Well, it has been in crisis for quite some time. I have it on good authority that this has been obvious for many years to those deep inside the engineering cubicle farms of some of the players involved who are willing to see it. For those not able to witness the cancer from the inside, signs of the diminishing health do seep into the public view from time to time. This has happened twice already this week.
Thomas Kuhn taught us that scientific revolutions occur when the dominant paradigm—the shared framework of assumptions, methods, and values—can no longer explain or solve the problems it faces. Anomalies accumulate. The old solutions stop working. And eventually, the entire framework collapses, forcing either revolution or irrelevance. The U.S. Navy is experiencing precisely such a crisis.
These aren’t isolated failures. They’re symptoms of a paradigm that no longer works. The Navy’s operating assumptions…are being falsified by reality…
But there’s a deeper problem. The Navy is no longer a single service with a unified paradigm—it’s a confederation of tribes, each defending its own domain under competing warfare barons…
Zumwalt’s effort to restore morale worked—briefly. But over time, the Navy’s leadership culture drifted from command to management, from warfighting to workflow. The institution he tried to humanize is now dominated by what might be called the managerial class: officers fluent in process, risk avoidance, and PowerPoint. They manage programs, not sailors. They optimize spreadsheets while the fleet atrophies. In a Kuhnian crisis, the existing elite has every incentive to preserve the failing paradigm—because they rose to power within it. The managerial class knows how to navigate the current system: the requirements process, the budget cycles, the acquisition regulations. A paradigm shift would render their expertise obsolete. So they do what paradigm defenders always do: they blame anomalies on insufficient resources, inadequate compliance, or external interference—never on the paradigm itself.
[Emphasis added]
There is so much more packed in that post. Please, do go read the whole thing.
I will just add what I don’t believe is explicitly said in there: the impact of all of this has been amplified by, wait for it….wait for it…D-E-I. In the cubicle farms it is not the fleet that has atrophied during this aggressive experiment in social engineering across technical organizational structures for massively complex products…it is the core technical competence. It is simply walking out the door…to retirement and/or greener pastures. And that, my friends, is a largely irreversible problem.
Even worse – “The system protects itself by diffusing responsibility and rewarding those who master the process, not those who deliver results.” – the constantly reinforced arrogance (both technical and managerial) is bolstered by the incestuous applause provided at every Managerial Theater event. There is little to no recognition of the need to turn back…to try to reverse the problem.
The second item I wish to tack onto this theme today can mostly speak for itself:
Boeing Starliner: Never forget: Incompetence + arrogance => astronauts refused to fly Starliner, and when they were made to, it was a disaster.
From Eric Berger’s book:
“BOEING HAS AN ASTRONAUT PROBLEM” (p.291)
“When the SpaceX engineers could be corralled, they were eager to hear feedback from the NASA astronauts , excited to work with them, and attentive to their suggestions. By contrast, Boeing engineers seemed indifferent to hearing from the four commercial crew astronauts.” (p.293)
“There was an arrogance with them that you certainly didn’t see at SpaceX.” (astronaut Hurley, p.294)
“Boeing also underperformed. Not only were its engineers overconfident, but the company’s management also was not putting skin in the game. Hurley did not see any urgency from Boeing’s teams. Rather, they appeared to be working part-time on Starliner. ‘It was all about managing dollars and cents from Boeing’s perspective,’ Hurley said.” (295)
“During the summer of 2018 as Boeing worked toward a pad abort test in White Sands, New Mexico (Boeing never flew an in-flight abort test)… a significant problem occurred due to a propellant leak. Ultimately, this would delay the company’s pad abort test by more than a year, but at the time, Boeing neglected to tell the Commercial Crew astronauts about the issue.” (295)
“That summer NASA was closing in on making crew assignments for the first flights. Hurley told the chief of the astronaut office he would not fly on Starliner.” (296)
“SpaceX emerged triumphant over another major domestic competitor, Boeing, as well. The company that supposedly went for substance over pizzazz, ended up with neither in the Commercial Crew race.” (340)
Just prior to their first human flight, there were several “shocking discoveries, especially so close to the flight. Neither NASA nor Boeing had good answers for why they had been found as astronauts were about to strap into Starliner. Questions emerged about the company’s commitment to the program. Because it operates on a fixed-price contract [and despite being 2x higher than SpaceX’s], Boeing has reported losses of nearly $1 billion on Starliner.” (342)
Boeing Starliner: Never forget: Incompetence + arrogance => astronauts refused to fly Starliner, and when they were made to, it was a disaster.
Again, I will note that (in a more general sense than this specific story about Boeing) the “arrogance” of both management and technical staff tends to be groomed into organizational chart placeholders on many programs in lieu of deep, technical knowledge acquired over years of experience. All of it is ripe for being “falsified by reality” and I fear a long overdue reckoning for the Military-Industrial Complex is much closer than many are willing to admit…and nothing about this is going to be pretty.
the philo t. custis institute 