Bill Hamblet photo

Strategic Challenges

By Bill Hamblet
February 2021
"As Service Members, we must embody the values and ideals of the Nation. We support and defend the Constitution.” Joint Chiefs of Staff message to the joint force.
The Chief Petty Officer’s Guide, 2nd Edition

CEO Notes

February 2021
This issue goes to press as the nation comes to grips with the violent attack that breached the Capitol. Such actions cannot be condoned, and those responsible must be held ...
Financial management and spreadsheets are not thought of as deadly weapons, but being able to account for the billions of dollars in the defense budget is crucial. Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Michael Gilday has noted that fiscal stewardship will enable the Navy to deliver more warfighting capability for every dollar.

Accounting for Lethality

By Laura C. Alford, PhD
February 2021
Financial management and spreadsheets are not thought of as deadly weapons, but being able to account for the billions of dollars in the defense budget is crucial.
The early 20th-century Marine Corps’ planning and execution of advanced base operations could provide lessons in leadership and innovation to today’s service.

The 20th-Century Roots of EABO

By First Lieutenant James Winnefeld, U.S. Marine Corps
February 2021
2020 CNO Naval History Essay Contest Winner. As the Marine Corps faces new challenges, it should heed lessons from the past on guiding innovation.
Ernest Hemingway was a passionate fisherman, much like the old man in one of his most famous books. The commitment and humility of his aged Cuban fisherman in The Old Man and the Sea offer strong lessons for military leaders.

Follow the Old Man’s Example

By Major Matthew Schultz, U.S. Marine Corps
February 2021
Courage, commitment, and humility—some of the greatest virtues of the profession of arms—are illustrated masterfully, yet obscurely, by Ernest Hemingway in The Old Man and the Sea.
Gambling with Armagedon Cover

Book Reviews

February 2021
Experts review Emperor’s New Road: China and the Project of the Century, A Game of Birds and Wolves, and other new and noteworthy books.
The guided-missile destroyer USS John Finn (DDG-113) launches an SM-3 Block IIA Standard Missile during a ballistic-missile defense test in November 2020.

The BMD Combat Systems Revolution

By Edward J. Walsh
February 2021
In mid-November 2020, the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) and a consortium of Navy agencies collaborated to launch an SM-3 Block IIA Standard Missile from the Aegis destroyer USS John Finn ...
The NS Savannah, the first commercial nuclear-powered cargo/passenger vessel, en route to the 1962 World’s Fair in Seattle. According to Captain Frank Shellenbarger, one of her chief officers, she almost did not make it off the ways.

The Nuclear Ship Savannah

By A. Denis Clift
February 2021
In 1955, President Dwight D. Eisenhower announced that the United States would build the world’s first nuclear-powered cargo/passenger ship, the NS Savannah.
Effector payload module deployment

Disaggregation Reexamined

By Captain Ernest Snowden, U.S. Navy Reserve (Retired)
February 2021
The effector payload module, as envisioned by the Strategic Studies Group in 2009, could achieve distributed lethality at a fraction of the attendant cost of additional hulls.

The U.S. Naval Institute is a private, self-supporting, not-for-profit professional society that publishes Proceedings as part of the open forum it maintains for the Sea Services. The Naval Institute is not an agency of the U.S. government; the opinions expressed in these pages are the personal views of the authors.