An Interview With Admiral Charles Richard

Q: For the sake of readers unfamiliar with your sphere of operations, could you say a bit about your command at STRATCOM? What is a day-in-the life like? What were the key responsibilities and risks you oversaw — and who “owned” those in an operational context?

A: U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM) and the assigned component commands, involving 150,000 people total, is a remarkable organization. The fundamental responsibility is to lead Strategic Deterrence planning for the Department of Defense (DoD), and to conduct Nuclear Deterrence planning and operations as directed. STRATCOM is responsible for all strategic nuclear forces and their Command and Control in the DoD. It is one of 11 Combatant Commands responsible to the Secretary of Defense for the operation of the nation’s military forces. Every day, the men and women of STRATCOM are conducting complex operations, operating nuclear powered ballistic missile submarines, long range bombers, intercontinental ballistic missiles, missile defenses, and nuclear command and control to the highest standards in the DoD. It requires unrelenting attention to detail in execution.

The credibility of the strategic deterrent rests on maintaining that standard of performance. Everything else in the Department of Defense, every plan, and every other capability, rests on an assumption that Strategic deterrence — and in particular nuclear deterrence — is holding. If that assumption is not met, if Strategic Deterrence fails, nothing else in DoD will work the way it was designed. The risk that Strategic Deterrence might fail is the key risk STRATCOM is focused on.

The risk that Strategic Deterrence might fail is the key risk STRATCOM is focused on.

Day-to-day, assigned forces and personnel are executing a series of processes, called battle-rhythms, designed to understand the environment around us, warn of threats, and take appropriate action or make recommendations up the chain of command. Some actions are continuous, with hundreds of watch-standers conducting intelligence, warning, and operational functions 24/7/365. Others are daily, weekly, or of longer periodicity and support execution of the long-term formal campaign that is in place to maintain Strategic Deterrence, as well as to verify our readiness to execute contingency plans, if necessary, based on events. 

Another significant responsibility is to determine the requirements for future Strategic Deterrence; the capability, capacity, and posture, for example, or the recapitalization of the Strategic Triad (air, land and sea based weapons) that is needed to deter in the future. STRATCOM presents this for review by the Department of Defense. Given the fundamental nature of the mission as the foundation upon which all other Defense activities rest, and the authorities required to execute it, ultimately it is the President who owns the risk that Strategic Deterrence will fail. The Secretary of Defense acts on his behalf day-to-day, and the Commander of STRATCOM has command of the forces that execute this mission, reporting to the Secretary of Defense via the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Ultimately it is the President who owns the risk.

Q: With the stakes so high, what was it like to lead such a complex organization? What management discipline is required? And how did you achieve that?

A: I think the first point is to recognize you do not start from scratch. You inherit decades of work done by those who came before you, and you build from that. But I also think it is important to understand how the organization and processes that already exist work, and to assure that they match the demands of the current operating environment. It was extremely helpful to me that I had had over a decade’s worth of experience at the executive level to understand how STRATCOM operated, both at Headquarters and in the operational components.

The second point I would offer is to stay laser focused on mission responsibilities. Know, understand, and execute on the base reference documents that define and direct the Command’s mission. Ensure that everyone knows the chains of command, authorities, and responsibilities for their assignment, and organization. It is important to avoid operating off “institutional knowledge.” I thought this was so important that we conducted a complete commandwide review, known as STRATCOM 4.0, to ensure that responsibility, authority and accountability was properly aligned throughout the Command, and to test against false operating presumptions. 

It is important to avoid operating off “institutional knowledge.”

As an example of the laser focus that I am referring to, we developed a very simple test to determine what things I would pay personal attention to. It was: “Will this come up at my Courts Martial if Strategic Deterrence fails?” Or, said another way, “Will I need to account for this issue if we fail in our primary mission?” That kind of clarity is useful in determining where the Commander needs to spend attention and effort, and where that can be delegated with acceptable risk.

Q: You have described risk as a matter of probability and consequence. Can you say a bit about what you mean there? How did you test for success of risk management systems — both the formal and informal?

