WANTED U.S. NAVY MINE WARFARE CHAMPION

Successfully implementing innovation within a bureaucracy ultimately requires a champion to navigate the inherently political processes of securing sponsorship and resourcing. This is just as important to the very small as to the very large programs, particularly during periods of fiscal austerity. It's fragmented, commented retired rear admiral Paul Ryan, former commander of the US Navy's Mine Warfare Command, in April 2014. There is no single champion for mine warfare (MIW). This lack of support presents challenges for the US Navy and the nation, as the service struggles to articulate, and to muster the necessary backing for. There is perhaps only one other US Navy program that has had R&D, bureaucratic, programmatic, and operational success similar to that of the Polaris FBM project, and that is the Aegis antiair warfare system, deployed in the Ticonderoga and Arleigh Burke surface warships. Looking at Polaris and Aegis, some secrets of naval-warfare bureaucratic-political success can be gleaned for the future U.S. MIW community, despite the great differences in size, cost, and scope of the programs.