Sea Control - Sea Control 297 — The Center for Maritime Strategy with Admiral James Foggo III (ret.)

Episode Date: November 28, 2021

Links1. Navy League of the United States.2. Sea-Air-Space Exposition.3. “From the Deck Plate of the Center for Maritime Strategy of the Navy League of the United States,” by James Foggo III, Seapower Magazine, November 15, 2021.4. Asia’s Cauldron: The South China Sea and the End of a Stable Pacific by Robert D. Kaplan, Random House, 2014.5. “On the Horizon: Navigating the European and African Theaters,” by Admiral James Foggo III, July 17, 2020.6. “Sea Control 219: USCG Commandant Admiral Karl Schultz,” by Walker Mills, CIMSEC, December 27, 2020.7. “Sea Control 218: Coastal Insecurity, ansar Al-Sunnah, and Women in Maritime Security with Kelly Moss & Lexie Van Buskirk,” by Walker Mills, CIMSEC, December 20, 2020.8. “Sea Control 250: Dr. Joshua Tallis on Arctic Security , by Walker Mills, CIMSEC, May 16, 2021.

Hey folks, Jared here. We've got Walker Mills back as host today. His guest is a big one. Making his first appearance since he was announced as the new Dean of the Center for Maritime Strategy is retired Admiral James Fogler III. He'll be discussing his plans for the Navy League's new think tank. SimSec, we believe victory in the maritime domain starts with great ideas communicated compellingly. Write, fight, win. Beginning with Giving Tuesday and going through December,

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wherever you download your podcasts. On that note, I'll turn it over to Kimber's men. You're listening to Sea Control. Hosted by the Center for International Maritime Security. Welcome back aboard the Sea Control Podcast from the Center for International Maritime Security. Today we're talking with retired Admiral James Fogo III, former commander of U.S. Naval Forces Europe and Africa, and commander of Allied Joint Force Command Naples. Today, we're going to be talking about his new role as the Dean and Head of the Center for Maritime Strategy.

The Center for Maritime Strategy is a new think tank that was established by the Navy League. Sir, welcome aboard. By way of introduction, can you tell us a little bit more about your background and career as a naval officer? Hey, Walker. Thanks very much for taking the opportunity to talk to me today. and it's a real pleasure to be on Sea Control with you and also be connected once again with all my friends at CIMSEC, which is a very dynamic organization, and particularly those who are on active duty that are really interested in maritime security and national security writ large. So I am a retired flag officer. I did 39 years of active duty after graduation from the Naval Academy. I am a submariner by trade. I spent about a dozen years underwater, populated by

interim assignments in the Washington, D.C. area. I was in the Pentagon for several assignments, probably over nine, ten years, sometimes outside the Pentagon at Naval Reactors. And then, of course, the most enjoyable thing that you do as a commissioned officer is to lead in command. And after my command of USS Oklahoma City, I had an opportunity to do that eight more times. And the majority of those commands were in Europe with U.S. forces and NATO. In my last job, I was a commander. I had the trifecta. It was the best job I ever had. Commander Naval Forces Europe, Commander Naval Forces Africa, and Commander Allied Joint Force Command for NATO and NATO's southern flank, headquartered in Naples, Italy, halfway across the Mediterranean

and right in the thick of things and pointing into the sphere as things happened up north in the high north, things happened in the Baltic, in the Black Sea, and you see the kind of tension going on in the Black Sea today, and of course, the eastern Mediterranean. So I retired last year in September, and I've been back in the Washington area for about a year. And when this opportunity came up to be the first dean of the Center for Maritime Strategy of the Navy League of the United States, I jumped on it. And here I am. And we're excited to have you, sir, after a long and distinguished career. Before we start, I'd like to remind our listeners that the opinions presented here are solely our own and should not be taken as representative of

any of the institutions that we're associated with. To start, can you give us some context and explain to the listeners what the Navy League of the United States is and what its mission is? Sure. It's been around for about 120 years. In fact, we will celebrate the 120th anniversary of the Navy League in November of 2022. The league was conceived in the New York Yacht Club on 44th Street in New York City, right around the corner from Times Square. And it was a group of like-minded individuals that believed in the importance of the maritime for an island nation, the United States of America, and the importance of maritime forces, naval forces. And so in 1902, this group, which belonged to the Naval Order, which also operates in consort with the Navy League, got together on 44th Street in New York City and said, we're going to form a Navy League of the United States.

