An Interview with 'Crimes of Command' Author

by Bill Doughty–

Naval War College professor CAPT Michael Junge is a forward-thinking former CO (of USS Whidbey Island), who has strong feelings about how the Navy can improve its culture and continue to develop good leaders without losing well-trained, capable and courageous commanders – leaders who aren't afraid to lean forward. As a follow up to the Navy Reads review of his "Crimes of Command," we present this interview with Professor Junge. It's about leadership, a post-COVID Navy, artificial intelligence, transparency, and critical thinking. We also asked him for some of his favorite reading and online recommendations. The interview was conducted online earlier this week.

BD: Would a culture of institutional forgiveness promote less risk-averse leadership/leaders?

MJ: This is a really difficult question AND one I had to spend some time thinking about.

First of all, the idea of a culture of institutional forgiveness is something we have to think about – what that looks like – and then the second thing is what it means to be risk-averse. Around 20 years ago there was a movement within the Department of Defense to eliminate accidents, a movement away from the previous idea of reducing accidents. Now, we should all know that you can't get rid of all accidents, there is always going to be some small percentage of things that go wrong. We can make them rare. We can reduce them to almost nothing. We cannot eliminate them. So I think that might be the first thing we would have to look at – what are we willing to forgive and what is unforgivable?

Then-CDR Junge helms USS Whidbey Island’s personnel launch during a 2008 port visit to Camden, ME.

The second thing culturally would be taking a look at how Naval Aviation handles their human factors boards and possibly moving that across more of the fleet. In Human Factors boards, and I hope I get this right, any pilot can be challenged on an action or can admit to an action and then have it discussed amongst the group of fellow pilots in the ready room. This includes the commanding officer. The surface Warfare Community does not have anything like that and I don't think the submarine community does either, so that would that would be a place to start.

Finally, we have to remember that every institution is made up of individuals and too often we conflate the two. Senior officers are not the Navy, and when they protect themselves, thinking they are protecting the Navy, they do a disservice to everyone. Forgiveness needs to be both individual and institutional and neither is an easy thing to grant. 

BD: Do you think some senior leaders, now more than in the past, use the Rickover-expressed view of responsibility/culpability to scapegoat the commanders below them? If so, how can that be stopped?

MJ: I'm not so sure if it's using a subordinate as a scapegoat or the fear that if someone junior isn’t sacrificed, then the superior commander is the one who's going to get fired. Either one is a really poor way to look at command.

Adm. Arleigh Burke, Nov. 23, 1960, at pep rally on eve of Navy-Army football game.

The area that I think could really really have impact on removals is just basic communications between immediate superiors in command and their subordinates. Both of the Navy-wide reports that looked at commanding officer detachments for cause indicated lack of communication and lack of discussion between commanders and their subordinate commanders. This is definitely something that is a more modern Navy problem than we saw in the past. 

There's an anecdote of Arleigh Burke as Chief of Naval Operations going from Norfolk to Key West aboard ship – all told, I think the trip was two weeks. I have no idea who the last Chief of Naval Operations was that spent the night afloat at sea. Now most ship visits are a couple of hours – a brief visit with commanding officer, a brief visit with the Chiefs Mess, then an all-hands call on the flight deck or in the hangar bay and move on. That's no way to maintain contact with what's going on in the deck plates. If that's also what’s happening between 06 and 05 commanders, that minimal level of contact and not getting to know the officers of a ship’s wardroom or the Chiefs; that's going to cause a level of unfamiliarity that then removes the benefit of the doubt for a ship.

I had command a decade ago, and of the four bosses I had, I only really felt close to one of them – and he got underway with us…repeatedly. Nelson's subordinates are referred to as a “Band of Brothers” and I really wonder whether or not we have that any longer amongst our commanders. 

BD: Considering the smaller number of personnel needed to operate newer ships and other platforms, would there be a commensurate need for Sailors who have achieved Kohlberg's third level of moral development: the postconventional level?

