Biden picks first woman to lead the Navy after reports of Pentagon snub
President Biden on Friday picked Adm. Lisa Franchetti to be the next chief of naval operations after Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin passed over her when recommending for the role.
The promotion of Franchetti, who has been vice chief of naval operations since last fall, will be the first time a woman has the spot of the Navy’s highest-ranking officer and she will be the first female member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Biden, in announcing his nomination, noted that Franchetti has already made history as the second woman ever to achieve the rank of four-star admiral in the United States Navy. She would replace current Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday, whose four-year term is over this fall.
Austin in June reportedly recommended that Adm. Samuel Paparo become the next chief of naval operations despite Franchetti being considered the front-runner for the top position as the Navy’s No. 2 officer. Biden on Friday nominated Paparo for commander of Indo-Pacific Command.
The president also nominated Vice Adm. James Kilby for vice chief of naval operations and Vice Adm. Stephen “Web” Koehler for commander of U.S. Pacific Fleet.
He also urged the Senate to quickly confirm these nominations and the other pending military nominations that have been held up by Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.). Tuberville is blocking the Senate from moving on military promotions in protest of the Pentagon’s abortion policy, which allows for paid leave and travel reimbursement for abortions.
“It has long been an article of faith in this country that supporting our service members and their families, and providing for the strength of our national defense, transcends politics. What Senator Tuberville is doing is not only wrong — it is dangerous,” Biden said Friday.
Biden also called out Republicans in Senate for not stopping Tuberville from continuing the hold and said the Alabama Republican is “risking our ability to ensure that the United States Armed Forces remain the greatest fighting force in the history of the world.”
Biden Picks Female Admiral To Lead Navy. She’d Be First Woman on Joint Chiefs of Staff
Biden's decision goes against the recommendation of his Pentagon chief.
Published on 7/21/2023 at 4:50 PM
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden has chosen Adm. Lisa Franchetti to lead the Navy, an unprecedented choice that, if she is confirmed, will make her the first woman to be a Pentagon service chief and the first female member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Biden's decision goes against the recommendation of his Pentagon chief. But Franchetti, the current vice chief of operations for the Navy, has broad command and executive experience and was considered by insiders to be the top choice for the job.
In a statement Friday, Biden noted the historical significance of her selection and said “throughout her career, Admiral Franchetti has demonstrated extensive expertise in both the operational and policy arenas.”
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin recommended that Biden select Adm. Samuel Paparo, the current commander of the Navy’s Pacific Fleet, several U.S. officials said last month. But instead, Biden is nominating Paparo to lead U.S. Indo-Pacific Command.
A senior administration official said Biden chose Franchetti based on the broad scope of her experience at sea and ashore, including a number of high-level policy and administrative jobs that give her deep knowledge in budgeting and running the department.
At the same time, the official acknowledged that Biden understands the historical nature of the nomination and believes that Franchetti will be an inspiration to sailors, both men and women. The official spoke earlier on condition of anonymity because the nomination had not been made public.
Franchetti's nomination will join the list of hundreds of military moves that are being held up by Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama. He is blocking confirmation of military officers in protest of a Defense Department policy that pays for travel when a service member has to go out of state to get an abortion or other reproductive care
Biden, in his statement, blasted Tuberville for prioritizing his domestic political agenda over military readiness.
“What Senator Tuberville is doing is not only wrong — it is dangerous,” Biden said. “He is risking our ability to ensure that the United States Armed Forces remain the greatest fighting force in the history of the world. And his Republican colleagues in the Senate know it.”
Franchetti is slated to serve as the acting Navy chief beginning next month when Adm. Michael Gilday, the current top naval officer, retires as planned.
Several women have served as military service secretaries as political appointees, but never as their top uniformed officer. A woman, Adm. Linda L. Fagan, is currently the commandant of the Coast Guard. She, however, is not a member of the Joint Staff. The Coast Guard is part of the Department of Homeland Security, not the Pentagon.
