Teamwork, flexibility, & sustained combat power: Interview with Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Vern Clark

Sea Power, Oct 2002 by Peterson, Gordon I

Judging from the Navy's personnel-retention statistics, they are truly committed!

CLARK: Absolutely. Our retention statistics are a very important barometer about how our Sailors feel about what they are doing. We are enjoying a period of incredible success in our efforts to retain top-quality Sailors. First-term retention is now at 63.6 percent -the best of any year in our memory. High retention is built upon the fundamental premise that we are committed to seeing our people prosper. Our young people are getting the message, and they are responding.

In light of today's high optempo, will recent gains in personnel readiness be jeopardized if, as has been suggested, the services' personnel end strength will be reduced as a means to fund recapitalization and transformation programs?

CLARK: We have been able to manage our optempo. Our end strength today is 14,000 people higher than it was when I assumed office [in 2000] because our retention is so much higher.

The Congress authorized us to exceed our end strength by 2 percent if we had to, and we are at the limit of that increase now. This has allowed us to increase manning and improve readiness. We will keep our manpower equation in balance-it is key and vital to our future combat readiness.

We have made a commitment to our Sailors to adhere to sixmonth deployments. If we have to surge for wartime operations, we will do that. I will come forward in the 2004 budget to make some end-strength recommendations because we will retire older ships and airplanes. I don't believe these platforms offer the combat capability we need. I face tough decisions when I must make trade-offs between present capability and the reinvestment of dollars into future readiness accounts. The cuts that you will see in the coming year are all about balancing and aligning our forces.

There have been a number of lists of "lessons learned" compiled during Operation Enduring Freedom. What are some of the enduring "take aways" that you associate with this conflict?

CLARK: After 9/11 we formed a "Deep Blue Team" to put a spotlight on warfare issues. When we first called them together I told them that the war would take a while, but that I wanted all issues on the table to address five at a time-not one at a time-so that we could sustain high-tempo surge operations. We learned that the operation placed a great focus on Special Operations Forces. The role of OEF [operational expeditionary forces] and Special Forces cannot be underestimated. The unique nature of the ground campaign involved small numbers of U.S. forces creating linkage with host-nation forces and the air forces providing extremely extended combat reach.

Precise targeting is another key issue. We fought a precision war, and roughly 80 percent of our pilots did not know their eventual targets when they launched on their missions. Just one of the JDAMs [joint direct-attack munitions] they employed produced the same combat effect as dozens upon dozens of unguided bombs dropped during World War II or the wars in Korea and Vietnam. This experience has helped us to sharpen our focus on our vision for the future-it is about decisive combat power and combat effects.