A: The idea that a risk is composed of a probability of an event occurring times the consequence of that event occurring is a basic DoD definition of risk, and I have been trained to think that way throughout my career. This has proven particularly useful in showing how to mitigate risks, both in formal, written risk assessments for specific operations or events, as well as more informal, time urgent situations that we frequently train on to be ready to respond.

One of the ways we test for effectiveness of these mechanisms is through a formal, extensive assessment process. Tens of thousands of events are captured, analyzed, and compared to what we predicted or expected, and plans are adjusted as a result. Like many commands in DoD, there is a large, senior executive lead directorate on the staff that executes this function as a primary duty.

Q: Would you please explain the concept of “Commander’s Intent”? How does it come into play in high-risk activities and environments? What role does culture play in this regard?

A: The idea of “Commander’s Intent” as a part of the larger concept of Mission Command, is a longstanding military concept that recognizes, particularly in battle, that it is simply not possible to anticipate and plan for the actual events that will occur when in contact with a thinking opponent. Therefore, it is most effective to ensure that subordinates understand “Commander’s Intent” — the What and Why of all we are trying to accomplish — so that they can act on their own initiative, based on actual events in the field, in a manner consistent with Mission parameters. One thing I have noticed in reading many books by famous Admirals and Generals is that, throughout history, whatever headquarters thought the plan may have been, that is not what the field thought it was — and what’s more, whatever the field was doing was not what they thought the plan was, either. This points to the importance of leading from the front, striving to understand conditions as they actually are, not how they are reported or hoped to be.

It is simply not possible to anticipate and plan for the actual events that will occur when in contact with a thinking opponent.

This requires a very specific culture that is founded on trust. Seniors must trust that subordinates are properly trained, understand the Commander’s Intent, and will exercise initiative to accomplish the Mission even though the senior officers may not know exactly what a subordinate is doing at any particular time. Subordinates must clearly understand the Commander’s Intent, possess the ability to make decisions under great uncertainty, and trust that their leaders will understand that not every decision will be perfectly executed. But a key factor we addressed is that, while there is need to encourage execution according to the concept of Commander’s Intent in some areas, in other areas we must maintain positive control. For instance, where the complexity of the technology or the consequence of an error was so great there had to be strict control of decision making at a highest levels in the Chain of Command.

Q: In our 2021 Compendium, Charles McMillan, former Director of the Los Alamos nuclear lab, drew a sharp distinction between mistakes and violations in terms of risk management. How do his views align with your own and the standards of integrity you set for service members under your command?

A: I absolutely agree with Charlie in this — it is key to running technically complex organizations with high consequence of failure. Said another way, a lapse in integrity is the one thing that cannot be fixed, and calls into question that individual’s suitability for continued service in that organization. Any mistake or error can be corrected for, whether through training, re-qualification, supervision, or some procedural modification. Willful violations cannot. This is a standard and culture that must be set, maintained, and enforced.

A lapse in integrity is the one thing that cannot be fixed.

One key process needed to set this standard is the ability to do a meaningful critique of events, both good and bad. I have found that very few organizations get to the true root causes of negative events so they can be corrected. What happened? What was supposed to happen? What are the differences? And why did they occur? Doing all that in an unemotional, detailed fashion, documented in writing is essential to maintaining high standards and high levels of performance in large, complex organizations.

Q: Perhaps we can say that organizations must contend with three categories of behavioral risk, each of which can produce catastrophe if not managed: (1) outright malfeasance; (2) going along to get along; and (3) a “normalization of deviance” — that is, an informal shifting of operational norms away from established standard operational procedures in order to accommodate circumstantial expediencies. Do you agree with this stratification? Can you offer relevant illustrations from your time in command?

A: I think that is a particularly useful framing to begin thinking through how to approach behavioral risk. I have seen examples of all three, and the approach to addressing all three is different. Fortunately, I have seen very few examples of outright malfeasance, but this must be addressed very directly and in a way that makes it clear that this behavior is not allowed in my command. Going along to get along can be decomposed further into both behaviors that are known not to be up to formal standards but are assumed to be acceptable in practice (“That’s the way we’ve always done it”), and others where the formal standard was simply not known (I’m fond of the idea that I’ve never met the person who read the Technical Manual too many times).

