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Studies in Naval History and Sea Power
Learning War: The Evolution of Fighting Doctrine in the U.S. Navy, 1898-1945
Learning War examines the U.S. Navy's doctrinal development from 1898-1945 and explains why the Navy in that era was so successful as an organization at fostering innovation. A revolutionary study of one of history's greatest success stories, this book draws profoundly important conclusions that give new insight, not only into how the Navy succeeded in becoming the best naval force in the world, but also into how modern organizations can exploit today's rapid technological and social changes in their pursuit of success.
Trent Hone argues that the Navy created a sophisticated learning system in the early years of the twentieth century that led to repeated innovations in the development of surface warfare tactics and doctrine. The conditions that allowed these innovations to emerge are analyzed through a consideration of the Navy as a complex adaptive system. Learning War is the first major work to apply this complex learning approach to military history. This approach permits a richer understanding of the mechanisms that enable human organizations to evolve, innovate, and learn, and it offers new insights into the history of the United States Navy.
Trent Hone argues that the Navy created a sophisticated learning system in the early years of the twentieth century that led to repeated innovations in the development of surface warfare tactics and doctrine. The conditions that allowed these innovations to emerge are analyzed through a consideration of the Navy as a complex adaptive system. Learning War is the first major work to apply this complex learning approach to military history. This approach permits a richer understanding of the mechanisms that enable human organizations to evolve, innovate, and learn, and it offers new insights into the history of the United States Navy.
432 pages, Hardcover
Published June 15, 2018
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432 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
March 27, 2023
Everybody says they want to be innovative. Everybody says they want to be part of a learning organization. And almost no one actually is. Learning War is a closely focused study of changes in the US Navy between the Spanish American War and the end of World War 2, using a complex adaptive system theoretical framework to explain eventual US dominance in the Pacific, as exemplified by the development and integration of the Combat Information Center.
USS Fletcher. Destroyers like this one were key to US Navy learning
The story actually starts a little bit earlier than 1898, and begins with personnel policy. The US Navy had expanded immensely during the Civil War, and then contracted as the nation focused on the western frontier. Promotion was based solely on seniority, which meant that senior ranks were clogged with Civil War 'old tars', who had a traditional Nelsonian conception of fighting ships. This was a major problem, both because ambitious young officers were stagnating, and naval technology was doing anything but, as steam engines, ironclad ships, and explosive shells would let modern armored cruisers literally sail circles around old ships of the line while smashing them with impunity.
The US won all the major naval battles of the Spanish-American war, but these victories revealed serious flaws in fleet organization and training. A group of insurgent officers, along with key political backers like Teddy Roosevelt instituted far-reaching changes, including professional training at the naval war college, the merging of line and engineering officer paths, and merit-based promotions. A permanent staff assisted the civilian Secretary of the Navy, creating some institution durability across administrations. The Navy gain its first permanent major unit in the Atlantic Fleet, allowing realistic training and experimentation to see what tactics worked.
A second set of changes was primarily technological. The power of guns had far outpaced traditional methods of aiming by eye and feel. Weapons capable of reaching out miles required precision aim that took into account the exact range, bearing, speed of the target, as well as local roll, weather conditions, and even the Coriolis effect. Range-keepers, mechanical devices that predicted the position of the enemy and fired guns by electrical circuit when they bore. The basic range keeper had what would later be called an open architecture, allowing new devices like the more sophisticated Ford fire control computer and radar to be integrated into the system as they were developed.
And finally, there was a culture of experimentation around how to best use these technologies. Gunnery practices were codified in fleet-wide competitions, with similar competitions for efficiency in other areas. Large scale fleet problems validated ideas developed in war games at the Naval War College, and could serve to boost or destroy careers.
When war finally came in 1941, the United States was ready, but also somewhat unprepared. While Midway was an unexpected victory after the defeats of the opening offensive, the naval battles around Guadalcanal revealed serious weaknesses in US Navy practices. Distinguishing friendly from enemy ships was a perennial problem in night battles. Japanese torpedoes were immensely superior to American equivalents, and US destroyer tactics emphasized guns over torpedoes anyway. Task groups thrown together from available units had trouble coordinating. And technological advantages in radar were negated because captains had trouble forming a coherent picture of the battle from incremental reports. What success did occur came at immense cost due to underlying principles of individual initiative and aggression from subordinates, as in the First Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, where the decimation of an outgunned US task force prevent the landing of significant reinforcement and supplies to Japanese troops on the island.
