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Sea Power: Two years have elapsed since you reported for duty as the 28th chief of naval operations and promulgated a Navy vision to steer by the stars and not the wake, with four stars as guides--operational primacy, leadership, teamwork, and pride. How is the Navy progressing along the course you plotted in 1996?

JOHNSON: Things are going very well. The four-star prism is a great way to look at our Navy today, and if you look at what we are asked to do around the world every day, I say we are doing a marvelous job for our country. The fundamentals have not changed. It is all about operational primacy, about leadership, about teamwork, and about pride in what we are doing. Those four themes--those stars--are pushing us into the 21st century.

There is a growing concern on Capitol Hill and elsewhere about possible readiness problems. How do you assess Navy readiness today?

JOHNSON: I spend a great deal of my time addressing the readiness issue. Going back to my four stars--operational primacy is what readiness is all about. My assessment is that out in our forward-deployed forces we are as ready as we need to be. I am very proud of the job we are doing. As a rotational force we must always push to make darned sure that readiness at the tip of the spear is what the nation and the rest of the world expect of us.

If there are any readiness problems you are not going to see them out forward--you are going to see them back home. When we deploy, we are at a high degree of readiness; then we come home and consciously come off that high degree of readiness. Then, over the next 12 to 18 months, we gradually work our way back up the ladder before the next deployment. But it is taking us too long to get back--and that has a direct impact on the readiness of our nondeployed force. This could eventually affect the total force, but we have realigned our priorities so that that will not happen.

How are the fleet and type commanders doing in their efforts to reduce time away from homeport during interdeployment training cycles--is this one of the priorities you have realigned?

JOHNSON: Indeed. Let me say that the interdeployment cycle does a great job of training and certifying battle groups and amphibious ready groups to execute [their missions] at the tip of the spear. We can improve what we do with our men and women when they are not deployed during their interdeployment training cycle. It is supposed to be a period of stability--for spending quality time with family and recharging batteries as well as a time for focused training. But well-intentioned people, including me, have put too much into that pot. So the Navy leadership has agreed that we would take a 25 percent whack at that nondeployed part of our lives to take that pressure off and let the unit commanders use the time as they see fit.

Will this help enlisted recruiting and retention?

JOHNSON: I believe that it will. And this touches the readiness issue as well. Readiness means having the ships, the airplanes, and the parts to fix them. But it also means having a motivated, happy, satisfied, well-supported force. So we must take the pressure off these young men and women. As I have said before, we are out of the business of doing more with less. We cannot do that anymore. Taking the pressure off at the unit level will make the force more combat-ready in the end.

Where does the Navy stand with its recruiting and retention requirements?

JOHNSON: Retention--both enlisted and officer--is a concern. But giving our people more predictable, stable, and productive lives--and supporting them throughout their careers--will enable us to recruit quality people and retain them. Our first-term retention goal is about 38 percent, and we are currently at about 32 to 33 percent. We are not quite where we need to be, but we are getting there.

Recruiting is problematic for us right now--we have had a tough year. But let me emphasize that this is not the fault of our recruiters. They are outstanding--and unbelievably productive. But we need to do a better job of having our recruiters--and enough of them--in the right places to match the demographics of the country. Recruiting is also tough because unemployment is at a record low. Surveys reveal that youth pro-pensity to join the services is low and, unfortunately, particularly so for the Navy. So the challenge is there--to make young people aware of what life is really like in the Navy and how vital the contribution of the naval service is to the country. It is tough to do when the economy is so good.

My estimate is that this year we will miss our recruiting goal by about 7,000 [enlisted recruits]; after looking at things like unreplaced losses and retention and so forth, it will be more like 4,000. But that still is not good enough. We are doing more advertising and taking a fresh look at advertising to see that we are appealing to the right segment of the population. We are also increasing the number of recruiters. We will stabilize that number at about 4,000 or 4,500--we are coming up from about 3,700--then lock it in and let the accession number fluctuate around it, rather than tailoring the recruiting force to the accession goal.

