Blue Age II: China, Russia, Mahan & Law

Review by Bill Doughty––

In Part I of our review of Gregg Easterbrook’s “The Blue Age: How the US Navy Created Global Prosperity –– and Why We’re in Danger of Losing It” we explored his thesis that the United States Navy is a force for good, keeping peace and stability on the seas, promoting prosperity, and reducing worldwide poverty.

Easterbrook says, “The United States would do well to recognize how many of its advantages are gifts of the sea.” Keeping sea lanes open the global commons from other nations’ ill intent and also from piracy means “open highways without trolls or tolls.”

Then-CNO Adm. Gary Roughead visits PLAN hospital ship Daishandao in Qindao, China in 2009,

Former Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead is quoted twice in “The Blue Age.” Roughead says, “Land and air forces can win disputes, but it is the Navy that keeps disputes far from our shores.” Easterbrook quips, “Keeping disputes far from our shores looks better all the time.

”In Part I of our review of “The Blue Age,” we also presented Easterbrook’s conclusion that thinker-strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan was fundamentally wrong in some of his beliefs that, in fact, may have led to two world wars –– and may be influencing China today in the PRC’s expansionist policies, which parrot some of Mahan’s own views.

We also touched on Easterbrook’s conclusion that a continued era of peace and prosperity requires nations' commitment to following international laws, which will lead to more international cooperation. That’s especially important for the world’s two biggest powers.

“The question of whether the blue age will continue comes down to this: whether the United States and China, the two most important nations of history, can get along,” Easterbrook writes. Can maritime cooperation be achieved on the “outlaw ocean” through empathy and mutual respect?

“Walking in another’s shoes is the essence of human understanding,” Easterbrook contends. 

So, what is it like in China’s shoes?

Lights of Beijing and Tianjin, captured by the International Space Station orbiting 264 miles above, May 1, 2021. (NASA)

Evidence of China's rapid rise within one generation can be seen from space. But the affluence comes with effluence. "China must control its greenhouse emissions, the worst in the world." Easterbrook says, “Life is stressful in China, corruption permeates government, elections are rigged, and there is no freedom of speech or religion. These said, China’s living-standards, improvements and poverty reduction from 1995 to 2020 rank high in any accounting of the human family’s great accomplishments.”

In a deceptively easy style but with academic rigor, Easterbrook explains some of China’s feelings of victimization, its previous isolation, and its lack of enlightenment about human rights. He looks at the history of East/West interaction over centuries in or affecting China. And he shows some of the hypocrisy in dealing with the Middle Kingdom, including in recent history.

For example, President Trump’s second Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, lectured Chinese leaders about their lack of democracy, then –– in an attack on our own democracy –– “told the world from the podium of the Department of State that the [U.S.] election outcome would be ignored and Trump would remain president.” Then there's the January 6, 2021 insurrection, seen by the world.

“Walking in China’s shoes does not mean excusing failings, including oppression of the Uighurs and Tibetans, betrayal of Hong Kong, stifling of free speech, ‘labor camps’ that are actually prisons, no constitutional rights, corruption top to bottom. In China there is plenty of disgrace to go around. 

“Above all these, 1.4 billion human beings are living close together in a place that’s polluted and depleting its aquifers at an alarming rate. Modern China may not remain stable. Unstable societies may lash out. If China lashes out, the sea is the most likely setting.”

Easterbrook reminds his readers, “Capital C Communism has not failed some of the time; it has failed all of the time.” In large part, because the individual has a need to live free, not as vassals of an authoritarian state.

“The Western view of the world –– unbraced by the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Norway, and increasingly by Japan and South Korea –– is the Enlightenment conclusion that the individual is more important than the state. The view is morally correct, is self-evident under natural law, is true in a metaphysical sense that exists independent of the empirical. The individual is more important than the state. That’s five hundred years of Western thought in one sentence.”

And individuals, once recognized as such, have rights, including the right to own property.

“The right to property is deceptively important, as it has been contested by many social systems, including fascist, autocratic, and communist. If at root your property is yours, just as your thoughts are yours, you have an incentive to build, create, and trade, profiting while helping others. If at root your property belongs to the commissar, prince, or Gauleiters, why work hard? That far-left and far-right nations are economically sluggish compared with the for-profit nations is explained in this way.”

Easterbrook warns against “fear of outsiders and assumption that change is automatically bad. Whatever might be true in a perfect world, in the actual world, opposition to change is a formula for being left behind.”

Ukraine President V. Zelensky meets Cmrs. John D. John, CO of USS Ross (DDG 71) during Exercise Sea Breeze 2021, Odessa, Ukraine. (MC2 Grosvenor)

Enlightened change is needed in strengthening international codes and conventions governing the world’s oceans. For example, there is a need for enforcing laws, including “against naval assaults, such as the one Russia staged in 2014 at Crimea.”

And what about Russia?

Then-Supreme Allied Commander Europe, Adm. James Stavridis holds a press conference with Russia Chief of Defense, Nov. 1, 2010. (Sebastian Kelm)

“Blue Age” evaluates the threat posed by Putin’s Russia as it also tries to build a modernized fleet as it rattles its scimitar at its neighbors, especially now against Ukraine.