The news last month that the defense chief had recommended Papara stunned many in the Pentagon because it was long believed that Franchetti was in line for the top Navy job.
In a statement Friday, Austin praised the nomination, saying, “I’m very proud that Admiral Franchetti has been nominated to be the first woman Chief of Naval Operations and member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, where she will continue to inspire all of us.”
A surface warfare officer, she has commanded at all levels, heading U.S. 6th Fleet and U.S. Naval Forces Korea. She was the second woman ever to be promoted to four-star admiral, and she did multiple deployments, including as commander of a naval destroyer and two stints as aircraft carrier strike group commander.
Paparo, who if confirmed will replace Adm. John Aquilino, is a naval aviator and a TOPGUN graduate with more than 6,000 flight hours in Navy fighter jets and 1,100 landings on aircraft carriers. A Pennsylvania native, he graduated from Villanova University and was commissioned into the Navy in 1987.
Prior to his Pacific tour, he was commander of naval forces in the Middle East, based in Bahrain, and also previously served as director of operations at U.S. Central Command in Florida.
Biden also said he will nominate Vice Adm. James Kilby to be the vice chief of the Navy and tap Vice Adm. Stephen Koehler to head the Pacific Fleet.
____
By LOLITA C. BALDOR
:quality(70)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/archetype/TGAO2LX56RCONNHFFHQAZ32ZJY.jpg)
WASHINGTON — Adm. Lisa Franchetti was five weeks into leading U.S. 6th Fleet when she oversaw the first-ever Tomahawk missile strike by a Virginia-class attack submarine.
Days after Syrian President Bashar Assad launched a chemical weapons attack on his people in April 2018, then-President Donald Trump threatened to use military forces to destroy the Syrian chemical weapons facilities.
Franchetti, then a three-star admiral still settling into her new office in Naples, Italy, was tasked by Defense Department leadership with striking Syria from European waters using naval vessels.
The target was complex: Three facilities in Damascus and near Homs were close to Russian forces and air defense systems, which the U.S. wanted to avoid hitting.
Franchetti and her 6th Fleet team both successfully used the new submarine John Warner to fire upon Syria from the Eastern Mediterranean and rearmed the boat afterward, marking two firsts.
“There were some real challenges there,” retired Adm. James Foggo, then the commander of Naval Forces Europe and Franchetti’s direct superior, told Defense News. “Afterward, we all kind of breathed a sigh of relief because all the elements of that strike mission directed by the president were met: The targets were destroyed, minimal collateral damage, didn’t bring the Russians into it, a strong message sent to Assad, and then the reload afterwards.”
Five years later — and after completing her tour as 6th Fleet commander, serving as the director for strategy, plans and policy on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and then becoming the vice chief of naval operations — Franchetti is now President Joe Biden’s nominee for chief of naval operations.
The White House announced the nomination July 21. If confirmed by the Senate, Franchetti would be the first woman to lead the Navy or any Defense Department military service. The Coast Guard was the first U.S. armed service to be led by a female; Adm. Linda Fagan became the 27th commandant of the branch last year.
Franchetti’s nomination is likely to be sidelined by ongoing political fights on Capitol Hill over the military’s abortion access policy. The ongoing hold by Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., has stalled more than 250 senior military confirmations over the last four months, with no resolution in sight, over the Defense Department’s abortion policies.
:quality(70)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/archetype/N5LDYZASUFCOPKOXUXCNOO5X3E.jpg)
Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., serves on the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Under rules put in place last fall, troops stationed in states where abortion is limited or illegal can be granted leave time and travel stipends to help cover the cost of moving across state lines for abortion services. Tuberville and a host of Republican lawmakers have decried the policy as illegal.
Top Navy spokesman Rear Adm. Ryan Perry confirmed the nomination in a statement and said that “she has worked across the Navy and the Joint Force with an emphasis on strategy, international engagement, and interagency collaboration, most recently serving as the Director, Strategy, Plans, and Policy, J-5.”