A Sailor removes deck material aboard USS George H.W. Bush in July 2019 (MCSA Bodie Estep)

MJ: I kind of reject the opening premise of this question. I served on five different hull types and saw smaller crews and larger crews and I don't agree that a smaller number of personnel are needed to operate newer ships. I do agree that we are moving towards a smaller number of people operating newer ships, but when we do that we start losing track of who is doing the basic maintenance. Who is doing the cleaning, the painting, the corrosion control? Those are things that still have to happen, and as you reduce the crew size you increase workload on individual sailors.

I'll also be brutally honest and say that the vast majority of sailors will never need to achieve the third level of moral development. The vast majority of sailors are OK operating in the rules following environment, doing what is right based on norms and rules. And that's part of why we have to have rules that can be followed ...

BD: Do you think artificial intelligence can assume the role of rote-operating Sailors as described in Herman Wouk's "The Caine Mutiny": "If you’re not an idiot, but find yourself in the Navy, you can only operate well by pretending to be one"? Will deployment of AI accelerate after this pandemic?

MJ: This quote is one that has come up a lot in the last 10 years among conversations I've been in but a lot of it has to do with the other part of that quote – “The Navy is a master plan designed by geniuses for execution by idiots." That made perfect sense, especially to a very junior officer serving in World War II. From that level, the entire organization of the Navy looked like it was smart and well put together. The more I study the Second World War, the more I think it was really a Navy of resilient individuals who made things work rather than unintentional creation.

I'm also skeptical of AI in general. One of the first problems is we can’t agree on a definition of what AI is – and if we can’t define it then we really can’t talk about it. You can't talk about whether you're going to use it or not if you don’t know what “it” is. But if artificial intelligence can do things to take some of the cognitive load off of sailors then it's possible we'll see more but I think we're a long way away from having ships that are unmanned or even optionally manned or even the level of, say, a modern cargo ship.

HTFN Allyson Shay welds aboard USS Whidbey Island, July 7, 2016. (MC2 Nathan McDonald)

Regardless of how good artificial intelligence becomes, unless the AI is capable of cleaning, corrosion control, or painting, someone's going to have to do those. I think we'd be far better served to spend time figuring out a better design for a watertight door or better and longer lasting paint or better design to prevent corrosion like ensuring that the deck drains are actually the lowest point of a deck and not the highest point than worry about finding artificial intelligence to help reduce the cognitive load for a combat scenario where we don't even have sufficient ordnance to launch against a notional enemy.

BD: Why should senior leaders welcome transparency, especially in peacetime, as long as it doesn't violate operational security?

MJ: The important part about transparency is that transparency is how seniors educate subordinates on how and why a decision is made. That way, when speed of execution is needed, the subordinate understands the rationale behind how the boss thinks and can execute both the stated and intended mission.

When a commander just says “go do it” and doesn't explain why or doesn't allow for questions to be asked then that's what the subordinate learns – tell people to execute a decision. Then you lose that resilience we need. So that's where transparency is important.

One of the things found in the Greeneville/Ehime Maru collision was junior watchstanders knowing something was wrong, but either trusting the captain, or afraid to question a captain known for his operational acumen. But, he was wrong, those people didn't speak up and that led to disastrous results.

Capt. Brett Crozier, commanding officer of the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71), addresses the crew during an all hands call on the ship’s flight deck Dec. 15, 2019. Theodore Roosevelt was underway conducting routine training in the Eastern Pacific Ocean. (Photo by MCSN Kaylianna Genier)

BD: The current COVID-19 pandemic presents threats, disruptions and changes. What do you foresee changing in the Navy when we all get back on our feet after this?

MJ: I'm not sure I really see anything changing in the Navy when we all get back on our feet after this. Mostly because, as I say this, as I write this, the operational Navy has really tried to go about business as usual. But that's the operational side; the shore side should and could be taking some serious lessons here about telework and the opening up of more jobs to more telework.

