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Time has become the Navy’s most vital and rapidly diminishing asset. Senior leaders openly acknowledge that only a handful of years remain before the risk of a major conflict over Taiwan peaks. Inside the Naval Surface and Mine Warfighting Development Center (SMWDC) in San Diego, countdown clocks mark the days until mid-2027. The fleet is in an all-out sprint, not pacing itself for a marathon, and every unnecessary burden must be stripped away to keep pace with looming threats.
To prepare for a potential clash with China, the surface force has pushed aggressively toward higher levels of tactical proficiency. New systems continue to flow to the fleet. Advanced simulators are appearing around the world. Continuous cohorts of Warfare Tactics Instructors (WTIs) are entering the force. SMWDC is expanding its Surface Warfare Combat Training Continuum (SWCTC) to elevate and standardize tactical knowledge throughout the community.
All of this appears promising in theory. Yet when these initiatives reach ships, they run headfirst into a simple and immovable barrier: sailors’ schedules. Those serving at sea already average 88.3 hours of work per week while underway. Where, within these packed days, is the extra time for new warfighting reforms supposed to come from?
If sailors are already overextended, the quality of instructors or simulators is irrelevant—the hours simply do not exist. Today’s allocation of time across the surface fleet is not the outcome of a careful warfighting-centered plan, but the product of years of unchecked administrative expansion. As new tactical programs arrive, they are overshadowed by layers of miscellaneous, time-consuming requirements. Unless surface leaders take decisive action to aggressively protect tactical time and cut everything that dilutes it, these well-intentioned efforts will fall short.
Protecting Sailors’ Time
Fortunately, there is already a model for how to do this: a “night court.” In recent years, multiple Secretaries of Defense have convened night courts—rapid reviews of large portfolios of programs to triage and eliminate unnecessary spending. Most recently, Secretary Mark Esper applied this model to the Army and the wider Pentagon in 2019, redirecting billions of dollars toward priority reforms. In defense circles, such reviews are sometimes framed as “zero-based reviews,” which start from a blank slate and add only what is essential. The distinction is minimal—the objective is the same.
Here the term “night court” will be used, but either approach works. The Navy’s aim should be to have senior admirals examine every program that claims even a fraction of a sailor’s time, and decisively remove those that obstruct the Secretary of the Navy’s imperative to “win our Nation’s wars without distraction.”
Are there truly programs that the fleet can afford to eliminate? Absolutely. Take the Fall Protection program as an example. Warships must:
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Designate a Fall Protection Program Manager and several “Competent Persons.”
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Send them to lengthy training—three days for the manager, four days for each Competent Person, often pulling senior Combat Systems sailors away from critical maintenance and warfighting preparation.
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Draft command instructions and rescue plans.
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Conduct shipwide surveys to identify hazards above four feet and redesign the ship accordingly, or post warnings when modifications are impossible.
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Train nearly all sailors—anyone who might go near a four-foot elevation—on the program.
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Maintain extensive documentation for frequent inspections and audits.
The governing Department of the Navy instruction for Fall Protection runs 185 pages—twice the length of many of the surface force’s foundational tactical manuals.
Everyone agrees that preventing falls is good in principle. No one wants a shipmate injured. But the fleet cannot afford to spend this scale of time on non-tactical programs when warfighting demands are intensifying. Sailors are trapped in a maze of well-meant but ultimately misplaced requirements that divert attention from core tactical readiness. Warships do not have separate administrative and warfighting crews. Time is zero-sum. Every minute devoted to administrative obligations is a minute not spent preparing for combat.
Empowering the Night Court
The organization best positioned to lead such a night court is Commander, Naval Surface Force Pacific (CNSP). As the surface fleet’s Type Commander (TYCOM), CNSP sits close enough to operational units to understand the urgency of the problem, while possessing the authority to eliminate a substantial number of programs outright. CNSP has the comprehensive perspective needed to recalibrate how the surface force allocates time—recognizing both the strategic situation and which requirements genuinely matter.
Not every unnecessary program can be removed directly. Fall Protection, for instance, would require Congress to exempt warships from OSHA. But CNSP still holds the authority to cut many programs and the influence to advocate for policy changes at higher levels.
While the CNO or SECNAV could run a similar review, they are too far removed from ships. Bureaucratic layers inevitably distort messages, a phenomenon long noted by public administration scholars. Distance makes senior leaders less able to differentiate truly essential shipboard tasks from burdensome distractions. CNSP, with direct access to ships, waterfront conversations, and experienced officers, has the unique visibility required. Senior Navy leaders should champion and empower the effort—but not run it.
How the Night Court Should Work
A night court should proceed in three phases:
1. Measurement
Leaders must first understand which programs consume sailors’ time. But this cannot become yet another tasking that worsens the problem. A more effective approach is to assemble a small team of recently departed SWOs and have them list every requirement they encountered at sea. This rough but experienced-based baseline can then be refined with targeted follow-ups. The priority is speed, not bureaucratic precision.
2. Adjudication
Each program must justify its continued existence. Program owners must go beyond stating that a problem exists—many problems exist. They must prove that their program meaningfully solves that problem without creating undue burdens. In the Fall Protection example, statistics about accidents are not enough; the program’s owners must show that their solution genuinely prevents falls and does so efficiently.
3. Removal
For programs judged non-essential, the night court must trace the authority behind each requirement. If it falls within CNSP’s purview, eliminate it. If higher authority is responsible, advocate forcefully for change. This process will inevitably create friction among stakeholders. To build support, leaders should highlight the hours saved, the reduction in paperwork, and the direct improvements to warfighting readiness.
Over time, recurring reviews every year or two should become routine. Ideally, the surface force will adopt a culture that treats guarding sailors’ time as central to its identity—a lean, warfighting-focused fleet supported by a disciplined bureaucracy.
The Cost of Inaction
If surface leaders fail to cut burdensome requirements, extra time will not appear on its own. The responsibility for prioritization will fall to commanding officers, department heads, junior officers, and chiefs. These leaders will be forced to make difficult choices within a system already overflowing with requirements that far exceed available hours. The most honest and warfighting-focused leaders will acknowledge they cannot do everything and will accept administrative penalties in order to focus on combat skills. Their ships may fail inspections, earn fewer awards, and appear less competitive on paper. In doing so, these leaders risk being filtered out by evaluation systems that prefer box-checkers to realists.
The alternative leaders—those unwilling to risk their careers—will fall into a pattern that the Army War College’s report Lying to Ourselves described in stark detail: a culture where superficial compliance and quiet dishonesty become survival mechanisms. Tactical proficiency will suffer, and administrative requirements will continue to dominate.
When a sailor falls overboard, we teach them to immediately remove their heavy boots. Those boots are normally essential for safety—but in the water, they become deadly. The Navy’s peacetime programs function the same way. They are useful in calm conditions but become dangerous burdens in crisis. We can choose to shed this weight now, or risk being dragged down during war.
LT Chris Rielage, a SWO and ASW/SUW WTI aboard USS Carl M. Levin (DDG-120), serves in the Pacific. His work has appeared in Proceedings and CIMSEC. The views presented here are his own and do not necessarily represent those of the Department of the Navy or the U.S. government.
