Why the Secretary of the Navy was Correct to Direct the Relief of CAPT Brett Crozier, Commanding Officer of USS Theodore Roosevelt
An Analysis of the Current Situation in Light of the Constitutional Paradigm and the proper assignment and acceptance of risk in light of reasonably available alternatives.
Earlier this week, Acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly directed the relief of CAPT Brett Crozier as Commanding Officer of the aircraft carrier USS THEODORE ROOSEVELT for showing “extremely poor judgment.” At issue is a four-page letter sent by CAPT Crozier to an unspecified group of “20–30” recipients via e-mail. In the letter, CAPT Crozier detailed his concerns about the potential impact of the spread of COVID-19 within his crew to the safety of his Sailors and to the mission effectiveness of his ship. In the letter, Crozier outlined his concerns with the ‘ineffectiveness of the current strategy’ to mitigate the spread of the virus, and proposed both a wartime and peacetime approach to the problem. Further, he provided his assessment that peacetime conditions prevailed, and requested ‘all available resources’ be provided to bring the ship into compliance with CDC and Navy direction for COVID mitigation as soon as possible. The letter was obtained by the San Francisco Chronicle and widely reported on March 31. Secretary Modly made a public statement explaining the rationale for his action shortly thereafter.
Brett Crozier is a US Naval Academy Classmate. While I don’t know him personally, he has a reputation as an officer of excellent character and unsurpassed competence. That’s why the Navy selected him to Command an aircraft carrier. I believe that he acted with noble intent to achieve the best welfare of his crew and to minimize the impact that the virus had on the readiness of his ship. We also don’t know many key parts of the story, specifically what conversations CAPT Crozier had with the chain of command before sending the letter and how those conversations were received, and we shouldn’t expect for those to become public. Nothing within should be interpreted as an attack on CAPT Crozier’s character, competence, or intentions. He made a very difficult decision in a complex, volatile, unforeseen situation. A great officer with noble intent made a decision, and has been held accountable.
There has a been a large ground-swell of support for CAPT Crozier since the announcement of his relief. Many who know him have noted his character and competence, which are unquestioned. Some have taken the opportunity to use the event to criticize our elected leadership. His crew gave him a heartfelt and rousing send-off. Most have opined that because he put his crew first, he did the right thing. Therein lies the rub — the responsibility of the Commanding Officer includes, but goes well beyond, the welfare of the crew.
This short essay will attempt to analyze both what action CAPT Crozier took and how he took it in light of his responsibilities as a Commanding Officer. I will also propose alternative actions that he could have taken (again, under the assumptions implied by what we do and do not currently know) to achieve the same ends. Finally, I’ll tie it together with how the whole of the what is currently known leads to the conclusion that SECNAV was correct to direct his relief. Again, I reiterate, there is no expressed or implied criticism of CAPT Crozier’s character or competence. I am simply attempting to analyze the exceptionally difficult decision he made in the midst of nearly unpredictable consequences.
The Constitutional Paradigm
Everyone who has served at sea is familiar with the concept of “Ship, Shipmate, Self.” This concept describes a hierarchy of loyalty that applies to every Sailor. I should be loyal first to the ship (and by extension, to its mission), then to my shipmates, and only then to my self. In a 2010 article entitled Constitutional Ethics, Col. Paul Rouch extended the familiar “Ship, Shipmate, Self” to “Constitution, Mission, Service, Ship, Shipmate, Self,” a concept he calls the Constitutional Paradigm, and proposed a method for resolving conflicts between the different levels of the hierarchy.
In this construction, our oaths to support and defend the Constitution maintain primacy of position, followed by the accomplishment of the mission, loyalty to the service, and loyalty to and within the Command. When faced with a conflict in loyalty between different levels in the paradigm, one should act to support the higher level even to the increased risk of the lower level. The difficulties in doing so have been a common plot device in recent movies — from the close the hatch scene with Denzel Washington in Crimson Tide to the scene with Rabbit in U-571. If one is unable to easily resolve the conflict, Roush outlines a 4-step process to do so.
The first step is simply to accept that the hierarchy is a valid framework and identify the conflict. The second step is to attempt to resolve the conflict externally before acting. This is a familiar concept to most who have served: if presented with conflicting orders, one should make that fact known and ask for clarification, preferably from the senior officer (or enlisted) giving the orders, but at least from the most recent. This is what is meant by external resolution — the parties giving the conflicting guidance must be given an opportunity to clarify. If unable to resolve the conflict at this point, there are two choices: resign or disobey.
