Tom Clancy: Given what you have just said, how is the fleet bearing up under this extremely high Operations Tempo [Optempo]?
Admiral Johnson: That's a question that requires an answer on more than one level. There is no denying that our sailors, by the very nature of their work, spend time away from their homes and families. Some of the things that we are looking at are ways to make sure that we don't overstretch ourselves.Right now we have a policy that says that ships will have no more than six months forward-deployed at sea, from portal to portal. We're also maintaining a ratio of two-to-one for time at home port to deployed time, and no more than fifty percent of time out of home port when you are off deployment.We are adhering to that policy, and I am the only one who can waive it for any reason. In fact, whether we are standing by that policy is one of my own measures of whether we are "stretching the rubber band too tight," where people are concerned. So right now, we're OK with that situation. Now, we have had a couple of exceptions to this rule last year because of problems with ship maintenance in a yard that closed down. The result is that in terms of readiness and execution, the fleet is "answering on all bells." I want to make sure as you walk back from looking at deployment issues, that everyone is getting enough training to get ready, but not so much that their home lives suffer. We also want to make sure that the right equipment is available during training, so that the fleet fights with the same gear it trains with.
Tom Clancy: How is retention of personnel holding up?
Admiral Johnson: Retention right now is good, though there are pockets of concern in that situation. If you look, for instance, at pilot retention numbers, the aggregate numbers, they're great. They're not even worth talking about today. There is no problem there. Within that community, though, if you "peel that onion" back a layer, we're beginning to see that we need to pay attention to the attrition rates of some kinds of air crews.In my view, these situations are not developing just because the airlines are hiring. The airlines are always hiring, and will continue to hire. That's a reality that we can't change. But I do think that part of this softness in community retention is based upon the "turnaround" and non-deployed side of a Naval career.In particular, we need to make sure that we're not keeping people too far from home for too much time doing temporary kinds of assignments. We need to make sure that we don't have backlogs in aircraft and equipment depot maintenance, so that our crews have enough airplanes to fly during turnarounds and workups. We also have to pay attention to the matter of funding enough flying hours to keep our people sharp. Let's face it, junior officers [JOs] never get enough flight hours. I know that I didn't as a young aviator, and I don't know anyone who did. We've still got some work to do in that area.These "soft" community areas are not just limited to naval aviation. We've got some year groups in the submarine community that we're watching carefully, as well as some in the surface warfare professionals. Overall, though, we're OK. On the enlisted side the numbers are excellent, and most significantly, the high quality of personnel is there.These days, we're having to work very hard to get that quality, and it's a real challenge. The goal of our recruiting is to have ninety-five-percent high school graduates, with sixty-five percent of those recruits in the top mental group in their classes. When we achieve that, it's good for the fleet, and we're committed to achieving that.However, the competition for that part of the labor market is really intense out there. Given the pressures of a healthy economy, I think that it's going to be more and more of a challenge. The really good young men and women out there-the ones who are really smart and talented-everybody wants them. Frankly, while I can offer them a lot, there are other folks who can offer them more of things like money. Still, there are wonderful and patriotic young folks who take up the challenge, and we work hard to find them and keep them in the fleet.Trust me when I say that the recruiting challenges will not go away. Remember, back in the Cold War we had to bring around 100,000 new recruits a year into the fleet to fill our needs. Today, even in a time of relative peace, we still need between 45,000 and fifty thousand new bsailors every year to keep our force healthy and running.
Tom Clancy: You just mentioned the end of the Cold War. Can you tell us something about the challenges that you and the fleet have faced in light of the end of the East/West conflict?
Admiral Johnson: I think that one of the biggest challenges that the Navy has is to make sure that our nation still has an appreciation for the value of the sea services, especially within the citizenry and the Congress. I think we need to educate the public to understand that while we have a great Navy now, it takes a lot of effort and money to keep it that way. Another challenge the Navy has been faced with in the last few years has been overcoming the public perceptions left by Tailhook. I believe that we've made great strides since then.
Tom Clancy: Do you feel that the challenges that the Navy had to face as a result of Tailhook and other incidents have helped the sea services deal better with the issues of women in the force?
Admiral Johnson: Yes, I do. Since we were the first of the services forced to confront the gender-related issues that the other military departments face right now, I hope and truly believe that we have learned from those hard experiences and are better for them. We needed to change the ways that we were doing business in many respects, and I think that we have, and I'm proud of that. I believe that we have a much better and stronger force today than we did before Tailhook.
Tom Clancy: Let's talk a little more about the roles and missions that the Navy is undertaking in the post-Cold War world. For example, with the decline of the Russian fleet, what have you got the submarine force doing?
Admiral Johnson: We actually have some exciting things coming up for the submarine force. The New Attack Submarine [NSSN] program is underway, and Seawolf [SSN-21] has been commissioned. As far as the submarine mission is concerned, it is much more diverse than during the Cold War. Their main mission is still undersea warfare and antisubmarine warfare [ASW]. Today that mission is less predictable than it was during the Cold War, but challenging nonetheless.The "big water" ASW mission is still a part of our lives, but these days littoral [inshore] ASW is an even bigger and emerging piece of that mission. I might add that inshore operations bring with them a whole new set of challenges. Our submarine force is today involved in strike warfare, reconnaissance, special operations, and lots of other things. The community is being reshaped to reflect all of these new missions, and remains a valuable and viable part of the fleet. And even though today's Russian submarine force is not the Soviet fleet of the Cold War era, I feel strongly that we must maintain sufficient capability to deal with it. With all of that factored in, our force of submarines is still going to shrink. We have around seventy SSNs today, and we'll probably drop to around fifty-five in the next few years.