“Since Russia about a decade ago gave up its hope of European Union membership, turning cold to the West, the Kremlin has resumed longing for the kind of maritime power that great nations possess. Russia’s moves against Crimea and Ukraine were seen in the West as owing to Putin’s ego. To the Kremlin, they were an attempt to fulfill centuries of Slavic desire for year-round access to warm waters.”

But intrusions into another nation is just one issue.

“A true global governance system for the blue water would eliminate flag-of-convenience loopholes, protect workers in fishing and shipping, impose strict antipollution rules, and create clear agreements about the mining of minerals on the seafloor. Prototype vessels that vacuum up nodules from the seabed discharge effluent that can pollute the towering deepwater columns essential to marine life, including the marine plants that release oxygen. If sea mining is to become common, a much better system, with close supervision, is required.”

Hope for better oversight rests in a document that is already in front of the international community, the “Law of the Sea.”

“No matter what, we need America to ratify the Convention on the Law of the Sea,” Easterbrook pleads. “The US position on this treaty is irrational. Irrational has been doing quite well in Washington, D.C., lately. But there must be international consensus on how to govern the seas. The sooner the world acts on this, the better.” International agreement and enforcement would protect fishing grounds and habitats, energy resources, and internet communication cables.

Easterbrook notes, “Since 1994 nearly every member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the leadership committee for the US military, has expressed support for the Law of the Sea.”

As for nuclear arms control:

“When he was president, Jimmy Carter, a former navy officer who had been the XO of a submarine, joined the Soviet Union in signing the treaty called SALT II, which aimed to reduce strategic nuclear weapons. SALT II begat an arms control regime now called NEW START. At the end of the Carter presidency, the United States and Soviet Union possessed about 54,000 nuclear bombs, according to the Federation of American Scientists; today the total is down to about 9,900. In 2009, Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize for advocating elimination of nuclear explosives.”

After Trump took the United States out of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in 2018, the Russian Federation also withdrew. China was not a signatory.

Easterbrook says, “Full elimination of nuclear arms might backfire by allowing great-power fighting to resume –– but the smaller the inventory the better.”

Regarding submarines armed with such weapons, he writes, “Having them underwater and constantly changing position tells any leader that a nuclear first strike will fail. At least, any rational leader.”

“For now, nuclear deterrence clearly discourages war.”

Mahan (September 27, 1840 – December 1, 1914) died decades before nuclear weapons were developed. He was an extremely devout orthodox Christian who believed humans were preordained toward violence and war, as shown by Susanne Geissler, author of “God and Sea Power: The Influence of Religion on Alfred Thayer Mahan” (Naval Institute Press, 2015).

Geissler writes, “It is important to grasp that because of his theological views, Mahan did not view human nature as constantly improving … Therefore, he thought war never could or would be eliminated.” Geissler’s biography is indispensable in helping understand Mahan’s linear thinking and inability to consider a world at peace.

Alfred Thayer Mahan attended the First Hague Conference in 1899.

Mahan was against international “universal arbitration,” even after attending the First Hague Conference in the summer of 1899 as a member of President McKinley’s U.S. delegation. “The idea was that if international disputes could be arbitrated, war could be avoided,” Geissler writes. “In Mahan’s view, arbitration was even worse than war in that it coerces the conscience and binds it ahead of time to unforeseen situations.”

[Of note, the League of Nations created the not-so-permanent “Permanent Court of International Law,” known as the "World Court,” in 1920; the court held its first session exactly one hundred years ago today, January 30, 1922 at the Hague, Netherlands. The United States never joined the World Court, and the court disbanded one year after WWII ended.]

Mahan’s beliefs were anchored in his interpretation of the Bible, sticking with Genesis but also solidly in the New Testament. “Based on his belief in original sin and the innate depravity of humankind, he believed that war was intrinsic to the human condition.”

Captain Mahan, front row, fifth from left, was CO of USS Chicago, circa 1893-95. (NHHC)

Among other revelations from Geissler, Mahan was against women’s rights to vote or hold political office, based on his belief in scripture. He supported annexation of Hawaii near the turn of the century but “also expressed concern about the ‘great number of Chinese’ who lived in Hawaii and whether the islands would become ‘an outpost of European civilization or of the comparative barbarism of China,’” in his words.

Geissler’s “God and Sea Power” is a compelling read, especially helpful in further explaining Easterbrook’s critique of Mahan in “The Blue Age.”

Easterbrook has his own list of related and recommended books. And there are a number we’ve featured here on the Navy Reads blog, including Robert Kaplan’s “Monsoon,” James Stavridis’s “Seapower,” Eri Hotta’s “Japan 1941,” Evan Thomas’s “Sea of Thunder,” and Hampton Sides’s “In the Kingdom of Ice.”

Like Steven Pinker, author of "The Better Angels of Our Nature," Easterbrook is an optimist. After all, he is the author of "The Progress Paradox" and "It's Better Than It Looks." He notes how the United States has a vast array of strong allies, while Russia and China have only a handful of friends; in Russia's case: Iran, Syria, and Venezuela. Easterbrook lauds the fact that at least until 2016 China had been previously invited to the Rim of the Pacific exercise at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and PLA(N) ships were welcomed with a spirit of aloha.

