>> for more information about upcoming book fairs and festivals and watch previous festival coverage, click the book their staff on our website, booktv.org. good afternoon. there's a few instructions. if there's time at the end there will be questions and answers. if you would please go to the mic, i would appreciate it. i'm karen lloyd, director of the veterans history project at the library of congress.

[applause] >> we should say that because the real event is about to come up here. it's my distinct pleasure to introduce you to our next speaker, admiral james stavridis is a retired navy admiral who's calling the dean of the fletcher school of law and diplomacy at tufts university. he has commanded at all levels of the military to include commander, european command and the supreme allied commander europe. i can provide you with a long list of his military assignments but you have probably already looked him up on the internet. so instead i will share some nuggets that provide a better understanding of how his career places him at the book festival today. he is no stranger to books. he started his love of books while his son was stationed in greece in the early 60s. because there was no armed forces network television, he spend his time at the post library. i can totally relate to this.

my family was in france at the same time and my whole family, all seven kids, or over at the post library, too. what is striking to book lovers is that throughout his naval career, admiral stavridis published either articles or books at each successive rank to include midshipman. i suggest he would tell you to his favorite assignment was uss barry from 1993-1995. his first literary book destroyer captains was about this time as command of the uss barry. it came about a result of his daily journaling using a typewriter of all things. during his two and half years on board ship. the result was a compilation of a sense of wondering and sticks, all of which were intended to convey what was thymic command was successful, not every day was fabulous and the real point of life is not what you accomplish but rather what you overcome.

in his most recent book, "sea power", admiral stavridis uses his naval experience to guide us on a journey through the seats of the world. ihe asks us to consider the vale and the challenge from both a personal and an international economic system. the else's understand the significance of the control and power projection. he asked we be mindful of the geopolitics of the ocean while warning us not to over imagine the importance of her own small voyages on earth. please join me in welcoming a great friend of the library of congress, admiral james stavridis. [applause] >> thank you. and i'd very much appreciate everybody coming out on this drizzly day. it's kind of a mariners day out there i would say. normally when people hear that

marvelous biography introduction, thank you, karen, the first thing they say when they actually see me is, you know, i thought you would be taller than you appear to be. [laughing] what i like to do today is just show you a few images, and we can go to the first slide police. we are just going to talk about the oceans and we're going to take about 15 minutes and kind of walk through the oceans of the world. and then we'll consider in the second-50 minutes what we ought to do about it and what are the importance of these oceans. so let me begin with a line the british royal navy uses, which is that the sea is one year the sea is one, meaning that connects. most who don't spend a lot of time on the oceans, and i spent 37 years in the navy, 11 years

day for day on the deep ocean in that time, don't consider that 70% of the world is water. and by the way, 70% of your body is water, and 70% of the oxygen that you breathe comes from photosynthesis in the oceans. next slide, please. 95% of the world's trade, the lifeblood of the earth economy passes across those oceans on any given day, 50,000 ships at sea, three to 5 million mariners at sea. this is an extraordinary, complex ecosystem, both in the ecological since and the economic sense.

to give you one last image to hold in your head about the size of the oceans, consider this. you can take all of the land in the world and it would fit quite nicely inside the pacific ocean alone. so the seas are in many ways fundamental to the earth. well, let's get underway. let's start in the pacific. this is a 1589 antiquarian chart made by or tell us, a dutch cartographer. and you see the discontinuities and the misunderstandings of the outline of the pacific. but i would invite you to go back 4000 years before that chart was made. bottom right. the voyages of the polynesians who traversed six, seven, 8000

nautical miles three, 4000 years ago. these are ancient seas and none is more ancient than the pacific. in the american mental map of the pacific, this is what we tend to see, right? it's the second world war with a vast american armada sales across it by 1945. in this time we have more aircraft carriers than we had ships today. the sea is covered by the united states, and we still sort of see ourselves as a preeminent pacific maritime power. but let's look back at china's history in these seas. here are two vessels. the little one on the left, you recall from your grade school studies, then niño, the penta and the santa maria. the little one is a model of the santa maria. that christopher columbus sailed

in 1492 that massive ship behind it built in roughly the same time was the flagship of chinese admiral. it was as you can see ten times the size of these discoveries assailed from european waters. china has a deep and abiding history in the pacific, and that relationship, the maritime reach of the united states balanced with china's ancient sense of itself as a pacific power, is truly the leitmotif that place in the geopolitics of the pacific today. we see the chinese navy rising. it is reaching out. it is deploying. here's a chinese corvette arriving for a port call in pearl harbor hawaii.

