The New CNO has her Navigation Plan Out
I'll take it
Well, the Chief of Naval Operations has put out her, “Navigation Plan for America’s Warfighting Navy 2024.” You can get the PDF at the link in the title.
It is a quick 27 page read and I will give a grin and a nod to CNO Franchetti and her team. This document is well-written and an improvement over the mostly solid 2022 version that I wrote about when it came out.
Even though this isn’t Thursday, there are a few points I’ll cover at the end of the post that came up on the “Errata” section in 2022’s post, but don’t in 2024.
The pictures and graphs are nice, but in these documents what are most important are the quickly referenced lists.
CNO Franchetti is the 33rd CNO, so we have a “Project 33.” That’s fine. At first I thought that meant 2033, but either way - if these are the seven points, I like them.
The seven Project 33 targets are:
Ready the force by eliminating ship, submarine, and aircraft maintenance delays
Scale robotic and autonomous systems to integrate more platforms at speed
Create the command centers our fleets need to win on a distributed battlefield
Recruit and retain the force we need to get more players on the field
Deliver a quality of service commensurate with the sacrifices of our Sailors
Train for combat as we plan to fight, in the real world and virtually
Restore the critical infrastructure that sustains and projects the fight from shore
I also like the “5 Key Capabilities” and “4 Key Elements”. You can plan, train, and discuss around these, and simply use this as “Ref. A” as to why you are doing things that support it.
You can also look at these and see that we are looking at the events in the Red Sea and Black Seas the last few years and projecting them to the Pacific.
These next two paragraphs are especially welcome to read.
After taking a fix, I know that much of my focus as the 33rd CNO must be on prioritizing our Navy’s near-term readiness. This prioritization is a function of our moment in history and our constraints. Readiness informs my guidance and remains my central commitment to our Sailors, civilians, Navy families, Joint service members, and the Nation I serve. Yet I am also responsible for being a good steward of the future. The very motivation behind Project 33 stems from my place in a continuum of Navy leaders past and future, calling to mind each CNO’s obligation to articulate a vision that outlives their tenure.
I am committed to leaving CNO 34 with a thoughtful blueprint for the future Navy we know we must deliver. This blueprint is already in development thanks to ongoing Force Design 2045 initiatives and the new Navy Warfighting Concept. Our critical partners in creating the Navy of the future, Congress, industry, the Joint Force, and Allies and partners, all demand clarity in the Navy’s vision before delivering on our requests of them. With consistency and our steadfast collaboration, I know we will work together to deliver the Navy the Nation Needs.
In the above you can see a thread of something else many of us have been looking for and especially over on Midrats we’ve talked about, stewardship. The CNO even mentions it directly;
…I am also responsible for being a good steward of the future.
With that line alone, I will give this CNO a lot of running room.
As I like to do with such documents, let’s do a quick word count.
Russia: 8
China/PRC: 13
Pacific: 4
America/n: 9
Even more interesting, look what is not mentioned.
India: 0
Japan: 0
Asia: 0
Europe: 0
Terror/Extremism: 0
Borders/Migration: 0
As promised, even though this isn’t Thursday, we have a topic we need to cover.
Diverse/Diversity: 11
Equity/Equitable: 5
Inclusion/Inclusive: 7
Climate: Whole paragraph
What do we have in 2024?
Diverse/Diversity: 2 (really 1)
Equity/Equitable: 0
Inclusion/Inclusive: 1 (with the only real 1 “Diverse” it is hidden in small font in a busy graph on page 26 of 27).
Climate: 0
Instead we have:
Red Sea: 5
Black Sea: 2
This is even better. Progress. Modernization.
As a cherry on top, in 2022 the cringy “Get Real Get Better” was mentioned nine times. In 2024, just once.
This is a more serious and useful document than in 2022. We moved from “OK” to “pretty good.”
If we could just stop using “warfighter,” we’d get close to “superb.”
Action is better than words, but the former requires the later. Let’s see.
I motion we replace "warfighters" with "salty dogs" in Navy documents.
No doubt better but too late and not enough, even if (some of) that action takes place (per your good summation in the last sentence Sal). Just as we silently watched the Phillipines get thrown off their territory, we can do little to stop this train now. We have to build for the coming fight unless it comes to us first. We need political leadership that values a Navy but it does not appear that shouldering that burden is in the cards. We have no Reagan nor Lehman so we rationalize that as long as we can trade and make money let's spend elsewhere. And we don't have the money anymore. What Navy money we've had has not been spent effectively. We talk about logistics yet we are recalling expeditionary support from around the world (17 ships). I hope our back pockets are full of good stuff to pull out.