by yoshi » Sun Mar 15, 2015 4:55 pm
@Sum1:
I understand where you are coming from, and completely understand the points you make. However, neither our community nor the Navy does IO. The IW/CT community does not do full spectrum IO and the fact we are viewed that way by anyone is telling. So, yeah, perhap we should "correct the perception" (!), get out of the IO business and employ our O5s in milestone jobs we value. Perhaps the IO unicorn at FCC can help. Or, I suppose we could wait another decade. A decade ago our community said we are IO, but we didn't follow through. Why?? Cyber grew, leaders changed, we started coming home from ground wars in which IO really did matter, ADM Rogers said we don't do IO, etc, etc. Lots of reasons why we don't do it, but in the end our community failed to establish IO in the Navy. But, we still have billets which are IO related in a number of places, and what can/should our community do with them? Our unwillingness to figure out what to do with IO, our O5 operational milestone billets, etc conveys some of the more serious flaws of our community leadership.
The overall impact of not having IO in the Navy is seemingly negligible, as we aren't getting shot at and a Navy IO failure is not recognized when it occurs, except in places such as yours (where JOPES, MCPP, etc is involved) where it is all supposed to come together. And, besides, the Army is willing to write it, right? Most of our IO failure is edited out and doesn't make it into briefs anyway. No one at any level wants to say they failed to properly integrate IRCs from the outset because they didn't know what they were doing or who they were supposed to talk to. The real story about IO isn't about the negative consequences of not doing it (there really aren't many), but rather the lack of positives/efficiency because we don't do it. If done properly, IO conducted at the COCOM level dictates operations, as well as their sequence and pace. I believe that is probably why we tried to take it on 10+years ago. But, we went a different way when cyber grew and our leadership changed. I'm not sure we would have been successful at the strategic level, anyway, given our strong proclivity to stay tactical. We still talk about how "operational" we are (particularly with cyber), but rarely can show what those efforts mean to the Fleet, CSG, ARG Commander. Whoops, went Navy for a sec, sorry :-) In any case, I just wish the community would move us on, rather than continuing on in an obtuse manner.