Each requires a complimentary approach. For the latter, we initiated a formal review by everyone in the command to list the references for their duties, ensure that those were the correct references, and that everyone had been trained on them. This was a very large, several year endeavor, but paid great dividends. For the former, this points to the need for periodic third-party evaluations by an outside organization to ensure this isn’t happening. The third party, by not being part of the “We” in “We have always done it that way,” can detect when this is occurring so it can be corrected, or, if necessary, update the reference to reflect the proper way of operating. Normalization of deviance is probably the most insidious and hardest to detect of the three, because it occurs very subtly over time. For processes where there is formal documentation of a deviation from standard (there are many of these in the Navy), I found it useful to look at long term trends on a forcewide scale, in addition to short term looks on an individual basis, to identify where this deviation is occurring, and then to perform a root cause analysis to determine how to correct for this.

Q: You shared with us an article, “Lying to Ourselves: Dishonesty in the Army Profession,” which examines how the Army might have been inadvertently encouraging the very behavior it deems unacceptable. The foreword reads: “One of the hallmarks of a true profession is its ability to assess and regulate itself.”¹ Would you offer your own views in this regard? 

A: One key idea I took from this paper is how hard it is to aggregate the total administrative demand that staff (management) organizations place on line (operational) organizations. Unlike fiscal or budgetary controls, where there is complete accounting to ensure understanding of where fiscal resources are going, there are relatively few mechanisms in place to help apprehend the aggregate administrative demands that are placed on line organizations. It is fairly easy, in a large organization, to pile on administrative requirements that appear worthwhile, individually, but in the aggregate are simply inexecutable, because there are not enough hours in a day or week to get them all done. This then sets the stage for a failure to meet objectives and, in the worst cases, it leads to incentivizing integrity violations. I am very fond of the idea that anything looks good in isolation. It is not until it is compared to the reference, the standard, or another similar item that the flaws or weaknesses become apparent. This is one of the causes of excessive administrative requirements — individually they all look good, but there is no mechanism to see that when aggregated together they are collectively inexecutable with existing resources. [See also The Our View Article Bank Regulation: Are We Going to Lie to Ourselves?]

There are relatively few mechanisms in place to help apprehend the aggregate administrative demands that are placed on line organizations.

Q: You’ve commented in past discussions on the nefariousness of a ‘de-prioritization’ of operational risk. What do you mean by this? Can you offer illustrations drawn from your experience? What needs to be done about this and why? 

A: I think we need to return to considering operational risk as being on par with fiscal and technical risk for National Defense decisions. We have operated this way at many points in our history, the latest being during the Cold War, when we found it necessary to achieve our objectives. After the Cold War ended, however, and in the absence of a clearly defined threat, the consequences of operational risk appeared comparatively low, and we correctly prioritized fiscal and technical risk. It just didn’t matter that much how long it took to deliver a capability, and we had the luxury of time to ensure minimum cost and technical risk. Now that we have returned to Great Power Competition, and face for the first time two peer nuclear armed competitors, the consequences of operational risk are much greater, and it should be considered equally with other risks.

Q: We’ve discussed ‘the conceit of control’ — the false belief among those in leadership that they can be, and are, operating with control in circumstances that are fundamentally not ‘controllable’ in the strict sense. Can you offer a bit in that connection here? 

A: I think it’s important to clearly understand what you have control of, and what you do not. When faced with a thinking opponent, it is conceited to think they only act based on what you do or don’t do, not recognizing they have their own objectives, their own value systems, their own assessments of risk and of what’s at stake. They make decisions and take actions based on those assessments, and not solely on what they observe you do. And this is true also when dealing with a thinking collaborator — someone under your command or, in business, someone you manage. They have their own views and can be expected to act on those. It is essential, therefore, to assure that there is an alignment of views. That is part of the ‘Commander’s Intent’ idea discussed above. Let me give you an example. When you captain a nuclear submarine, you dive deep, and you run silent. There is no ‘phoning home’ to ask superiors for instructions, and neither can they simply shout out new instructions to you whenever they wish. Under those circumstances, it is critical that commanding officers can operate with a deep-seated confidence that, wherever that sub is and whatever the captain is doing, we’re certain that it is precisely in keeping with what we’d intend. 

Achieving that confidence is a matter of institutional culture, not of command.