You Have To Close Your Eyes To See The Military’s Powerful New Weapon

On a March evening in 2002, the USS Oscar Austin began a nighttime transit through the Skagerrak, a busy shipping lane connecting Norway, Denmark and Sweden, when disaster nearly struck. 

Retired U.S. Navy Capt. John Cordle was on the bridge navigating the ship. “It was a very narrow, confusing transit at night,” Cordle told The Huffington Post. Three Navy ships were following. 

It had been a long day. Cordle had pulled an all-nighter, working various shifts. That’s when he nearly caused a drowsy driving catastrophe that could have caused several naval vessels to collide. 

“I just sort of fell asleep standing up,” he admitted. 

Retired Adm. James G. Stavridis says these situations are unacceptable ? and all too common. 

“Sleep is a key part of the requirements for resilience and good decision-making,” Stavridis said in an interview.

“As people become more and more exhausted from a lack of sleep, they are prone to making the most costly mistakes imaginable,” he wrote in a Huffington Post blog post. “When a military officer makes a bad decision in combat, terrible consequences often unfold. People die, and they are often innocent civilians who die as a result of collateral damage from an attack of some kind, or they are the men and women working for the exhausted military officer whose judgment is impaired.”

Stavridis served four years as a NATO commander and was a top adviser to the Secretary of the Navy and the Secretary of Defense. He led Deep Blue, the strategic and tactical think tank the Navy created after Sept. 11. He has won dozens of military medals and awards, and even had one named after him.  

His reputation extends far beyond the military. He’s been cited as an innovator in evolving the military and an advocate for “soft power” approaches to foreign policy. Hillary Clinton even vetted the admiral as a possible running mate, The New York Times reported. 

In a 2012 TED Talk on global security, Stavridis called for “open-source security” and said it was more important to build bridges than walls. He even once advocated for creating a new branch of the military, the U.S. Cyber Force.

Suffice it to say, Stavridis is not afraid of questioning military status quo ? especially when it’s not working. And when it comes to sleep, he fears the worst.