understanding your question. if you're aware, psi is a policy assigned to by 90-plus some questions in the world. we don't have direct dialog with the peoples liberation army on this topic. there are some conversations ongoing at a state department level including china with respect to north korea and beyond that i'm better off not going into operational detail. thanks for the question. yes, ma'am? or i'm sorry. >> you could handle this, i think. >> yes, ma'am. >> admiral, nadia with the liberty times taiwan. during your tenure i think you had been trying to help taiwan and china do a dialog or build the confidence. you know the military confidence-building measure. i don't know, have you been able to accomplish anything? do you see the recent, you know,

redu]4%on of tension important or -- >> yeah, we certainly hope the reduction in tension is permanent. it's our profound hope as i suspect so too for prc and for taiwan. we have contributed some instructors for taiwan's annual exercise as you may know. we sent some well qualified military instructors. the fact that tension has been diffused if not eliminated across the straits has been encouraging. the steps taken between the prc and taiwan while some are pedestrian away sending exotic animals, pandas to zoos increased commercial traffic, making it easier to send mail back and forth across the strait -- each of these taken in and itself not a watershed

decision but all contributing to a sense of cooperation and collaboration that we find very encouraging across the strait. yes, ma'am. >> admiral, betty of the world judici journal. not too long ago it was hit by a sub and can you tell us what kind of sub it was and can you comment on the capabilities against conventional subs especially with aip capabilities. >> is that all you want to know? [laughter] >> let me take the mccain piece first. john mccain operating in international water the way we operate our navy operates around the world all the time. it was damaged. the investigations ongoing i don't know precisely why it was damaged so we'll find out perhaps in time. as for the united states pacific

commands, asw policy, we would -- i got to keep remembering the tapes are rolling. [laughter] >> we would like to have more than less submarines in the mask command air responsibility. now, the united states navy and the department of defense, they've together make decisions as to how they apportion those assets. we've got -- i think it's a 60/40 split pacific command and the admiral is shaking his head and the intel admiral is shaking his head, that's encouraging. we regard maritime -- freedom of access to the maritime domain as absolutely essential to everything we want to get done. all of us want to get done in the pacific command aor. so guaranteeing right of free passage to anybody that wants to in accordance in international law put containers on ships and move them we would support. those who would develop submarine technologies that might be used and capabilities

that might be used against to deny maritime access we would view with disfavor. so we want to be sure that we can provide adequate defense if we need to in the terms of our nuclear submarine force, the exercises we do with our friends and allies in the aor. there are 250-some submarines in our air responsibility. that's a pretty good number of subs of course not all of them are -- not many of them ours but a good number so we continued to pursue asw technology. we want to make sure that countries understand what we, united states of america, in the united pacific command can offer in terms of defense and the access of right of maritime domain and countries that run counter to that policy, we're going to work to overcome those developments. thanks. yes, ma'am. >> thank you so much for your

succinct remarks. my questions regard your remark of partnership and rightness. you mentioned conducting multilateral exercise with your regional partners. you have 36 aor members. my question is, a, do you have effective metrics to measure effectiveness of bilateral multilateral programs? and b, do you have any joint lessons on process to measure to those programs and plans? thank you. >> that's a great question. two great questions. the first one very tough. metrics -- in a way you end up trying to argue the negative. if we're not there, if we don't exercise on a bilateral basis or more importantly a multilateral basis -- if we don't, how do you know what might happen and might not happen?

i don't mean to be cute with semantics here. but we work hard to make sure that we are an invited guest everywhere we go in the area of responsibility. it is not just my luxury, pleasure but we haven't been turned down yet except in myanmar burma. we offered humanitarian assistance and disaster relief. we had 36-some helicopters in thailand and four ships as part of a coalition effort in the bay of bengal. we were able to fly out of rangoon but we could have done so much more so that's the one example i could think of where we were told no thanks. in every other -- in every other situation countries -- i go back to where i was a little while ago. we remain the indispensable partner. now we don't want to say this with chutzpah.

we want to be humble about this. we want to be invited to the best of my knowledge and recall, we have always -- an invitation tendered is one received. and that works both ways and the second part of your question was -- [inaudible] >> oh, yeah, thank you, joint lessons learned, you bet. here's an interesting, again, semantics, lessons observed aren't necessarily lessons learned. [laughter] >> so when we do have these exercises and we have cultural and language opportunities, shall we say, we want and try and skinny down to a couple real big hidden items that countries and young men and young women and old men and old women can understand, can embrace and can fix if necessary or pursue if desirable. so lessons concerned is a great big ticket item in the pacific command. lessons observed, volumes and volumes all of us have seen them on the books, on the shelves.

