>> maybe -- i want to let a n you have -- >> the one to address the government's. .. to global zero in terms of policy or purely political obstacles?

>> well, you know, there are potentially a lot of obstacles. but i think what is encouraging to me, if i can turn your question around, is if you had asked me this question five years ago, i would have -- i wouldn't have thought that global zero was a realistic solution. because of the number of obstacles, the most important one probably is bureaucratic inertia. we have -- we have national security establishments around the world that have grown used to living with and managing nuclear weapons. what i notice and i'd like to say it's as an american i'd like to say it's because of changing attitudes here but it's not just changing attitudes here. it's changing attitudes in many

places. it is fascinating, though, in the united states that last year we had a presidential election where not only barack obama talked about the elimination of all nuclear weapons but people forget his republican opponent, john mccain, talked about nuclear reductions and john mccain recently reendorsed that as a goal. i think that's also true in russia. the fact that -- i know there were people who were skeptical about the possibility of getting the russian leadership to sign up to this as a goal but they have done so. so i think -- we're at one of these inflection points where i think people's minds are being changed. what we have to do is take advantage of that and come up with a serious plan for how you

would achieve that. it's great when people, i think, feel a need for change. but you've got to -- you've got to -- you've got to then give people a roadmap, a credible plan for how to undertake that change in a way -- in a way that nobody runs any undue security risks and that's critical. and so it's not just the nuclear countries but it's other countries as well that we have to take their interests into account and fashioning a plan like this. and the ambassador would like to to add something. >> i just want to emphasize that i hope has already been admitted, where there has been a whole history of idealistic

approach of war and weapons, i would share that end result. we are very conscience and for that has been talked about and the hope and belief by eliminating nuclear weapons we can eliminate clashes of national interest. there was clashes of national interest before the nuclear weapons were introduced and no doubt until mankind changes there will be in the future. our only concern is that the added dimension of danger which nuclear weapons were introducing, people thought they were an asset to the pursuit of their national interest. we're now at a stage where it is such a grave danger to the whole world that we're trying to eliminate one aspect of

international conflict or the means of enforcing your will in international conflicts. it is not our expectation that we can eliminate conflicts as such. >> thank you very much. [applause] >> i want to thank all our commissioners and have a quick announcement for any journalists who would like -- who have scheduled interviews to happen at this point. our commissioners are going to be going through this historic year in the chandelier room which is a big space where we have divided up four sections where sitdown tv or print interviews can take place. try to listen carefully to this because these are the four locations. one corner in the chandelier is corner a which is marked. the other corner is corner b. this is corner c. and then out here will also be

corner d. the first news agencies scheduled to interview folks -- >> how is c-span funded? >> publicly funded? >> donations maybe? i have no idea. >> government? >> c-span gets its funding through the taxes. >> federal funding. >> a public funding thing. >> maybe, i don't know. >> how is c-span funded? 30 years ago america's cable companies created c-span as a public service, a private business initiative, no government mandate, no government money.

>> we were hoping to have live coverage of the chairman of the federal energy regulatory commission. jon wellinghoff was supposed to talk to reporters this hour and he's taken ill and cancelled the event. we'll feature the head of the u.s. southern command. admiral timothy keating discussnary's nuclear test and missile launches and the threats they may pose to the asian pacific region from the atlantic council of the united states, this is about an hour. >> this is terrific. more stars and bars in this room than we usually have. ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the atlantic council i'm fred kemp president and ceo and welcome to this evening's commander series with the commander of the united states pacific command admiral timothy keating. i know many of you have attended our commander series on a regular basis. let me just say a couple of words about what this series has

been about. we have created with this and i must say it's one of the most popular things we have introduced a public platform for senior u.s. and global leaders to share their views with the washington audience. the programs become an authoritative opportunity for military leaders to shape the security debate in washington and beyond. since the beginning of this series, we've had the commanders of uconm, northcom and two of the most recent commanders in afghanistan. it's a flagship program for the atlantic council and i want to think saab, ab and the ambassador, a board member of the atlantic council for the support of this series. i'm also delighted with the turnout today which says a lot as well about the popularity of the series now. admiral, i do have to mention one thing.

