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Vice Adm. Arthur K. Cebrowski is the president of the Naval War College in Newport, R.I.

"There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things."

--Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince

I believed, upon assuming command as president of the new, reorganized Naval War College (NWC) last July, that the task ahead was clear: to assist in preparing our Navy, and our nation, to be ready to win any possible wars of the next century, not of the last. Just as 20th-century warfighting was based on industrial-age assumptions, 21st-century warfighting will be based on information-age assumptions. It is incumbent on our Navy's leadership to proceed at full speed in discovering and adapting the Navy to the fundamental principles of the coming information age. My job is to focus on the future. There are plenty of staffs throughout the Navy that can focus on the present.

Historically, the Naval War College has served the Navy and the nation by providing graduates who are prepared for the awesome responsibilities of leadership in crisis and combat. That role will not change. As the founder of the War College, Rear Adm. Stephen B. Luce, said, "It is only by a close study of the science and art of war that we can be prepared for war, and thus go very far toward securing the peace." However, the end of the 20th century has also posed other challenges to the Navy.

In Washington, D.C., recently, the Navy's leadership became aware that almost all of the innovations, ideas, and technologies routinely referred to as "new" are, in fact, more than 20 years old. Stealth technology is old (1970s), precision-guided weapons are old (1960s); the same is true of space-based sensors and other systems and technologies. Where were all the new ideas? Given the long history of innovation and technology leadership by the U.S. Navy, this lack was surprising. On further investigation, we found that the press of current issues and process of selecting and fine-tuning capabilities were entirely capable of eliminating new ideas--and, sometimes, the people who brought them.

A History of Conceptual Innovation

What to do? Could the obstacles to creativity be eliminated without sacrificing the Navy's strengths? Research into the history of organizational change revealed that, as noted in the opening quote, bringing about such change is difficult at best. It seemed that we needed a catalyst somewhere in the Navy to spark innovation and change--but we needed it in the right place and staffed by the right people. An examination of large U.S. corporations that had reorganized to meet future challenges showed us that attempts to spark innovation within headquarters had a poor track record. Washington, D.C., thus was eliminated as a location for such an effort. Alternatives favoring one fleet concentration area over another were quickly shown to be problematic, so those alternatives also were eliminated.

Newport and the Naval War College quickly emerged as the right place for this effort. Throughout its 114-year history, the school has been dedicated to conceptual development. Between World Wars I and II, the College was the location of considerable innovation, such as developing the conceptual base for aircraft carrier warfare, used to great success in the Pacific during World War II. After that war, Fleet Adm. Chester A. Nimitz wrote that nothing in the Pacific campaign was a surprise, except for the kamikazes. All else had been thought of and wargamed in Newport long before the war.

The institution I inherited is superb, and is still living up to its reputation. The War College has long been a Navy center of excellence, and the academic side of the War College remains fundamentally unchanged. New on that side of the house is a two-star Provost billet, currently filled by Rear Adm. Peter A. C. Long. The student body is sub-divided into four resident colleges and one nonresident college. They are:

• The College of Naval Warfare, the senior-level resident school attended by senior-grade officers from all five U.S. services and senior U.S. government civilian employees.
• The College of Naval Command and Staff, the intermediate-level resident school attended by mid-grade officers from the five U.S. services and U.S. government civilians.
• The Naval Command College, the senior-level resident international school for senior-grade officers, annually attended by officers from some 35 countries.
• The Naval Staff College, the intermediate-level resident international school annually attended by mid-grade officers from some 32 countries.
• The College of Continuing Education, the nonresident program--which can be accessed in a variety of locations around the world.

The student body usually totals about 500 in number, approximately one­half of whom are from the other military services and other U.S. government agencies. The curriculum takes students through three trimesters of study in the core areas of Strategy and Policy, National Security Decision Making, and Joint Military Operations. The college is accredited by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges, and successful U.S. students graduate with a Master of Arts degree in National Security and Strategic Studies.