On the officer [retention] side, there are some shortfalls in some critical specialties that concern me: aviators, SEALs, surface- and submarine-warfare officers. There is no "silver bullet" solution. We are taking a multipronged approach to deal with these challenges. We are working to stabilize the nondeployed part of the cycle, ensuring that our operating and maintenance accounts are properly funded so there are ships to steam and aircraft to fly, and [having] the parts and personnel support available [for them]. If they see the Navy's leadership doing all we can to make it as good as it can be for them, I think that that will count for a lot. Keeping faith with our troops is very important.

There are monetary incentives, too, such as aviation continuation pay. We are also looking at options for surface-warfare and special-warfare officers as we have with submarine officers. All of that is important in the next year or two. I am hoping to get out ahead of it enough so that it does not become a crisis for us. We are working it hard across the board.

Do you see increased awareness of and support for increases to base pay and other compensation for all service members--what is needed to close the gap with the civilian sector?

JOHNSON: Compensation has been an issue in times past, but in the last year, and especially in the past six months, pay, compensation, and retirement benefits have become the number one or two issue Sailors raise whenever I visit the fleet. Within the Navy leadership, DOD [Department of Defense], Congress, and the administration, there is a growing recognition that we must more adequately compensate our people. Many people are looking at pay and compensation from all angles. We are working towards how we can fix this challenge. The competition is fierce for our young men and women; we have to compensate them adequately at a level that makes them want to stay--that is a fundamental.

Your recent update to the Navy Program Guide asserts the Navy is experiencing a revolutionary strategic transformation as it moves into the 21st century. Please give us some details about this transformation.

JOHNSON: I believe the relevance of the Navy extends as far into the future as we can see. What we are trying to do with our strategic vision is to leverage the core competencies that we have today and those we are developing for tomorrow. Theater ballistic missile defense will be a fundamental 21st-century naval mission. It fits our mission in the strategic and operational sense. Another area is mine warfare. So is power projection. So the transformation deals with the strategic side--forward presence, deterrence, power projection, and sea control, but it also deals with the business of naval fires [naval surface fire support], naval maneuver, sustainment, and cooperative protection with allies and with the other services. The challenge is to see that all of those functions point down the same sight line--the core competencies and relevance of the Navy of the 21st century. The revolutionary strategic transformation needs to capture what we do well and uniquely now and to embrace new missions as well--such as theater ballistic missile defense, network-centric warfare, and cooperative-engagement capability that are fundamental to the future of the Navy.

You are faced with the Herculean task of paying to maintain and modernize today's Navy even as you invest in the design and construction of tomorrow's. Are you achieving the necessary savings in early ship retirements, outsourcing, and base closings to meet Navy recapitalization requirements?

JOHNSON: The short-term answer is a guarded "yes." The long-term answer is "no." Let me explain. We worked very hard in the Quadrennial Defense Review [QDR] to reshape the Navy as a leaner, more capable force. We have put huge amounts of our reinvestment back into the operating and maintenance accounts, and the manpower accounts. For fiscal year 1999 we think we are going to get through the year without reprogramming in manpower--that is unheard of. So there is real progress.

If you look ahead to 2004 or 2005, that is the point at which, if you run the numbers on a 300-ship Navy and look at their ages and other factors, you had better be building eight to 10 ships a year or you are not going to maintain a 300-ship Navy. Our program of record today does not do that. We have some profound challenges that we are still working.

The Navy has long looked to the outyears to receive needed increases to its shipbuilding budget. Do you have any reason to be more optimistic today that the Navy will one day have enough funds in SCN [shipbuilding & conversion, Navy] to meet the QDR's projected force level of 300 ships?

JOHNSON: I hope so, but we are not there yet. I need to get more savings out of my own organization. We are working that hard. We are carrying more infrastructure than we need to carry. But having said that, because of the rotational nature of our force we must fund and support our readiness accounts. That has got to be priority one. Recapitalization must be of lower priority. If you have to make trade-offs, right now they are being made on the recapitalization side. In the long term we have some growth that we have to build into the program.

Some critics claim that the Navy is simply becoming too expensive to build, maintain, and operate. How would you respond to them?