U.S. and Chinese leaders watch as Keiki Hula dancers perform during an arrival ceremony for three People's Liberation Army-Navy ships, Luhu-class destroyer Qingdao (DDG 113), Jiangkai-class frigate Linyi (FFG 547) and a Fuqing-class fleet oiler as they arrive in Hawaii for a scheduled port visit, Sept. 6, 2013. Over the weekend, Chinese and U.S. leaders conducted dialogues to build confidence and mutual understanding between the two nations. The port visit was part of the U.S. Navy's ongoing effort to maximize opportunities for developing relationships with foreign navies to build trust, encourage multilateral cooperation, enhance transparency, and avoid miscalculation in the Pacific. (MC2 Nardel Gervacio)

Easterbrook is hopeful for a true win-win in the future, where cooperation can be achieved and conflict can be prevented, thanks to a strong U.S. Navy and "gifts of the sea."

'All Hell Breaking Loose'

Review by Bill Doughty–

The United States Navy may face ongoing existential threats because of pandemics, mega-droughts, fires, massive storms, and rising sea levels – caused by or made worse by climate change.

That's according to scientists, analysts and educators, including Michael T. Klare in "All Hell Breaking Loose: The Pentagon's Perspective on Climate Change" (Metropolitan Books, Henry Holt Company, 2019). 

Already impacted by COVID-19, the military is also straining to retain readiness as it confronts potential threats in the Arctic as ice melts and nations, especially Russia, compete for resources and sea lanes. And with increasing calls for Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief missions in response to devastating storms, diseases and environmental destruction, military leaders are concerned about "the specter of disaster clusters."

This relevant book is a well-written and sobering look at the threats, impact and mitigation response by the military, especially led by the Navy.

Chapter One opens with a Senate Armed Service Committee hearing of April 9, 2013, in which then Commander, U.S. Pacific Command Adm. Samuel J. Locklear testified about the threat of not only China and North Korea, but also climate change: "Increasingly severe weather patterns and rising sea levels threaten lives and property," Locklear said, "and could even threaten the loss of low-lying nations."

"A similar assessment was provided in 2019 by one of Locklear's successors at what had been rechristened the Indo-Pacific Command. Asked by Senator Elizabeth Warren of the Senate Armed Services Committee to discuss the impact of climate change on operational readiness in his area of responsibility, Admiral Philip S. Davidson replied: 'The immediate manifestation, ma'am, is the number of ecological disaster events that are happening.' In just the past few months, he indicated, the Indo-Pacific Command had been called on to assist with emergency relief operations in the U.S.-administered Northern Mariana Islands after they were struck by Super Typhoon Yutu. 'Our assistance in terms of humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, our ability to command and control, to marshal troops, to deliver logistics, is important training for the region.'"

Klare shows how training and warfighting are negatively impacted by more frequent heatwaves, when it becomes too deadly to operate. Conversely, the military is also challenged in super-cold environments such as Red Dawn-like exercises in Norway in sub-Arctic terrain, in which hundreds of U.S. Marines must train in amphibious assaults. There are "distinctive challenges in fighting in snow-covered sub-zero conditions," according to Klare.

"Climate change," he says, "will make itself felt in multiple situations, increasing the risk that long-standing hostilities will erupt into full-scale war." Another likely scenario: millions of displaced people as mega-fires, freshwater shortages, monster storms and rising sea levels cause mass migration.

U.S. Navy Lt. Jose Garcia inactivates Ebola virus at Bushrod Island, Liberia, Oct. 2014.

Klare writes, "For many observers, the Ebola epidemic of 2014-2016 represents a preview of what can be expected in the future as global warming advances, certain infectious diseases extend their range and vulnerable states prove unable to cope with the multiple challenges of extreme weather, resource scarcity, and inadequate public institutions." He cites Zika, dengue and malaria as other diseases of concern.

The Navy has a history of responding to crises, including within our own country, but also throughout the world. "Our country is a compassionate, generous and caring nation with a long history of aiding those around the world who are impacted by disasters," said Adm. Kurt Tidd as a relief effort commenced to the Caribbean in response to Hurricane Maria in 2017. 

That year, Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria "pummeled Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico, prompting an unprecedented U.S. military response." 

Perhaps the biggest existential threat of global climate change to the Navy, though, is the impact to its bases themselves, especially those located at or near sea level.

Klare gives an extensive report on the dangers of rising sea levels to Navy bases, especially in Virginia and Florida, particularly Norfolk (featured in a special hosted by Arnold Schwarzegger), Hampton Roads Mayport, Jacksonville and Key West. Scientists predict a possible nearly two-meter sea level rise by the end of the century; a one meter rise would "inundate Norfolk," headquarters of the U.S. Atlantic Fleet and many other commands.

Rear Adm. Bolivar gives thumbs up prior to surveying damage from Hurricane Michael, Oct. 2018.

He quotes Commander Navy Region Southeast Rear Admiral Babette Bolivar, who issued an evacuation order in September 2017 for nonessential personnel from Naval Air Station Key West as Hurricane Irma "carved its destructive path" toward Florida. A year later Hurricanes Florence and Michael caused destruction at Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort and Marine Corps Training Depot Parris Island, South Carolina.