well, we're interested, we're not persuaded by those. we're interested and persuaded by lessons learned and we're working very hard with all the nations with whom we engaged to make them concrete, make them simple, and make them fixable. in the outyears. yes, sir. >> thank you, sir. i'm from the radio free asia. now, u.s. government keep watching the several north korea vessel right now, which are possibly carrying the weapon. so are you watching the north korean -- the vessel continuously onto to when and do you have a sense of it? and secondly in north korea's icbm's do you have any expectation of when the north korean launch icbm and are you ready about it? thank you. >> sure. [laughter] >> aren't we supposed to finish at 6:00?

please, this is a very serious situation. north korea's activities are very disturbing and unsettling to all of us. witnessing the united nations security council resolution. as far as shipment of proscribed cargo, i can't comment on operational matters like that or intelligence matters. our president has said he is satisfied that the pacific command, the military of the united states is well-prepared to execute whatever direction he give us. and you can read whatever or not you choose to read into that but that's where i'll have to leave it. as far as the launch from north korea, the recent launch following by a couple of years in july of 2006 launch, secretary of defense just said a couple of weeks ago -- i think

he said it very well we're prepared to protect americans and american property and american citizens and american territories. we don't want to tip our hand too much. we want to indicate specific areas of readiness or operational patterns but we're prepared to execute whatever direction the president and secretary give us with regard is to taopedong as well. yes, sir. thomas, how are you? good. >> it's tom chancre for the "new york times." i wanted to get your assessment of the joint operation task force operating in the philippines. >> yes, sir. >> what have been the positive take-aways and given the stress so soft forces by the surge that dare not call its name in afghanistan, do you think those forces should be sustained in the philippines, even grow or is it time for them to go home and let the filipinos take over. thank you. >> thanks, tom, for the question.

joint special forces philippines. we were to provide forces in conjunction with the united states special operations command to help the armed forces in the philippines in their struggle against violent extremism principally in the southern reaches of philippine country. we'd been there for about six years now, in some number. we've got -- i'll just say several hundred special operators there right now, tom, as you probably know. been there for a while. critical mission. helping significantly the armed forces of the philippines and our view go backs to the metrics question incidents of violence while there are still kidnappings we're not entirely sure they are terrorists. a little bit of a blurry line in some areas in the philippines between criminal activity and terrorist activity.

i was able to go with ambassador christie kinney who's a real dynamo and a great ambassador for our country on a trip to visit our personnel about a year ago. we flew down, helicoptered down, drove over -- it wasn't interstate 95 for better and worse it wasn't interstate 95. a little bit bumpy and about a four or five car convoy. escorted and followed by armed forces of the philippines and the marines. so we took this trip into the jungle and as we leave visible elements of civilization, electrical power wires, tv antennas and get into a little bit less opulent villages and isolated developments, young kids, 2, 3, 4, 5 years old running out and waving and applauding and jumping up and down and hollering in their native tongue what i'm told,

it's good to see you. this kind of support -- with their moms and dads back nodding approvingly. i saw this with my own eyes and i thought this is wonderful. this is terrific. ambassador kinney said two years ago, mom and dad would have pulled the kids back and they would have stayed well away from the street and if there had been any demonstration it would have been unfavorable. so i saw with my own eyes enthusiastic support from the citizens who had been previously terrorized by violent extremists. i believe we have made significant progress. it's a tough metric back to her question. we've got the guys there that we have there now, tom, we'll keep them there for the foreseeable future. it's a situation we analyze constantly with department of defense, department of state, international security council. we're there for the foreseeable future and i think that the

benefits we gain in spite of significant tension on special operation forces are important enough that we maintain our posture and presence in the southern philippines. sir? >> >> vice marshall mark harwood from the u.k. i want to know, sir, how you personally learn? do you read a lot? if so, what do you read? do you have smart guys who brief you all the time or do you just go in your presence where you see with your own eyes. how do you learn. >> i had the privilege of being surrounded by smart brilliant guys and girls. i've got -- this is going to be syrupy. i've got the best job in the world. think about it. i get to live in hawaii with my wife. [laughter] >> fabulous house.

