The managerial intrigue with the new commander of the US Navy was unexpectedly resolved - immediately after Bill Moran's dismissal, Admiral Michael Gilday was appointed to the CNO position. This decision, on the one hand, is unexpected - he was not even close to being a "top" candidate, and six months ago it was not at all a fact that he would have received any promotion in rank.
On the other hand, this appointment is in a sense natural. And, like all the previously held games around the post of commander, it is accompanied by quite interesting events. But first, a little about the new commander.
Veteran
Michael Gilday is a model officer. His father was a military sailor. He himself graduated from the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, later at the Naval War College in Newport. Started service on the Kidd-class destroyer Chandler (USS Chandler DDG 996). Then on the missile cruiser "Princeton" of the "Ticonderoga" class (USS Princeton CG-59) and then on a similar missile cruiser "Gettysburg" (USS Gettysburg CG 64). After he became the commander of two successive destroyers of the Arleigh Burke class - "Higgins" (USS Higgins DDG 76) and "Benfold" (USS Benfold DDG 65), then the 7th destroyer squadron (7th Destroyer Squadron), then the 8th Aircraft strike group.
Then Gilday served for a long time in the command structures of NATO, gaining experience in organizing work with allies and actions in theaters close to the enemy.
In 2016, he received a very interesting appointment - the commander of the so-called "Fleet Cyber Command", a unit responsible for the war in information networks. Organizationally, the command is subordinate to the headquarters of the 10th US Navy Fleet, of which Gilday became the commander "concurrently". To be clear, this is not "psychological warfare" featuring propaganda on social networks and the like. This is completely different.
As an illustration, we will give an example of a typical task of the "cyberflot" in the near future. Let's say a certain enemy is tracking the American AUG with the help of unmanned reconnaissance drones. Cyberflot, figuratively speaking, must, using its equipment, detect the communication channels through which information is exchanged with the UAV, find a way to connect to them, decrypt traffic on the fly, and, for example, send a fake signal over the network. As a result, the aircraft carrier of the US Navy will already turn against the wind to raise the air group, and the enemy will observe on the screens a fake picture “slipped” on it, on which everything is “as before”.
This, of course, is not a matter of today, but the Americans have created their own "cyber fleet" with an eye to exactly such a future for their opponents. And this structure was headed by Gilday, which in a sense is significant.
From the post of Commander of the 10th Fleet / Cyber Command of the Navy, Gilday took the post of Director of the OKNSH (the director plays the role of Deputy Chairman of the OKNSH for organizational issues). And from there he was urgently "moved" up, first giving a full four-star admiral, and then promptly making him commander …
Combat experience
On February 18, 1991, Lieutenant Gilday, was on watch at the Princeton battle information center, being there as a Tactical action officer - an officer of the watch who was obliged to manage the battle in the absence of the ship's commander at the combat post. "Princeton" was in the Persian Gulf, there was already a war with Iraq, and the ship could be under attack at any moment. And he was under him - at a certain moment the cruiser was successively blown up by two Iraqi mines.
The hull received serious damage, so extensive that the strength of the ship as a whole was called into question, numerous leaks opened, many of the ship's systems were de-energized, including the air defense systems were completely disabled. Having lost both speed and defensive capabilities, the ship turned into a target that a single Iraqi aircraft could have sunk. Lieutenant Gilday led the fight for damage control at the CIC, thanks to his actions, the power supply of all systems was quickly restored, the ship's air defense systems were restored to work.
Subsequently, Gilday assumed command of the cruiser's air defense. He and his shift were at combat posts for almost a day, so as not to distract other personnel from the fight for survivability. They were changed only when the ship was removed from the minefield.
Gilday was awarded the Commendation Medal. Later he took part in the restoration of the cruiser. All of this also contributed to his promotion.
Background
Interesting in his appointment is this - when in the first half of July it became clear that Moran would not be the new commander, Gilday, who was vice admiral at that time, was brought to Congress by a "bullet" and there he quickly and on the first try received approval both as a four-star admiral and as a candidate for commander, and all this was done without unnecessary noise, although in the secondary near-military publications Gilday was mentioned as "Spencer's candidate" (Richard Spencer, Secretary of the Navy), who will be urgently promoted in the very near time, and who, if Congress does not balk, will become the new commander in chief. Congress might well have balked. But in the end everything worked out, Gilday received "two in one" - and the fourth admiral's star and a new post, and on August 22, 2019 he took office.
So the new commander of the US Navy was acquired rather quickly - only 22 days later than planned.
Gilday became a candidate for commander when he was still a vice admiral, despite the fact that the US Navy had "four-star" admirals, whose circle, by tradition, was to become the source of a new commander. Formally, the President has the right to nominate the Vice Admiral for the post of commander, but the last such commander was Admiral Zumwalt in 1970.
But such a rapid advancement of a junior officer to the highest post in the Navy is not the only surprising fact in this whole story.
Let's remember that the main "clans" in the US Navy have always been deck pilots, surface watermen, and submariners. Moran, with his background as a base patrol pilot, would be a very striking exception. Moran, however, did not succeed. Well, what did not work for the anti-submarine pilot Moran, happened (and very suddenly) at the "hacker" from the "cyberflot" Gilday, which is also an unprecedented event.
And this very vividly reflects the direction in which the US Navy is developing.
Cyberwarfare as one of the full-fledged types of combat is not perceived in most of the world's Armed Forces. And even more so as a dominant one. Computers, servers and hackers-programmers "don't look" against the background of rockets, attack aircraft and heavy bombs.
It's just that they will someday be able to force the enemy's fleet and aircraft to fight each other, but now their role is not obvious. Not obvious to anyone other than Americans.
And it is precisely this understanding of the role of a new kind of troops in the war of the future that makes Giolday's appointment not only unexpected, but also natural - no one expected this, but one day it inevitably had to happen. It so happened what happened now.
The new commander of the US Navy came from the "cyberfleet", and even suddenly, as if someone had pulled the "joker" out of his sleeve, having gone through all the approval procedures and assignment of an extraordinary military rank at an unprecedented pace, so that the old clans of the Navy simply did not have time to undertake in response to such a candidacy. Perhaps this means a little more than it seems to us today. Including for us.