some people ask me why is the atlantic council floating its boat in the pacific? the answer is pretty simple. it's a matter of history. it's a matter of mission. and it's a matter of reality. there was before the war a very famous ambassador by the name of u. alexis johnson, quite legendary ambassador to japan. after the war when the atlantic council was founded he was one of the founders. he and dean atchison another one of the founders were very clear that the world was round. and that the atlantic council had to recognize that much earlier than most transatlantic organizations. so that's the history. number two, there's the mission. the mission of the atlantic council's renewing the atlantic community for 21st century global challenges. it's why we've had a long successful asian program for many years directed by ban and garrett. recently opened up a south asian center and our launching a center for atlantic african

partnership. this evening is under the international security program of the director damon wilson. and there's the reality. take a look at the situation now. nato reaching out to develop its global partnerships with japan, australia, south korea. asian powers playing a key role in stabilizing afghanistan. the u.s. and e.u. working together to engage china and india on global climate change. the g20 bringing together key asian and european partners to address the global financial crisis. north korea -- i don't have to say much about the. security developments in the pacific such as the development of long-range ballistic missiles impact the debate on missiles in europe. i think this link has been apparent since the u.s. entered world war ii in europe after the attack in the pacific so, admiral, the atlantic council will continue to float its boat as well in the pacific. i now want to turn the podium

over to the honorable walt slocombe the vice chair of the atlantic council and former undersecretary of defense for policy. he's going to#9 introduce our speaker and will later moderate the q & a session. walt, who's now with kaplan and drysdale is -- and this is not an overuse of the word, a pillar of the atlantic council. he provides me and the rest of our leadership strategic advice as well as sound legal advice. i am still free walking around and have not yet been incarcerated. that's all because of walt slocombe. walt, i'm grateful for your service and we're delighted to have such a distinguished former pentagon official moderate this evening's discussion. [applause] >> thanks, fred. it's a great honor to be asked to introduce admiral keating. he has that kind of resume that mere mortals only dream of. he graduated from the naval

academy in 1971. shortly thereafter, began a distinguished career as a naval aviator. the most impressive thing is not the stripes on his sleeve or the stars if he were wearing a slightly different uniform, he has carried out 1200 arrested landings on aircraft carriers. he was the deputy commander of an air wing during the first gulf war and he was the commander during the second gulf war. he's had the duty of occasional penance working in washington in a variety of jobs i have the honor and pleasure of working with him when he was the deputy j3 during the '90s. and he then became after his service in connection with he became the director of the joint staff, which is the critical position as i'm sure most of you

know in making that remarkable organization work as well as it does and thanks to his efforts and the efforts of a lot of other people and to goldwater-nichols law. he was then commander -- he's had two -- i still call them syncs jobs, two commanders and as all know 'cause you wouldn't be here otherwise, he's the commander of the pacific command. it's a real pleasure to have the opportunity to hear his insights into the military and indeed the larger american strategic role in that critical part of the world. admiral keating, welcome to the atlantic council and thank you for doing this. [applause] >> thank you all for this great opportunity.

a couple of words by preamble. i had the distinction of working for then-undersecretary defense walt slocombe for a while as he mentioned. and few officials in my experience have had more consequential impact on what the department of defense does, did, and is doing than walt slocombe. he was usdp for a long time in my humble opinion did a magnificent job and it's my honor, privilege to be standing in front of you having been introduced by -- i mean, who would have thunk back then we would be standing here today. to fred, thank you. oh, in fairness, i have to point out -- that was a great introduction. and i'm grateful. but it's not the best introduction i've ever had. [laughter] >> it was good. it was very good. and it was accurate. the best introduction i ever had

was of a much smaller group in a rotary group in florida where the masters of ceremonies asked me to introduce myself. [laughter] >> that's the best. we've got some -- while it's the atlantic council we have the appropriate visual aid here and i'd like to start with that, if i can, and i'm cutting some of you guys out, to describe the pacific command aor, area of responsibility. i'll work hard to keep acronyms down to a minimum but it's in our vernacular, as you know. so we have the north pole, we have the south pole. we have alaska, california. we have the east coast of africa. that is the pacific command area of responsibility. it's a -- it's 50% of the surface of the earth for what it's worth, about 51% of the world's population. we've got a number of pretty large armies, china -- we have responsibility for the eastern part of -- some responsibilities for the eastern part of russia so china's army, russia's army,

