Page 76 - Navy Journal 219

Navy Journal 2019

Factors Relating to Human Capability
First, smaller navies are dependent on the operation, training and
maintenance manuals prepared mostly in English and originated by the foreign
ship-builder or respective OEM. This makes comprehension difficult for the sailors
who operate and maintain equipment. It becomes acute when those manuals are not
really prepared in English but rather are converted to English from another
language (for example Chinese to English or Italian to English etc). This barrier of
ill-structured language delays the repair and maintenance of the critical equipments
like ‘Fire Control System (FCS)’, sensors, machinery etc and, therefore, impacts
the operational readiness and availability of the platform for deployment. Secondly,
a culture of too much supervision of a given task indicates centralized decision
making and execution in smaller navies. As a result, subordinate officers and
sailors are not mentally and institutionally ready to contribute effectively in a
de-centralized execution environment. Thirdly, reluctance in taking calculated risk
by senior leadership is a core impediment to delegating greater responsibilities to
junior leaders and subordinates. The most likely reason of such centralized
approach in decision-making is the fear of accepting failure by the higher echelon.
At times senior leaders tend to keep the decision pending due to incomplete
information. Also, it makes the Commander’s intent unclear as to the execution
level.
Factors Relating to Operation Area

The size of a navy is mostly dictated by the area of maritime interest (AOI) or
area of responsibility (AOR) of a state. Hence, traditionally a smaller navy is likely
to be responsible for a relatively smaller sea area. But this smaller AOR offers a less
geographical depth for the navy to defend its homeland. Consequently, less
geographical depth allows less reaction time for the decision-makers to mobilize
and surge their effort against any likely threat. Under this purview, the centralized
decision-making process of a smaller navy proves more reactive to a threat than
more proactive in order to minimize the disadvantage of having less geographical
depth.

Conclusion and Recommendations
The genesis of a competitive decision-making cycle in the combat actions of
the twentieth century vividly demonstrated the importance of trusting subordinates
and the delegation of authority. These allow a freedom of action to the subordinate

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