"When Hurricane Florence shifted course and headed to the Carolinas instead of the Norfolk area in September 2018, those bases were severely impacted; normal operations were suspended and nonessential personnel ordered to evacuate. Camp Lejuene, a major Marine training center, was especially hard hit by Florence, with some nine hundred buildings damaged or destroyed. As sea levels rise, flooding of Lejeune's low-lying areas is likely to occur on a daily basis and large parts of it can expect to be fully inundated during future hurricanes. Parris Island, the Marines' main East Coast recruit training facility, and MCAS Beaufort, home to six Marine F/A-18 fighter squadrons, are equally at risk of inundation. At present, a storm surge of five to ten feet induced by a Category 1 hurricane would cover some 90 percent of Parris Island; by 2100, almost the entire base would be covered by ten to fifteen feet of water. MCAS Beaufort faces similar risks." (Klare cites Union of Concerned Scientists studies and reports.)

We read how Naval Base Coronado in San Diego is at risk, as is fire-prone Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, also in California. Wildfires threaten bases throughout the Southwest, and Alaska military facilities are in danger from shoreline erosion and/or thawing permafrost. Offutt Air Force Base near Omaha, Nebraska, home of the U.S. Strategic Command, is seriously affected by flooding due to storms.

Aircrewmen load an Air-Deployable Expendable Ice Buoy onto a Royal Danish Air Force C-130 aircraft at Thule Air Force Base in Greenland Sept. 7, 2017, in preparation for deployment in the high Arctic as part of the International Arctic Buoy Program (IABP). (U.S. Navy photo by John F. Williams)

Overseas bases and sites, including in the Middle East, Africa and Central and South America are also under threat from the effects of global warming. 

"For forces operating in the Asia-Pacific area, sea-level rise and extreme storm events are likely to pose the greatest dangers," Klare says, focusing on Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean and Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands, which is the location of the Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Site, at risk from saltwater intrusion into its freshwater aquifer.

"Elsewhere in the region, the DoD faces a substantial climate threat to its cluster of air and naval bases in Japan. These installations, including the naval base at Yokosuka on Japan's main island of Honshu, and Kadena Air Force Base, on Okinawa, are among the most important U.S. military facilities in Asia. Yokosuka, located on the mouth of Tokyo Harbor, hosts the USS Ronald Reagan (America's only forward-deployed carrier) and its supporting vessels; Kadena is the largest Air Force facility in East Asia, housing the 18th Air Wing and a host of other units. Both of these bases, and many others nearby, are located on or close to the Pacific Ocean and are regularly menaced by typhoons. As global warming proceeds, these facilities – like their counterparts in the estern United States – will be exposed to rising seas and an ever-increasing risk of extremely powerful storms."

Using science-based research and common sense, the Navy has shown significant leadership in the approach to climate change for more than ten years, with admirals and civilian leaders unafraid to speak truth to power.

In fact, 2016 marked a watershed year as then Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus launched the Great Green Fleet, named in stark contrast to President Teddy Roosevelt's Great White Fleet that sailed more than a century earlier, which was powered strictly by carbon-based fuel. The GGF was essentially the John C. Stennis (CVN 74) Strike Group, led by the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier and including the guided-missile cruiser USS Mobile Bay (CG 53) and guided-missile destroyers USS Chung-Hoon (DDG 93) and USS William P. Lawrence (DDG 110), each running on alternatives to conventional petroleum. The surface ships steamed underway using a hybrid fuel mixture.

Then SECNAV Ray Mabus talks Navy sustainability at the greengov symposium, June 2015.

Klare acknowledges Mabus's initiative may have had only a minimal contribution to slowing the advance of global warning, "Still, the Great Green Fleet does represent a significant effort by a large and powerful organization to at least start transitioning from carbon-based fuels to climate-friendlier alternatives."

Klare concludes with a hopeful look at how the insight and initiatives by the military, including net-zero goals, could be emulated by the civilian community.

"Equally insightful is the U.S. military's emphasis on cooperation with the militaries of friendly nations in addressing the perils of climate change. From the very beginning, senior officials have stressed the need to work with other countries in reducing their own climate change vulnerabilities, thereby enhancing regional and international stability. In accordance with this precept, U.S. services have collaborated with foreign militaries in preparing for extreme event, for example, by stockpiling emergency relief supplies, conducting joint disaster relief drills, and helping to harden critical facilities. Although modest in comparison to what is actually needed to protect the world from warming's severe effects, these endeavors demonstrate a basic understanding that human survival at this perilous moment will require international collaboration of just this sort."

The Pentagon has confronted the issue of climate change in various publications and plans: DoD's "Climate Change Adaptation Roadmap;" Quadrennial Defense Reviews over the past ten years; DoD Directive 4715.21, "Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience;" 2019's "Report on Effects of A Changing Climate to the Department of Defense;" and Naval Facilities and Engineering Command's "Climate Change Installation Adaptation and Resilience Planning Handbook."