As the Solomon Islands campaign ground on, Admiral Nimitz directed that captain form a combat operations center (later CIC) on their ships, but left the exact nature and methods of the CIC up to individual captains. As ships rotated through battles, hard-learned lessons and best practices were exchanged in schools and conferences immediately behind the front lines. Within a year, formal doctrine manuals were published, explaining how best to organizing and fight a ship. The decisive battles of 1944 saw an end to American command confusion, with an efficient and effective use of airplanes, battleships, and light units to comprehensively destroy the Imperial Japanese Navy.
The US Navy won because it was a learning organization, and it is unfortunately no longer one in Hone's estimation. While the Navy is not institutionally complacent, there are worrying signs of problems in recent surface collisions and rising Chinese naval power.
My only caveat on this book is that I'm not sure what complex adaptive systems adds as theoretical framework, beyond jargon. The basic principles of innovation are clear. Start with good people, create standards of success, and reward successful experimentation. Telling people how to do something instead of what to do, or keeping a bunch of dead wood around, or not having clarity about what the goal actually is, will all handicap organizational learning.
Simple, right?
USS Fletcher. Destroyers like this one were key to US Navy learning
The story actually starts a little bit earlier than 1898, and begins with personnel policy. The US Navy had expanded immensely during the Civil War, and then contracted as the nation focused on the western frontier. Promotion was based solely on seniority, which meant that senior ranks were clogged with Civil War 'old tars', who had a traditional Nelsonian conception of fighting ships. This was a major problem, both because ambitious young officers were stagnating, and naval technology was doing anything but, as steam engines, ironclad ships, and explosive shells would let modern armored cruisers literally sail circles around old ships of the line while smashing them with impunity.
The US won all the major naval battles of the Spanish-American war, but these victories revealed serious flaws in fleet organization and training. A group of insurgent officers, along with key political backers like Teddy Roosevelt instituted far-reaching changes, including professional training at the naval war college, the merging of line and engineering officer paths, and merit-based promotions. A permanent staff assisted the civilian Secretary of the Navy, creating some institution durability across administrations. The Navy gain its first permanent major unit in the Atlantic Fleet, allowing realistic training and experimentation to see what tactics worked.
A second set of changes was primarily technological. The power of guns had far outpaced traditional methods of aiming by eye and feel. Weapons capable of reaching out miles required precision aim that took into account the exact range, bearing, speed of the target, as well as local roll, weather conditions, and even the Coriolis effect. Range-keepers, mechanical devices that predicted the position of the enemy and fired guns by electrical circuit when they bore. The basic range keeper had what would later be called an open architecture, allowing new devices like the more sophisticated Ford fire control computer and radar to be integrated into the system as they were developed.
And finally, there was a culture of experimentation around how to best use these technologies. Gunnery practices were codified in fleet-wide competitions, with similar competitions for efficiency in other areas. Large scale fleet problems validated ideas developed in war games at the Naval War College, and could serve to boost or destroy careers.
When war finally came in 1941, the United States was ready, but also somewhat unprepared. While Midway was an unexpected victory after the defeats of the opening offensive, the naval battles around Guadalcanal revealed serious weaknesses in US Navy practices. Distinguishing friendly from enemy ships was a perennial problem in night battles. Japanese torpedoes were immensely superior to American equivalents, and US destroyer tactics emphasized guns over torpedoes anyway. Task groups thrown together from available units had trouble coordinating. And technological advantages in radar were negated because captains had trouble forming a coherent picture of the battle from incremental reports. What success did occur came at immense cost due to underlying principles of individual initiative and aggression from subordinates, as in the First Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, where the decimation of an outgunned US task force prevent the landing of significant reinforcement and supplies to Japanese troops on the island.