china is also bringing its allies and coalition partners into the pacific. this is a chinese destroyer operating with a russian destroyer. now, the united states as terrific allies in the pacific. this is also part of our relationship set. this is prime minister shinzo abe, a reliable partner in the japanese navy is incredibly professional and capable. we also have excellent partners on the korean peninsula, south korea. together we have a challenge that is in many ways maritime. it's from north korea. this of course is kim jong-un, and he is well named. he is unpredictable. he is unstable. he's not irrational. he's got a really bad haircut. [laughing]

and the bad news is, he is developing intercontinental ballistic missiles. this will be at least in part i maritime challenge that we will face with our allies and partners, japan, south korea and others. and potentially a place with the u.s. and china could work together to solve the significant geopolitical challenge. so i will close on the pacific by just saying north korea, upper left, the rise of china, these are chinese ballistic missile submarines, 80% of the world's trade bottom right flows through the south china sea. china's construction of artificial islands in the pacific today, the western pacific, we see significant geopolitical competition. let's keep moving. let's go to the atlantic which

for centuries is been in many ways a transit zone. nobody from the united states inks of the north atlantic without recalling world war i and world war ii, the convoy operations. but again if you step back in history, it's the europeans, and particularly the iberian peninsula, was given us christopher columbus, prince henry the navigator. upper left is magellan who circumnavigated the world. bottom left, one less known, bartholomew diaz, the first european to sell into the indian ocean. these mariners from the iberian peninsula launched enormous voyages of discovery. and in that atlantic today the geopolitical challenge comes from russia. vladimir putin is increasing the scope and scale of the russian

maritime forces. and will continue to see challenges across the north atlantic, even as we do in the pacific. not insurmountable, not leading to another war but tension that will play out in this maritime sphere as we see russian frontline ships operating as here in the caribbean off our coast. let's move on. the third-largest ocean after the pacific and atlantic is this, the indian ocean, which begins to it the world stage ass a spice route, bottom left. today is increasingly a zone for everything from piracy off the coast of east africa, hydrocarbons, and he we see the interplay of india, a rising superpower in the century, with pakistan. that will, over the course of

the century drive geopolitics in the indian ocean. we see it today tactically in yemen, in the northern reaches of the indian ocean, and up into the persian gulf where the overlay of shia, that's the iranian flag, upper right, sunni, that's the saudi flag, bottom left, played out in the waters around that arabian peninsula with our greatest ally in the region israel, parked in the middle of that zone. so the geopolitical challenges here will continue. and, of course, we need to recall that iran is an indian ocean power. on the right you see the modern flag of iran. they do on the upper left of the battle flags of cyrus the magnificent and darius the great. the green on the lower chart was the persian empire. the irene empire at its greatest

extent. note all of the coastline. again we will see geopolitics playing out in the indian ocean as well. let's go to the mediterranean sea when many of you have sailed on very benign cruises i imagine in the summer of life and i did a wonderful one, two summers ago but let me tell you something very somber about the mediterranean sea. if i could snap my fingers and bring back to life every sunken warship and every mariner who died in maritime combat in the mediterranean sea, you could walk across that ocean. it is an enormous zone of war. a highlight battle if you will if there's such a thing was a battle of the ponto, the high water mark of an islamic drive in the seas off italy against a