Crozier, Rickover & 'Crimes of Command'

Review by Bill Doughty–

Rickover in 1922

One hundred years ago, in the midst of the Great Influenza global pandemic, Midshipman Hyman G. Rickover was studying at the Naval Academy. He'd arrived in Annapolis in 1918, but before he could take classes he was quarantined with what was diagnosed as diphtheria. He had to bend the rules to study, but he succeeded, survived the Academy (and the pandemic), and graduated.

Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt III – TR's grandson – presented a diploma to Rickover (along with more than five hundred classmates) in 1922. 

Rickover changed the culture of the Navy toward higher standards in inspections, safety and training. He championed nuclear propulsion and became the father of the nuclear Navy.

He also helped change Navy's concept of responsibility, according to Michael Junge* in "Crimes of Command: In the United States Navy 1945-2015" (printed in the United States of America, 2018; ISBN 978-1721230068). Ironically, just as Rickover did, Junge stresses the importance of the meaning of words like "responsibility." Junge writes:

"Navy culture has lost the ability to properly separate and distinguish between culpability, accountability, and responsibility. Navy culture no longer fully understands ethics and ethical dilemmas. Navy culture now sees administration and bureaucratization as professionalism. These issues are interrelated, but all lead to one inescapable conclusion – Navy culture must change. Navy culture must rediscover the core of its language. It must understand the truth behind the myth and rhetoric of command if it is to continue into the future and remain relevant. Making these changes will come from those who have both experience and education, practice and theory – from those who can properly perceive a situation, have the appropriate feelings about it, can properly deliberate about what was appropriate in those circumstances, and to act."

Junge says, "When combined with lax language, the Navy is rife for a culture of 'ready, fire, aim' responses to crimes of command." He explores the "ethics of military virtue," referring to works from psychologists, sociologists, philosophers and others, including Richard D. White, Ruth Benedict, Peter E. Langford, Jean Piaget, Lawrence Kohlberg and Samuel Huntington.

Quoting authors Barry Schwartz and Kenneth Sharpe, he writes, "An ethical dilemma arises when two or more competing values are important and in conflict.'" Although some leaders in the military place the highest value in obedience and blind loyalty to the chain of command, what is a commander to do when faced with "loyalty to a superior or to the crew"?

"Ethics is about 'figuring out the right way to do the right thing in a particular circumstance, with a particular person, at a particular time.'"

CAPT Crozier, 'GOAT'

Skipper Crozier aboard TR, March 3, 2020. (MCSN Kaylianna Genier).

Captain Brett Crozier, until several days ago the commanding officer of the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71), faced a moral and ethical dilemma when a relatively small but growing number of his nearly 5,000 crew tested positive for the coronavirus, and he asked for help from his chain of command to save lives. [Just a reminder that Navy Reads is an unofficial blog, and unquoted comments here are my own.]

On March 30, Crozier wrote a three-and-a-half page letter – not five pages as claimed by his commander in chief, President Trump, who mocked the letter as a work of "literature" April 4 during a nationally televised press conference. “I thought it was terrible what he did, to write a letter. This isn’t a class on literature," Trump told reporters.

Crozier asked clearly for "decisive action" after days of attempting to get help in protecting his Sailors as the spread of the virus accelerated. His letter got immediate action but also resulted in the acting Secretary of the Navy firing him and removing him from his ship. Acting Navy Secretary Modly fired him for allegedly causing a "firestorm" when the request for help was published.

At Saturday's COVID-19 press conference, Trump questioned the wisdom of doing a visit to Vietnam March 5. "I guess the captain stopped in Vietnam and people got off in Vietnam,” Trump said. “Perhaps you don’t do that in the middle of a pandemic or something that looked like it was going to be. History would say you don’t necessarily stop and let your sailors get off.”

Modly and Trump at Naval Academy graduation, May 25, 2018. (CPL H. Clay)

At the same time that the TR was in Vietnam, back in the United States Trump participated in an extended phone interview on Fox News March 4, in which he said about coronavirus, "I started hearing about it very quietly a couple of months ago from China and I said, 'Wow, I hope that doesn't happen here.'"

He told host Sean Hannity: "I just say it's a very very small number in our country," and "A lot of things have happened that have been very fortunate. We are doing a good job."

Downplaying the severity of the virus, Trump said on March 4, "Now, and this is just my hunch, and – but based on a lot of conversations with a lot of people that do this. Because a lot people will have this and it's very mild. They'll get better very rapidly. They don't even see a doctor. They don't even call a doctor," Trump said. "You never hear about those people. So you can't put them down in the category of the overall population in terms of this corona flu and or virus. So you just can't do that," he continued. "So if, you know, we have thousands or hundreds of thousands of people that get better, just by, you know, sitting around and even going to work – some of them go to work but they get better."

Media in Vietnam meet dignitaries, including Ambassador Kritenbrink and Commander, U.S. Pacific Fleet Adm. Aquilino, at the arrival of  USS Theodore Roosevelt’s (CVN 71) and the USS Bunker Hill’s (CG 52) arrival in Da Nang, Vietnam, March 5, 2020. (Photo by MC3 Brandon Richardson)

Meanwhile, in Vietnam at that same time, Sailors were encouraged by their chain of command to participate in cultural and professional exchanges, community service projects, sports competitions, and receptions during the port visit, including at the invitation of Trump-appointed U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam Daniel Kritenbrink who met with senior Navy officers and various media during the visit.