As the Solomon Islands campaign ground on, Admiral Nimitz directed that captain form a combat operations center (later CIC) on their ships, but left the exact nature and methods of the CIC up to individual captains. As ships rotated through battles, hard-learned lessons and best practices were exchanged in schools and conferences immediately behind the front lines. Within a year, formal doctrine manuals were published, explaining how best to organizing and fight a ship. The decisive battles of 1944 saw an end to American command confusion, with an efficient and effective use of airplanes, battleships, and light units to comprehensively destroy the Imperial Japanese Navy.
The US Navy won because it was a learning organization, and it is unfortunately no longer one in Hone's estimation. While the Navy is not institutionally complacent, there are worrying signs of problems in recent surface collisions and rising Chinese naval power.
My only caveat on this book is that I'm not sure what complex adaptive systems adds as theoretical framework, beyond jargon. The basic principles of innovation are clear. Start with good people, create standards of success, and reward successful experimentation. Telling people how to do something instead of what to do, or keeping a bunch of dead wood around, or not having clarity about what the goal actually is, will all handicap organizational learning.
Simple, right?
October 20, 2018
Essential reading.
This was recommended by a senior officer so emphatically I had to give it a shot. I haven’t read a better description of how we learn and adapt warfighting practices.
For anyone intimidated by topics of “learning organizations,” “complex systems” or “rapid innovation,” this is actually a great book to help understand those concepts. The author very capably explains those concepts and applies them to US Navy doctrine before and during World War II. The book also explains how some of the smaller actions like Tassafronga had enormous implications for better known battles like Philippine Sea and Okinawa.
Lastly, the book disabuses any reader of the idea that the USN defeated the IJN by sheer sleight of materiel and industry - that the US simply outbuilt Japan. While that is certainly true, it ignores the significant learning and adaptation that the organization went through over the course of the war. This discussion is akin to recent scholarship on Ulysses Grant and his brilliance.
I strongly recommend this to anyone interested in the US Navy, World War II, or learning organizations in the military.
This was recommended by a senior officer so emphatically I had to give it a shot. I haven’t read a better description of how we learn and adapt warfighting practices.
For anyone intimidated by topics of “learning organizations,” “complex systems” or “rapid innovation,” this is actually a great book to help understand those concepts. The author very capably explains those concepts and applies them to US Navy doctrine before and during World War II. The book also explains how some of the smaller actions like Tassafronga had enormous implications for better known battles like Philippine Sea and Okinawa.
Lastly, the book disabuses any reader of the idea that the USN defeated the IJN by sheer sleight of materiel and industry - that the US simply outbuilt Japan. While that is certainly true, it ignores the significant learning and adaptation that the organization went through over the course of the war. This discussion is akin to recent scholarship on Ulysses Grant and his brilliance.
I strongly recommend this to anyone interested in the US Navy, World War II, or learning organizations in the military.
June 24, 2022
This is a very different take on the force that the United States Navy took into World War II, as the author treats the service as a "Complex Adaptive System," and examines the ways from 1900-1940 it assimilated modern technology, with the ultimate climax being the creation of the "Combat Information Center," where all incoming information could be pulled together to allow a commander to come to an accurate appraisal of the combat environment, and act accordingly. This monograph ends on the note that the rapid build-up and standardization of the USN from 1943 on basically truncated the service's ability to function as a learning system, though only once the necessary lessons had been learned. The hanging question is whether the current U.S. Navy, faced with a new opponent (the PRC) determined to exploit its liabilities and weaknesses, can again learn, improvise, and innovate.
November 28, 2018
Excellent.
October 17, 2019
Disclosure: I am retired Navy and worked in my career with all of the other services - years, not just a weekend, in case there is a question. I have seen how they operate and I've experienced how the Navy operates and the Navy of my career benefited and embodied the learned lessons Mr. Hone expertly captures in this book. While this focuses on the operational elements of warfighting, the culture is embraced throughout all areas of the Navy. I was in a staff corps (Civil Engineer Corps) and experienced the strategic planning, learning and adaptations necessary to evolve in a modern world that the warfighting Navy has to respond to at an accelerating pace.
This is detailed, specific history with deep dives into the Naval War College (and education in general), creating a professional officer corps, gunnery improvements, tactical changes necessary with the evolution of warfare between the world wars, creation and development of the Combat Information Center and the lessons learned from the victories in the Pacific. Hone talks about the officers that effected changes when needed: William Sims, William Pratt, Chester Nimitz, Ernest King, "Bull" Halsey, Raymond Spruance.
