Posted July 27, 2019, 4:59 p.m. by Rear Admiral Daniel Lerner (Personnel Director, EGO) (Daniel Lerner)
Posted by Sarah Hemenway in Discussion on Bill to Amend Fleet Command and Other Mundane Matters (FCOMM)
Steve and James would like to put forth the following as their updated proposal. Thanks to Daniel for continuing to be abused for his love of legalese.Current Wording:
“The Fleet Commander must be a current or former CO of the fleet in question, or a current or former XO in the fleet in question with CO experience. The Assistant Fleet Commander must be a current or former CO or XO of the fleet in question.”
Original Proposal:
“The Fleet Commander must be a current or former CO within STF, or a current or former XO within STF, with Assistant Fleet Command experience and a member rank of Captain or above. The Assistant Fleet Commander must be a current or former CO or XO within STF.”
Updated Proposal:
“The Fleet Commander must be a current or former CO within STF. The Assistant Fleet Commander must be a current or former CO or XO within STF. Notwithstanding the foregoing, the President may appoint a Fleet Commander who is only a current or former XO within STF on the condition that an Assistant Fleet Commander is appointed who is a current or former CO within STF.”
Sarah
So the irony is that although I helped developed this updated proposal in some of the brainstorming sessions over the last couple days, I don’t think this assists anyone in this discussion. Logically, it doesn’t really help either side of this debate.
As I understand it, the current debate is this: “Should we remove the CO requirement for FComms so newer, non-CO members can become FComms?” One of the counter-arguments (which is one of the two arguments I have been relying on) is “Isn’t a CO requirement a necessary qualification to be an FComm?”
When the debate is framed like that, this updated, or compromise proposal quickly breaks down. Because under this new proposal, if a newer, non-CO member becomes FComm, then a CO has to fill the role of AFComm (a role that is arguably quite best-suited for the non-CO, newer member). So instead of allowing more newer, non-CO members to get involved, we’ve just done a swap instead, and one that doesn’t really make a lot of sense. That is, where before the non-CO member would be AFComm and the CO would FComm, we’ve just swapped it without making more room for newer members to get involved. So the compromise doesn’t accomplish anything for those that were arguing in favour of the need for more newer members to get involved.
From the other side of the debate, we’ve washed down the CO requirement by allowing the AFComm to have that experience instead, even though the FComm is the main decision-maker. I could arguably still get behind that if this was accomplishing anything, but as I point out in my last paragraph, it doesn’t actually accomplish anything. So we’re watering down the requirement without accomplishing any improvements.
So right now, I’m in the odd position that I don’t currently support the updated proposal notwithstanding my involvement in trying to develop it. Right now, I still think the only change we should be making is removing the “fleet in question” restriction.
Daniel
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