Who is to "blame" for TR visiting Vietnam? Who is responsible for not responding immediately to CAPT Crozier's desperate pleas for help for his crew as his Sailors became sick? Was Crozier punished for speaking truth to power?

Capt. Brett Crozier, commanding officer of the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71), sits inside the cockpit of an F/A-18E Super Hornet, assigned to the “Blue Diamonds” of Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 146, Nov. 13, 2019, aboard Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71).  (MC3 Nicholas Huynh)

Skipper Crozier's bio and web presence show a stellar, accomplished and gifted naval aviator and leader of leaders – a graduate of the Naval Academy, trained in nuclear power, with an advanced degree from the Naval War College. He served in Hawaii; in CONUS; in Naples, Italy with NATO; and in Iwakuni and Yokosuka, Japan. While aboard USS Nimitz he supported Operation Iraqi Freedom. And he served as the Executive Officer of USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76) till July 2016. During that tour USS Reagan took part in RIMPAC 2014 and came to Yokosuka to relieve USS George Washington (CVN 73). Crozier then served as commanding officer aboard USS Blue Ridge (LCC 19), flagship of the U.S. Seventh Fleet, before becoming TR's CO November 1, 2019.

His Sailors call him GOAT: Greatest Of All Time. They cheered him as he departed his ship.

In late-breaking news, it is reported today that Crozier himself has tested positive for the COVID virus.

What's the Real Crime

Junge (again, not intended to be referring to Crozier) wrote this about Navy's tendency to figuratively eat its own:

"The Navy must remember that commanders, competent commanders, are in short supply. The rarity of command in itself means that every commander has valuable, and rare, experience. By removing and discarding virtually all commanders who commit crimes of command the Navy wastes precious resources. Chester Nimitz's and William Raborn's contributions testify to the potential value lost when the Navy sent Kirk Lippold [USS Cole (DDG 67) CO], Glenn Brindel [USS Stark (FFG 31)], Walter Shafer [USS Belknap (CG 26) CO], and over a hundred other commanders home over the last three decades rather than afford them an opportunity at redemption."

He says the Navy now favors "retribution and removal" over "remorse and rehabilitation." And he asks, "Are officers who protect the Navy from airing dirty laundry loyal to the institution, or disloyal to the country?" 

As a reminder, the nation's first whistleblowers were Sailors.

In the U.S. Naval War College Review ("Leadership and Decision—From Accountability to Punishment," Naval War College Review: Spring 2020; Vol. 73: No. 2, Article 5) Junge graphs and compares the "number of officers forgiven or allowed rehabilitation." It's clear that CO removals are way up in recent years.



He writes, “In the modern Navy, a commander is most likely to be removed for personal misconduct or when the crime of command includes one or all of the following elements: death, press coverage, or significant damage to the Navy, whether materially or to its reputation.”

Junge notes, "Because commanders are now judged via an administrative process during which they enjoy fewer rights than they would in a judicial process, removal for personal misconduct is lumped in with operational incidents."

Junge's book was written well before the current pandemic, obviously. He mentions personal individual actions such as infidelity and alcohol incidents. But the book focuses primarily on "crimes" such as shipboard accidents and ship and submarine collisions, allisions and groundings. We read about accidents by Bainbridge and Barry from the Navy's early history and see how they were forgiven and fondly remembered. Mullen and Nimitz similarly rose from what could be called career-ending incidents during a more forgiving time.

Junge reminds us of the fate of USS Indianapolis (CA 35) and its captain, Charles B. McVay, III, who was pilloried for not zigzagging his ship in order to avoid enemy torpedoes. And we learn about USS Hobson (DMS 26), cut in half by USS Wasp (CV 18) in 1952, with 176 Sailors killed, including the captain. Junge provides examples of significant incidents, including among others, those involving USS McFaul (DDG 74) and USS Winston S. Churchill (DDG 81) in 2008, USS William P. Lawrence (DDG 110) in 2013, and separate collisions involving USS Fitzgerald (DDG 62) and USS John S. McCain (DDG 56) in 2017.

Junge sees a change in naval culture in 1965-1985, a period where "individual responsibility was replaced with an idea of culpability for the CO, for simply being in command."

He notes that Rickover's shadow was long. Five of the previous eleven Chiefs of Naval Operations being officers who Rickover had interviewed and in some cases personally mentored.

Such was the case for CNOs Adm. James L. Holloway III and especially Adm. James D. Watkins, who, with Secretary of the Navy John Lehman, codified the "first open and official linkage of authority, responsibility, and accountability and their indivisible nature."

"Watkins also took Rickover's ideas outside the Navy," Junge writes. "After retiring as CNO, Watkins remained active in government, first as chairman of the Reagan commission on the HIV epidemic, then as Secretary of Energy for President George H.W. Bush." 

Watkins, echoing Rickover, once wrote, "The doctrine of accountability has always been a part of command and a very active part of that doctrine is that you cannot delegate responsibility and authority to another." The man at the top, according to that view, should be responsible, accountable and culpable.

Core Values, Including ...

Junge offers a nuanced perspective to ethical military virtue. He says "the Navy must return to a time when a commander can commit a crime of command, be judged and afforded an opportunity to seek and receive forgiveness; an opportunity for redemption." 