To many notes to summarize... Some nuggets:
Vice Admiral William Sims' instructions to his new command, American Naval Forces in Europe, March 1917, the first being "the concept of a mission and general plan to focus the attention of subordinates on critical objectives, promote mutual understanding, and foster individual initiative:"
Hone observes several times that the Navy, as it developed solutions, and doctrine, "avoided prematurely converging on any specific approach", leaving options open to modify doctrines as required. With respect to weapons systems, Hone said the "Navy avoided a common problem for organizations pursuing innovation: premature convergence. [Yes, same words] It did not attempt to identify a 'good' approach quickly; instead, it allowed time for an excellent approach to emerge from the collective work of many individuals." I have mixed thoughts on that. I agree in principle, but 25 years of engineering thinking have taught me that sometimes close enough is not only good enough, it can be preferred to "excellent". An "analysis paralysis" is a real thing, to be also avoided.
Minor catch: I like that Hone took a different perspective on the common position of the battle of Midway being "the turning point of the war in the Pacific; less a "turning point" than an opportunity to take the initiative.
Final paragraph of Hone's conclusion, he notes that when evaluating a variety of potential solutions simultaneously in a combat situation, failures were "the subject of harsh - and deserved - criticism." And this:
Other observations:
Some of the technical elements described (a range projector, for instance) could have used illustrative photographs.
Some of the writing came off as elitist academia ... think Alan Sokal and the post-modern hoax. I am a fan and when appropriate, a practitioner, of concise writing. I am also a fan and practitioner of accessible writing. But those parts do not take away from the excellent work of this book.
Excellent book. I have never read a Naval Institute Press publication that was not excellent. (That's not to say there aren't any, but I've never read any!)
This is detailed, specific history with deep dives into the Naval War College (and education in general), creating a professional officer corps, gunnery improvements, tactical changes necessary with the evolution of warfare between the world wars, creation and development of the Combat Information Center and the lessons learned from the victories in the Pacific. Hone talks about the officers that effected changes when needed: William Sims, William Pratt, Chester Nimitz, Ernest King, "Bull" Halsey, Raymond Spruance.
To many notes to summarize... Some nuggets:
Vice Admiral William Sims' instructions to his new command, American Naval Forces in Europe, March 1917, the first being "the concept of a mission and general plan to focus the attention of subordinates on critical objectives, promote mutual understanding, and foster individual initiative:"
It is manifestly impossible for the Commander of the operation to give detailed instructions in advance that will cover all emergencies; it is equally impossible for the Commander of an operation to give these instructions on the spot to meet adequately a local situation suddenly developed. Hence the importance of having the immediate Mission and General Plan clearly understood in advance, and the necessity for leaving as wide an area of discretion to subordinates as possibleand the second
No officer should fail to exercise his initiative and judgment in support of the General Plan when confronted by unexpected conditions."Train to think on the spot. Obvious flexibility ...within the structure of command. That may be self-evident now, but understand that warfare in the 19th century played by different rules. (And even in the early 21st century, every Army officer I worked with below the rank of Colonel seemed to have to ask their CO for permission to do things. Still stuns me to this day that a titled Officer in Charge had to "ask my Colonel" if it was okay for me to change out the batteries in their communications backup power supply - the Navy encourages its junior officers to make decisions.)
Hone observes several times that the Navy, as it developed solutions, and doctrine, "avoided prematurely converging on any specific approach", leaving options open to modify doctrines as required. With respect to weapons systems, Hone said the "Navy avoided a common problem for organizations pursuing innovation: premature convergence. [Yes, same words] It did not attempt to identify a 'good' approach quickly; instead, it allowed time for an excellent approach to emerge from the collective work of many individuals." I have mixed thoughts on that. I agree in principle, but 25 years of engineering thinking have taught me that sometimes close enough is not only good enough, it can be preferred to "excellent". An "analysis paralysis" is a real thing, to be also avoided.
Minor catch: I like that Hone took a different perspective on the common position of the battle of Midway being "the turning point of the war in the Pacific; less a "turning point" than an opportunity to take the initiative.