i got a pretty nice -- i got -- my third grade english teacher would be disappointed in me. i have a nice airplane here that rarely takes off without me rarely being on it and generally goes where we like it to go. we've astounding support, personnel, administrative, logistics, equipment, pretty good funding. we could use a little bit more but we have pretty good funding. [laughter] >> i learn by listening. go back to him, go back to him, oliver, magnus -- many in the room, some names i don't recognize but faces i do. i try and keep my mouth closed and my ears opened. my wife would not necessarily agree but that's what i do all the time. it's the best job in the world. the staff is brilliant. we do such important work, and i think consequential work with our embassies.

i don't hang around in uniform. i talked to angrius houston and i talk to jock and i talk to our guys but we spend more time in our embassies. we're spending more time if we can with commercial partners, commercial interests. we spent a full day in india not in the ministry of defense or ministry of affairs but in lunches arranged by folks in the commercial sector. there's a pretty good exchange of ideas on those terms, and on those issues so i try and listen more, talk less and what the staff recommends is almost always spot-on and on those rare occasions when i just need to give a little tiny pull because the study i got was experience than masters. thank you for the question. yes, sir. >> admiral, chris with inside the pentagon. >> hi, chris. >> as the defense department

does its quaudrenle defense review what priorities are you advocating for? >> a quadrennial defense review we were just in town two weeks ago talking about this. it is an important effort as many of you know. i'm pleased to report that combatant commanders have a larger say-so than my experience in the past in this -- in the formulation of this quadrennial defense review. it's a huge challenge for the department. as you would anticipate. with a space review, a nuclear posture review ongoing and several other not to mention the annual budget challenges, opportunities, if you will. so it's a -- we're more active in the formulation of the review. you know, we submit an integrated priority list. i mean, this will be mind-numbing for a lot of you but an ipl and we have 10 items

on our integrated priority list. these are issues where we would prefer a little more funding a little more emphasis, a little more input or a little more output from the department of defense on those priority issues of ours and we submit them. of our 10, i can't go into them, they're classified. them 10 for 10 are being addressed in the quadrennial defense review. we think that is beneficial for us. now, you might say well, what are those 10 issues? again, i can't go into them. but if you were to think of areas where we might like because of the size of the aor, because of the various countries with whom we're exercising, that we might like -- you know, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities, for example. everybody wants more. so we're very happy with the role the combatant commanders have. formulation of the qdr.

it is a singly important document for us and we're cautiously optimistic that it will be not just a heavy tone that goes across the street to congress but it will actually have an impact on -- with congress and that the american people will be persuaded by the analysis. robert? >> admiral, great pleasure to see you again. >> good to see you again, bobby. >> a question -- i'll just use the framework of our strategic relationship with japan and japan looking into the future. >> uh-huh. >> two parts of this. first off, an initiative that defense policy realignment initiative another anachronism a series of plans that are basically restructured and somewhat dispersed our forces in the pacific although we did move some commands into the big

island. how do you see that change in our lay-down posture and how that affects our relationship with japan? >> uh-huh. >> so there's an a and the b is, as a subset of that, guam. guam is a little bit further east and a lot further south and it's going to be a challenging place not to train marines but for you and your successors to move them around. so could you talk about both of those? >> sure, it's a great question and one in which we're spending a not insignificant amount of time and effort. the defense policy review initiative and a subset of that, the aip plan, as you state the dpri isn't just guam. there are a number -- 18 other subsets of dpri all of which are in some process of execution now. we're going to take the navy air wing out of that and move them down. the japanese are building an

entirely new runway down there. you may have seen it before you left. we're shuffling around some army flags and some -- again, i don't mean to sound trivial. it's very important to us and to the japanese. we're combining with the japanese air self-defense force in our air force in japan to have a combined operation center which would be very important for us and so on and so sóon. all through those 18 other parts of the dpri. on track, generally well-funded and very beneficial to us across-the-board. and we believe to japan's self-defense forces. now, the area where everyone kind of -- they go yeah, well, what about guam? the previous administration, president bush, the current administration, president obama, secretaries of state and secretaries of defense from both administrations have reaffirmed our national commitment to get aip done. got it. loud and clear.

it's going to take some money. it's going to take some time. there is an understanding that just -- working inside the defense line at guam won't get -- defense line, inside the department of defense properties won't just get it done. there have to be structure in guam. those who have been the pleasure of going to guam understand it's a country of, i think, 175,000 people. we're going to move another 15 to 18,000 marines and independents down there. that's a 10% growth almost overnight. you know, you can't do that anywhere. without some infrastructure considerations and improvement. that means money and that takes time and there are labor costs. to go back to the marine corps who will move 8,000 other guys and girls down there. there are training issues attendant issue. i'm preaching to the choir, in okinawa don't get all the training done down there. aip is not without challenges. previous and current administration have expressed their clear commitment to get it done.