In fact, he suggests another core value for the Navy along with honor, courage and commitment: forgiveness. And he bases his suggestion in part on theology, citing Jesus Christ, and also in science, showing research in ethics and morality.

For example, Kohlberg identified three levels of moral development, each with two stages. "At the lowest level, individuals are self-centered and amoral, focused on not being caught and punished," Junge writes.

"Most military personnel fit within Level II, Stages 3 or 4. Rules are clear cut, group approval is desired, and authority is respected," Junge says. If a person has more fully evolved, he or she can achieve a level of enlightened moral development. "Stage 5 accepts legal authority, but also seeks to change unjust laws. Stage 5 is the core basis or ideals of American morality."

"While Rickover created Level II organizations, he did not operate at that level." Because he had been quarantined he was behind in his studies at Annapolis. "When he returned to class he was behind, and in order to catch up Rickover violated academy rules to study after taps." Far from being a two-dimensional caricature, Rickover was complicated; he even knew how to forgive others, as Junge shows.

Junge's book, available on Kindle at Amazon, is rich in history, psychology and critical thinking. Readers are asked to consider the true meanings of responsibility, accountability and culpability. Junge introduces readers to a rich resource of authors and books, and he reminds us of the words of Adm. Arleigh Burke: "A commander who fails to exceed his authority is not much use to his subordinates."

As this blog goes online, CAPT Crozier faces possible disciplinary action in an apparent expedited investigation. But his Sailors aboard TR are more protected and are now receiving COVID-19 tests.

(*Michael Junge is an active duty Navy Captain with degrees from the United States Naval Academy, United States Naval War College, the George Washington University, and Salve Regina University.  He served afloat in USS Moosbrugger (DD 980), USS Underwood (FFG 36), USS Wasp (LHD 1), USS The Sullivans (DDG 68) and was the 14th Commanding Officer of USS Whidbey Island (LSD 41). Ashore he served with Navy Recruiting; Assault Craft Unit 4; as Deputy Commandant for Programs and Resources, Headquarters, Marine Corps; as Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Communication Networks (N6); and with the Office of the Secretary of Defense. He is a military professor at the U.S. Naval War College.)

Hospital Corpsman 2nd Class Michael Lusk, from Baltimore, takes a swab sample for COVID-19 testing aboard the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71), April 1, 2020.  (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Dartañon D. De La Garza/Released)

Seabees assigned to Naval Mobile Construction Battalion (NMCB) 1 and NMCB 5 coordinate transportation of Sailors assigned to the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71) who have tested negative for COVID-19 and are asymptomatic from Naval Base Guam to Government of Guam and military-approved commercial lodging. Sailors will be required to remain in quarantine in their assigned lodging for at least 14 days, in accordance with DoD directive and the Governor’s executive order. The vehicles departed the pier and picked up Theodore Roosevelt Sailors who had previously been isolated from the ship at locations on board Naval Base Guam. (U.S. Navy photo by Chief Mass Communication Specialist Matthew R. White/Released)

Asian Perspective

Review by Bill Doughty

East or West? Free for all or a free-for-all? Who's up and what's down in evolving global relationships?

"Those who are looking for either rigid lines of alliance or moral clarity among Asia's shifting partnerships will find themselves in an Escher painting."

What's needed is a new perspective.

In "The Future Is Asian" (Simon & Schuster, 2019) author Parac Khanna notes that civilization was born in West Asia. "Asia dominated the Old World, while the West led the New World – and now we are coming to a truly global world. There is no turning back from today's multipolar, multicivilizational order."

While China plays a central role in the future global order, those "shifting partnerships" and tenuous loyalties are especially evident in the maritime commons, where "each littoral state has a different name for its portion of the South China Sea."

Gunner’s Mate 2nd Class Blake Rodenas uses the “big eyes” on the starboard bridge wing of the Independence-variant littoral combat ship USS Gabrielle Giffords (LCS 10) while in the South China Sea, Dec. 23, 2019. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Damon Grosvenor)

As Capitalism becomes a common link even in China and Russia, the waterways throughout Asia, including in and around the Arab states, become even more strategically important. This week China, Russia and Iran are conducting an anti-piracy/anti-terrorism maritime exercise in the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Oman. 

"The more South and East Asians engage with the Gulf region, the more they will want to protect their investments. China, India, Japan, and numerous other Asian powers have all stepped up their freedom of navigation, counterpiracy, and other naval drills in the western Indian Ocean. India, seeking to recover the Chola Dynasty's maritime might, has increased its naval acquisition to more than a quarter of its defense spending with the aim of becoming the gatekeeper of the eponymous Indian Ocean. In the name of maintaining a 'free and open Indo-Pacific,' India and Japan cooperate in the annual Malabar Exercise with the United States, which has renamed its Pacific forces to Indo-Pacific Command. China is also seeking to recover its Ming Dynasty glory, sending flotillas to the Indian Ocean led by modern-day Zheng Hes. China alone has four times as many destroyers, frigates, and other surface warships as India (though still fewer than the United States and Japan). In the coming years, it may anchor more of them in Sri Lanka's Hambantota Port – which the government leased to China in 2017 for ninety-nine years after being unable to repay the loans for the port's construction – or even the Maldives, which was agreed to become a maritime hub of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). China's more active presence in India's maritime theater has the country on high alert."