Final paragraph of Hone's conclusion, he notes that when evaluating a variety of potential solutions simultaneously in a combat situation, failures were "the subject of harsh - and deserved - criticism." And this:
However, without the possibility of failure, evolvability would not have been preserved, Those early setbacks were essential to ensuring later successes.Tom Peters, a favored thinker of mine, said innovation should have us fail often, but fail fast. Not ideal when counting war losses, but sometimes unavoidable. The vision is that evolution is necessary to remain vital.
Other observations:
Some of the technical elements described (a range projector, for instance) could have used illustrative photographs.
Some of the writing came off as elitist academia ... think Alan Sokal and the post-modern hoax. I am a fan and when appropriate, a practitioner, of concise writing. I am also a fan and practitioner of accessible writing. But those parts do not take away from the excellent work of this book.
Excellent book. I have never read a Naval Institute Press publication that was not excellent. (That's not to say there aren't any, but I've never read any!)
November 13, 2018
A great book, providing a presentation of the pre-WW2 Navy as a dynamically learning organization and how that affected its performance during the war. The author, Trent Hone, shows how the Navy’s early 20th century expansion allowed a change in the nature of the Officer corps, promoting a more adaptable learning system and the use of various efficiency constraints to achieve tactical results. Pulling from the fields of biology and social science he presents the pre-WW2 Navy as a Complex Adaptive System. This adaptability in a learning process, in turn, allowed success in the War, allowing the Navy to adapt to the force structure resulting from Pearl Harbor and the confrontation with the technologically equal Japanese Navy. Along the way a number of myths are torn down, to include the innate conservatism of the “gun club,” a spat of systemic failures in the Solomons, and the reliance on aviation as the priority offensive option over surface vessels. I’m very skeptical when too much emphasis is put on innovation vice evolution, and though Hone does use the I-word often, he fundamentally gives an example of the necessary ingredients for speedy evolution in a wartime environment. This book helps pull together various historical narratives now in vogue in the Navy and will serve well as an actually useful data point when senior Naval leaders point to the Hornfischer books and the potential dilemmas we face.
June 1, 2023
I found this to be quite interesting.
People tend to measure war fighting capacity by simply adding up numbers... Who has the largest army, who has the most ships, whose fighter planes are the fastest or best armed. But training matters a lot, as does the ability to adapt organizationally to changing technology and geopolitical situations.
This book covers the period when navies were having to adapt to huge changes in technology... Sail to coal/oil & steam, steel vessels, radio, fire control systems, aircraft, etc. Japan becoming a major military power in the Pacific, the world wide naval arms race following WW I.
People tend to measure war fighting capacity by simply adding up numbers... Who has the largest army, who has the most ships, whose fighter planes are the fastest or best armed. But training matters a lot, as does the ability to adapt organizationally to changing technology and geopolitical situations.
This book covers the period when navies were having to adapt to huge changes in technology... Sail to coal/oil & steam, steel vessels, radio, fire control systems, aircraft, etc. Japan becoming a major military power in the Pacific, the world wide naval arms race following WW I.
April 6, 2020
B: Learning War The Evolution of Fighting Doctrine in the U.S. Navy, 1898-1945. This book should be read after reading The Rules of the Game: Jutland and British Naval Command by Andrew Gordon. Though Learning War is written in the form of a history it is also an example of applying current standards and theories to historic events. In this case to good effect, because it bolsters the efficacy of those theories with historic examples. It also shows the opposing needs of the Navy to be effective with its current methods while adapting to new threats. A good read.
February 18, 2019
Terrific book that examines material and non-material innovations of the U.S. Navy in the lead up and during the Second World War. These innovations include fire control mechanisms, the development of the Combat Information Center (CIC), and the PAC 10. Further, Hone describes how the Navy emphasized war games and experimentation to transform itself into a learning organization. Hone's emphasis on the value of doctrine, battle drills, an understanding of the tactical, operational, and strategic levels of war provide the reader valuable insights into how each of today's services should prepare for the next war.
December 9, 2020
For anyone interested in both modern history and organisational transformation, it's a strong recommendation. Hard to believe a book on the history of the US Navy at the turn of the 20th century would be such an interesting case study on adaptability and innovation driven by a strong learning culture, psychological safety and introduction of enabling constraints to promote innovation. To quote the author "innovation happens at the frontier of chaos".
