[Pollster1]

potential problems with training, maintenance, or sailors’ workload

As a former US Navy officer, I always considered this a serious challenge for any good officer. Training helps, but it takes time, increases fatigue, and adds to workload. Training helps in the long run but potentially leads to mistakes in the short term. Maintenance, similarly, is absolutely essential, but again it contributes to fatigue. You have to know when to defer maintenance and accept some equipment out of commission for a longer period than absolutely necessary in order to ensure crew rest - or know when you have to accept crew fatigue as the price of restoring critical equipment.

Everything necessary or desirable for readiness also adds to workload, and eventually that workload gets to the point where bad things happen. Balance is one of the many things that a good officer (or in other environments a manager, coach, or principal) must learn. As an officer, I tried for balance, and as an employer I did the same.

[Rennes Templar]

“You have to know when to defer maintenance”

Hopefully they didn’t defer guidance systems maintenance.

[DoodleBob]

If you don't mind, I'm interested in whether or not you feel - as I read recently - that a lot of the current problems in the armed forces emanate from the fallout of the Tailhook 'scandal' from 1991. Basically, the argument is that the services have become "too tame and emasculated" and the scandal had removed the necessary swagger and confidence from the navy's aviation culture.

To be sure, there are undoubtedly other forces at play as well. And, as you note, any leader - military especially but even in business - must know the breaking point of a group and materials, and how close you can come (if you have to) to that point. If leadership simply goes beyond the breaking point over and over again, eventually it catches up.