there is a new group working inside the pentagon that is at a little more senior level to those who were working very hard to get this done in year's past. we at pacific command are doing all that we can to support the department of defense and increasingly an inner agency look at the opportunities attendant to moving marines out of okinawa to guam. now you raise a point where guam is a little bit off the beaten path, yes and no. it's kind of wide open spaces down there and once we get through some of the environmental impact assessments, i think that we'll find -- i've deployed a bunch as walt said. i've been on a carrier once or twice. i've been flown a whole lot in that part of the southern pacific. perhaps you've been down there as well. great training opportunities. it's going to take a little while to get there. states of america nigh over guam. we can come in and out of anderson air force base, and as we develop it, we'll have more forces down there. it'll be a training center for us.

and we can move folks, granted, they're going to have to get on a ship or an airplane where they're going and we can do it without having to ask the host country permission because it's our country. it's a strategic imperative force and i think in time we'll find the money and get the infrastructure upgraded, improved to the point where we'll be happy once we're down there and our marine corps has said we're going to want every marine who goes there when i'm done with my tour i don't want to leave and guys who are outside of guam i want to go to guam because the quality of life, the housing, the infrastructure is the best in the world. we're hopeful. yes, sir. >> miles from the center for nonproliferation studies. >> hi, miles. >> thanks for coming, admiral. >> thank you. >> you mentioned the nuclear posture of you a little bit earlier and i was curious how you see that playing out in your

area of responsibility particularly given the president's call for a world free of nuclear weapons. and particular the question of dealing with japan and the question of sea launch cruise missiles and how you see that in carrying out that vision. >> thanks, miles. this is a, in my personal opinion and you might say well, what's the difference between a personal and professional? there really isn't any. [laughter] >> this is a great big deal for us, the united states of america, to review our nuclear posture as i move around the aor -- i mentioned we have been to 26, 27 countries out there. sooner or later, many of the folks with whom we have discussions will get around to asking, is your nuclear deterrent umbrella going to continue to extend over fill in

the blank country? so our capabilities in this area are not take it for granted all throughout our air responsibility. everywhere i go, sooner or later, not just in mil to mil. the conversation comes up and i say, you know, it's not mine to determine policy but it is my hope that our nuclear deterrent umbrella will continue to be effective and that probably means that we'll continue to extend over where in the world i happen to be. the nuclear posture view will be aggressive. the president has made clear certain aspects that he hopes to be addressed in the nuclear posture view and i'm certain the guys understand that. and the second part was japan and what was -- [inaudible] >> i'm unaware of specific

japanese interest in that particular system that you describe. i am aware, as i say, of japanese interest in the nuclear umbrella continuing to extend over japan. yes, ma'am? >> just as a follow-on to the question earlier about submarines as being critical to maintaining freedom of the seas. what about surface vessels? and do you -- would you like to see more of them in paycom? >> yes. >> okay. >> well -- >> go ahead. >> as part of that not just more but i'm curious to know what types or what capabilities in particular would you be looking for. >> it wasn't going to be a simple yes/no answer was it? let me go back to one of the elements of our strategy. presence. actually, all of them. i can make a case -- we have

made the case with cno with gary, a good and great friend. you know, quantity has a quality all its own. and for us in this -- in the broad regions of the pacific, it is very helpful to have a larger number of surface assets that we can deploy and remember what our partners say. we like to hang to hang around sometimes they don't know if we're 20, 200 miles beyond the horizon they are trust we are not within eyesight but we're nearby. there are advantages to that with some several countries in particular. so it is to the pacific command's benefit to have more than less ships. the more capable they are, the better because we will ask much of the crews on those ships as we hope to engage, demonstrate

readiness and enhance partnership the higher-end technical capabilities those ships have, the easier it is for us to assure the secretary of defense our ability to execute whatever operations he tell us to execute, whether it's united nations security council resolutions or it's a kid in high end but god forbid operation iraqi freedom and enduring freedom-type of military kinetic military operation. lots of ships are better than less ships. higher end capabilities are better than lower-end capabilities there is, of course, the issue of affordability. the dbg51 is a wonderful ship and if that's the way the navy wants to go, we're fine. we want our fair share, a little bit more than our fair share. >> before you take this question, admiral keating has been generous with his time i think we should take this