There’s a chance for some tremendous solutions for efficiency, better work-life integration, and overall productivity if we just look for them. Lots of people in DC commute two to four hours each day; that’s just plain-old lost time and productivity that can be regained for all sorts of things.

Rear Adm. Shoshana S. Chatfield, president of U.S. Naval War College, attends Quartermaster 1st Class Jessie Jowers’s reenlistment ceremony via FaceTime at NWC, March 20, 2020. Jowers reenlisted for an additional four years. Friends and colleagues attended in support of his dedication to the U.S. Navy and practiced social distancing by remaining at least six feet apart due to the COVID-19 virus. (Photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Tyler D. John)

BD: Re critical thinking: What books do you recommend to people to help them think about thinking?

MJ: I recommend first and foremost any of the Freakonomics books. Secondly, I recommend two books by Ashley Merryman and Po Bronson. The first is “Nurtureshock” and the second is “Top Dog.”

“Nurtureshock” is about child raising, which may seem an unconventional recommendation, but the basic fact is that half of our Sailors are below 26 years of age and many of them are just out of high school so understanding how they grew up and what impacted them is important.

“Top Dog” is a scientific look at success.

Both Bronson-Merryman books take a kind of a Freakonomics, unconventional wisdom approach to the subjects. After that, anything on behavioral economics. 

BD: Who are some of your favorite all-time, any genre authors and books?

Neil Gaiman (Wikipedia Commons, Kyle Cassidy.

MJ: I grew up largely reading fantasy and science fiction and have read and reread “The Hobbit,” “The Lord of the Rings,” “Starship Troopers,” and “Ender's Game.” Robert Heinlein is probably my single favorite author. Neil Gaiman is my favorite living author. 

BD: Any specific recent books on online resources you'd recommend for these stay-at-home days?

MJ: I start with a YouTube channel called the “School of Life” and another called “Crash Course.” I find videos are easier to help me make connections and all these episodes are fairly concise – so much more comprehensible than longer writings.  They don’t substitute for those longer writings, but they do complement them.

BD: Are you considering another book? What does the future hold for you?

Michael Junge, courtesy photo

MJ: That’s a really good question. I am working on a revised, expanded, and largely new version of “Crimes of Command” – likely even with a new title. So much happened in 2017, 2018, 2019, and now in 2020 that I think I can add some more insight into what's going on. I’m also want to write a book on the USS Belknap and USS John F. Kennedy collision. I have a concept for that in my head, so that's also in the works.

But, before all that happens I need to find a post-Navy retirement job and that is taking up a lot of my thinking time, so we'll see where things go.

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A big thanks and Aloha to CAPT Junge for this interview, a follow-up to our post earlier this week on his insightful book "Crimes of Command," which includes Junge's biography.

(My previous Navy Reads blogpost also included a commentary about the firing of CAPT Brett Crozier, CO of USS Theodore Roosevelt. Since that post, Acting Secretary of the Navy Modly flew to Guam to address the crew on the 1MC, during which he called Crozier "stupid" and "naive" and complained repeatedly that Crozier had complained and used poor judgment for how he tried to get help for his crew during a COVID-19 outbreak. On April 7, however, Modly apologized and resigned, reportedly at the direction of his chain of command. In COVID-19 press conferences this week, Commander in Chief President Trump mocked CAPT Crozier, first on April 6 – "this isn't a literature class" – and again on April 7 (after claiming he "would not have asked for" Modly's resignation), saying Crozier "didn't have to be Ernest Hemingway." That comment reminded me that Hemingway was Senator John S. McCain's inspiration, especially when McCain, a naval aviator and hero, was a POW in Vietnam. In fact, we published a post Aug. 12, 2018 about McCain's Hemingway inspiration. A related recommended read is Yahoo News reporter Michael Walsh's Aug. 26, 2018 remembrance of McCain: "The bell tolls for John McCain: How Hemingway's antifascist hero shaped the man." – Bill Doughty)

McCain and Hemingway photo illustration from Yahoo News