The Navy Warfare Development Command

Perhaps the most visible change at the College has been the establishment of the Navy Warfare Development Command (NWDC) under the direction of Rear Adm. Bernard J. Smith. Although a separate command, the NWDC is totally a part of the Naval War College, and can draw from the intellectual capital residing at the NWC. Created to facilitate the innovation process, the NWDC provides a network for harvesting fleet ideas, and is a catalyst for change that will accelerate the Navy's capability growth in the information age, ensuring the fleet's ability to maintain freedom of the seas and to provide forward-deployed combat power well into the next century.

However, the NWDC itself is not the focus. Instead, our eyes should be on the products resulting from its threefold mission: identifying and refining innovative operational warfighting concepts; experimenting with these concepts in an operational context; and approving, synchronizing, and disseminating doctrine. To carry out this mission requires three departments within the NWDC.

Concept Development Division

The personnel assigned to the Concept Development Division (CDD) act as idea "finders," gathering the most cutting-edge ideas and concepts from sources throughout the fleet, both officer and enlisted, as well as from Navy laboratories, systems commands, the science and technology community, the Marine Corps and the nation's other armed services (and their battle laboratories), the Joint Battle Laboratory, civilian business, industry, and academia.

The ideas and concepts "found" will be rigorously tested within the War College, many of them in the NWC's wargaming department. Promising ideas and concepts will be passed to the Maritime Battle Center for incorporation into Fleet Battle experiments.

Although the Naval War College is certainly an intellectually rich environment, it is clearly recognized that the Navy cannot afford to label Newport as the single center for Navy innovation. This process must be one of total partnership with the fleet if it is to succeed. The NWDC also will disseminate lessons learned and serve as a center of corporate knowledge, thus increasing the speed with which concepts are examined, tested, and shared with the fleet and the other services.

Maritime Battle Center

The Maritime Battle Center (MBC) is the catalyst for the co-evolution of concepts, doctrine, organization, and technology. Its main methodology is concept-driven operational experimentation. We are all familiar with conducting exercises to hone skills--i.e., to get better at what we already know. Our typical predeployment Joint Task Force Exercises are prime examples. What we need for the future, however, is to expand the boundaries of our warfighting knowledge. We need to experiment in an arena where new things can be tried for the first time in an environment where failure is definitely an option. We need to know which new concepts will work and which will not. We also need to develop in the fleet an inclination for continual innovation, because this is where most of the answers to winning tomorrow's battles will be found.

To support this mission concept, the MBC oversees and focuses the Fleet Battle Experiment (FBE) process. The FBEs, steppingstones to the future, are held twice annually, and are based on the principles of Network Centric Warfare. The FBEs are genuine experiments, and not demonstrations or exercises; they start with hypotheses and carefully considered specific measures of effectiveness. Exploring such topics as shared battle-space awareness, sensor-performance issues, command-and-control methods, and speed of engagement, they attempt to gain some view--however dim--of what naval warfare probably will be like in the 21st century, and to develop insights, based on innovative operational concepts, into the "art of the possible."

The FBEs have become a very strong engine for change in a brief period. As of January 1999 four FBEs already have been conducted, and a fifth is scheduled for this Spring. The FBE process is designed to create and refine several products:

(1) New doctrine;

(2) New insights into technology in an operational context;

(3) Identification of new operational capabilities required;

(4) Ideas for further warfare concepts that can be pursued by the Warfare Concepts Division; and

(5) Ideas for future experimentation.

Of the four FBEs already conducted, the first two, Alfa and Bravo, were partnered with the Navy's Third Fleet in the waters off Southern California. Alfa, held in March 1997, experimented with coordinating naval weapons fires in a new concept called "Ring of Fire," the arsenal-ship concept, command, control, communications, computers, and intelligence (C4I) issues, and was coordinated with a Marine Corps Warfighting Lab "Hunter Warrior" Advanced Warfighting Experiment.

