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Manpower and Personnel Needs for a Transformed Naval Force (2008)

Chapter: 2 People for the Future Naval Forces

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Suggested Citation:"2 People for the Future Naval Forces." National Research Council. 2008. Manpower and Personnel Needs for a Transformed Naval Force. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12030.
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Suggested Citation:"2 People for the Future Naval Forces." National Research Council. 2008. Manpower and Personnel Needs for a Transformed Naval Force. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12030.
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Suggested Citation:"2 People for the Future Naval Forces." National Research Council. 2008. Manpower and Personnel Needs for a Transformed Naval Force. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12030.
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Suggested Citation:"2 People for the Future Naval Forces." National Research Council. 2008. Manpower and Personnel Needs for a Transformed Naval Force. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12030.
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Suggested Citation:"2 People for the Future Naval Forces." National Research Council. 2008. Manpower and Personnel Needs for a Transformed Naval Force. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12030.
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Suggested Citation:"2 People for the Future Naval Forces." National Research Council. 2008. Manpower and Personnel Needs for a Transformed Naval Force. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12030.
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Suggested Citation:"2 People for the Future Naval Forces." National Research Council. 2008. Manpower and Personnel Needs for a Transformed Naval Force. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12030.
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Suggested Citation:"2 People for the Future Naval Forces." National Research Council. 2008. Manpower and Personnel Needs for a Transformed Naval Force. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12030.
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Suggested Citation:"2 People for the Future Naval Forces." National Research Council. 2008. Manpower and Personnel Needs for a Transformed Naval Force. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12030.
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Suggested Citation:"2 People for the Future Naval Forces." National Research Council. 2008. Manpower and Personnel Needs for a Transformed Naval Force. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12030.
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Suggested Citation:"2 People for the Future Naval Forces." National Research Council. 2008. Manpower and Personnel Needs for a Transformed Naval Force. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12030.
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Suggested Citation:"2 People for the Future Naval Forces." National Research Council. 2008. Manpower and Personnel Needs for a Transformed Naval Force. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12030.
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Suggested Citation:"2 People for the Future Naval Forces." National Research Council. 2008. Manpower and Personnel Needs for a Transformed Naval Force. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12030.
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Suggested Citation:"2 People for the Future Naval Forces." National Research Council. 2008. Manpower and Personnel Needs for a Transformed Naval Force. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12030.
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Suggested Citation:"2 People for the Future Naval Forces." National Research Council. 2008. Manpower and Personnel Needs for a Transformed Naval Force. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12030.
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Suggested Citation:"2 People for the Future Naval Forces." National Research Council. 2008. Manpower and Personnel Needs for a Transformed Naval Force. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12030.
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Suggested Citation:"2 People for the Future Naval Forces." National Research Council. 2008. Manpower and Personnel Needs for a Transformed Naval Force. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12030.
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Suggested Citation:"2 People for the Future Naval Forces." National Research Council. 2008. Manpower and Personnel Needs for a Transformed Naval Force. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12030.
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Suggested Citation:"2 People for the Future Naval Forces." National Research Council. 2008. Manpower and Personnel Needs for a Transformed Naval Force. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12030.
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Suggested Citation:"2 People for the Future Naval Forces." National Research Council. 2008. Manpower and Personnel Needs for a Transformed Naval Force. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12030.
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Suggested Citation:"2 People for the Future Naval Forces." National Research Council. 2008. Manpower and Personnel Needs for a Transformed Naval Force. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12030.
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Suggested Citation:"2 People for the Future Naval Forces." National Research Council. 2008. Manpower and Personnel Needs for a Transformed Naval Force. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12030.
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Suggested Citation:"2 People for the Future Naval Forces." National Research Council. 2008. Manpower and Personnel Needs for a Transformed Naval Force. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12030.
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Suggested Citation:"2 People for the Future Naval Forces." National Research Council. 2008. Manpower and Personnel Needs for a Transformed Naval Force. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12030.
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Suggested Citation:"2 People for the Future Naval Forces." National Research Council. 2008. Manpower and Personnel Needs for a Transformed Naval Force. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12030.
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Suggested Citation:"2 People for the Future Naval Forces." National Research Council. 2008. Manpower and Personnel Needs for a Transformed Naval Force. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12030.
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2 People for the Future Naval Forces Future threats, emerging technologies, and new concepts of operations are all combining to place new demands on Navy and Marine Corps people. At the same time, demographic trends and competition from the private sector will make it more difficult for the Navy and the Marine Corps to obtain the people they need with the manpower and personnel policies now in place. This chapter describes the new demands on the Department of the Navy and the demographic and private sector obstacles to meeting them. It recommends new policies designed to remedy this challenge. FUTURE THREATS, EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES, AND NEW CONCEPTS OF OPERATION The future security environment is uncertain, particularly for a great power with the depth and breadth of interests possessed by the United States. Uncertainty itself is of course a challenge, demanding a degree of flexibility not required of most nations, for many of whom specific regional threats are clearer and more predictable. There is more than the usual uncertainty facing the United States today because its biggest real and potential challenges occur at opposite ends of the conflict spectrum. The global war on terror (GWOT) defines one end of the spectrum, and the possible emergence of a more technically advanced peer com- petitor than the former Soviet Union is at the other end of the spectrum. Of course, the Navy and Marine Corps may not face the full panoply of threats described here at the same time. Moreover, U.S. political leaders can make choices about where to take actions and how to deal with the threats and opportunities the 30

PEOPLE FOR THE FUTURE NAVAL FORCES 31 nation faces. Those strategic choices will ultimately be bounded by their political and fiscal costs. A particularly dramatic choice would be the adoption of a strategy referred to by its proponents as “restraint.” Under such a strategy the United States would shun international military involvement and withdraw from most of its alliance commitments. It would greatly reduce the level of forward military presence. Such a strategy might greatly reduce both the operational tempo and the size of the forces that the United States would need. Even under such a strategy, however, the basic trends described below are likely to persist. New technology creates both opportunities and dangers in regard to the uncertain threat spectrum. The main opportunity is represented by the increas- ing interdependence of commercial and military technology, particularly in the areas of computing and signal processing. As more and more military technology becomes software rather than hardware driven, it should be possible to create a more agile and responsive force. At the same time the danger is that a legacy force imbued with the traditional focus on military-specific systems will be slow to exploit this opportunity, whereas future opponents may grasp it as a means of leaping ahead. The new threats, real and potential, together with new technology, have put the entire U.S. military establishment at a crossroads in terms of concepts of operation. For reasons described more fully below, U.S. forces will have to move away from traditional modes of operation, where military forces are aggregated in large units, massed on the battlefield against a clearly defined opponent, and commanded and controlled by central, rear-area command posts with large staffs and senior leaders. Instead U.S. forces will de driven to more distributed opera- tions, where units of action will be smaller, command relationships looser and less direct, and responsibility for decision making on the battlefield will be delegated to lower and lower echelons. At the same time, more complicated combinations of weapons, sensors, and networks linking them together will be wielded by these smaller, more distributed units of action. The following discussion looks in more detail at these three elements— threats, technology, and concepts of operations—of the new security environment and how together they will challenge Department of the Navy officials who must implement them. New Threats The GWOT involves an adversary that avoids direct confrontations with U.S. military forces. Instead insurgents and terrorists operate in small groups, hidden   or a discussion of this and other potential grand strategies, see Barry R. Posen and Andrew L. F Ross, 1996/1997, “Competing Visions for U.S. Grand Strategy,” International Security, Vol. 21, No. 3 (Winter), pp. 5-53.