north korea's army, india's army, our army, our armed forces, pretty consequential. there's significant economic activity out here. about $1 trillion, a trillion bucks of our trade comes from countries in our air of responsibility. 20 of the largest ports in the world, 15 of them of those 20, 15 are in aor, 9 of them, 9 of the largest ports in the world are now in the people's republic of china and the world's busiest port in shanghai. it's a dynamic breathing place in which we have the privilege of working and conducting our business. about a year ago, we decided to rewrite our strategy. we'd been in the pacific, the pacific command, for decades. the guns have largely been silent in our area of responsibility. for that we are grateful and it

is no accident and it is due to several in the room including walt slocombe and general brent scowcroft. but we wanted to take what got us where we are and try and catapult it 5, 10, 20 years in the future. it's a dynamic aor as we described, the economic engine is churning. there are opportunities and challenges aplenty out there. if you think about the countries in our air responsibility -- and we'll walk around here in just a minute, but if you think about them and realize how much room there is for growth, how much opportunity there is for in some cases adventurism or korea in some cases bad behavior but in many more cases than not, cooperating and collaborating to ensure more peace and more stability in the region, that's why we chose to undertake the process of writing a new strategy for united states pacific command based a lot on what we saw in the rear view mirror but trying as i say to look 5, 10, 20 years down the road, an ambitious undertaking.

we came down it three basic tenets of our new strategy. partnership, i'll talk about each of them in a minute. partnership, readiness, and presence. pretty simple, complex, simple to explain, not so easy to execute. partnership, we're convinced, we're convinced that building upon the very strong bilateral relationships and alliances we have in our aor -- we have five treaties, australia, thailand, the philippines, south korea and japan. a majority of our country's treaties involve countries in our aor so we build on those long-standing some of them decades old bilateral relationships to weave a fabric that has included as its threads multilateral engagement and not just mill to mill. increasingly, we see opportunities for including elements across the dime, if you will, diplomatic intelligence,

military, and energy and environment. so we're looking to cobble all this together in an increasingly tightly woven fabric that emphasizes multilateralism and i'll show -- i'll try to cite some examples in just a minute and the ability we have as the predominant military power in the region to provide some guidance of leadership to these countries in air responsibility. some examples, india, once upon a time, prior to my work with walt, i was the flag lieutenant here's a terming cinkpak and in the mid-80s and we made a visit to the india.

the cink had high expectations and they were pretty unfulfilled. the reception we got was a little chilly. the engagements on a policy level were not very forthcoming. the hospitality was cordial but not overflowing and the old man left less happy than we'd like to be generally. we went to india a second time a couple of weeks ago. much different visit, much different country. we got there on the last day of their elections. it is an amazing process. some of you may have had the good fortune of watching india's national elections. some call it the greatest show on earth. folks were flocking to the televisions and in numbers that were somewhat unusual to us glued to the big screen tvs. their government today is more willing to talk about engagement and partnership with the united states than they were in the mid-'80s. they are exercising with us on a much more robust basis. we just concluded a trilateral

exercise, unthinkable in the '80s, japan, united states, india in the sea of japan and it was a fairly spirited, high-end technical exercise if you will where we weren't just doing division tactics we were exercising weapons and techniques and procedures that are pretty high end. two years ago, india participated in a five-way exercise and including u.s., japan, singapore, and australia. unthinkable in the mid-'80s and it's now a matter of course with india so we think that this is a great example of partnership and the benefits we can all derive from increased dialog, increased cooperation and increased understanding what we are all about in aor. readiness. it doesn't do us any good to have all manner of forces that can't get out there and exercise, that cannot get out there to respond to military operational directives from the president of the united states to provide assistance to

countries who don't quite have all these resident capabilities and to get out there and exercise with them. as an example, cobra gold, some may have participated in cobra gold in exercise. this is an exercise in thailand held every year. this year five countries involved, ten countries as observers. ten countries india and prc included sent observers to watch chips, soldiers, sailors, coast guardman to have a live field exercise in a dynamic vibrant way and it concluded with shifting from war-fighting if you will or exercising the capability and hope we don't have to do it but exercising the capability shifting over to humanitarian assistance, disaster relief and united nations peacekeeping operations. so it started out fairly aggressive and ended up not just peacemaking but peacekeeping all under the umbrella of exercise cobra gold. we're in our 35th year never had participation been more vigorous and more spirited. so that's the readiness piece.