Biden also announced the nomination of Adm. Samuel Paparo — who in recent weeks had been rumored to be in line for the CNO post — as commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command.
Foggo said Franchetti has the right character and experience for the job.
“She cares a lot about her people [and] you want a CNO that cares about the troops on the deckplate,” he said. “At the same time, you want a CNO that has experience in some tight, tough situations and some combat situations.”
Surface warrior and policy wonk
If a group of Navy ROTC students at a Midwestern university hadn’t decided to have a cookout one day more than four decades ago, there’s a chance Franchetti would not have embarked on a career that landed her as the nominee.
She grew up in suburban Rochester, New York, according to a 2015 Northwestern University profile of Franchetti.
Franchetti attended Northwestern’s Medill journalism school and wanted to become a reporter covering the Middle East, according to the profile. That changed in 1981 during freshman orientation, when she came upon a group of Navy ROTC students grilling out and playing football, the profile recalls.
:quality(70)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/archetype/AMMQHTP56FA53KH7DQLDEBMYDQ.jpg)
ROTC midshipmen at Northwestern University listen to speakers about the working relationship chiefs and officers need to have in a command.
“They said: ‘We could get you $100 a month, and maybe you could get a scholarship next year if you joined ROTC,’ ” Franchetti said in the piece. “I was whisked away to their office building on Haven Street, talked to a lieutenant who told me how great the Navy was, and next thing, I’m signed up and getting my uniform and some books. And that’s how it started.”
From there, she commissioned as a Navy officer in 1985 — five years after the first woman graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy, putting her at the forefront of gender integration on ships.
As such, Franchetti began her career on auxiliary ships, or those that support vessels in the naval fleet. She served on the destroyer tender Shenandoah and then the oiler Monongahela, and eventually moved onto destroyers, commanding Ross.
Franchetti became the second woman to serve as vice chief of naval operations on Sept. 2, 2022.
Retired Vice Adm. Nora Tyson, who in 2010 became the first woman to command a carrier strike group, said Franchetti’s resume makes her an ideal candidate to serve as the next chief of naval operations, regardless of gender.
Tyson told Defense News she first worked with Franchetti at the Navy’s Logistics Group Western Pacific in Singapore, and during Franchetti’s leadership of Destroyer Squadron 21.
Franchetti “is probably one of the best, well-rounded officers that we could put in as CNO. And that’s because she’s had, A, the leadership experience; B, she has had a lot of experience working with our allies and partners around the world,” Tyson said.
Later, when Tyson led U.S. 3rd Fleet and Franchetti reported to her as commander of Carrier Strike Group 9, Tyson made the unusual decision to ask Franchetti to lead two strike groups.
“I had the utmost confidence in Lisa,” she said. “Lisa is just a great person and a good leader and has the right values, characteristics, experience, training, whatever, that she’s one of those people that you can trust to get the job done.”
Foggo said Franchetti’s time as 6th Fleet commander put her leadership skills to the test: She came into the job managing ongoing naval aviation strikes against the Islamic State group, and she left in July 2020 after seeing the command through a horrific start to the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy.
:quality(70)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/archetype/M4QSNZC7TND4RCKOHNA2OOKYIY.jpg)
Hospital Corpsman 1st Class Jonmichael Heldorfer, left, performs a COVID-19 test on Cryptologic Technician (Technical) 2nd Class Nareba Brady aboard a ship while in Gaeta, Italy, on May 6, 2020. (MC1 Kyle Steckler/U.S. Navy)
By March 2020, 1,000 people a day were dying in Italy. Foggo said he and Franchetti had daily meetings to discuss how to keep their people both safe and ready for any missions.
“We were making dozens, if not hundreds, of decisions every day about how we’re going to continue to sustain the warfighting posture of this theater with Americans who are on ships, deployed or in port, or need to be ready to go and meet any contingency when we have this murderous pandemic upon us here in Italy,” he said.