And that's where it all started. Now, since then, the Navy League has been a leading civilian organization. It's dedicated to informing the American people and our government on the importance of the Navy and our maritime forces in national defense and how that's linked to our economic well-being and how we depend on our sea services. And that includes the United States Navy, the United States Marine Corps, the United States Coast Guard, and the United States Merchant Marine. And I must also add the military SEALA command in that mix because they, of course, took care of my favorite ship in the United States Navy, my command ship when I was 6th Fleet Commander, USS Mount Whitney, and again, when I was Commander of Naval Forces, Europe and Africa. So that, in a nutshell, is the organization and what its mission and vision are intended to do. And how has the Navy League played a role and shaped naval and maritime advocacy in the past over that nearly 120-year history? Well, that's a great question. And the Navy League today has about 30,000 members distributed all over the United States and overseas. And they're very active individuals, Americans and even allies and partners who believe in the power of the maritime and believe that navies are the extended arm of deterrence.

And I certainly believe that myself. And so for these first 120 years, the Navy League has been involved in support for our sailors, whether that's during commissioning ceremonies, port visits, visits around the world. Probably one of the more active Navy Leagues when I was in Europe was in Cannes and France. They were always asking for ships to come in and particularly in celebration of ceremonies that marked the end of World War One and World War Two. But it's more than just port visits. It's also fleet weeks where we publicize to the rest of the country the importance of the Navy and our capabilities because we bring some of these capital ships into port. And our most important commodity is not necessarily that aircraft carrier strike group, but it's the sailors, the young men and women that sail those ships every day. And I'm pretty proud of those young people as they go in harm's way around the world. The other thing that we do, which is huge, Walker, and I know you're familiar with this, you know, being around town is Sierra in space. And so the Navy League sponsors Sierra in space. We did one last August. There had been an almost two year hiatus since the last Sierra in space. And I've been going to these things since I can remember, since I was a lieutenant commander on my first assignment in Washington, D.C., around 1994, 1995 in the Pentagon.

And they are phenomenal because they bring together industry, the active duty component and and retirees and just like minded individuals that believe in the importance of the maritime domain. And we compare notes. Now, the significance of the August session of CRN Space after this two-year hiatus due to COVID was it was the largest ever. And I was blown away. There were 17,000 people who came to National Harbor across the Potomac River and the Woodrow Wilson Bridge to celebrate CRN Space and their belief in the maritime. There were about 170 plus speakers involved. I participated in a panel that was moderated by the former Canadian CNO. My counterparts were an industry aerospace civilian and the second sea lord, Admiral Nick Kine, who's been a friend for many years in a submarine like me, and the new chief of naval operations of the German Navy. And that just highlighted the importance of allies and partners. I was doing working breakfast and plenty of other interesting discussions going on, particularly in the area of cyber and space, the new domains, joint all domain command and control. Everybody's interested in that. And then you had an opportunity to go down on the on the watch floor, I'll call it, and see some of these products, sometimes hardware that was brought in and how we might work together in the future, particularly in the area of hybrid unmanned systems and artificial intelligence. So it was a win-win. And it was all done by a very small group of people. The staff here at the Navy League is only about 30 people. When you think about that number, 17,000, and quite frankly, the success of Sierra in space, it's absolutely remarkable. So I'm proud of them for what they do to advocate on behalf of our maritime services through that symposium. And we're going to do another one in April. So only six months from the last one. But we're back in the regular battle rhythm now and we're gearing up for it right now.

