NORAD's new chief may come from Navy

0 Comments | Gazette, The (Colorado Springs), Jul 5, 2004 | by PAM ZUBECK THE GAZETTE

The North American Aerospace Defense Command likely will be commanded by someone outside the Air Force for the first time in its 46-year history.

Navy Vice Adm. Timothy Keating has been nominated to lead NORAD and U.S. Northern Command, based at Peterson Air Force Base.

He would replace Air Force Gen. Ralph "Ed" Eberhart, who retires this fall.

Keating isn't the only one who appears to be a fish out of water.

An Army officer commanded U.S. European Command throughout the Cold War, but the past two rotations have given the role to Air Force and Marine Corps officers.

U.S. Pacific Command, the largest command and the exclusive domain of Navy officers since its 1947 inception, soon might wind up under an Air Force officer, Pentagon and other sources say. Adm. Thomas Fargo has served since May 2002, and command tours usually run two years.

The moves are being called a step in transforming the military into an integrated force in compliance with a congressional mandate and the Bush administration's vision.

It also might signal that defense officials are considering expanding NORAD's duties.

Eberhart said in April a planning group is studying whether the U.S.-Canadian command should expand its role of monitoring the skies and space to include oceans to give military leaders a complete picture of potential threats.

Advocates of the transformation to overhaul the military from separate branches into a joint force see Keating's nomination as a signal that old parochial views have faded.

Critics call cross-service leadership "trendy" and say time will gauge its success.

"Putting service blinders on leadership roles is a way of looking at our national security more holistically, as opposed to service stovepipes, and that's exactly what transformation is all about," said Brett Lambert of DFI International, a Washington think tank.

"In the new world we're operating in, it doesn't make sense for police and firefighters not to train together," he said, "and in the same way, it makes sense for services to work together."

The Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986 forced military chiefs of staff to assign their forces to the jurisdiction of the Defense Department's combatant commanders, such as those who oversee Pacific, European and Northern commands.

President Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld embraced the concept and set up the Defense Department's Force Transformation Office in 2001.

The idea is to avoid using large numbers, overwhelming firepower and individual branches and instead use agile and rapidly deployed forces who make precision strikes with cooperation and technology.

Cross-branch weapons systems such as the Joint Strike Fighter, which still is in development, are evidence of that integration.

A leadership pattern is emerging.

"We're in a new world," said Bill Bodie, DFI consultant and former policy advisor to Air Force Secretary James Roche. "This is confirmation of how the services are embracing Rumsfeld's vision of a coherently joint force for that world."

Roche is perhaps the embodiment of transformation.

A former Navy captain, Roche is the top Air Force civilian and last year was tapped to lead the Army. He bowed out because of political obstacles posed by the controversial $20 billion Boeing Co. air-tanker deal and the Air Force Academy's sexual-assault scandal.

In NORAD's case, some might ask: Is a Navy officer equipped for an air and space mission?

Certainly, several experts said.

Four-star level managers should be prepared for any assignment, regardless of what branch "owns" the installation, said Thomas Mahnken, acting director of the strategic studies program at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

NORAD might be a prime example of cooperation because it works with the Navy and Army in many ways, including the missile defense program.

"If you were CEO of a shipping firm, couldn't you be a CEO of an airline?" he said. "That's what we're really talking about."

It won't matter whether Keating is an expert on air and space technologies because Air Force officers hold the jobs and likely always will, Mahnken said.

The goal is to mine for ideas from top leaders who embrace meshing military capabilities, he said.

Joint Staff Director Keating is heavily involved in transformation issues, including a special project undertaken recently by the Navy and Office of Force Transformation.

Still, the NORAD assignment for a Navy officer might be seen as particularly odd because the Navy could be viewed as irrelevant in today's terrorism fight.

It's lumbering and not as likely to engage directly in confrontations as other branches, said defense analyst Loren Thompson with the Lexington Institute in Washington, D.C.

The Navy, however, has deftly convinced Rumsfeld of its appetite for change by showing it must prove its relevance, he said.

Thompson called Navy officers "more polished, more reflective, more intellectual and more diplomatic" and more attune to transformation than those in other branches.

"I think the Navy has done a better job than any other military service of creating a culture of jointness and thoughtfulness among its senior officers," he said.