32 MANPOWER AND PERSONNEL NEEDS FOR A TRANSFORMED NAVAL FORCE among civilian populations or commercial shipping at sea. They strike at civilian targets or against the forces that seek to protect them. Their military goal is to inflict casualties and cause pain, not to gain and control territory—the latter an objective to be achieved by political rather than military means. This threat was prominently demonstrated in the terrorist attacks by al-Qaeda on September 11, 2001, and by similar less lethal attacks in Bali, Madrid, and London. The major operations launched by the United States since 9/11, first in Afghanistan and then in Iraq, have exposed U.S. forces and civilian populations in those countries to a lethal environment in which terrorism, insurgency, and civil war blend across neighborhoods throughout entire countries. At the same time special operations forces around the world prosecute a lower-profile, even more dispersed war against individual terrorist cells wherever they are detected and identified. At sea, where terrorist groups and their state supporters must rely on shipping for many of their logistical needs, U.S. naval forces, along with many coalition partners, have instituted maritime security patrols designed to interdict such use of the sea. At the opposite end of the conflict spectrum, if the United States becomes engaged in a more traditional military combat with a peer or near-peer competitor, it will likely face an adversary that is more integrated with the global economy than was the Soviet Union, and therefore better able to integrate modern informa- tion technology into its military forces. In addition, such a competition will occur in the age of persistent wide-area surveillance and precision weapon technology introduced by the U.S. military after the end of the Cold War. So far this has been a one-sided revolution, deployed by the United States against much weaker opponents, but future adversaries will likely deploy similar technology against U.S. forces. The high end of the conflict spectrum will therefore present two challenges to U.S. forces: the need to stay abreast of a rapidly changing technological bat- tlespace and the need for U.S. forces to present less of a target to their opponents, much as our current opponents do to us today. As will be shown below, these chal- lenges have much in common with those presented at the low end of the conflict spectrum, both with regard to technology and to future concepts of operation. New Technology Since the Persian Gulf War of 1991, much has been made about military- technical revolutions and military transformation. These concepts, when applied with any sort of analytic rigor, focus on the ability of new weapons, sensors, and   See, for example, James Bennet with Joel Greenberg, 2002, “Israel Seizes Ship It Says Was Arm- ing Palestinians,” New York Times, January 5.   National Research Council. 2006. C4ISR for Future Naval Strike Groups, The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C.

PEOPLE FOR THE FUTURE NAVAL FORCES 33 networks to work together to strike targets with greater precision. The new con- cepts allow us to detect, identify, and precisely locate targets that were hitherto undetectable or untargetable. The intent is to accomplish this with smaller, more agile, and more dispersed forces linked together to form a network, rather than with a larger concentrated force. If one looks at the specific instruments of this revolution, one can see that a common, underlying technical theme is the change in the relative importance of hardware versus software, and an ensuing shift in the locus of the cutting edge of militarily relevant technology development from the military to the commercial sector. For example, sensors like radars and sonars will always have an analog interface with the environment they are sensing, in the form of an aperture like an antenna or a sonar dome. Immediately behind that aperture, the electromag- netic or mechanical signals that are collected are now transformed immediately into the ones and zeroes of digital coding and processed using software. Digital signal processing exploits the prodigious advances in miniaturized computational capacity created by the microelectronics revolution, and gives such sensors an unprecedented capacity to distinguish signals from background noise and to exploit those signals to detect, identify, locate, and track targets. Digital signal processing also enables the creation of reliable, wide-band- width communication links that enable networks of sensors, often using different phenomenologies and operating on separate platforms, to work together. Such networks can be put to a variety of new uses, such as the detection and precise tracking of mobile or moving targets or the precise location of radio frequency emitters, such as opposing radars or communication systems. Increasingly it is possible to accomplish these tasks night or day, in all weather conditions, and in real or near-real time. Accompanying the great advantages created by the ubiquity of software- enabled signal processing are some significant challenges. The U.S. defense industry is dominated by processes and timelines derived from the demands of developing increasingly exotic, military-specific hardware according to strict military-specific standards. Within that context software development focuses on large-scale proprietary solutions that can take years to reach the field. This vitiates one of the prime advantages of shifting to software-driven rather than hardware- driven systems: the speed and flexibility with which a software-driven system can be developed and modified by end users in response to rapidly changing needs. Certainly the Navy will long face a legacy of large-scale, complicated propri- etary software that is difficult and expensive to modify. But even in these cases it is often possible to fashion digital “work-arounds.” For example, the transforma- tion of the F-14 Tomcat into a highly capable strike aircraft late in its career was accomplished quickly and cheaply, and without major upgrades to its decades-old   aval N Studies Board, National Research Council. 2000. Network-Centric Naval Forces: A Transi- tion Strategy for Enhancing Operational Capabilities, National Academy Press, Washington, D.C.

34 MANPOWER AND PERSONNEL NEEDS FOR A TRANSFORMED NAVAL FORCE core avionics, largely with the development of small software interfaces between the legacy systems and the new capabilities being added. Many of these software interfaces were developed by small teams working within the Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR). A similar story can be told about the daily challenge of making different communications systems interoperable—a task that can increas- ingly be accomplished by small teams using tools developed in the commercial software industry. Of course, to fully exploit the benefits of software-driven systems, they must be designed that way from the start. The first example of this happening on a large scale came when the Navy’s submarine community decided to take this approach in the early 1990s with the integrated combat systems aboard its attack submarines. At a time when the antisubmarine warfare (ASW) environment had to undergo radical shifts from deep water to shallow water, and from countering a large, concentrated fleet of Soviet nuclear submarines to a more disparate, global collection of increasingly quiet diesel submarines, it found itself hamstrung in its efforts to update the passive acoustic signal processing routines that formed the core of its sonar capabilities. Out of this challenge emerged the acoustic rapid commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) insertion (ARCI) program. ARCI exploited the fact that its digital combat systems could be converted to a nonproprietary, or open source, software system, which could be managed by a large, decentralized network of trusted providers in both industry and in the laboratories. This allows for a more rapid and continuing means of updating the attack submarine’s sonar capabilities. Many groups now compete to provide the latest updates to this sys- tem, and the submarine force benefits from the increased flexibility and agility that results. ARCI still benefits from the fact that it is a large-scale system residing on a relatively small number of platforms and is focused on a threat that may change yearly. Imagine instead the challenge of a system that must reside on hundreds if not thousands of platforms and must be responsive to a threat that changes on a monthly, weekly, or even daily basis. This is the challenge posed to U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan by the wide use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs). For the purposes of this discussion, an IED is a roadside explosive device that is usually triggered by an operator who remains within the line of sight of the device waiting for U.S. military vehicles to pass. Initially copper cables were the trigger of choice, but the insurgents rapidly transitioned to commercial radio frequency (RF) consumer devices such as garage door openers, walkie-talkies, and cell phones. The counter-IED effort is driven by attempts to electronically attack the triggering device, either by jamming it or, more ambitiously, by pre- detonating it. This in turn has led to a measure-countermeasure race in which the   On the latter point, see the discussion of the Joint Forces Integration and Interoperability Team (JFIT) in Mladen Rudman, 2007, “Eglin Unit Working to Improve Coordination Between Branches,” Northwest Florida Daily News, August 11.

PEOPLE FOR THE FUTURE NAVAL FORCES 35 United States constantly monitors the environment for new triggers. When one is found the United States marshals a network of electrical and software engineers to counter it, with new solutions arriving electronically within a very short time and quickly distributed via the same means to the many platforms that must use it. One defining characteristic of the IED threat is the ease with which the opponent can use commercial technology to constantly shift the nature of the threat. A second characteristic is the software-intensive nature of the ongoing response to this changing threat. A third characteristic that is not present in Iraq or Afghanistan, but would be present at the high end of the conflict spectrum, is an opponent able to attack U.S. systems with the same skill sets that the United States is using to counter IEDs. For 15 years the United States has been fighting adversaries lacking the ability to engage in active electronic warfare of their own. It has learned to take largely for granted the ability of its sensors and communica- tion links to operate without interference. This virtual sanctuary would not exist against a peer competitor that was a full participant in the digital electronic revolu- tion. The absence of this sanctuary will drive a far more intensive and extensive software-driven effort not only to attack our opponent’s sensors and networks but also protect our own. The revolution in information technology (IT) is commonly taken as the initiating force behind the acceleration in productivity seen since 1995. The IT revolution has not simply enhanced assembly-line production but has also opened the possibility of fundamentally altering the way production takes place. Produc- tivity, as measured by the amount of work performed within a given timeframe, is often equated with cost: if you could deliver a job at half the cost, many would conclude that your organization had doubled its productivity. Because of these technical trends, the Navy and Marine Corps will need officers and enlisted personnel who possess high-level IT skills. Such skilled individuals will provide the Department of the Navy with educated buyers and allow units to modify their systems at the pace the threat requires, rather than the pace the defense industry normally provides. To obtain and sustain individuals who are able to ensure such capability, the naval services must develop incentives that recruit and encourage people to be more creative, adaptable, and willing to change. The Navy and Marine Corps will have to make the most of productiv- ity gains promised by IT and modern work practices, satisfy the expectations of workers who have prepared themselves to work in such environments, and create competitive incentives to attract the skilled workforce they require. The committee therefore recommends that the Chief of Naval Operations and the Commandant of the Marine Corps develop a plan for lateral-entry programs to permit and encourage routine entry from the civilian world onto active duty at all ranks for individuals with needed skills. Such programs would also support the global war on terror, where new requirements can suddenly emerge, such as specific cultural and linguistic knowledge for which there is no time to grow the expertise from within.

