The Admirals' Advantage: U.S. Navy Operational Intelligence in World War II and the Cold War (review)

This book evolved from a series of U.S. Navy "Lessons Learned" studies and symposia conducted between 1994 and 2001. In terms of history The Admirals' Advantage makes only a brief genuflection to the World War II of its subtitle, thus its true value is as a first cut at naval intelligence, in particular operational intelligence, during the Cold War. The authors, naval reserve officers at a senior level in the hierarchy, one a lawyer and the other an accomplished historian, crafted this work as a capstone of their lessons learned effort, which also included articles and a training video.

Students of naval intelligence will recognize the background that Ford, the principal author, and Rosenberg lay out, with antecedents in the Royal Navy's "Room 40" activity in World War I, reaching fruition in the conflict that followed. Again the British led with their "Operational Intelligence Centre," but this time the U.S. Navy would not be far behind, and indeed eventually surpassed the masters. The Navy created its first operational intelligence war room in January 1941, attached to the staff of the officer (Ernest J. King) who would become Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Navy (COMINCH). The benefit proved so evident that a similar unit would be set up to specialize on the Atlantic submarine war, and others on the fleet operational staffs of major Navy commands. The Joint Intelligence Center Pacific Ocean Area (JICPOA) is credited as the first true "fusion" intelligence unit.

Through World War II there persisted a continuing competition between these operational intelligence centers and the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI), which, according to Ford and Rosenberg, largely ended in January 1945 when the work of the centers was consolidated under ONI. Nevertheless, COMINCH and JICPOA are held up as the templates for the postwar organization of Navy operational intelligence. A theater watch center re-emerged in September 1950 when one was set up in Tokyo to support Commander, Navy, Far East (COMNAVFE). This discussion is illustrative of one main feature of The Admirals' Advantage, which provides a detailed outline of the administrative history of the function during the Cold War, recording at great length the evolution of operational intelligence through a succession of centers, offices, activities, special branches, and the like, with a blizzard of acronyms to match. The material is valuable in establishing the framework for any discussion of naval intelligence but will be left for readers to consult. Of more interest in the brief space available here is what Ford and Rosenberg contribute to our knowledge of the Cold War conflict at sea.

One major aspect of the subject is the nexus between intelligence, relevant technologies, and naval operations. The Admirals' Advantage makes the point that by serving at sea alongside their comrades of the line, at the point of the spear, naval intelligence gained special credibility and trust from colleagues, which assisted in its greatest achievements in the 1980s (more in a moment), while technology (in particular automated data processing, then computer networking) made its contribution palpably more valuable. The contributions of signals intelligence are relevant here and are treated in the book. A recurring refrain is the difficulty (as in 1941–45) of sanitizing the intelligence so that line officers could use it without compromising sources.

A round-the-clock "watchfloor" at OPNAV emerged for the first time in 1957 (even the World War II centers had apparently not been run on a constant basis) but remained largely a national-level activity (presumably except for COMNAVFE) until the late 1960s. As with the decentralization that had taken place during the war, a repeat of the phenomenon began in 1970 with creation of the Fleet Ocean Surveillance Information Facility (FOSIF), in Rota, Spain, an operational intelligence center dedicated to supporting the...