Sailors and their families were scared, he added, but he and Franchetti communicated well during that time to explain their rigid policies. “Lisa was my wingman for this,” Foggo said.
Retired Vice Adm. Ron Boxall was a fellow surface warfare officer who has known Franchetti for years and led the Joint Staff’s resources directorate while Franchetti led the policy directorate.
He said her time in that job meant she “learned a lot about what went on with the [National Security Council] over [at] the White House, a lot of the inner dealings with the political-military side with [the] State Department.”
Foggo noted that, while leading 6th Fleet and Naval Forces Korea, she worked closely with allies and partners.
Breaking gender barriers
While Franchetti’s resume includes many of the same posts as other top surface warfare officers — ship captain, carrier strike group commander, fleet commander — she’s been the first woman to take on many of these roles.
“She’s a role model for a lot of young female officers, mostly surface warfare officers, and she’s always taken it as a personal mission for her to be that mentor that she never had, or that she had very few of,” Boxall said.
But he said that Franchetti, as a woman, may be uniquely positioned to help the surface warfare community and the Navy as a whole address some thorny policy issues that have thus far eluded resolution.
:quality(70)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/archetype/YFDI26GLU5C5PP7BK5KVN6EJPU.jpg)
Then-Vice Adm. Lisa Franchetti, commander of U.S. 6th Fleet, takes a selfie with Midshiman 1st Class Elise Vincent while visiting the destroyer Bainbridge in June 2018. (MC1 Theron Godbold/U.S. Navy)
Speaking about retention — an issue for all the services — Boxall said it would be “refreshing” to see how a female service chief would tackle the challenge.
In a competition for people, he said, “it may be she will be able to come up with policies and confront them head on as a female officer” in a way that male officers have struggled to do.
Franchetti could lead on these issues because she’s lived them all herself. She spoke to the Northwestern University magazine about caring for sailors and maintaining a work-life balance, even with a demanding profession.
“I have my work sphere, my mom and wife sphere, and my mental and physical health sphere. When I was younger, I thought: ‘I can do all of this at the same time!’ ” Franchetti was quoted as saying.
“But when I became older, I realized, ‘OK, this week I’m going to focus on work because it’s going to be really busy,’ ” she added. “‘And next week I’m going to take a day off and go to the zoo with my family. And then next week I’m going to make sure my running is going well and get that back on track.’ A lot of rethinking and reevaluating your priorities is really important. Every day you have to think about this.”
Tyson, the first woman to command a carrier strike group, said that Biden selecting Franchetti to lead the service sends two messages to young women in the Navy or considering joining.
“First, a woman can do that; I can go as far as I want to go. And two, the Navy as an organization has the right values that they put the right person in the right place for the right reason,” Tyson said.
Foggo said he spoke to Franchetti several times about the intersection of being a naval officer and a woman.
“One of the things she said is, I learned a lot a long time ago that you do not have to sacrifice your femininity or your gender identity to be a good leader in the Navy,” Foggo explained. “In other words, you don’t have to lower your voice. You don’t have to yell. You don’t have to use bad language. You can just lead. You can be an effective leader by listening to your people, caring for your people, understanding your people, knowing something about your people.
“That’s leadership, and it has nothing to do with gender.”
Leo Shane III contributed to this report.
About Megan Eckstein and Geoff Ziezulewicz
Megan Eckstein is the naval warfare reporter at Defense News. She has covered military news since 2009, with a focus on U.S. Navy and Marine Corps operations, acquisition programs and budgets. She has reported from four geographic fleets and is happiest when she’s filing stories from a ship. Megan is a University of Maryland alumna.
Geoff is a senior staff reporter for Military Times, focusing on the Navy. He covered Iraq and Afghanistan extensively and was most recently a reporter at the Chicago Tribune. He welcomes any and all kinds of tips at geoffz@militarytimes.com
No comments:
Post a Comment