36 MANPOWER AND PERSONNEL NEEDS FOR A TRANSFORMED NAVAL FORCE New Concepts of Operation If there is one concept that captures the essence of the new concepts of opera- tion that have become necessary in the global war on terror, and will become necessary against a peer competitor, it is distributed operations. Distributed opera- tions entail disaggregating combat forces into smaller, more dispersed operating units. The global war on terror has driven the U.S. military—and particularly the Army and the Marine Corps—to distributed operations because the threat is dis- tributed. Insurgent groups and terrorist cells operate in small groups, distributed widely among the civilian populations, which provide their cover and also often constitute their targets. These small groups are very difficult to detect and identify before they strike. Therefore, the primary opportunity to defeat them occurs as they strike or in the immediate aftermath. If U.S. forces are to protect civilian pop- ulations under attack, they must themselves spread out into small distributed units in order to ensure a rapid response when insurgent or terrorist strikes occur. The combat that results under these circumstances occurs at the section or pla- toon level, with relatively junior noncommissioned officers (NCOs) and commis- sioned platoon leaders in command. Objectives unique to this war place particular challenges on the shoulders of these young marines and soldiers. First, there is a great emphasis on minimizing collateral damage to the civilian populations and infrastructure that make up the battlefield. Second, there is also an emphasis on force protection in order to minimize the casualties to U.S. forces. These two factors often work at direct cross-purposes to each other at the tactical level. Yet each has an independent and important value at the strategic level. It is difficult under any circumstances to operate in such a way as to maxi- mize discrimination and precision. It is even harder when one must at the same time minimize the exposure of dismounted marines and soldiers, as well as lightly armored vehicles. Nevertheless, it is crucial at the strategic level that both collat- eral damage and U.S. losses be minimized, because the defense of both the local and U.S. populations is critical in the GWOT. In practice small units of young marines and soldiers and their leaders must deal with these often competing imperatives by integrating the operational and tactical intelligence with the full range of direct and indirect precision fires avail- able to them. In short, as with many difficult tactical and operational situations in the past, the global war on terror demands a sophisticated combined arms approach. The difference is that the leaders who must accomplish this task will more often be at the platoon or company level, rather than at the brigade, division, or higher echelons. At the opposite end of the combat spectrum, if U.S. forces find themselves in a military competition or actual combat with a peer competitor, there are equally powerful forces that will drive them toward distributed operations. Here the most

PEOPLE FOR THE FUTURE NAVAL FORCES 37 important locus of combat or prospective combat will be at sea, and it will be naval forces that must develop distributed operations. Naval forces already operate in distributed fashion, albeit in a relatively benign environment where the dominant missions are providing air support for marines and soldiers ashore and conducting maritime patrol and intercept opera- tions at sea. Under circumstances in which U.S. Navy forces must project power ashore against an opponent with integrated shore-based defenses and an ability to project defensive power out to sea, the traditional naval response has been to concentrate forces into large battle groups. Concentrated forces simultaneously maximize the collective self-defense capabilities of defensive assets, as well as the efficiency of offensive power projection assets. During the Cold War, this strategy relied upon both organic and off-board sensors that gave the battle group plenty of warning of the approach of air, surface, and subsurface threats. The battle group could reach out over long distances and strike opposing weapon platforms before they could launch their weapons—or in less formal terms, shoot archers not arrows. Today the prospect for peer-to-peer naval competition is most likely in the Indo-Pacific littoral, against adversaries seeking to deny U.S. naval forces the use of those seas, rather than control them themselves. Such adversaries will likely wield a formidable array of antiship weapons. The most effective platforms for such weapons will be those that are best able to exploit the shallow, cluttered waters that define the littoral environment. Modern diesel submarines are very quiet, even when snorkeling. When they remain within coastal waters no deeper than several hundred feet, what little acoustic signature they have is dampened both by the short propagation ranges characteristic of shallow water and masked by the noise caused by commercial shipping. At the same time, shallow coastal water poses significant problems for active sonar, both because the bottom is often strewn with shipwrecks and other refuse that could be bottomed submarines, and because of the reverberation that results when powerful sonar signals interact repeatedly with the bottom. For these and other reasons, detection ranges—and therefore surveillance capabilities in littoral waters—are several orders of magnitude less than they were against Soviet nuclear submarines. Therefore, a strategy designed to ensure that archers are shot before they can loose their arrows is much more difficult to execute. For similar reasons, mines and small missile-armed boats are also a threat. In the former case detection is a challenge, and in the latter case long-range identification is difficult. Lacking long-range sensors able to detect, identify, and track such weapons, the U.S. Navy realizes that it must deploy a distributed force in order to control the   n these points, see Owen R. Cote Jr., 2006, “The Future Security Environment” and “Sea Shield O Past, Present, and Future,” The Future of Naval Aviation, M.I.T. Security Studies Program, Cambridge, Mass., February, pp. 13-18, 34-38, respectively.

38 MANPOWER AND PERSONNEL NEEDS FOR A TRANSFORMED NAVAL FORCE sea space it requires to operate. A distributed force can gain back some of the lost detection range by placing many shorter-ranged sensors and weapon platforms in the contested sea space. For these missions one of the key platforms will be the littoral combat ship (LCS). That means designing the ship to be a “truck” with mobility, damage control, limited self-defense, accommodations, and ability to host a variety of “mission packages.” The underlying LCS rationale demands a large number of ships. The Navy also seeks a platform that can be bought at reasonable cost. A major element of controlling LCS costs will be life-cycle costs, and the main element of life-cycle costs are personnel costs. Hence the Navy’s decision to limit the LCS’s basic crew to 40, and to limit the crew associated with its separate mission modules to an additional 35. This is a near order-of-magnitude reduction in crew size compared with similar sized Cold War vessels such as the Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigate. Technology (or the shift of crew functions ashore) will be exploited as much as possible to take up or eliminate tasks conducted by crew members in earlier ship classes, but much obviously remains for the new ships’ crews. The situation with the DDG 1000 is even more striking. Among other things, the Navy plans to expand further on the already formidable capacity and flexibility of the vertical launch missile systems, allowing weapons loads to be tailored to mission requirements and positioning the vertical launch system (VLS) installa- tion itself to contribute to the survivability of the ship. The new ship designs will translate into big changes on the demand side of the manpower equation. As the new designs increasingly substitute technology for labor, there will be a need for crew members in precise numbers with spe- cific, hitherto unknown combinations of skills. On the one hand, future ships will require a few sailors in whom several sets of skills are fused; on the other hand, these sailors must always be on station in the precise numbers needed. There will not be room for error in either the training or distribution system for people at sea. The greater demands on the crews of both new ship classes will necessitate more collaboration. Smaller ships with more technology to support human per- formance and improve operational capabilities will require new skills of crew members and arguably will raise the bar for the qualifications of people to learn and apply these skills. Average experience levels will need to increase, leaving relatively fewer jobs for very junior officers and enlisted personnel. Other programs also impose new demands that the Navy will have to face soon: supplying people with new skills to play key roles in expanded capabilities for the remainder of the improved SSN-688 class and also the converted Ohio- class SSGN with its precision conventional strike capability. The next aircraft carrier will embody changes that will shift the work of some crew members to technology. Future amphibious ships will also trim their crews and demand skills packaged differently in people.

PEOPLE FOR THE FUTURE NAVAL FORCES 39 As Figure 2.1 shows for the officer billets, the Navy’s rank structure will shift from a pyramidal to an oval structure. Today the largest portion of a ship’s crew, whether enlisted or commissioned, are the most junior ranks—the seamen and the ensigns. After the required training and experience at sea, a subset of these enlisted personnel and ensigns are promoted to the next higher rank where there is the need for fewer people. Thus, the current overall manpower structure is a pyramid with the large numbers at the entry levels declining over time to one CNO and one Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy. In the future there will be fewer jobs in the ship’s crew at the entry level because so much more will be demanded of each individual crew member. Hence, the need for the middle ranks, second- and third-term enlisted and commissioned individuals, will exceed the need for lower or higher ranks. The overall force structure will be oval—bulging at the middle ranks—and not pyramidal. Here, in a very different context, is the same trend toward smaller units of action being asked to take on more and more responsibility. Forces afloat face many of the same demands as those ashore in the GWOT. In this case the trend toward distributed operations is also threat driven, while the trend toward smaller crews is driven in large part by cost, but the result is the same. Regardless of the opponent, both the Navy and the Marine Corps will need people with a more sophisticated set of skills than in the past, and these people will need to be enabled to make battlefield decisions that would have been the province of higher-ranking officers in the past. Given these demands, the committee offers three findings and recommenda- tions. (The recommendations in the report are not prioritized.) Finding: Officer career paths in the Navy and Marine Corps are designed to pro- duce well-rounded officers suited for major command and flag rank. However, relatively few officers achieve these goals; most of the career force leave at (or shortly after) 20 years—many at the peak of their operational experience and expertise. Recommendation: The Secretary of the Navy (SECNAV), the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO), and the Commandant of the Marine Corps (CMC) should take steps to allow those officers who prefer an operational or specialist career to remain in operational or specialist billets, with limitations on rank, for their entire careers. Toward that end the Navy Department leaders should investigate how to embed performance incentives to accommodate career paths that would not involve moving up the chain of command. In addition, the SECNAV, CNO, and CMC should sponsor and support changes to the basic pay table that would allow individuals to stay in grade longer without financial penalty. Finding: Current promotion patterns from enlisted to commissioned officer are wasteful of talent and inconsistent with the Navy’s desire to move toward an “oval

