Admiral William Moran will not be the next Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) because he maintained a friendship with a Navy Commander who sexually harassed several women during a 2016 Christmas party. Adm. Moran didn’t harass anyone, however. He was slated to take the reins as CNO on August 1, but will retire instead. Here is part of his public statement:
I informed the Secretary of the Navy today that I have decided to decline my appointment as the next Chief of Naval Operations. He has expressed his support.
I made this difficult decision based on an open investigation into the nature of some of my personal email correspondence over the past couple of years and for continuing to maintain a professional relationship with a former staff officer, now retired, who had while in uniform been investigated and held accountable over allegations of inappropriate behavior.
Interestingly enough, Moran testified on Feb. 7, 2018 at a Congressional hearing entitled “Senior Leader Misconduct: Prevention and Accountability.” Here’s a relevant slice:
Ms. SPEIER. One last question. Bystanders, do you think bystanders have a duty to report?
Admiral MORAN. In every single case. We talk a lot about this in sexual harassment training, sexual assault, but all what we would call behaviors that are destructive in nature. Oftentimes, it can be quelled by a bystander, and we try to teach that value to everyone.
Moran didn’t, of course, keep information of sexual harassment quiet. His decision to maintain a friendship with the accused, however, tainted him enough to lose the CNO spot, which is a political position after all. But if the idea to stand down and go into retirement wasn’t Moran’s, then he most likely understands the rationale. Here is a nice bit from Moran’s 2018 testimony:
The foundation of the joint force is trust. When senior leaders fail, trust at the institution level is put at risk, which can have a profound impact on every aspect of developing and employing this force. So we all take this topic extremely seriously…
At the end of the day, we are an institution comprised of human beings who are indeed fallible.
So, to get after this, we have taken deliberate steps to train and develop our enlisted and officer corps throughout their careers, to preclude moral and ethical failures. And when they do fail, we address them in ways to preserve the larger trust in the institution.
As a good bye to Admiral Moran, here are some interesting bits from his other testimonies on Navy readiness:
The crux of my testimony is that your Navy is less ready because she is simply too small. It’s a simple matter of supply can’t meet demand. The smallest Navy we’ve had in 99 years can only answer 40 percent of combatant commander requirements today. On 9/11, we had 316 ships and over 400,000 sailors. Today we have 275 ships and nearly 90,000 fewer sailors, and yet the world has become a lot busier place today. A smaller fleet operating at the same pace is wearing out faster, work is increased, and we’re asking an awful lot of our sailors and Navy civilians.
Our operational demands continue to grow with an undersized fleet. In short, we continue to have a supply and demand problem which is placing a heavy strain on the force. The Navy has deployed, on average, about 100 ships around the world each day, collectively steaming thousands of underway days each year, despite having the smallest battle fleet since before World War I, and significantly smaller than the Navy we had immediately after 9/11 over a decade ago.
The facts are that for our entire Hornet fleet, it’s the Hornets and Super Hornet fleet, we have 62 percent on a given day. Yesterday was 62 percent. I doubt it’s changed much since yesterday. We’re in about 62 percent that are not flyable.
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