JOHNSON: I do not like that criticism because I think it is unfair. Look at what we are asking these men and women to do. We give them just over three percent of our GDP [gross domestic product] to do it with. For a force that is 50-plus percent underway every day and 30-plus percent forward-deployed 365 days a year, it is quite a bargain. Nobody else in the world can do this. We do it proudly, better than anyone, 365 days a year. One of the best ways to deal with the global instabilities that will continue into the 21st century is by being there. That is what the Navy and Marine Corps do. There is no substitute for being there. That is our stock in trade. When somebody blows the whistle and says "let's go," you want the first team out there every time. That is what we have now. You have to pay for that. But it is worth the price.

Since former Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld's commission issued its July report on the ballistic missile threat to the United States, there have been calls in some quarters for the Navy to be given a higher priority in funding for its Aegis-based theater ballistic missile defense program. Do you agree with that position?

JOHNSON: Yes, absolutely [laughing]. The theater ballistic missile business by charter belongs to the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization in OSD [Office of the Secretary of Defense]. We work very closely with them. I believe that the Aegis fleet is a natural home for theater ballistic missile defense. But we have a lot of work to do. What I want for the Navy is to support, test, and field first the area, then the theater capability as rapidly as we can--smartly. Then I want to put it on a platter and give it to the country. I believe it will be an awesome capability. We have the first two ships [the Aegis guided-missile cruisers USS Lake Erie and USS Port Royal] that will be outfitted this year [with a User Operational Evaluation System capability], then the Block IV alphas [an upgrade to the RIM-67B SM-2 Standard Missile-2], and then we go from there.

On the theater side we are conducting rigorous testing. We need to get those capabilities embedded in the fleet and then send those capabilities wherever the Navy goes. That is a winner for everyone in the world. We are getting there as fast as we can, given the fiscal realities we are dealing with.

The September issue of Sea Power describes the renewed emphasis you recently placed on retaining the Navy's primacy in antisubmarine warfare [ASW]. How would you describe your short-term and long-range goals?

JOHNSON: We want to make sure that everyone keeps ASW in their scan pattern. That is why N84 [director, Antisubmarine Warfare Division, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations] came into being; that is why they are part of our integrated assessment process. I believe that, well-intentioned as it may have been, after the Cold War we let the pendulum swing too far in this area. We are trying to bring that pendulum back a little closer to center. In N84 Captain John Morgan [Capt. John G. Morgan Jr., division director] and his staff are being very helpful in making that a reality.

In the long term, we have to ensure that we maintain the R&D [research and development] and the investment to ensure operational primacy in ASW. I do not want anyone else in the world to be even close--that is the mandate. So, we must maintain the momentum so we stay well ahead of everybody in the world.

At the same time, mine warfare and mine countermeasures [MCM] programs, perceived historically as the Navy's neglected stepchildren, are receiving greater attention in DOD and calls for a higher priority. What are your plans, and is the funding available now and in the outyears to execute them?

JOHNSON: We have reoriented ourselves in the mine warfare business in a very positive way. We are going to embed mine warfare capabilities in the battle groups. Then we will get it in everything so that it goes wherever the Navy goes. That will be a huge and exciting transformation, and technology will now allow us to do it. We believe that the technology is out there that will allow us to use an H-60 [CH-60 fleet combat support helicopter] instead of an H-53 [MH-53E Sea Dragon mine-countermeasures helicopter] to tow the kinds of things that only H-53s could tow before. That shift is underway right now. We still capture the center of excellence and expertise that is at Ingleside [Mine Warfare Command, Ingleside, Texas]--it [self-protection initiatives organic to non-MCM forces] does not supplant it--it complements it.

We have mine warfare assets forward-based in Bahrain and in Japan, and we are looking at other ways to distribute assets to make them more responsive. That, plus the organic piece, is the future. We believe we will have a battle group deploy with this capability in 2006. There is opportunity to accelerate that by a year or two within the bounds of technology. The financial "delta" we are looking at is somewhere in the range of $250-$280 million. Mine warfare is a core competency, and we in the Navy consider it fundamental to [the Navy's mission in] the 21st century.

Last May you assigned NAVSEA [Naval Sea Systems Command] the lead responsibility to work with the fleet to correct interoperability problems. How do you assess the interoperability challenge, and what will you do to resolve it?

