secretary of the navy, but an omnipotent secretary empowered to alter the thing of his choosing.

My answer: the culture. It’s the common denominator among naval pursuits. Get the institution’s culture right—get the habits and attitudes of the people comprising it right—and countless other things fall into place. And they will do so almost of their own accord. Inculcating healthy attitudes toward hardware, operations and tactics, and prospective foes bolsters the likelihood of managing these domains well.

Or at least that’s the gist of a recent late-afternoon conversation here in the hallowed halls of Newport, where the ghosts of Alfred Thayer Mahan and Raymond J. Spruance waft about in twilight hours. Such conversations constitute a great joy of working at the Naval War College. They can be high-toned, pondering matters of grave strategic import. They can be silly.

Or they can be both, straddling the serious and the inane. Debating which widget to create or perfect, what policy to institute or abolish, or what institutional trait to instill or modify falls into this category. Strategists like Monty Python and Mike Tyson are as apt to put in an appearance as Thucydides and Clausewitz.

Banter furnishes a focal point for serious thinking nonetheless. It helps us identify problems and issues and set priorities. And setting and enforcing priorities is what strategy’s all about.