it is essential for us to be able to field forces that can move out and exercise across the full spectrum in a military operational capabilities that you would expect. the third, is the presence. junior officers in our headquarters say it this way. virtual presence equals absolute absence. we're all used to the wonders of video teleconferences and multiple secure telephone calls and all that. you got to get out there. you got to get out there real boot dirt. you got to get honest to goodness grime underneath your fingernails and work with the folks in this very large area of responsibility so that they can develop an intense understanding of what we the united states of america offer. 36 countries in our air responsibility. we've been to 28 or 29.

some like japan we've been there 10 times. interestingly we got to burma and myanmar and offered humanitarian assistance and they essentially turned us down which is a tragedy. at any rate, 27 countries we visited an unmistakable, un relenting theme but with senior defense officials, senior government officials and commercial partners and commercial interests everywhere we go. unmistakable theme. you, the united states of america, are the indispensable partner. we don't necessarily want you with us every minute of every day in our country, on our soil, in our water or in the air overhead, but we'd like you nearby. we want you to be able to come when we need you. we want to exercise operate -- we want our young men and women to go to school with you. preferably in the united states, and we like our young men and women to go to school there.

admiral walt doran attended the indian military academy years ago and he still cites that as one of the great reasons for the success he enjoyed in our particular air responsibility. so partnership, absolutely essential. readiness, we've got to be out there, presence, you can't do it virtually. you've got to be able to deploy, fly, steam, sail, get to however you can and operate with these folks so that they develop the understanding of what we the united states of america offer them. and through all of this, the new strategy we hope builds an easy -- i'm sorry, a simple but not easy way to ensure peace and stability in the region. we remain the indispensable partner, the reliable partner the country upon which all of these folks can depend to respond in times good and bad without a whole lot of commotion so as to ensure economic stability throughout the region. thanks for your attention this evening and i'd be delighted through walt's good graces to

try and answer any questions that you might have. [applause] >> thank you. >> admiral, i think that's a terrific overview of what you're trying to do and i'm sure it stimulated lots of questions and lots of interest. so let's start -- admiral? how do you do, sir? >> would you comment on china and psi and then maybe the other end of the spectrum, humanitarian assistance operations with china. >> a couple of examples. thanks for the question. a couple of examples to maybe take it in reverse order. china had a cold snap january of 2008. you may remember the pictures in the paper where there were

400,000 people stranded at the railyard, a staggering number of people. we got on the phone, called our chinese counterparts, if you will, and said, we'd be happy to help and they said, we're grateful for the offer. we were loading up two t17s and this isn't a ton -- well, it's several tons of stuff, actually. [laughter] >> out of hickam air force base in hawaii. this is in response to cold weather disaster. cold weather challenge. a c17 out of hickam and a c17 out of elemendorf. they launched inside 48 hours we're unloading their gear with the chinese two-star to say you thank you very much for the assistance. now, at the same time china mobilized their army in a manner that is a little unusual for them, i think, but very helpful to the people. the second example is the earthquake several months

thereafter. same phone call, same guy on china's end. he'd say well, we're grateful for the offer. we'd be -- we're thankful for the help. two more c17s go in and unless you've dealt with earthquakes you don't necessarily think about what do you need in case of an earthquake? chainsaws, water, food, and plastic sheeting. plastic sheeting was in short supply. plastic sheeting -- i got to be careful -- plastic sheeting shortage, i'll get in trouble there. but again, the chinese were grateful for the assistance. we landed, we offloaded, we took off. so in those two cases, offers of humanitarian assistance were readily and warmly received. at the same time, we right now -- michelle flournoy has just returned from visit from the peoples republic of china where we had every information where we've been able to get

talks back on track they were suspended by our announcement in 2008. we think they're back on track. there's a schedule for mill to mill dialog she arranged with a chinese colleague and we hope it leads an increase in the dialog and in an improvement in the relationship between specific command and our counterparts in the peoples liberation army and increased understanding and cooperation on a much larger scale. so that's a long answer to a short question. we provided humanitarian assistance disaster relief and we're hoping for more fruitful relations with chinese in the military. the security initiative, we are prepared, when directed, to respond to guidance from the secretary and the president in enforcing united nations security council resolutions and this is a