Both of these are difficult steps to take, as they should be. Resigning one can typically only do once, and may not be immediately practicable, especially in direct combat situations. Disobedience is so fraught with peril that Roush provides four prerequisites to disobedience of orders. The first: the issue is a fundamental (non-trivial) issue of justice. Second, one must attempt to change the law/regulation/order through normal procedures before employing disobedience. Third, the disobedience must be done in public, with the authority who is being disobeyed notified ahead of time. Finally, one must be willing to accept the consequences of disobedience under the current system. These are intentionally very difficult standards to meet. When I taught the Ethics and Moral Decision-Making for the Junior Officer course at the US Naval Academy, the example that was used to illustrate its proper employment was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail. Dr. King employed disobedience correctly under Roush’s prerequisites: the issue of racial equality was one of fundamental justice (not a triviality, like a change to uniform regulations), a case that Dr. King made under both Christian values and Natural Law philosophy. Dr. King attempted to change the unjust laws through petitioning the Congress and other elected leadership, through speeches and appeals, and through his previous actions over a long period of time. Third, Dr. King announced the fact of his disobedience ahead of time to the proper authorities. Finally, he accepted, as is clear in the title of the letter, the consequences under the existing unjust system. In the end, his actions of civil disobedience had the effect of righting the injustice.
How does this apply to CAPT Crozier’s situation? The Constitutional Paradigm provides a framework for action when loyalties across the hierarchy exist. In CAPT Crozier’s case, he was rightly loyal to his crew and had a responsibility under Naval Regulations to provide for their welfare. Conflicting with this loyalty to the crew was loyalty to the mission. USS THEODORE ROOSEVELT had a set of assigned missions while under the OPCON of COM7THFLT. Likewise, CAPT Crozier had a duty to complete those assigned missions to the greatest degree of excellence possible, in support of the missions of CTF 70 (his Immediate Superior in Command, or ISIC, to which more shortly), C7F, PACFLT, and USINDOPACOM, all in support of the National Military Strategy and National Security Strategy. Here is where the rubber meets the road: Implied in his duty to support these superior missions is the requirement not to intentionally increase risk to the larger mission and/or larger force.
The Proper Assumption of Risk
As John Paul Jones famously said, an officer must be a capable mariner, but also a good deal more. One of the key roles of the Commanding Officer is to be the most experienced officer onboard at the management of risk. In simplified form, the Commanding Officer must assess the risk inherent in the operations of the ship, mitigate risk to the greatest extent practical, and compare the residual risk to the value of the mission. If he or she judges the risk to be too high compared to the value of the mission, the CO has two options: attempt additional mitigation or report to the ISIC that they are not able to conduct the assigned mission at an acceptable level of risk. Under some conditions, the second option may end up being tantamount to resignation. When discussing risk, we typically think in terms of both risk to mission and risk to force (personnel).
This is consistent with the application of the Constitutional Paradigm and the Naval tradition of mission command. Reporting the risk assessment to the ISIC along with the Commander’s judgment that they can not accomplish the mission at an acceptable level of risk provides the ISIC with the opportunity to exercise Command by negation by placing the risk assessment of the unit in question in the context of the risk of the squadron, group, Fleet, or higher organization. If the ISIC adjudges that the risk to the unit is acceptable in the context of the broader mission, they may direct the unit CO to accomplish the mission, which it is then the CO’s duty to accomplish.
This procedure ensures that Commanders at each level are making the risk decisions appropriate to their level of authority. When Commanders accept or create risk at levels senior to their own, without the concurrence of the responsible officer at that level, they have both exceeded their authority and potentially jeopardized mission accomplishment.
Parsing the What and the How
When assessing CAPT Crozier’s actions, it is useful to differentiate between what action he took and how he took it. The what seems relatively straightforward. Crozier, while already pier-side in Guam mitigating the effects of COVID-19 in his crew, requested additional resources to aid and hasten his efforts, specifically in order to return his ship to full mission capability as expeditiously as possible. In doing so, he summarized the situation, his inability to comply with CDC and Navy guidance for handling the crisis, presented two approaches (wartime and peacetime) for achieving the desired end-state, and made his recommendation that the peacetime approach was more appropriate to the prevailing situation. While some will likely opine that Crozier went outside his expertise in comparing his ship to Diamond Princess, and that some of his language may have been unduly alarmist, such critiques are more of style than substance and bear little on assessing his actions.
How CAPT Crozier made his request is a matter of more debate and less clarity. The current reports indicate that he send the request via e-mail to a list of 20–30 addressees. While we don’t know exactly who the e-mail was addressed to, reports have indicated that the list did NOT include Crozier’s ISIC, Commander, Task Force 70, who was embarked in THEODORE ROOSEVELT at the time the letter was sent. We also know that the letter was leaked to the San Francisco Chronicle, but we don’t know by whom, nor do we know whether Crozier himself included them on the e-mail. Additionally, some have made the argument, which is supportable, that a letter that reveals that a warship is not mission capable for all but hot war missions should be classified under the Casualty Reporting and Status of Operational Readiness and Training (SORTS) reporting system.
