The Navy needs to put its oceanography community in place to lead the nation

When I was a newly minted captain serving in the Pentagon in 2009, the Navy joined four distinct officer communities (intelligence, cryptologic warfare, oceanography and information professional) to form what is now the Navy information warfare community. The argument for this change centered on the efficiencies and synergies that might result from combining the different Navy disciplines that collected and disseminated information. I personally did not agree with this merger because I believed it would dilute the expertise of the members of my oceanography profession. Nevertheless, the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) directed the change, so I saluted like a good sailor and carried on.

My colleague in the Pentagon at that time, retired Captain Bill Bray, recently analyzed the state of the Navy’s information community and the picture he painted is anything but positive. The specialized expertise of information warfare officers has indeed been sacrificed for a more generalist skillset, caused largely by requiring all members of the community to commit precious time and resources to acquire proficiency in the other sub-disciplines. This has been particularly harmful for naval oceanography due to the extensive scientific and technical training that the field requires, including a minimum education level of a Master of Science degree. This shift from specialization may already be doing real damage as the Navy has recently seen an uptick in avoidable, weather-related mishaps.

Naval oceanography delivers meteorology, physical oceanography, hydrography, underwater acoustics, astrometry and precise time information to the entire Department of Defense (DOD). The community is essential to such diverse applications as ballistic missile defense, aircraft carrier-based strike operations, undersea warfare, as well as space and cyber operations. In view of the mandate in the new National Security Strategy to modernize and strengthen the U.S. military, the naval oceanography workforce who provides this information should be supported and not sub-optimized. This can be accomplished by restoring the community to its previous position as an independent specialty. 

Even more compelling, breaking out naval oceanography from information warfare can allow the Navy to more effectively use the community to show critical leadership in three emerging areas of opportunity:

1. Climate action: Both the DOD and the Navy have prioritized actions to adapt to and mitigate climate change. The senior officials leading these efforts are policy professionals who lack scientific degrees and technical experience.  On the other hand, the naval oceanography community is led by the oceanographer of the Navy, a Navy flag officer holding a geophysical science graduate degree. Historically, the officers who reach this position have decades of experience in applied Earth science, making them superior to speak on Navy, DOD and national climate initiatives. The oceanographer of the Navy held this role in the past, and reassuming it would align with the Biden administration’s elevation of the White House science adviser to a cabinet level position. It also could inject a much-needed warfighting perspective into the Navy’s climate narrative.
2. Arctic strategy: The recently released National Strategy for the Arctic Region (NSAR) outlines a 10-year agenda to advance U.S. interests while showing U.S. leadership at home and abroad. Naval oceanography is already taking action to accomplish many of the objectives in this strategy, such as improving: Arctic observing, mapping, charting; weather, water and sea ice forecasting; sub-seasonal and seasonal prediction; research; presence; as well as cooperation with allies and partners. Again, the oceanographer of the Navy played a prominent leadership role in implementing the previous NSAR by developing and executing the Navy Arctic Roadmap for 2014-2030. The Navy can only benefit by a repeat performance of such efforts.
3. Ocean policy: The White House Ocean Policy Committee (OPC) is executing a two-year action plan to fulfill its Congressional mandate of coordinating ocean science, technology and management policy across the federal government. A laudable goal in this plan is to strengthen the U.S. ocean science and technology enterprise. An abject failure of the document, however, is to make no mention of the critical contributions of the Navy to this enterprise as a counterweight to our competitors. The oceanographer of the Navy and the chief of Naval Research lead the Navy’s Task Force Ocean, which was formed in 2017 to address this very goal in the OPC action plan. Once again, the Navy appears to be late to the races in this national effort where it has the potential to take pole position.

The common denominator in each of these areas is the ocean. It is the main driver of the Earth’s climate, the dominant domain in Arctic geography, and a fundamental feature in national policy.  As a national authority on the ocean, the naval oceanography community is the clear choice to seize these leadership opportunities. The Navy needs to put it in a place to do so.

Rear Admiral (ret.) Tim Gallaudet, Ph.D., is the CEO of Ocean STL Consulting, LLC and former acting and deputy administrator at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and acting undersecretary and assistant secretary of Commerce. Prior to NOAA, he served for 32 years in the U.S. Navy, completing his career as the Oceanographer of the Navy, director of the Navy’s Task Force Climate Change, and director of the Navy’s Task Force Ocean.