40 2008 2016 2030 O-6 47 Cost/officer=$118.6K O-6 43 Cost/officer=$122.5K Cost/officer=$122.5KO-6 34 Cost/officer=$126.4K O-5 178 O-5 227 O-5 210 O-4 367 O-4 405 O-4 344 O-3 384 O-3 449 O-3 377 O-2 809 O-2 844 O-2 678 O-1 771 O-1 625 O-1 368 0 300 600 900 0 300 600 900 0 300 600 900 Billets - 2008 Billets - 2016 Billets - 2030 ENS LTJG Beyond the FYDP, the “pyramid” transforms to an “oval” LT • The result is a more senior and more expensive (cost per member) force LCDR CDR • How do we grow enough dept heads with a shrinking ensign base? CAPT FIGURE 2.1 Surface URL billets on all ships (ship’s company). SOURCE: VADM J.C. Harvey Jr., USN, Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Manpower, Personnel, Training, and Education and Chief of Naval Personnel, “Shaping the Force for the Future,” presentation to the com- mittee, October 3, 2006, Washington, D.C. NOTE: URL, unrestricted line (naval officers); FYDP, Future Years Defense Plan. figure 2-1 Landscape view

PEOPLE FOR THE FUTURE NAVAL FORCES 41 workforce.” The Navy recruits more ensigns than it needs in order to ensure that it will have enough midlevel officers. The surplus of ensigns is inconsistent with the Navy’s desire to develop for its future ships a workforce that looks less like a pyramid and more like an oval. At the same time, the Navy provides limited advancement opportunities for E-8s and E-9s, who therefore leave the service in large numbers as soon as or soon after they reach retirement age. Recommendation: The Chief of Naval Operations should work with the Sec- retary of the Navy to institute an enlisted-to-commissioned promotion path that pulls senior enlisted people into the midlevel officer ranks, and should use this program to avoid recruiting more ensigns than needed. Finding: Today’s restrictions on entry levels for people will hamper Navy and Marine Corps efforts to exploit emerging technologies and address unexpected threats. To exploit fully the trend from hardware- to software-driven systems, the Navy and Marine Corps will need officers and enlisted personnel who possess information technology skills at a very high level. Such skilled individuals will have to provide the Department of the Navy with educated buyers and allow units to modify their systems at the pace the threat requires, rather than the pace the defense industry normally provides. These skills are increasingly in demand in the private sector as well. When a new requirement suddenly emerges, such as the cultural and linguistic knowledge demanded by the global war on terror, there is no time to develop the expertise from within. Whether or not such expertise will be needed over the long term, the short-term need is often urgent. Individuals with such skills are avail- able in the civilian world. If provided the right incentives, such individuals might volunteer to serve on active duty for a specified period. Such individuals would be more valuable to the Department of the Navy than civilian contractors, and such service might be more attractive for the individuals as well. Recommendation: The Chief of Naval Operations and the Commandant of the Marine Corps should direct the development of a plan for lateral-entry programs to permit and encourage routine entry from the civilian world into active duty at all ranks for individuals with needed skills. Unfortunately as these threat-driven demands for new skills and additional responsibility are developing, trends in the supply side of the manpower and per- sonnel chain are combining to make it more not less difficult for the Department of the Navy to meet them. In the next section, trends in demography and in com- mercial labor markets are discussed that will complicate the department’s search for the 21st-century sailor and marine to develop into enlightened mature leaders

42 MANPOWER AND PERSONNEL NEEDS FOR A TRANSFORMED NAVAL FORCE and into operationally savvy personnel such as information warriors, foreign area specialists, and systems engineers. Many factors affect the ability of the Department of the Navy to acquire the officer and enlisted personnel it needs. In addition to demographics, they include factors such as compensation, the number and motivation of recruiters, mass- media advertising, educational benefits, and bonuses. The unemployment rate and competition from civilian employers are also strong drivers. The next two sections focus on demographics and the competition from civilian labor markets for two reasons: these are the factors over which the Department of the Navy has the least control, and trends in these areas have the potential to undermine existing approaches to recruiting. DEMOGRAPHICS As the nation proceeds through the first decade of the millennium it faces a significant cultural diversity shift. The face of America is changing from that of its European founders and settlers to one that is a true melting pot. The melting pot requires new approaches to recruiting and retaining service members. Between 1950 and 2000 the population grew from 151 million to 275 million, an increase of 124 million, or approximately 90 percent. From 2000 to 2050 the population is projected to increase by 144.8 million. In spite of this population increase, the demographic changes (discussed in the following subsection), combined with a lower propensity to serve in the military among young people, will bring new recruitment and retention challenges to the Department of Defense (DOD). The Department of the Navy must be prepared to respond to these challenges. Demographic Changes An increasing portion of the U.S. population will be non-white and non-male. The percentage of non-whites in the workforce is steadily increasing, while the white percentage of the total population is expected to decline to about one-half of the population by 2050. Within 50 years Hispanics (an ethnic group, not a race) will almost double their representation, to about one-quarter of the population; Asian representation will more than double, from a bit under 4 percent to about 8 percent; and the growth in the black share of the population will be very flat, going from about 13 percent to about 15 percent in 50 years. (See Box B.1 in Appendix B for definitions of population groups taken from the U.S. Census website.)  ��������������������������������������������� Recruiting an All-Volunteer Force: The Need for Barbara A. Bicksler and Lisa G. Nolan. ������ 2006. Sustained Investment in Recruiting Resources, Vol. 1., No. 1, Strategic Analysis (Policy Perspectives), Arlington, Va., September, pp. 1-25.   he detailed statistics will be somewhat different for the population of 17- to 50-year-olds that T includes most service members.

PEOPLE FOR THE FUTURE NAVAL FORCES 43 TABLE 2.1  Recruiting Workforce Demographics (Millions) 2000 2010 2020 Workforce 142.6 155.7 168.5 Males, ages 18 to 24 10.1 10.4 10.5 Females, ages 18 to 24 9.1 9.3 9.9 SOURCE: 2000 U.S. Census (www.census.gov). Since 1970, the percentage of working-age women who are in the workforce has steadily increased from 43 percent to approximately 61 percent. During the same time period, the percentage of women in the military has increased from 1.4 percent to 15 percent of the force. According to Richard Judy and Carol D’Amico in Workforce 2020, in 1997 females received 55 percent of bachelor’s degrees, 53 percent of master’s degree and 40 percent of doctorates. For the last 15 years black females have attended college and obtained undergraduate and graduate degrees in greater numbers than black males. Between 2000 and 2020, the size of the prime male recruiting population (ages 18 to 24 years) is expected to increase by only 400,000; the corresponding female population will increase by twice that number (Table 2.1). Unfortunately, DOD-sponsored studies indicate that the military has had limited success in recruiting females in this group. Information from the Youth Attitude Tracking Survey and the Joint Advertising Market Research and Studies provides details on the causes of limited success in recruiting females into the services. The commit- tee raised to the Navy this issue regarding limited success in recruiting females and the Navy’s plans on addressing it. The committee heard that at the present time the Navy has no plans that address this issue. New Workforce Entrants Workforce 2000 projected that between 1985 and 2000, 85 percent of the new entrants into the workforce would be females and non-whites.10 Immigrants, both legal and undocumented, represented 22 percent of this total. The statement was widely interpreted as portraying a decrease in the number of white males; in reality the downturn in white male representation was due to rapid growth in the other population groups (see Table B.1 in Appendix B for a more detailed breakdown). Of these groups the fastest growing is the Hispanic population. As of 2003   Richard W. Judy and Carol D’Amico. 1997. Workforce 2020: Work and Workers in the 21st Century, Hudson Institute, Indianapolis, Ind. 10  illiam B. Johnston and Arnold E. Packer. 1987. Workforce 2000: Work and Workers for the W Twenty-First Century, Hudson Institute, Indianapolis, Ind., p. 95.