Normal protocol would have CAPT Crozier delivering the letter to his ISIC, usually (but not necessarily) after coordination with the ISIC’s staff, with a request for the ISIC’s support by endorsing the request and forwarding it up the chain of command for appropriate action. We know that this was not the course of action that Crozier took, but we don’t know why.
There are two primary possibilities: either Crozier had already made a similar request to CTF-70 that had been denied, or he judged the urgency of the situation sufficient to effectively skip the ISIC in the chain of command. (If the ISIC concurred and agreed with the urgency one would expect that he would have been on the cc: line.) We may never know which of these, or potentially other reasons, bore on his decision to not to include CTF-70 on the distribution of the letter.
Available Alternatives
Unpacking the actions that Crozier took without an honest look at the alternatives available to him would be a dishonest critique — judging his actions as incorrect without making a reasonable case that better alternatives existed would be mere rock-throwing.
The first alternative would have been to continue with the mitigation measures that were in place or in motion. Statements from SECNAV, CNO, and COMPACFLT have suggested that all of the actions that Crozier had requested were already in motion at the time he sent the letter. On this point, one must make a few assumptions. First the CO’s deckplate understanding of the status of his ship and crew must be presumed to be at least as accurate and timely as, and likely more accurate and timely than, the understanding of those at the four-star and senior levels and their staffs. Second, direction from senior staffs takes time to implement, especially when it must be coordinated with the government of a US territory and with corporate owners of hotel facilities. Taking these together, it is entirely reasonable that SECNAV, CNO, and COMPACFLT believed that action was being taken as quickly as possible to increase available quarantine rooms to the ship, and at the same time that the CO wasn’t seeing the alacrity he was being told to expect. This mismatch in perception, coupled with his assessment that without immediate action, COVID-19 would spread quickly through his crew, may have caused Crozier to discard the alternative of allowing events to continue to unfold without additional assistance.
A second alternative would be to send the request to the ISIC for endorsement up the chain of command. While this sounds like it would add time, with proper coordination (recall the ISIC was onboard the THEODORE ROOSEVELT), it can be done quite quickly. As noted earlier, we may never know why Crozier did not take this alternative, unless subsequent investigation reveals it.
If we assume that the ISIC rebuffed an earlier request, a third alternative would have been to forward his request to COM7THFLT, CTF-70’s ISIC, requesting that CTF-70 provide a negative endorsement in writing. CTF-70 would then have the option to provide a negative endorsement noting his rationale for denying the request. He would also have the option not to forward the request.
For these three options, Crozier could have chosen to forward the request via Naval Message rather than through e-mail. In the Naval Messaging system, he also could have chosen to classify the message based on the impacts to mission readiness. Determining that the request was classified under appropriate regulations is within the authority of the CO and would greatly reduce the likelihood of the request leaking to the press. However, one can also make the argument that it would have made the request more difficult to staff through the local authorities and hotel companies in Guam. Logistics requests for services in foreign ports are normally unclassified for this reason. However, since Crozier’s letter did not include specific logistical support requirements, this is probably a weak argument. Recall, his request was that senior echelons expend “all available resources to find… compliant quarantine rooms for [the] entire crew as soon as possible.”
A fourth alternative would have been to use the CASREP and SORTS systems to report his ship as not mission capable due to the degradation of his crew’s health. Both systems rely on classified Naval Messaging systems rather than unclassified e-mail. Additionally, these reports are designed to inform senior leadership (including CTF-70, COM7THFLT, COMPACFLT, and CNO staffs) of mission degradations simultaneously and to rapidly energize the staffs to provide all available resources to correct the casualties.
A fifth alternative may have been to make the request via phone call rather than in writing. This would have the advantage of personal communication, increased security, and reduced likelihood of leaks. Various methods such as secure VTC may have been used.
A sixth alternative, again assuming that an earlier request had been denied, would have been for Crozier to resign (recall the Constitutional Paradigm) and state his reasons in his resignation letter.
Assessment of SECNAV’s Decision
Acting SECNAV Modly stated several reasons that he directed the relief of CAPT Crozier:
- “demonstrated extremely poor judgment in the middle of a crisis”
- “created doubts about the ship’s ability to go to sea”
- “created doubt among the families about the health of their sailors”
- “create[d] unnecessary confusion, and at worst provide[d] an incomplete picture of American readiness to our adversaries.”
