OPNAV Organizational Alignmentblank spacing
The continued pre-eminence of our Navy requires speedy and agile organizational responses to accommodate today's extraordinary rate of technological and other change. Organizational speed and agility are necessary both to counter risks to our future military pre-eminence and to take advantage of new opportunities. Rapid technological change means we must be able to quickly insert new technology, at reasonable cost, into our forces,systems, and processes.
But we function in a fiscally constrained environment. Thus we must extract the maximum advantage from the resources provided us, and demand a high rate of return on our investments. "Organizational alignment" means that our organizations, systems, and processes must deliver exactly what they are designed to produce: a combat capable Navy ready to sail in "harm's way." We can do that only if all Navy organizations are acting coherently-are properly aligned-to achieve our overall objectives. To that end, the Chief of Naval Operations initiated an alignment within the Navy's headquarters organization to better represent requirements generation and to ensure the proper focus on manpower and personnel requirements, as well as current and future readiness. (Figure 1 shows the realigned OPNAV organization.)
Figure 1. OPNAV Organization
These changes have established a strong advocate for fleet readiness, consolidated fleet readiness requirements, established increased visibility into warfare programs, better integrated the Director for Training function into the Navy staff, and established a new decision-making process within the organization. The establishment of the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Warfare Requirements and Programs (N7), a vice admiral reporting directly to the Chief of Naval Operations, consolidated management of naval warfare programs and generation of warfare requirements within one office. This organization was formerly contained within the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Warfare Requirements, Resources, and Assessments (N8). Fleet readiness requirements and assessments will be the responsibility of the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Fleet Readiness and Logistics (N4). Realigning and refocusing the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Logistics to the DCNO for Fleet Readiness and Logistics consolidates fleet readiness requirements and assessments in one office. The N4 organization will be the "Fleet's voice" within the Navy staff, more fully developing operational readiness requirements, and assessing whether these requirements are being met throughout the Navy's resource allocation process.
The alignment will also extend to current planning, programming, and policy offices on the OPNAV staff for the Navy's training programs to provide a stronger link between fleet training and readiness. This reorganization will place responsibility for fleet and unit training requirements under the responsibility of the DCNO for Fleet Readiness and Logistics (N4). The former Director for Training organization (N7) on the Navy staff is now integrated into the new N7. The Chief of Naval Training and Education (N79) will remain a vice admiral reporting directly to the Chief of Naval Operations. This has already proven to be an important element in operationalizing the results of the CNO's Executive Review of Navy Training (ERNT), the ongoing efforts of Task Force EXCEL.
Two other organizations on the Navy staff have been created to establish a strengthened decision-making process for major policy and resource allocation decisions. The CNO Executive Board (CEB) is chaired by the CNO or VCNO and brings senior leaders from the Navy staff and the operating forces together as a "board of directors." The role of this council is to provide advice to the CNO and VCNO for decisions on key issues as well as providing a clear and unambiguous record of CNO decisions and direction on those issues. To enable debate, evaluation, and validation of new and competing program and readiness requirements, the Navy Requirements Oversight Council (NROC) has been established. The NROC, chaired by the VCNO, serves to validate Navy requirements as well as provide the forum to prepare Navy positions to debate issues in the Joint Requirements Oversight Council (JROC).
Integrated Warfare Architecturesblank spacing
A primary objective of the planning process is to develop a thorough understanding of how naval forces contribute to the nation's joint warfighting capabilities. In 1992, ...From the Sea outlined four key operational capabilities required to execute new direction: Command, Control, and Surveillance; Battlespace Dominance; Power Projection; and Force Sustainment. The Navy Strategic Planning Guidance focuses on two overarching strategic concepts—Forward Presence and Knowledge Superiority—and three operational concepts—Battlespace Control, Battlespace Attack, and Battlespace Sustainment—by which Maritime Power Projection is achieved. Within this conceptual architecture, the Navy's program planning process of the DCNO for Warfare Requirements, Resources, and Assessments (N8) relies on broad-based analyses structured around 11 IWARs comprising five warfare and six support areas, which capture the complexity of naval warfare requirements while balancing them within available resources.
Starting from the NSPG, current and future technologies, systems, and platforms are assessed against their desired effectiveness in the joint-service environment, a process that addresses the balance and warfighting capability of the planned force structure and support elements. The analysis and review of the "health" of the individual elements of the IWARs is an ongoing, iterative process, linked to the development of the Navy Program Objectives Memorandum. The individual IWARs are listed below and described more fully in this section:
Warfare IWARs
Information Superiority and Sensors
Sea Dominance
Air Dominance
Power Projection
Support IWARs
Manpower/Personnel
Force Structure and Integrated Force Employment
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