And I'm pretty excited about it. I'm going to lead a couple of panels myself and they'll certainly be focused on what we're trying to do here at the Center for Maritime Strategy. Back to you. That's exciting. And maybe I'll I'll be able to make it there and catch you all in person. I hope so. Moving on to the Center for Maritime Strategy that's been established, why establish a new maritime think tank? Why now? And what do you think, sir, that this new think tank can kind of add to the larger discourse on maritime and naval affairs? Yeah, that's a great question, Walker. And I get asked that a lot as I come in and ramped up here. You know, I think in my first article in Seapower Magazine last week, I cited one of my favorite authors, Robert Kaplan, who you might be familiar with. And I've read, you know, many of his books. In Asia's Cauldron, he talks about the importance of the naval century.

This is not just the naval decade. We live in a naval century. And if you think about that, you know, where are the threats? What is the threat access? Our national defense strategy says there are five potential threats out there. China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and violent extremist organizations. So as the naval commander in Naples, Italy, during the last three years of my active duty career, we faced four of those threats, China, Russia, Iran, and violent extremist organizations. We didn't have to put up with North Korea, and that was a good thing. But there was activity from all four others in the Mediterranean, the Black Sea, the high north, and, of course, on the continent and in the littoral space, the water space around Africa. So these threats aren't going away. They're only getting more difficult to deal with.

You know, take a look at current day in the Black Sea and all of the pieces that were in the press over the weekend about speculation on what might happen in the Ukraine, in Donbass. It's not just on the land. It's on the sea. We have a maritime presence in the Black Sea, and I think that's a very good thing. It's about deterrence and defense in the Euro-Atlantic theater. If you're not there and you're not present, then you cede sea space or battle space. And that's not good. And we need to be there in concert with our allies and partners. Same thing's happening out in the Western Pacific, South China Sea, Straits of Taiwan. Look at all the threats in the last couple of months that have been made against the nation of Taiwan, who is an ally of the United States. We have treaty obligations in the Western Pacific with Japan, with South Korea, with the Philippines, even with Thailand.

And coming together as a group, the new group, the Quad, or AUKUS, is important as it expands the capabilities and the synergy between allies and partners to push back against some of this Chinese aggression on the rocks, shoals, and islands of the South China Sea and inside the Nine-Dash Line and also in the Straits of Taiwan. it's important now to be an advocate for the maritime not just for the sea services and i named them all earlier but also for our industrial base so we can't have sea services unless we can build and repair and modernize ships and that capability is atrophying right now and we're feeling it you know uh when i was in command of submarines we had pretty good support in the shipyards and dry docks on the east coast of the United States. I was an east coast sailor, sailed in the high north and the Mediterranean, Caribbean, and the bodies of water all associated therewith. But I always got great support. I mean, that was my command tour ended

in 2001. Since then, you know, some of those capabilities have been aging, dry docks, the workforce. We tried to recruit more. So, we need more in order to build ships and maintain those ships so that we can keep them at sea. It's also getting more difficult out there in the two new domains of warfare. You know, when I was running the Oklahoma City around the oceans of the world, you know, we talked about the land, the air, and the maritime. Well, now, clearly, integrated into our warfighting concepts is cyber and space, and that is very challenging. And the last thing I'll tell you is that it's no surprise it's very difficult to achieve political consensus on Capitol Hill nowadays. People are distracted. There's a lot going on. I'm pleased that we've got the infrastructure built to help restore our roads and highways.

We need to do the same thing with our industrial base. And there's a plan out there, the Strategic Integrated Operations Plan for shipyards. that's like a $26 billion plan to try to improve our shipbuilding capacity and capability. And I'm all for it and behind it. So those are many reasons why we decided this is a perfect time to launch the Center for Maritime Strategy. Well, thank you, sir. I think that's a good explanation of the why and especially the why now. So what's the mission of the Center for Maritime Strategy and how's it going to go about, how are you all going to go about accomplishing that mission. Yeah. You know, so I'll take you back to, you know, one of my mentors and somebody that I hold in very high esteem. And I worked for some great leaders in my time. Admiral Mike