44 MANPOWER AND PERSONNEL NEEDS FOR A TRANSFORMED NAVAL FORCE Drugs/Alcohol 16% 9.6 million 17 – 24 Male Target Market Dependents 8% 2.7 million Qualified for Military Service 220,000 Interested and Qualified Legal 11% Physical and Medical 68% Total 72% Disqualified 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% FIGURE 2.2 Non-prior-service recruiting market. SOURCE: Excerpt from RADM Joseph F. Kilkenny, USN, Commander, Navy Recruiting Command, “Navy Recruiting Command . . . Seeking the ‘Best and Brightest,’” presentation to the committee, February 13, 2007, Millington, Tenn. fig 2-2 Hispanics replaced blacks as the largest minority group in the U.S. population. In the state of California and a number of major cities nationwide, the majority of the population is now non-white. Unfortunately for the Navy and Marine Corps, who put great stock in the high school diploma, graduation rates for Hispanics lag significantly behind those of the other groups. With Hispanics now the largest minority group, this issue takes on increasing importance for recruiters (see Table B.2 in Appendix B for a more detailed picture of graduation rates by group). Propensity to Serve It was reported to the committee that 72 percent of the 9.6 million male youth in the target age group (17 to 24) are ineligible for military service. Figure 2.2 shows the primary reasons that, of this group, only 2.7 million men were quali- fied for military service. Allowing for the normal recruiting results, that leaves approximately 220,000 qualified men with a propensity for military service. 11 11  t I is important to note that not all people who ultimately join the military indicate a propensity to do so when they are surveyed in high school, however. During the mid-1990s, nearly half of all recruits who had been surveyed during high school thought at the time that they would not be likely to join the military. See Bruce R. Orvis, Narayan Sastry, and Laurie L. McDonald, 1996, Military Recruiting Outlook: Recent Trends in Enlistment Propensity and Conversion of Potential Enlisted Supply, RAND Corporation, MR-677-A/OSD, Santa Monica, Calif., p. 11.

PEOPLE FOR THE FUTURE NAVAL FORCES 45 The DOD sponsors periodic surveys of high school students to gain insight into their likelihood of choosing military services and the reasons they might prefer one service over another. During the 1990s, the Youth Attitude Tracking Study (YATS) found that the propensity to serve in the military was nearly three times higher for men than for women high school students. After the Persian Gulf War began in 1991, the propensity to serve dropped sharply among black men and women and has not recovered since then—and, in fact, has declined sharply since the Iraq War began. A more recent DOD survey, the June 2005 Joint Advertising, Market Research and Studies (JAMRS) Youth Poll,12 reported that blacks’ propensity to serve was at an all-time low, even though propensity among black females had improved some- what. Hispanics’ propensity was the highest among all youth, but had declined significantly between 2004 and 2005. In the survey the primary reason given by blacks, Hispanics, and females for not wanting to join the military was the ongoing military action overseas. The report identifies positive comments from influenc- ers like family members, teachers, school counselors, and coaches—particularly influencers who have served in the military—as highly instrumental in directing youth toward the military. Unfortunately with fewer and fewer Americans having served in the military, there may be fewer influencers with positive military experi- ences to pass on to youth. This can only make the task for service recruiters more difficult. Therefore, the committee recommends examining options for expanding programs like the high school Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC) and the college Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC). Navy and Marine Corps JROTC was created not as a recruiting tool for the military but rather as a high school citizenship program. It serves to put a uniformed presence on high school campuses and imparts the positive traits associated with the military to this age group. JROTC programs are located in all 50 states, Armed Forces Europe, and Pacific High Schools as well as on Guam. While JROTC is not specifically a recruiting tool, it has been shown over time to have a positive impact on high school students’ propensity to serve. Expansion of JROTC would involve establishing relationships between the Department of the Navy and additional individual school districts, since half of the salary of the instructors comes from their military retirement and the other half is paid by the school district. The Navy college ROTC program is located on 70 college and university campuses. College ROTC is an important recruiting tool, and the variety of loca- tions with participants in ROTC allows the Department of the Navy to target potential recruits with technical expertise (e.g., nuclear, computer technology, information security, engineering, biomedical) and language skills that are critical to a transformed naval force. 12  oint Advertising, J Market Research and Studies, Defense Human Resources Activity. 2006. June 2005 Youth Poll Overview Report, Department of Defense, Arlington, Va., p. i.

46 MANPOWER AND PERSONNEL NEEDS FOR A TRANSFORMED NAVAL FORCE Role of the Reserve Component The Reserve Component (RC) is being used at far greater rates today than during the Cold War. Over the last few years the reserves have transitioned from being a strategic reserve, ready to step up in response to a major war, to being an operational reserve, called up regularly to supplement the active component in ongoing operations and deployments. The RC comprises 1.1 million members, or 44 percent of the nation’s total military force.13 Table B.3 in Appendix B shows the changes in RC manning between 1990 and 2005. While the reservist has willingly entered into his or her reserve obligation, the shift to an operational reserve comes at a price. The cost to the reservist is much more time away from both family and employer, with the return being continued service in defense of the nation. While the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA) offers a degree of employment protection, it cannot make up for not being there. Multiple deployments in rapid succession are having a cumulative negative impact on the structure of the RC and some of its members. The role of the RC in support of GWOT efforts of the Navy and Marine Corps and other services has been vitally important. The RC provides much- needed force strength and valuable expertise. In addition, the citizen-sailors and citizen-marines provide a special connection to the nation. Following activations or deployments their experiences, both positive and negative, will return with them to their families, communities, and places of employment. The impact of repeated deployments in close succession has the potential of wearing down the support from families and employers that is basic to the viability of the RC. Assistant Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs Thomas Hall has com- mented that since September 11, 2001, about 352,000 guardsmen and reservists, out of 1.1 million available, have been mobilized (see Box B.2 in Appendix B for a detailed breakdown of various categories of reserves). That number, he said, represents only 38 percent of the drilling reserves, not including individual ready reserve members, while some media reports create the impression that “we’ve used them all up.”14 Hall indicated that the fact that 62 percent of National Guard and Reserve members had not been mobilized during the past 10 years had led his department to examine its mobilization patterns and policies. He noted that during the past 6 years, only 4 percent of the force has been affected by multiple mobilizations. But, he added, the department is aware that this is small consolation for those RC members who have deployed more than once. “If you are one of that group that 13  .S. Government Accountability Office. 2007. Military Personnel: Additional Actions Needed to U Improve Oversight of Reserve Employment Issues, Report to Congressional Committees, GAO-07-259, Washington, D.C., February, p. 9. 14  athleen T. Rhem. 2004. “Weekend Warriors No More,” American Forces Press Service, News K Articles, November 8.

PEOPLE FOR THE FUTURE NAVAL FORCES 47 has been mobilized, two, three and four times, it’s a problem,” Hall said. “So we have looked at the stress on the force. We have defined it, and the message here is that it’s a small group, but it’s an important group.”15 Hall said that DOD also is looking into providing more predictability for Guard and Reserve members prior to deployment. He said Guard and Reserve members “need to know up front when they’re going to mobilize and for how long. We need to get to a predictability, a rotational base for both our active and Reserve forces that provides that.”16 There has been a continuing partial mobilization of the Reserve and National Guard since the 1990 call-ups following Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. The total num- ber currently on active duty in support of the partial mobilization for the Army National Guard and Army Reserve is 66,912; Navy Reserve, 5,673; Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve, 5,371; Marine Corps Reserve, 5,459; and the Coast Guard Reserve, 303. This brings the total National Guard and Reserve personnel who have been mobilized to 83,718, including both units and individual augmen- tees (see Box B.3 in Appendix B for details on mobilization categories). The Government Accountability Office’s report Military Personnel: Addi- tional Actions Needed to Improve Oversight of Reserve Employment Issues notes that 35 percent of reservists reported working for businesses of fewer than 50 employees.17 When that 35 percent is combined with the 14 percent who work for firms of 50 to 499 employees, it is the case that almost half of all reservists are employed in what are considered small businesses. These businesses may be the least capable of sustaining the repeated absences caused by activations and mobilizations.18 These facts and Secretary Hall’s remarks make it clear that the RC today is an operational reserve and not a strategic reserve. If the changes implied by Secretary Hall are not implemented expeditiously, there will be long-term con- sequences for the viability of the RC as viewed by employers, coworkers, and their families. 15  athleen T. Rhem. 2004. “Weekend Warriors No More,” American Forces Press Service, News K Articles, November 8. 16  athleen T. Rhem. 2004. “Weekend Warriors No More,” American Forces Press Service, News K Articles, November 8. 17  .S. Government Accountability Office. 2007. Military Personnel: Additional Actions Needed to U Improve Oversight of Reserve Employment Issues, Report to Congressional Committees, GAO-07-259, Washington, D.C., February, p. 9. 18  .S. Government Accountability Office. 2007. Military Personnel: Additional Actions Needed to U Improve Oversight of Reserve Employment Issues, Report to Congressional Committees, GAO-07-259, Washington, D.C., February, p. 9. See also the statement of Heidi L.W. Golding, National Security Division, before the Commission on the National Guard and Reserves, May 17, 2005, from the Con- gressional Budget Office, 2005, The Effects of Reserve Call-Ups on Civilian Employers, Washington, D.C., May, p. 2. As the same testimony points out, however, most employers, large or small, are unaf- fected by the activation of reservists because “only about 6 percent of business establishments employ reservists, and fewer than half a percent of self-employed people are in the reserves.”