Further, he stated that the release of the letter and details about the state of readiness on the carrier had a broader national security effect.
Many in my social media feed have made the case that it was premature to relieve Crozier without a full investigation. This is incorrect. All Navy Commanding Officers understand the importance of trust and confidence as they relate to good order and discipline. All understand that if that trust and confidence is in doubt, that the ISIC has not only the authority, but the responsibility to correct the situation. And all understand that the likely corrective action for a loss of trust and confidence in one’s ability to Command is immediate administrative relief. The benefit of this approach is the quick restoration of good order and discipline and warfighting effectiveness. The risk is that occasionally a full investigation may reveal that the relief wasn’t necessary. This does happen, but rarely, as our senior leaders are very good at doing preliminary due diligence when accusations are received and at weighing these costs and benefits. In this context, poor judgment is itself sufficient cause for the relief of a Commanding Officer.
Modly goes on to provide examples to support how he arrived at his decision that Crozier displayed extremely poor judgment. First, he said that Crozier created “doubts about the ship’s ability to go to sea.” I find this argument, as stated and without some additional context, to be somewhat weak. Crozier explicitly stated in his letter that if wartime (and one can reasonably assume, transition to war) conditions came to pass that the ship would “go to war with the force we have and fight sick.” However, in the context in which the SECNAV must operate, that of the broader national security effect, the power projection of a Carrier Strike Group is one of the measures that our national leadership uses to ensure the stability that prevents us from having to transition to war. Being ready and able to get underway and project power is an implied mission that Crozier and his ship were assigned. Saying that if a war starts we will get underway and fight isn’t enough. Presence and Power Projection are missions our carriers accomplish in order to prevent a war from starting.
Second, Modly said that Crozier’s actions created doubt among the families of the crew about the safety of their Sailors. While true, given the fact of the ship being in port in Guam and the ability of the crew to communicate freely with their families, these concerns were sure to arise independent of Crozier’s action. Some families would be more worried about their Sailors from hearing about the virus’s spread, while others would be less worried from hearing the voice of their healthy Sailor. This was out of Crozier’s control. One can extend the argument to Sailors on other ships by extrapolation, but again it is a weak argument. Everyone is currently worried to some degree about COVID-19.
Third, Modly said that Crozier “create[d] unnecessary confusion, and at worst provide[d] an incomplete picture of American readiness to our adversaries.” Crozier did not take reasonably available precautions to prevent a severe mission degradation of a major warfighting asset from becoming public. This directly influenced Modly’s fourth point, that this disclosure of the ship’s readiness had a broader national security effect.
Although not stated by Modly, this event may have also created an expectation throughout the Fleet that if a ship has cases of COVID-19 onboard, it will proceed to port and quarantine the crew. Time will tell whether this happens, and to what extent ship’s crews are affected by the virus. Yet it sets a default position that may influence our adversaries’ estimation of our readiness, potentially tipping them to take more aggressive action against US national interests during an uncertain time.
Some have criticized Modly for directing the relief from his role as Acting SECNAV. While unusual, under our Constitutional principle of civilian control of the military, it is entirely within his authority and responsibility to do so.
Conclusion
It is clear that CAPT Crozier understood his responsibility for the welfare of his crew. If the CNO-directed investigation reveals that he had previously made his request through the normal chain of command and been denied, it seems reasonable to conclude that Crozier knew that his actions would lead to his relief and chose to do so anyhow. If he chose his course of action through expediency, it is also reasonable to believe that he expected the same result.
By attempting to display great and admirable loyalty to his crew, Crozier created additional risk to both the larger mission and the larger force. He had alternatives available that would reasonably have been expected to ensure “all available resources” were applied to find compliant quarantine rooms for his crew, that reduced the likelihood of leaking critical readiness information to the open press, and that respected the chain of command. He didn’t choose these alternatives.
While there remains no reason to question CAPT Crozier’s character or competence as a Naval Officer, based on the information currently available, he made mistakes in how he handled this extremely difficult situation. Secretary Modly was correct to order his relief.
In wartime, we make heroes of those who sacrifice themselves or their unit for the greater mission. The Medal of Honor citation of Ernest Evans for action in the Battle off Samar is an excellent example. In peacetime, many make heroes of those who increase risk to the greater mission for their shipmates. Are we sure this is the standard we want to set? If so, how confident are we that we will know when we switch from peacetime to wartime?
*Update* As I publish on the afternoon of 4/5/2020, I see reports that CTF-70 did receive the e-mail, but didn’t know it was coming.
**Update** I also see reports that the PLAN is harassing and ramming a Taiwan Coast Guard vessel.
