Navy Strategy Development: Strategy in the 21st Century - Strategy Deficit, Inconsistent Ad Hoc Planning Processes, Opnav Varies from Other Services, Historic Cycles Including

This project examines the process by which the United States Navy formulates and implements strategy. Strategy is traditionally understood as the linkage of ends, ways, and means to achieve specific objectives, while the Department of Defense Dictionary of Military Terms narrows the definition to "A prudent idea or set of ideas for employing the instruments of national power in a synchronized and integrated fashion to achieve theater, national, and/or multinational objectives." OPNAV's task, however, is to formulate an organizational strategy that enables the Navy to support higher-level policy objectives. This type of strategy ideally should be framed by a conceptual analysis of the future security environment and U.S. defense policy. For OPNAV, Navy strategy is transformative in the sense that it offers a plan to create the Navy of tomorrow out of the Navy of today. The prospect of declining budgets and a changing geostrategic environment impose an urgent need for a more rigorous ends, ways, and means decision-making cycle when it comes to this Navy strategy. Over the next several years, the Navy faces the prospect of building fewer ships and airplanes than would be necessary to maintain current fleet size. Without a dramatic change in Congressional budgetary politics, the Navy will get smaller over the next quarter century. In order to ensure its continued ability to meet defense requirements, the Navy needs to connect its organizational strategy to austere budgetary realities as well as to the likelihood of accelerating global political, economic and military change. Without a robust attempt to improve its process of linking strategy to ends, ways and means, and by operationalizing policy priorities, the Navy increases the risk of catastrophic failure in war. This project explores how the Navy's strategy development, planning, and programming processes can be improved to provide Navy leadership with a more robust method to link ends, ways, and means together now and in the future. Introduction * Project Background * Project Objectives * Project Approach And Methods * Principal Findings * 1: The Navy's Strategy Deficit * Organizational Challenges * Domestic Challenges * Technological Challenges * 2: Programming And Budgeting Eclipses Strategy And Policy Ppbe In Opnav * The Role Of The N8 * 3: Inconsistent Strategic Planning Processes * N51's Ad Hoc Strategic Planning * The Navy's Fractured Strategic Thought Community * 4: Opnav's Processes And Structures Vary Notably From The Other Services' * Department Of The Army * Department Of The Air Force * Comparative Differences With Opnav's Ppbe Process * 5: Historic Cycles In Navy Strategy * Four Cycles * The Dark Age: 1865-1880 * Strategic Muddle 1:1919-1941 * Strategic Muddle Ii: 1946-1960 * The Hollow Force: 1970-1980 * Conclusion * 6. Takeaways And Preliminary Recommendations * A Way Forward: The Navy Strategic Enterprise * Recommendation 1: Codify Ppbe Planning Process * Recommendation 2: Improve Planning-Programming Coherence * Recommendation 3: Resolve Human Capital Issues * Recommendation 4: Codify Strategy Development Process