48 MANPOWER AND PERSONNEL NEEDS FOR A TRANSFORMED NAVAL FORCE Finding: Changes in demographics, fitness, and attitudes toward military service call for creative approaches to Navy and Marine Corps recruiting. Since the inception of the all-volunteer force, the Navy and Marine Corps have devoted substantial resources to recruiting. Those resources have been instru- mental in bringing sufficient numbers of high-quality youth into the services over the years and making the all-volunteer force a success. In the future, military-qualified youth will make up a shrinking share of the U.S. population. Attitudes toward serving in the military may also reduce the pool of potential recruits. At the same time, the nation’s racial and ethnic mix is shifting in ways that will advantage employers that emphasize and value diversity and make extra efforts to attract minorities. Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) scholarships are a crucial tool in attracting qualified students from diverse backgrounds into the officer corps. Complementing that effort, the Junior ROTC offers opportunities for high school students, including many who are otherwise disadvantaged, to improve their physical fitness, build values, and get a taste of military life. Recommendation: The Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Manpower and Reserve Affairs, the Chief of Naval Personnel, and the Deputy Commandant of the Marine Corps for Manpower and Reserve Affairs should examine options to expand Junior ROTC programs to attract qualified students from diverse back- grounds to naval service. Congress would have to be persuaded to provide additional funds for Junior ROTC programs. In some cases funds have been appropriated but have not been spent by the services. Location of Junior ROTC units can be critical to the suc- cess of the program. School districts with a large minority population need to be emphasized for the new units. Furthermore, there are aviation magnet high schools in the United States that should be made prime targets for units. Under current law only retired active duty members who are drawing retirement can be instructors in Junior ROTC. The way pay is structured, the retired reservist who is not drawing retirement cannot be an instructor. The Secretary of the Navy needs to determine if this requirement can be changed to increase the pool to draw on for instructors. COMPETITION FROM THE PRIVATE SECTOR Jobs in all the military services, including the Navy and the Marine Corps, are changing in multiple ways. Many jobs are becoming increasingly complex, and fewer jobs can be performed by individuals with low skill levels. Some jobs require greater technical skills; others require performance of multiple tasks to high standards. Military personnel are increasingly expected to act independently

PEOPLE FOR THE FUTURE NAVAL FORCES 49 and be adept at thinking on their feet. Because of the rapidly changing envi- ronments, equipment, and job requirements, many sailors and marines will be expected to possess the ability to learn rapidly at a high level of mastery. Increasingly, civilian jobs have the same requirements for quick and adaptive learners who can meet the changing expectations placed on them. Moreover, the demand for highly skilled workers in the private sector will continue to rise. The empirical evidence of a growing demand for skills shows up in two ways. First, the fastest growing categories of jobs require increasing levels of education. Individuals with only a high school education today are eligible for only 12 percent of new jobs. Second, the large and growing wage premium for workers with higher levels of education reflects unmet demand. Several trends, including technological change, globalization, and demographics, are driving the push for higher levels of skill. Thus, a major source of competition for capable individuals for the military is private industry. Both civilian employers and the military will increasingly compete fiercely to attract, recruit, and retain the highly competent youth. Every individual makes a career choice. Although some people take the first job offered, most consider multiple factors, including job content, working condi- tions, pay, and benefits. Some of these factors are generally positive when military service is considered. Others are seen as less favorable when military service is compared with civilian employment. Young people evaluate these factors with varying degrees of accuracy. The evaluation of these factors affects individual job choice and military recruitment and retention. This section of the chapter compares aspects of careers in the military and the private sector and highlights the areas in which the military may be disadvantaged in attracting highly capable youth relative to private industry. At the conclusion of the chapter the committee offers a recommendation that it believes will enhance the attraction of a Navy or Marine Corps career. Reputation of the Military Services Young people who want a career with an organization with a strong positive reputation are likely to find that service in the military, including the Navy and the Marine Corps, meets that need. When asked in a DOD marketing question- naire about the single most important image associated with the military, 32.1 percent of adults gave responses categorized as “duty/service” and 15.9 percent of adults’ responses fell into the “pride/admiration” category.19 When asked about impressions of those who join a military service, 23.7 percent of adults provided responses in the “heroic” category, 18.4 percent in the “duty/service” category, and 19  oint Advertising, Market Research and Studies, Defense Human Resources Activity. 2004. J September 2003 Adult Poll 5, Overview Report, Department of Defense, Arlington, Va., April, pp. 46-47.

50 MANPOWER AND PERSONNEL NEEDS FOR A TRANSFORMED NAVAL FORCE 13.7 percent in the “pride/admiration” category. Overall, 84 percent mentioned having a positive image of individuals who join the military. In contrast, few U.S. corporations are associated with duty/service, and few corporate employees are perceived to be engaged in heroic activities on the job. A not insignificant number of corporations and their leaders are associated with negative attributes such as greed, lack of respect for employees, and lack of environmental responsibility. Service to Country Few employers other than the military offer intrinsic rewards associated with service to country, an important job characteristic for many. While honor and duty to country may be powerful incentives to enlistment for some individuals, they are certainly not incentives for all. For some the desire for extrinsic rewards may override the need for intrinsic ones. And there are other opportunities for service to country (e.g., government work) or service to others (e.g., nonprofit employ- ment). Nevertheless, the opportunity to serve one’s country is a powerful attrac- tion for some. It merits noting that the intrinsic rewards may be more important to retention than to recruitment because such rewards may not be apparent until one has served. Pay and Benefits Active Component Many individuals making career choices place a great deal of importance on tangible rewards, including pay, benefits, and other incentives. In both the private and military sectors the value of all forms of compensation is not easy to calculate, making direct comparisons of military and civilian compensation difficult. The military offers basic pay and also adds on housing allowances, uniform allow- ances, enlistment bonuses, college programs, special-duty pay, and other cash rewards. The private sector may offer base pay, overtime pay, shift differentials, sales incentives, bonuses, overtime, and stock options. In addition, the private sector may offer wage credits for experience or education. Military pay (including basic pay, allowances for housing and food, and the tax advantage that accrues because the allowances are not taxed) compares quite favorably with pay in the private sector for individuals who have comparable levels of education and years of experience.20 Among men and women already in uniform, however, misperceptions of the pay package and how well it compares 20  See Department of Defense, 2002, Report of the Ninth Quadrennial Review of Military Compensa- tion, Vols I-V, Washington, D.C., May; and Congressional Budget Office, 2007, Evaluating Military Compensation, Washington, D.C., June.