Mullen was one of them. And I served as his executive assistant for the first two years of his tour, of his four-year tour, as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. And the guy who was the executive assistant for the last two years of Admiral Mullen's tour was our current CNO, Admiral Mike Gilday. So I know Mike and we're friends and I still keep in touch with Admiral Mullen. He always gives me good advice. Well, you know, I used to watch him as he conducted strategic communications. And you've seen Admiral John Kirby on TV as a CNN reporter. He was over at the State Department as a spokesman. Now he's a spokesman for the Secretary of Defense. John Kirby was the public affairs officer for Admiral Mullen, and we often had three-way conversations about strategic communications.

And one day, Admiral Mullen told me, he goes, you know, when I go into a new command, and this happened to me nine times over with my new commands, I adopt the mantra, listen, learn, educate, and then lead. I love that. And so I'm in the listening and learning mode right now as we build capacity and capability here in the Center for Maritime Strategy. And when we have a little bit more capacity, we will start to educate and then it is our intent to lead. You know, one of the models that I like and appreciate is the Billy Mitchell Center for the United States Air Force. And I think Lieutenant General Orville Wright and Dave Deptula have done a marvelous job over there. I knew General Deptula when he was a colonel on the Commission on Roles and Missions of the Armed Forces. He's always been a brilliant guy, and they built a really important center that advocates for air power.

We want to do the same thing for maritime power. And so there's a few lines of effort here that your listeners will be interested in. First of all, we want to cultivate an understanding of the maritime services as contributors to American security and prosperity. You know, a lot of folks have done really well in the market after the crash of 2008. It's bounced back and the market's hot right now. Why is that? Because we have a stable country. Well, why is that? Because we have a joint force that is very credible. And who makes up that joint force?

You know, when I say the Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, Merchant Marine, that's a significant portion of that joint force that is out there every day on the pointy end of the spear, present and providing deterrence operations and stability operations all over the world for American interests and those of our partners and allies. And that contributes to the success of our economy. And I want people to acknowledge that and realize that, particularly folks that are making a lot of money up in Wall Street and to come and be supporters for what we are trying to do in the maritime domain. We want to educate and engage our congressional leadership, and particularly the branches of government, the executive branch, on the value of a maritime

force. And again, not just the Navy and carrier strike groups, although, you know, every time there's a crisis, I don't want to be cliche-esque, but you've heard it before many times. The president wakes up and says, where are my carriers? Well, there's another aspect to this, and that's logistics and support and maritime commerce. And so we've got to do better in terms of our merchant marine and our fleets that are out there. You know, we're ranked somewhere around 17th in the world. You know, we should be number one. You know, China is up there as number one. And we can turn that around, but we're going to need a significant investment in order to do that. I would expect that as the center grows and gains credibility, that there may be a call

for informational briefs or even testimony on Capitol Hill. And I'd be more than happy to do that with my counterparts. And again, when I say counterparts, not just limited to the Center for Maritime Strategy here at the Navy League in the United States. The beauty of this center is I'm here on Wilson Boulevard in Arlington, and we are inside the Beltway. And around town, you can get anywhere in D.C. in about, you know, a good day, a half an hour, 20 minutes. There's think tanks everywhere.

And a lot of those think tanks have an interest in the maritime, but that's not their sole focus. So the unique thing about Center for Maritime Strategy is our sole focus is the maritime. And we want to partner with some of those other think tanks out there to come together with a common purpose. So eventually, I think we'll get to the point of publicizing, doing some research and publicizing our results and our opinions on where we think that we should go with maritime power to the United States. and then what are we doing here we're on a podcast you know i'd love to have my own someday when i get the capacity to do that i had my own when i was in europe through some fantastic public affairs officers uh it was called on the horizon and we had about 25 sessions just phenomenal and it was me and lieutenant bobby dixon and captain john perkins doing that and a lot of guest

