The CNO has directed that the Navy be the most prominent and dominant Service in the areas of Intelligence, Cyber Warfare, Command and Control, Electronic Warfare, Battle Management and Knowledge of the Maritime Environment. This aspiration is only possible if we continue to break down barriers between fields, professions and skills … and create a dramatically more competent and influential information-focused work force for the future.Navy information professionals will receive world-class training, qualification, experience and tools, and be expected to become prominent elements of Navy’s warfighting arsenal.
For the near term, the CNO expects to dramatically increase the depth of professional skills of the members of the Information Dominance Corps. Navy’s Information Dominance Corps professionals, in junior grades, will be required to strengthen and deepen their professional skills in their communities and sub-specializations, while also obtaining a broader understanding of cross-Corps disciplines. Senior enlisted, officers and civilians within the Information Dominance Corps will be required to retain depth in specialty and sub-specialty areas, while broadening their professional expertise across the information disciplines.
The U.S. Navy's Vision for Information Dominance is available HERE.
Well, I'll crack the seal on this.
ReplyDeleteFar be it for me to disagree with the CNO or any other Admiral, but...I'm going to.
While I applaud the vision as a good idea of where the IDC should go, I think someone needs to give the "powers that be" a serious reality check or they will be in for a serious let down.
The Sailors that comprise the IDC will not become what IDC leadership or the CNO wants unless and until some very fundamental (and some not very fundamental) things change in the way the Navy does business.
1. We have got to stop promoting Sailors for anything and everything NOT related to their actual job. Yes, I know we have to have a way to break people out from the crowd. But, technically less proficient Sailors have an end-around by having enough or the right collateral duties. We've all seen it happen.
2. The Marine Corps' mantra of "a rifleman first" works well for them. However, a corollary for the Navy (call it) "a Sailor first" or the even more apt "jack of all trades master of none" does not and never will lend itself to the expertise level CNO wants. By tasking the Sailors and officers of the IDC to "broaden" there scope the indepth expertise at any one or two functions gets watered down.
3. Training: "World-class training"?? Hardly. The "Revolution in Training" did not do what was expected unless the expectation was just to save money. In that case, perhaps it was a success. I see more and more Sailors arriving in the fleet with less specific knowledge than I have in years past. That is a natural by-product of trying to make them broad off the bat.
All just my opinion, but IMO we need to laser focus Sailors on mission areas (dare I say) similar to the Air Force (ouch that hurt) and track the Sailors in more narrow fields NOT broader. That is key to expertise.
CTRCS(SW)
I have a feeling that there is an historic, global shift now underway that will completely overwhelm and alter the vision expressed in the IDC. It seems (at least to me) to rest upon old, unchallenged assumptions that are in process of permanent change.
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