I've memorized Appendix B over the past few weeks in preparation for OCS. I was curious if anyone knows why the mission of the Navy was updated in 2018 to:
"Mission of the Navy, to recruit, train, equip, and organize to deliver combat ready Naval forces to win conflicts and wars while maintaining security and deterrence through sustained forward presence."
versus the 2017...
"The Mission of the Navy is to maintain, train, and equip combat ready Naval Forces capable of winning wars, deterring aggression, and maintaining freedom of the seas."
I don't know the people responsible for writing it, so I can't speak to their frame of mind, though the newer one seems more awkward and less clear to me that the old one. However, here's how I'd interpret this statement based on my experience with these ideas.
Recruiting, training, equipping and organizing are all tasks making up the Navy's ongoing effort to be ready for operations. Think of your high school football team. Every ten days or so they're playing against another school. What are they doing the rest of week? They're practicing and getting ready for the next game. The first part of the Navy's mission statement acknowledges that the Navy does the same thing on a much grander scale.
What are we getting ready for? Fighting, for one - i.e., conflicts and wars. But we engage in conflicts only periodically and wars only occasionally, so what do we do when we're not fighting? We act as the nation's guard dog, making ourselves intimidating enough to make them think twice about hurting our interests. The means by which the Navy currently does this is through forward presence, a fancy way of saying "we have ships, aircraft and sailors over there virtually all the time".
This statement has direct impact on your life as a naval officer. Its emphasis on the support structures of the Navy mean that you will be beholden to the massive bureaucracy that serves as both an anchor and a millstone. Its requirement of forward presence means that you and the sailors you lead will be 'over there' for many months, not here with your families, and your equipment will break down fast due to over-utilization. Sustained forward presence requires ships, aircraft and people we don't have. The only recourse is extra duty for what we do have. Adding this in the mission statement reflects the reality of what the Navy does today.