lecturers and people coming in that uh that had uh fantastic things to say hondo gertz and even the grandson of Billy Graham, who was doing relief work for our Italian counterparts with COVID in the north of Italy in the worst part of the COVID crisis. So we're going to leverage media, radio, TV, podcasts, and the internet, and try to get the word out and try to use other people's voices to advocate for what we believe in in the maritime domain. Well, thank you, sir. We're going to have to look for that on the Horizon podcast. That's still available? Because we can throw a link on below the show so listeners can track it down. That'd be absolutely outstanding. In fact, it won an award in 2019 for Chinfo's best

web-based podcast, and they put it on Chinfo's website in perpetuity. You spoke to this a little bit already, but is the Center for Maritime Strategy going to be more naval focused or looking at a broader maritime picture to kind of include support and logistics and other components of what one might call seapower? Yeah, I think it has to go broad, Walker, and you're absolutely right. You know, seapower, maritime power, it's all geared towards, you know, firepower on naval ships that operate forward, but in order to get there, there has to be enablers. Those enablers are the logistic ships and the auxiliary ships that provide the oil the ammunition and the food and uh you know military seal of command does a

great job of keeping some of these older platforms at sea and operating uh i think we need more of them and i think uh you know we need more resources to go into modernization so uh you know a strike group uh even though the aircraft carrier is nuclear powered uh still needs sustainment logistics and mobility support wherever it goes in the world. So that's hand in glove with what we do in the projection of power all over the oceans of the world. Inherent on our ships, you know, with us, you know, you're a Marine captain. The Marines are back afloat. The Marines, I remember General Neller saying, my job is to get Marines back to the FMF. And he did. And, you know, he used to opine that, you know, Marines have become heavy. They're no longer not light. They're

longer agile i want to get them back on board the ships and several of my officers up the field grade officers have had their boots in the sand doing you know yeoman work out there in the war on terror but we've come through that and the marine corps is once again our best joint partner uh on our naval forces forward deployed and we love having you guys and before i left uh sixth fleet in nav year there was an effort ongoing to integrate marine forces uh into the chain of command out there and i was just talking to somebody from r4 year about that the other day and it's gone swimmingly well marines were with me up in norway during trident juncture you know it was the largest uh uh nato exercise since the end of the cold war

50 000 soldiers sailors airmen and marines and uh of that 50 000 18 18 500 were americans about 8 500 of them were marines who came over on the iwo jima strike group and operated in some of the coldest and most miserable conditions of the year in october and november and people ask us why'd you do it then well you gotta train like you're gonna fight and so it can't be sunshine and summertime when everybody's out in their shorts you know one of the things we learned that was kind of funny but uh a good lesson learned was you know we need better kit you know we need better thermal underwear so people don't suffer from hypothermia so a ton of lessons learned that came out of that. And I coined the phrase, you know, logistics is the sixth domain of warfare.

So you can see, you know, we talked about the Coast Guard. Commandant Carl Schultz is going to do a working breakfast with the Navy League here. I think it's on the 9th of December. If you want to come sign up, it's great. I heard him speak at the Homestead Foundation annual dinner. And, you know, pardon the expression, but I consider the commandant, I consider him my battle buddy for operations in West Africa. He sent me, you know, one of the most professional Coast Guard cutters that I had during my time of nine years in the African Partnership Station. That was the U.S. Coast Guard cutter, Thaddeus.

She did a great job in the African Maritime Law Enforcement Program and engagement and strategic communications to our African partners. There's a real problem going on down there with illegal trafficking, and through illegal trafficking, there's a nexus with terrorism. So the synergistic relationship of cash passing hands in order to get safe transit through territory ashore or on the sea makes the terrorists stronger, and it also makes the traffickers stronger. And we tried to nip that in the bud by helping our African partners with some of the very professional mariners that are out on that Coast Guard cutter. And when I saw him the other day, he says, hey, I'm going to do it again. I'm going to make this a continuum.

And we really appreciate that. So you bring the Coast Guard in the mix. You know, one of my other passionate subjects is the high north. I wrote a piece to the Center for European Policy Analysis on the Transpolar Bridge. You know, I've been up to the pole myself on submarines in 1985 on USS Sea Devil. I went back to the Arctic Ocean when I was in command with an ice pilot on my boat. And, you know, it is a very important region that has been militarized for a long time, and it's getting even busier up there as the ice melts.