FBE Bravo, completed in September 1997, again experimented with naval weapons fires coordination issues, including Joint Precision Fires and GPS (global positioning system) guided-munitions planning.

FBE Charlie, conducted in May 1998, partnered with the Navy's Second Fleet off Norfolk, Va., and experimented with coordinated area air defense and further explored the naval contribution to joint weapons fires.

FBE Delta, completed in October 1998, was conducted with the U.S. Seventh Fleet in the Korean AOR (area of responsibility), and was the first forward-
deployed experiment. Piggybacked on the joint and combined theater exercise Foal Eagle '98, FBE Delta experimented with:

(1) Joint forces countering Special Operations Forces (SOF);

(2) Counterfire, using an offshore Aegis cruiser, against Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (MLRSs) and large artillery systems; and

(3) The use of numbered fleet command ships as an alternate command post for the joint force commander (JFC).

FBE Echo, currently scheduled for March-April 1999, will partner again with the Third Fleet, and will coordinate with a Marine Corps "Urban Warrior" Advanced Warfighting Experiment. FBE Echo will further explore naval weapons fires, command-and-control issues, and Theater Air Defense in the littoral urban environment. Smaller experiments, following soon after Echo, will examine concepts for antisubmarine and countermine operations.

Warfare concepts to be explored in future FBEs will include sensor coordination, coordination and control of weapons fires, four-dimensional de-confliction of the battle space, battle space awareness, information warfare, logistics in the littoral, counter-SOF operations, and much more. The advantage of holding these experiments twice a year can be seen in the rapid maturation of the Ring of Fire concept in the two years between FBEs Alpha and Echo. Ring of Fire is now considered mature enough to be passed onto the third part of the NWDC, the Doctrine Division.

Doctrine Division

The NWDC's Doctrine Division will coordinate doctrine development with the operational fleet. Its role most closely matches that of the former Naval Doctrine Command. Concepts proven viable through the FBE process will be transitioned into doctrine. In addition, the Doctrine Division will coordinate for the fleet the existing Navy Doctrine Continuum--Naval Doctrine Publications (NDPs), Naval Warfare Publications (NWPs), Fleet Tactical Library, etc.--and will provide the Navy input into joint and multinational doctrine. The objective is for doctrine to become dynamic, real time, and interactive. Doctrine as dogma has no value. To be a strong tool of leadership it must take on the speed and dynamics of modern combat itself.

The New Millenium

The new Naval War College has been reconfigured to lead the U.S. Navy into the next century through the process of facilitating warfighting innovation. This is a reprise of the role the College played 100 years ago when the Naval War College raised the professionalism of the Navy's officer corps by teaching, for the first time, that warfighting is a science--and, like any other science, could be learned, practiced, and improved. Today's new Naval War College links together a number of elements to achieve a synergy much greater than the sum of its parts. These parts include the operationally current student body, a superb faculty of both officers and civilians, the CNO Strategic Studies Group--which looks even further into the future--superb wargaming and modeling capabilities, the excellent Center for Naval Warfare Studies, and the new Navy Warfare Development Command with its departments for concept development, operational experimentation, and doctrine.

Our success hinges on active support and participation from our operational fleet customers. How will we know when we have succeeded? Many ways:

• When the fleet is inclined to habitual experimentation;
• When the twice-yearly experimentation catalyzed by Newport has changed into continuous experimentation in the fleet;
• When our warfighters see innovation in the mainstream of their daily and warfighting activities; and
• When doctrine is no longer the codification of the past, but a dynamic real-time process that fosters rather than stifles innovation.

Ultimately, though, our success will be measured by the extent to which we have influenced the world toward the course of justice and peace. I am for that reason both thrilled and awed by the voyage ahead. To our Navy League and other readers: Wish us well, and please send us your prayers for fair winds and following seas. Our children and grandchildren will inherit the naval legacy we are creating, so we must create it very well indeed.

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