April 5, 2025
A really interesting and thought-provoking look at a well-covered topic (the Pacific Theater of WWII, in particular) through a new lens (complex adaptive systems). Hone did his homework, with plenty of primary source material, but his distillation of the pre- and inter-war periods into trends - constraints, in the parlance of CAS - that enabled adaptation and battlefield success is what makes this book stand apart.
April 7, 2022
This book provides an extremely in-depth analysis of the change in surface warfare tactics from Pre-WW1 to the end of WW2. The information was dense but also digestible when time was allowed to apply full attention to the reading. The only negative was that this book requires a base understanding of surface warfare doctrine and naval history.
July 18, 2022
I was not expecting to learn so much about complex adaptive systems, a subject I had heard nothing about prior to reading this work. The backdrop of the US Navy, and how it can and should be viewed as a CAS, really made this book a wonderful read. Cannot recommend enough for naval history buffs, or those pursuing a career in this field.
November 18, 2020
The book contained good factual information, but the writing was annoying with too much repetition of buzz words - heuristics and paradigm, are just two examples that come readily to mind. The book could have benefited from a good editor!
August 10, 2024
Personally I would give this book 3 stars out of 5 instead of four because I thought the book was going to be a lot easier to understand and more about actual commanders in the war on how they approached using the doctrine by the navy. This was a misconception on my part.
Having said that, the book for what it is about is great, the only setback personally is that it does get very detailed and confusing at points where sometimes I had to reread a page that I had just read.
As a summary what I learned from this book is that the navy was not just a military organization but more like a complex adaptive system (CAS). It starts with a group of men who wanted to transform the navy in 1900 to a professional military organization where men could go and learn and become talented officers. This was the beginning and at the time the other navy super powers were the RN and IJN who had a foundation. The navy started with no foundation and by treating the navy as a CAS it allowed them to learn effectively and be able to respond and operate at a given notice.
When the attack on Pearl Harbor happened many people assume that the navy had to quickly organize and start getting ready for war but this is entirely wrong. The reason we could organize and get back into the fight after the attack was because of the new emergence of the navy in 1900 which kept building through the year up until the attack.
This book is great if you want to learn on how improvement and organization can be used to the maximum proficiency. I would not recommend this to someone who just wants to read a general book about naval warfare.
Having said that, the book for what it is about is great, the only setback personally is that it does get very detailed and confusing at points where sometimes I had to reread a page that I had just read.
As a summary what I learned from this book is that the navy was not just a military organization but more like a complex adaptive system (CAS). It starts with a group of men who wanted to transform the navy in 1900 to a professional military organization where men could go and learn and become talented officers. This was the beginning and at the time the other navy super powers were the RN and IJN who had a foundation. The navy started with no foundation and by treating the navy as a CAS it allowed them to learn effectively and be able to respond and operate at a given notice.
When the attack on Pearl Harbor happened many people assume that the navy had to quickly organize and start getting ready for war but this is entirely wrong. The reason we could organize and get back into the fight after the attack was because of the new emergence of the navy in 1900 which kept building through the year up until the attack.
This book is great if you want to learn on how improvement and organization can be used to the maximum proficiency. I would not recommend this to someone who just wants to read a general book about naval warfare.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 28, 2020
Excellent in all ways.
Hone's prologue and concluding chapters are an outstanding and easily digestible discussion of complex adaptive systems, how they work, and why that matters to military professionals. The middle 2/3 of the book are a (very) detailed examination of US Navy doctrine development, command and control architecture, and other ways that the Navy proved itself to be a true learning organization in the interwar years. This portion may be less interesting to those not in the maritime services. At a minimum, though, check out the first and last 50-page chunks.
Hone's prologue and concluding chapters are an outstanding and easily digestible discussion of complex adaptive systems, how they work, and why that matters to military professionals. The middle 2/3 of the book are a (very) detailed examination of US Navy doctrine development, command and control architecture, and other ways that the Navy proved itself to be a true learning organization in the interwar years. This portion may be less interesting to those not in the maritime services. At a minimum, though, check out the first and last 50-page chunks.
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