JOHNSON: It has been a big challenge, but now the integration pathway is very well-defined. We have got the right people in charge, and things are moving well. The interoperability enhancements--the upgrades to the Aegis fleet and integration of cooperative-engagement capabilities--all of these are very sophisticated challenges, but we have the right people working the integration schemes now so I am very confident in where we are going.

With the Defense Department warning that it will impose a moratorium on all software system modifications in 1999, perhaps you could tell us about the Navy's computer remediation program as 2000 approaches.

JOHNSON: We have come a long way, but we have a way to go. We are looking at mission-critical systems and at mission-support systems. There are unknowns we still must deal with, and we are taking a serious effort at solving this challenge. We are tracking the testing and the timelines. We have a full-time rear admiral--Admiral Steve Johnson [Rear Adm. Stephen I. Johnson, director, Year 2000 Project Office] and his team--working Y2K [year 2000]. Not all of our systems are going to be compliant by the mission-critical date, but there are good reasons for that. Still, we are well on our way--the devil will be in the details.

You described the recent expansion of the Naval War College's mission to encompass the Naval Warfare Development Command [NWDC] as a "new War College for a new era." Would you expand on that?

JOHNSON: I am very excited about what is happening up there in Newport. We have a wonderful institution up there--I am very proud of what Admiral Jim Stark [former Naval War College president Rear Adm. James R. Stark] and his staff have been doing for us. If you look at the 21st century in terms of innovation and more doctrinal responsiveness, fleet experimentation, and strategy, you will find these things in Newport--as in Alfred Thayer Mahan's day [preeminent 19th-century U.S. naval strategist]. What is the best way to capture and focus these things throughout the Navy? That is what brought about the new Naval War College. We have built a new organization within the existing one. We have a three-star [flag officer] president and two two-stars [flag officers] under him. One is a provost--the war college and wargaming piece--and the other is the Navy warfare development command piece, which will capture the doctrine, innovation, and linkage to the fleet . That is all coming together beautifully under Admiral Cebrowski [current Naval War College president Vice Adm. Arthur K. Cebrowski].

How will a reorganized and reinvigorated Naval War College help the Navy face the main national security threats of the 21st century--terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, and regional instability?

JOHNSON: It will give focus and rigor to the process of dealing with these challenges. Take fleet linkage, for example--we have been doing fleet battle experiments; some are Navy-specific, some are with the Marine Corps, and some are with the other services. It is all going to be focused in one place so we have continuity of effort that will allow us to make the most of every at-sea opportunity to experiment--to learn from whatever is out there, to crystallize our thinking, and to move the doctrine into the fleet.

The fleet will have direct linkage--representatives [to the Naval Warfare Development Command]--both ways. The NWDC folks will be embedded in the battle experiments, for instance. We are talking about a network-centric Navy for the 21st century. We have the technology for Navy ships to be conversant with each other half a world away. This same capability will be applied at Newport. Fundamental to this, though, is fleet buy-in. The fleets have to feel that they are getting value added or we have marginalized our investment. Newport is the place for gathering great ideas, and the Navy's strategic thinking and innovation should be centralized at one place. But the tentacles are worldwide.

What will be your highest priority during your remaining term as CNO?

JOHNSON: Without question, our people. There is a lot of excitement generated when we talk about DDG-21s, LPD-17s, F/A-18 E/F Super Hornets, new attack submarines, network-centric warfare, and theater ballistic missile defense ... but not one of them is worth a damn without really good people. The opportunities that are out there today for young people on the outside [in the private sector] make it even more imperative for all of us to take a hard look at how we care for and nurture these wonderful young men and women. I love them all and want to keep them. I want to make sure we do everything in our power to care for them. My number one mandate is to support them.

Is there anything else you would like to say to the members of the Navy League?

JOHNSON: Yes, two words: Thank you! Because of the continuing reduction in resources for the Navy, we need to reach communities throughout America to educate people about how the long-term vital interests of the nation are served by our naval forces as we address the uncertain future. We have never had a better Navy or better people in it. But we need congressional support, political support, and the support of our fellow citizens in keeping it that way. The Navy League does a fantastic job in supporting the Navy in many, many ways, and I thank all of its members for their dedication and devotion to our naval forces.

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