And who is the new player on the block? china china calls itself a near arctic nation i gotta tell you last time i checked the nearest point of land uh to the you know of china's point of land to the arctic is about 900 miles away so i don't consider them a near arctic nation but they are up there and they are taking advantage of less ice to do more and sooner or later that place is going to turn into a proving ground for new weapon systems, hypersonics, the Poseidon underwater torpedo, CICRON that President Putin talks about in his speeches. And we need to be up there and monitoring what's going on

so that we know the capabilities of these things and that they're being tested in an ethical manner that's not going to harm partners and allies or the environment. And so I think you can gather from my remarks that this is much broader than just the United States Navy. Back to you. Absolutely, sir. And I'd be remiss to not mention

that we've actually been fortunate to have Admiral Schultz on the podcast, who's actually my first interview when I started with CIMSEC. And he was a fantastic guest. We'll provide the link to that. And we've also been excited to highlight some... We've had a couple of interviews

about the Arctic and African security. So that's definitely stuff on our radar here at CIMSEC. Sir, is there anything that you already know that the Center for Maritime Strategy will be advocating at this point? Like, for example, a larger share of the DOD budget going to the maritime community or things like that? Well, Walker, there is no substitute for our presence operations. Our ships are out there. You know, we've got over half of the fleet deployed at any one time, operating in places out in the Western Pacific, the Indian Ocean, the Arabian Gulf, and the area around Africa, and all the seas that connect to the North Atlantic, like the Baltic, the Mediterranean, the Black Sea. And that's really, really important. We have to continue to resource that.

And again, that is not just the Greyhound warships that do this mission, but the auxiliaries and the shipbuilders and the industrial base that keeps them in tip-top shape so they can go out there. We'll also be an advocate for our sailors, our Marines, our officers, and our noncommissioned officers as they take this journey in defense of our great nation. And, you know, when I look at this, and I see a defense budget that hovers around $744 billion, I say to myself, that's pretty generous. It probably dwarfs many of the other defense budgets of partners and allies, and certainly more than what China or Russia spends on their defense. and we should be able to do this but it's how you allocate those resources and so I quite frankly think that Maritime deserves a bigger piece

of the pie and I'll be an advocate for that and when you say something like that you've got to back it up with facts and evidence and the reasons why you believe that sort of thing it's easy for me because I've operated

for 39 years not just on submarines but on some of our finest surface ships and carriers around the world and I'm a believer in what we can do to maintain peace and stability and security in the

maritime domain, not just for us but for our friends and allies and so that's kind of where I am here in the beginning and I really appreciate the opportunity to talk to you and your listeners about that. And, you know, I'd like to add one more thing, and that is, you know,

if you want to help and you want to be a part of this ride as we take off in the Center for Maritime Strategy, think about becoming a member of the Navy League. And it's easy. All you got to do is sign up at www.navyleague.org. And the least expensive membership that we have is an e-membership for 25 bucks, then I think that's a great deal. And if you get LinkedIn and hooked, then you may want to go for a one-year, two-year, three-year membership and then participate in Sierra in Space and see some of that cool stuff that'll be over at National Harbor in April of next year. But I look forward to seeing you and many of your listeners. And I look forward to a long-term partnership with SimSec. This has been absolutely fantastic.

Thank you, sir. We're absolutely looking forward to it as well. And we'll make sure that we put a link to the Navy League page at the bottom of the podcast. Again, I'd like to thank my guest, Retired Admiral James Fogo III, for joining us today to talk about the new Center for Maritime Strategy established by the Navy League of the United States. Thank you and take care. © BF-WATCH TV 2021 Pull it out of your shimbo now. So help me, Paul, my bully, me, I, me. Why, I, me, bully, me, I, me. Help me, Paul, my bully, me, I, me. Pull it out of your shimbo now.