"Big Picture" Briefs Prepare Nimitz Battle Group for Operation Iraqi Freedom
By Barbara Honegger
Naval Postgraduate School Public Affairs
April 3, 2003
MONTEREY, Calif. -- The wardrooms and ready rooms of USS Nimitz (CVN 68) and five of her support ships were “standing-room only” for a week in early March, as the battle group steamed towards the Arabian Gulf.
More than a thousand carrier group personnel - from Rear Adm. Sam Locklear to his flag staff, ship’s company, air wing and chiefs - packed the briefing rooms as faculty experts from the Naval Postgraduate School put their rendezvous with Operation Iraqi Freedom into strategic and historic context.
Three subject matter experts from the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) - professors James Wirtz, James Russell and Ahmad Ghoreishi - were aboard to deliver a series of background briefs as part of the NPS Regional Security Education Program (RSEP).
The two-year-old program of lectures to carrier battle groups en route to their areas of resposibility (AOR) was developed in response to Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Vern Clark’s challenge to find new ways to share NPS’s intellectual capital with the fleet.
“Our purpose is to present the mission of the carrier battle group, in this case to support Operation Iraqi Freedom, in its broader strategic and policy context - including the history, politics and culture of the states in the regional AOR,” said Russell. “And on this tour, we were certainly able to achieve that.”
The lecture series increases operational effectiveness and boosts morale, Wirtz stressed, “because it allows the warfighter to see how and why his or her upcoming mission really matters.”
Locklear agreed.
"The response I got from every commanding officer was that the timing and topics were 'right on,'" Locklear said. “I sat through the briefs and found them interesting, informative and engaging. It was the right focus and level of detail at the right time.”
The briefs to the Nimitz battle group included “The War Against Iraq: Problems and Prospects,” “The Strategic Importance of Persian Gulf States,” “U.S. Defense Strategy in the Persian Gulf,” “Islam and the Middle East,” “Theory of Surprise,” “Deterring Asymmetric Attack,” and “The War on Terrorism: Past, Present and Future.”
To date, NPS faculty have delivered RSEP briefs to all six Pacific Fleet carrier battle groups, including three others currently supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom - USS Constellation (CV 64), USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72) and USS Kitty Hawk (CV 63).