PEOPLE FOR THE FUTURE NAVAL FORCES 51 with civilian pay are widespread. For example, focus groups and surveys con- ducted and analyzed by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) in 2005 21 revealed misperceptions among service members about the structure of their compensation, the costs of their pay and benefits, and the competitiveness of the pay package with compensation in the private sector. Fully 80 percent of service members responding to the GAO survey thought they would earn more as civil- ians, even though for most of them the opposite was likely true. Regardless of actual pay differences, perceptions of pay differences may have a strong influence on the likelihood that an individual will enlist or reenlist. When adult influencers believed that civilian jobs paid more than the military, some 60 percent recommended them. The converse held when they believed that military pay was higher.22 Reserve Component Members of the Guard and the Reserve see both pay and benefits advantages and disadvantages. A clear advantage of service is the military pay that supple- ments pay received from other employment. Additionally, a RAND analysis of Social Security records indicated that the vast majority of reservists earned more when they were mobilized than they did before they were called to active duty. 23 Nevertheless, some individual members suffered a loss in pay when they were mobilized. Many reservists and their families must change health care plans during deployment, which often means changing health care providers. Others come home to unwelcome surprises regarding health care coverage. For example, one reservist spent 5 months in Iraq in 2003 and was surprised when his employer, a city government, maintained his health insurance but attempted to charge him his employee contributions.24 In many respects military health benefits are far superior to those generally 21  .S. Government Accountability Office. 2005. Military Personnel: DOD Needs to Improve the U Transparency and Reassess the Reasonableness, Appropriateness, Affordability, and Sustainability of Its Military Compensation System, Report to Congressional Committees, GAO-05-798, Washington, D.C., July, p. 2 and p. 6 22  ee Joint Advertising, Market Research and Studies, Defense Human Resources Activity, 2004, S November 2003 Youth Poll 6, Overview Report, Department of Defense, Arlington, Va, July, pp. 34; and Joint Advertising, Market Research and Studies, Defense Human Resources Activity, 2004, May 2004 Influencer Poll 2, Report and Crosstabulations, Department of Defense, Arlington, Va., November, pp. 3-9. 23  avid S. Loughran, Jacob A. Klerman, and Craig W. Martin. 2006. Activation and the Earnings D of Reservists, RAND Corporation, TR-274-OSD, Santa Monica, Calif. 24  ee, for example, David Scharfenberg, 2005, “Soldiers Wage Battle at Home Over Wages,” S New York Times, February 27; or the New York Times editorial, 2005, “Part-Time Pay for Full-Time Service,” New York Times, March 10.

52 MANPOWER AND PERSONNEL NEEDS FOR A TRANSFORMED NAVAL FORCE offered in the private sector. The number of corporations offering extensive health care coverage to retirees is diminishing every year. Yet these benefits often fail to entice the 17- to 24-year-old group to serve because young people, especially those without families, generally have little need for medical services and fail to see their value. Available Career Fields Another factor in many young people’s career choice is occupational choice. Some youth have well-developed ideas about what they want to do occupation- ally. Others clearly do not. Both the military and the civilian sector offer many occupational choices; however, the two sets of occupations are not congruent. Although the array of career fields in the military services in general and in the Navy and Marine Corps in particular is vast, some occupations are excluded. For example, an individual interested in pursuing a commissioned sales career will find limited opportunities. (Many might argue that recruiting duty is a significant exception; however, compensation is not generally commissioned.) The same mis- match, however, is found with civilian jobs as they do not include all the positions one might find in the services. For example, an individual interested in piloting jet fighter aircraft will not find that opportunity in private industry. Although occupational interest is an important determinant of the relative attractiveness of military and civilian careers, civilian occupations are not inherently better or more interesting than military occupations. However, military occupations have higher risk compared to civilian occupations. For some enlistees the prospect of spending a long career in an occupational field that is not easily transferable to the private sector may be a deterrent to military service. For example, with limited exceptions in law enforcement and private security, expertise in combat arms does not transfer readily to the civilian world. Not all young people have a well-developed understanding of career options or a desire for a particular one. For some enlistees, career direction from an exter- nal source is a positive factor in choosing a career. Few, if any, organizations in the civilian world offer the level of career direction or even have tools equivalent to the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) to guide new or potential employees. Most seek out individuals whose knowledge, skills, and abilities meet the requirements of the jobs the organization is trying to fill. Flexibility in Choosing Fields An advantage of the private sector in the area of career choice for some is the ability to evaluate career decisions and change directions. Increasingly in the United States young people change careers frequently and some continue to

PEOPLE FOR THE FUTURE NAVAL FORCES 53 experiment throughout their careers. Indeed, the average young person today will change jobs nine times over the course of a career.25 In the private sector the growing complexity of business and social environ- ments requires individuals to plan, design, and manage in new ways—taking into account contingencies, anticipating changes, and understanding interdependencies of systems.26 In doing so individuals are called upon to manage their time and other resources efficiently and effectively in order to execute tasks successfully. With this growing complexity comes the challenge of increasing capacity to do more work while decreasing workforce size and costs. While the benefits of building tenure and acquiring expertise in a single field often hold employees in a career, other realities like downsizing and offshoring can force individuals in midcareer to make radical changes in career direction. The Department of Labor reported 13,828 “lay-off events” affecting 1,462,069 individuals making initial unemployment compensation claims in 2006. (A lay- off event is defined as “fifty or more initial claims for unemployment insurance benefits filed against an establishment during a 5-week period, regardless of dura- tion.”27) In addition, many midcareer individuals simply grow bored with their chosen careers and strike out on new ones. In contrast, many military occupations keep a person in a “closed loop” regardless of his or her changing interests. For example, “coners” on submarines typically stay onboard or in support of submarines their entire careers and would have great difficulty making an occupational shift within the Navy.28 In many respects officers face the opposite problem. Most are trained for executive leadership even if they prefer to specialize in a career. The opportunity to stay in the military and forego developmental assignments outside a career specialty is limited. Training Opportunities Many youth take training and development opportunities into consideration when planning their initial career choices. Both military service and civilian employment offer advantages and disadvantages in this area. Some form of train- 25  laine L. Chao, Secretary of Labor, speech given at the Los Angeles Town Hall, “Challenges E to Modernizing the Workforce in the 21st Century” Los Angeles, September 19, 2002. Available at <http://www.dol.gov/_sec/media/speeches/20020919_LA_Town_Hall.htm>. Accessed on October 3, 2007. 26  ee Daniel Goleman, 2000, Working with Emotional Intelligence, Bantam Dell Publishing Group, S New York; National Research Council, 1999, Being Fluent with Information Technology, National Academy Press, Washington, D.C. 27  ureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor. 2007. “Mass Layoffs Summary,” News, B USDL 07-1203, August 9. 28  n the Navy’s vernacular, “coners” are the enlisted crew members who serve in the front, or the I cone, of the submarine, as opposed to the nuclear engineering specialists who serve in the rear.

54 MANPOWER AND PERSONNEL NEEDS FOR A TRANSFORMED NAVAL FORCE ing (e.g., basic training, occupational skills training) is offered to all military recruits. In contrast, civilian organizations certainly do not all offer formal training to all new hires, and some do not even offer informal training or orientation. New employees learn “OJT” (on-the-job training) or from other employees. Neverthe- less, “employers of choice” typically do offer training and offer it in highly desir- able career fields. Often the companies developing leading-edge technologies pro- vide the best training in their own technology. As an example, an IT professional may be well advised to seek training from the primary source. Other secondary source training, including military training, can be considered less desirable in terms of both currency and accuracy. In addition to issues concerning the quality of training, youth may have other significant concerns about training. In some cases particularly in rich labor markets, organizations eschew training altogether in favor of more draconian approaches to acquiring talent. For example, some companies terminate those who lack the right skill set and replace them with new employees whose skills meet the current business needs. Thus, lack of training opportunities is closely related to job security in some segments of the private sector. A more important training issue than quality of training for many service personnel is the extent to which the training meets the career goals of the sailor or marine. Even high-quality training may not be valued if it is not congruent with the needs of the individual. Conflict Between Military and Civilian Service One partial solution to the competition between the military and the private sector for capable individuals is Guard and Reserve service. Both get the services of these individuals, and presumably the individual takes the benefits of both forms of employment. Nevertheless, there are drawbacks. Civilian employers are required by law to reinstate reservists promptly after they return from active mobilized service. They may not keep employees from military commitments. Yet many organizations find managing their own staffing needs to be a difficult problem that is further complicated by hiring a reservist who may be called to service with little or no notice. Examples of small businesses losing a great deal of money or going bankrupt receive media attention. 29 Small companies are not the only ones to suffer. Large ones also lose valuable skills when reservists are called to serve.30 The transition of the reserves from a strategic role to an operational role has sharpened the problem. In a 2004 interview Assistant Secretary of Defense for 29  ee Roberts. 2006. “Solutions: A Call to Duty Can Overwhelm Small Companies,” New York L Times, September 12. 30  Fara Warner. 2003. “Business; Carrying On When Suits Are in Camouflage,” New York Times, April 13.

