A whale gulps anchovies off the beach in Half Moon Bay, Calif., in 2016. File Photo by Terry Schmitt/UPI | License Photo
In my recent memoir Holding Fast in Heavy Seas: Leadership For Turbulent Times, I draw on nearly four decades of federal service in the U.S. Navy and at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to reflect on leadership under pressure.
While its emphasis is on the challenges I faced leading America’s top ocean, weather, and climate agency during President Trump’s first term, there is another theme: the overwhelming benefit of marine science and conservation to our nation’s national security.
In the first half of the book, which I subtitled “learning the ropes,” I provide a primer on this topic through my development, education, and 32 years of service as an oceanographer in the U.S. Navy.
For example, my first operational tour occurred between 1991-1993 on a Navy hydrographic ship where we updated the 100-year-old nautical charts in the Arabian Gulf and Arabian Sea that hindered the safe navigation of Navy and allied vessels during Operation Desert Storm.
Not only did that give the U.S. Fifth Fleet immediate freedom to maneuver, but I also personally navigated the USS Kitty Hawk as an Officer of the Deck during Operation Enduring Freedom in 2001 and Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003 using the same charts that I produced a decade earlier.
My oceanography degrees from the U.S. Naval Academy and Scripps Institution of Oceanography were especially useful for my assignments supporting anti-submarine warfare (ASW) training in the Western Pacific.
Additionally, my scientific education enabled me to effectively lead the Navy units which tracked and predicted the movement of Arctic ice, through which I witnessed the submarine USS Hampton surface in 2016 during an event named ICEX conducted by the Navy’s Arctic Submarine Laboratory.
Ocean drones, or gliders, were one of the sets of tools that I used as a Naval oceanographer, and I oversaw the world’s largest fleet of these underwater robots operated by the Naval Oceanographic Office between 2014-2017.
One of these gliders was famously seized by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) Navy in 2016, which brought global attention to the critical value of oceanographic information for securing maritime superiority in the region.
The second half of my memoir, subtitled “Holding Fast,” recounts how I applied this knowledge and expertise to lead NOAA. To secure support from the Trump administration, we highlighted the positive impact our marine science and conservation activities had on the American “blue economy.”
Examples include commercial and recreational fisheries management, tidal and current data dissemination to port authorities, and support for coastal and Great Lakes tourism and recreation within NOAA’s National Marine Sanctuaries. Because economic prosperity underpins national security, the billions of dollars that this work contributed to U.S. GDP played a critical defense role as well.
Other NOAA mission areas factored into several National Security Council campaign plans to counter China’s increasingly malign influence with small island developing states (SIDS).
Examples include coral reef conservation, sustainable fisheries management, endangered species protection, marine debris prevention and removal, and combatting illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing. Our expertise, education, and outreach in these areas made the U.S. a preferred partner with many Pacific SIDS compared to the PRC.
The importance of marine science and conservation to our Pacific allies can be gauged by my extensive engagement in the region between 2019-2020, which included travel to the Republic of Palau, New Caledonia, Fiji, Tuvalu, Hawaii, as well as meetings with the presidents, prime ministers, and ambassadors of the Federated States of Micronesia, the Cook Islands, the Marshall Islands, New Zealand, Palau, and Samoa.
Unfortunately, the part of Holding Fast in Heavy Seas that will get the most press attention regards a scandal that has nothing to do with ocean science and security. Rather, it involves an incident known as “Sharpiegate,” in which President Trump presented in the Oval Office an altered forecast graphic for Hurricane Dorian in 2019.
It depicted an extension of the forecast “cone of uncertainty” around the state of Alabama with what appeared to be a Sharpie pen to justify an inaccurate tweet by the President days before that stated Alabama would be affected by the storm (it was not).
That’s disappointing, because the current great power competition between the U.S. and China demands a whole of government approach where every agency and department brings their assets to bear against a determined adversary.
NOAA is no exception, and the second Trump administration would be wise to repeat what we started during his first term by using marine science and conservation as a soft power secret weapon.
The Honorable Tim Gallaudet, Ph.D., is a retired U.S. Navy Rear Admiral, former acting and deputy administrator of NOAA, acting Under Secretary and Assistant Secretary of Commerce, and Chief Oceanographer, Hydrographer, Navigator, and Meteorologist of the U.S. Navy. Over a distinguished career spanning military service and federal leadership, he has focused on advancing ocean science, national security, and organizational leadership. His memoir Holding Fast in Heavy Seas: Leadership for Turbulent Times is available at https://www.timgallaudet.com/ and any major bookseller. This article is republished with permission from the South China Sea NewsWire. Read the original article. The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.