Quartermaster 2nd Class Ziolan Bondoc, from Riverside, California, assists with navigation in the bridge of the Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser USS Antietam (CG 54) in the Philippine Sea, June 13, 2018, during exercise Malabar between U.S., Japan and Indian maritime forces. (MC2 William McCann)

Khanna presents in detail the nuances of Asian relationships. For example: Turkey's Erdogan who has "lurched toward Asia;" Israel "ever more a part of the Asian system;" Pakistan's rumored Chinese naval base on the Jiwani peninsula "to challenge the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet;" Myanmar as a strategic investment for China, India and Japan; and Vietnam's "pugnacious" approach toward China – "Vietnam is not afraid to send its navy to collide with Chinese vessels and oil rigs trespassing in its water."

Vietnam People’s Navy Lt. Cmdr. Le Thanh Binh, July 16, at RIMPAC 2018. (MC2 Kory Alsberry)

He notes that in 2018 the United States invited Vietnam to participate in the Rim of the Pacific exercise in Hawaii, while excluding China.

Meanwhile, "China's enormous investments in antiship ballistic missiles, stealth submarines, robotic warships, electromagnetic railguns, swarming drones, and militarized reclaimed islands and shoals in the South China Sea (are) all intended to push U.S. forces east of the international date line."

"At the same time, China knows it is not omnipotent. Though it has enormous leverage over most of its neighbors, even military triumph in outstanding disputes may generate such adverse political and economic backlash that it is not worth the price. China cannot assure itself that seizing the multitude of disputed islands and mountains on its periphery would not lead to a blockage of its BRI projects or large-scale diversion of foreign financial and industrial activity. China has learned from Japan's hyperaggression and the United States' overstretch to show restraint and caution, not pursue invasion and occupation."

Khanna shows how Russia and China are getting closer. "Asian states are forging new geometries of cooperation," Khanna writes, including "budding military cooperation among Japan, Vietnam and India; between Australia and Japan; between India and Indonesia; among China, Malaysia and Sri Lanka; and among China, Thailand and Cambodia." Asian nations, including especially China, are investing in and trading with African countries.



"The Future is Asian" presents a scholarly history, a present state of affairs, and predictions for what may unfold in countries throughout the region, including Russia, Iran, India, Pakistan and North Korea.

"North Korea will be the true test of whether Northeast Asia can move from strategic suspicion to tactical adjustments. North Korea has been thought of as an isolated failed state, but the fact that its covert nuclear program has had links as far as Pakistan's A.Q. Khan nuclear smuggling network, its chemical weapons program to Syria's Bashar al-Assad, its ballistic missile program to Iran, and its cyber-surveillance tools to Russia, are all evidence of the seedier side of the Asian system. Asian states can conspire to form an 'axis of resistance' to perceived U.S. hegemony."

Khanna notes that claims by the United States of domination and exceptionalism ("America First") ring hollow and sanctimonious to Asian ears. Harmony and humility are valued over power and pride.

Asians in general, Khanna argues, prefer "cooperation over anger" and "action over argument" – including when dealing with common issues like water shortages, agricultural challenges, inequality and poverty, immigration, pollution and climate change. "China, Japan and India are all major exporters of solar, wind, nuclear and other energy technologies that reduce our global carbon footprint."

Robot Astro Boy

Keys for future success are in education and technology, Khanna asserts. Asians' views of AI and robots are closer to Astroboy (called "Atom" in Japan) rather than Terminator, he asserts.

Along with education and technology, technocracy is embraced. Freedom and democracy do not work without an educated citizenry led by experienced and thoughtful representatives and leaders. Khanna holds up Singapore and itsstatesman Lee Kuan Yew as models of excellence.

Still, he warns of technocracy leading to authoritarian governments that can practice corruption and trample civil rights. "Always beware the oligarch in disguise ... The essence of technocracy is improving governance, not preserving one's own rule."

"After observing Russia's manipulation of Facebook in the 2016 U.S. election – and viral videos sparking riots in India and Myanmar – Asians have recruited Facebook and WhatsApp to actively screen and counter viral hoaxes to ensure that 'fake news' does not destabilize communal harmony. As the economist Danny Quah puts it, free-for-all populist cultures resemble the comments section of online newspapers: they get hijacked by ranting trolls. A better model might be liberal societies in which officials act more like Wikipedia editors who ensure veracity and a sense of order."

Thefts of intellectual properties, tariffs, greed, revanchism and destruction of the environment are challenges for a peaceful future.

Khanna contends that Americanization is giving way to Asianization, even in Europe, and that "Asia is the most powerful force reshaping the world order today." He writes, "To appreciate just how rapidly global order can realign, consider the arc of the post-WWII era."

Whether or not readers agree with all of the author's conclusions and recommendations, especially his views on democracy, he compels us to consider other perspectives and how we approach the future – with less self-centeredness and arrogance and instead with greater humility, honesty and reflection.

Parag Khanna has served as an advisor to the U.S. National Intelligence Council and U.S. Special Operations Forces.