PEOPLE FOR THE FUTURE NAVAL FORCES 55 Reserve Affairs Thomas Hall pointed out that service in the reserves is no longer simply weekend duty and emphasized that recruiters need to make clear to recruits the demands that will be placed on them for more “robust” service.31 Military Lifestyle Perhaps the most notable difference between military and civilian employ- ment is the military lifestyle. There are advantages and disadvantages to military life, and the value of many aspects depends on the individual and his or her needs and desires. Many find the demands of the military life daunting. Whereas most civilian employees may work an 8-hour day with occasional overtime, the sailor or marine can be asked to work far beyond 8 hours on a regular basis. Military personnel must adhere to certain physical standards, and their behavior in personal life is often subject to review. In addition to the differences in daily life, absences from home required of Navy and Marine personnel (e.g., sea duty, deployments, and individual augmentee assignments) can be particularly difficult for families and may impede the fulfillment of personal goals, such as education. Despite the seemingly negative aspects of military lifestyles and job requirements in times of war, some individuals thrive on the excitement and danger of deployments to war zones. Virtually all occupations present some form of stress. Data comparing the stress induced in civilian and military careers or the perceptions of the stress levels are not available. However, there is evidence that the stress during first-term enlist- ments is high. Using data collected between April 2002 and May 2005, Harris et al. suggested that stress levels are high and concluded that stress during initial training in the Navy plays a role in future attrition.32 It is important to note that the military lifestyle has some positive features as well. Perhaps the foremost is the sense of community many find in military service. Marine Corps officers suggest that some young people, particularly young Hispanic males, bond closely to their fellow marines and note that recruiters often approach groups of Hispanic men for enlistment, promising that all of them can go to boot camp at the same time. All the services, including the Navy and Marines, appear to build formal and informal infrastructures that support sailors, marines, and their families. The Marine Corps particularly capitalizes on its ability to establish community and extends the community in its Marine for Life program, which supports former 31  athleen T. Rhem. 2004. “Weekend Warriors No More,” American Forces Press Service, News K Articles, November 8. 32  orie N. Harris, Michael. A. White, Naina C. Eshwar, and Jacqueline A. Mottern. 2006. “Stress R and Attrition from Military Training: First-Term Sailors in the U.S. Navy,” paper given at the 48th Annual IMTA [International Military Testing Association] Conference, October 3-5, 2006, Kingston, Canada.

56 MANPOWER AND PERSONNEL NEEDS FOR A TRANSFORMED NAVAL FORCE marines throughout their lives. The level of support provided employees in corpo- rate America generally falls far short of that provided military personnel. Standards for Service Unlike the private sector, the military has extensive standards for education, aptitude, physical and medical condition, moral character, and citizenship or residency status for enlistment.33 In addition to the DOD minimums each branch may set standards that are more stringent. In contrast, most private enterprises do not place so many restrictions on applicants. While citizenship requirements, review of criminal activities, drug testing, educational standards, and demonstra- tion of abilities are somewhat common, medical and physical standards are not. In fact, civilian employers are effectively barred from setting such standards by the Americans with Disabilities Act, which prohibits inquiries regarding current and past medical problems. The net effect of the military enlistment standards is to further reduce the pool of potential enlistees. Work and Family Balance A characteristic of modern American life is the many demands for time that come from work as well as personal life, including family. Many American work- ers in the private sector struggle to balance the needs of their jobs and those of their personal lives; however, few are expected to be away from home for long periods of time. As noted above, absences from family are required in the military, particularly in a time of war. These absences are assuredly difficult for all service members, but some groups may be more challenged to balance the needs of their families with their military service. Personnel with children may miss parenting opportunities during their children’s formative years. Single parents may not find sufficient resources to assist them in meeting the demands of parenthood. Mothers of infants may find their children’s needs incompatible with long absences. Working Conditions and Personal Danger Jobs in both the civilian and military sectors can entail unpleasant work- ing conditions, though few present as much potential for personal danger as the military. Although Today’s Military34 reports that 81 percent of the 4,100 military 33  or a comprehensive discussion of physical and health standards, see National Research Council, F 2006, Assessing Fitness for Military Enlistment: Physical, Medical, and Mental Health Standards, The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C., Chapter 2. The report also examines the changing physi- cal and mental condition of U.S. youth and reviews the military usefulness of today’s standards. 34  ee “Myths vs. Reality” at <www.todaysmilitary.com/app/tm/parent>, an informational website S provided for parents whose children are considering opportunities available through the military. Accessed July 9, 2007.

PEOPLE FOR THE FUTURE NAVAL FORCES 57 occupations are noncombat positions, a reality of military service particularly in times of war is the danger. The number of U.S. soldiers and marines killed in Iraq and Afghanistan is reported daily. While many in the 17- to 24-year-old age group may not recognize or fear these threats, many of their career influencers, particularly their mothers, do. Mothers are one of the demographic groups least likely to recommend military service, with only 37 percent favoring service compared with 42 percent of fathers and 70 percent of former military service members.35 What’s Different Today? Many aspects of military life have been in place for years, and the differences between military and civilian employment have been observed over a long period of time. Obeying orders, meeting standards, and accepting the lifestyle have been required for generations, and the services have generally met their recruiting goals. If the services continue to put today’s levels of effort and resources into recruiting and retention, they may be rewarded with success. Yet a few things raise concerns about the degree of difficulty they may face. First, as discussed in the first section of this chapter, changes in equipment and staffing plans in the Navy and Marine Corps will require an increasing number of sailors and marines with highly marketable skills at the same time that the demand for the same skills in the private sector is increasing. Although census statistics indicate slight growth of the youth population, that segment is diminishing relative to other age groups in the population. There may simply not be enough youth who meet the requirements of the military, given the competing demands of the private sector. Second, it is not clear how these able youth will respond to the “negative” aspects of military life, as these people have many attractive options in the civilian world. In past years youth may have found fewer good employment opportunities in the private sector and may have been more willing to accept military service. Third, the country is engaged in a long war that highlights the dangers and privations inherent in military service, which are obvious deterrents to military service for many young people as well as many of their influencers. Fourth, many youth are disenchanted with national politics and as a result with all federal service. Fortunately there are counterbalancing forces favoring the military. First, the global war on terror initially had a galvanizing effect on patriotism. To the extent that the American public continues to believe that the military is serving a legitimate role fighting terrorism, the military may continue to attract its fair share of capable youth. 35  oint Advertising, J Market Research and Studies, Defense Human Resources Activity. 2004. Sep- tember 2003 Adult Poll 5 Overview Report, Department of Defense, Arlington, Va., p. 35.

58 MANPOWER AND PERSONNEL NEEDS FOR A TRANSFORMED NAVAL FORCE Second, recruiting consistently improves during downturns in business cycles of the American economy. Recessions have the immediate effect of diverting capable youth to military service in the absence of good private-sector alterna- tives, and the longer-term effect of reminding youth that the military may be a more reliable long-term employer. Although the timing of economic cycles is difficult to predict, the likelihood that recessions will follow periods of economic expansion is almost certain. No single policy change will address all of these challenges. As discussed earlier, many find the demands of military life daunting, and so interludes would be good. For example, the committee believes the provision of career on/off ramps would help sailors and marines take time off from active duty in order to obtain education, take advantage of training opportunities, or start a family without undue prejudice to their careers. This policy would both reduce the early exit of qualified people and potentially increase the attractiveness of a military career for those who are now deterred from pursuing this option. In particular, the provision of career on/off ramps could prove instrumental if the Department of the Navy finds its dependence on female sailors and marines increasing because of the demographic trends described above. In Chapter 4 the committee proposes a controlled randomized experiment for on/off ramps. Finding: Today’s policies can make a return to active-duty service challenging or unattractive for sailors and marines who wish to take time out to obtain training and education not offered through the services, gain experience in the civilian world, or start a family. Today some sailors and marines of both genders leave for educational or workplace opportunities that are not available to them on active duty. Women early in their careers exit the services in disproportionate numbers. While they may need only a few years off, those who leave generally do not return to service. The early exit of experienced sailors and marines puts an extra burden on the remainder of the force and on resources for recruiting and training. A major challenge with no obvious solutions in any organization, whether in the private sector or the military, is to find ways not only to create effective on/off ramps but also to ensure that the careers of people who do take time off progress commensurate with their skills and experience. Recommendation: The Chief of Naval Operations and the Commandant of the Marine Corps should direct the development of programs for on/off ramps whereby sailors and marines could without undue prejudice to their careers take time off from their active-duty careers in order to obtain education, take advantage of training opportunities beyond those provided by the Navy and Marine Corps, or start a family.

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The Department of Defense (DOD) is committed to transforming the nation's armed forces to meet the military challenges of the future. One approach to achieving this transformation is by leveraging advances in science and technology. New technologies and innovations are integral to today's military actions, and associated changes have rippled through all aspects of operations, highlighting the need for changes in policies related to military personnel. At the request of the Force Chief of Naval Operations, the NRC reviewed the military manpower and personnel policies and studies currently underway in the DOD and developed an implementation strategy for the Department of the Navy's future military manpower and personnel needs. This book presents an introduction to current personnel policies of and concerns facing the Naval forces; an assessment of demographic, technological, and other forces affecting future personnel needs and availability; a summary and assessment of previous studies; an examination of the role of research tools in implementing personnel policy change; and an analysis of obstacles to and strategies for transforming the Naval forces.

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