holholy roman empire in the 15 '70s. what's the situation today? it's the eastern mediterranean where we see geopolitics most at play. we see great powers, the united states and russia on opposite sides in the conflict in syria. we see enormous turbulence throughout the levant, and it leads to this. a maritime challenge. 2 million refugees over the last three years, this eastern mediterranean will be a zone of challenge if not conflict, and also because under the eastern mediterranean is an enormous treasure trove of hydrocarbons, oil, natural gas, disputed among the nation's in that region. so the medi mediterranean will challenge us as well. let's come a little closer to home, the caribbean sea was once the vast waterway across which

the spanish galleons moved the treasures of the americas. today, bottom left, panama canal was the beating heart of the u.s. economy as trade goods flow back and forth. and it's challenged. it's not geopolitical challenge nation on nation, but it narcotics. it's gangs. it's natural disasters. it's refugees here as well. all of it leads to significant maritime activity by our coast guard working together with the navy, law enforcement of course taking the lead. let's go to the top of the world, the arctic. this is uss jeannette. it was the ship sent to the arctic in the 1870s when many cartographers, geographers still had a theory that the top of the world had a hidden temperate zone in it.

this is just over 100 years ago. the u.s. it should not try to get to the ice, was frozen in place. many of his crew died. today the arctic is little less icy. here's a newsflash. global warming is real. the ice is melting and is going to open that northern trade route, increase geopolitical competition, uncover hydrocarbons. on one site is russia, on the other side are five nato nations took the arctic has never seen war. it will be our challenge to ensure that we can continue to say that as the century unfolds. if we are able to say it it will be the result of the work of organizations like this, the arctic council which brings together russia and nato, one of the few places we have a coherent conversation at the moment.

the united states needs to up its again. i'm showing a picture of the one operational icebreaker, the u.s. has. denmark, a nation of 5 million, operates six icebreakers. we need to improve ourselves in this zone. so those are the oceans, not if i could for one moment i'll just address the challenges broadly on all the oceans. because the sea is one. fishing, illegal fishing, one fish and five, on the ocean of the world is caught illegally. fish stocks declining. probably 50% over the last 40 years. thithis is a multi-multi billion dollars business, and it is exacerbated by piracy and illegality. additionally, again, global warming is going to change the oceans and attack the ability to

conduct the photosynthesis for the oxygen we breathe. with apologies to former vice president al gore who has often said the lungs of the earth are the amazon, they contribute. the lungs of the earth are the oceans. so that's a quick, a very quick voyage around the world. as a right about now you want to be saying, okay, admiral, a lot of challenges out there, what do you think? what should we do about it? what can we do about it? what are the opportunities to engage in this maritime world? this is really what the book "sea power" is about. what are the strategic ideas for the 21st century for our nation, and for the world, in engaging? let me bring you a quick shot from the game of thrones picked if you would want a maritime

strategist, is -- and said build me 1000 chips and i will give you this world. we do need to be capable mariners but how do we do that? i'm going to start with this. we ought to listen better. we ought to listen more to the oceans themselves, to their health. whawent to listen to our alliesd partners. we ought to listen to our opponents. this by the way is not photoshop. thithis is a belgian air defense system from about 80 years ago. it's not still in operation. [laughing] he's listening for incoming aircraft. it's quite innovative but i put it here force as metaphor. we need to listen more. we need to do exactly what you doing here at this marvelous book festival,,, listen to ideas, challenge ideas. this is the naval war college in newport rhode island, a center

will be take a break from the day to day not only listening but studying, reading, writing, publishing. what else can we do for the oceans? we can hold on to our values. we can hold on to our values. they come to us from the ancient greek, socrates, from the ancient eastern asians. that's the buddha to our founding fathers, upper left, the enlightenment, voltaire, too principled leaders like angela merkel. we need to work together with democracy, liberty, freedom of speech, those values will help us in the oceans. we need to work with partners. the united states should not become the world's maritime policeman. we should be maritime coalitio coalitions. these are french special forces capturing somali pirates. they have flown from a danish

warship. they refueled from an italian frigate. they operate under the surveillance of a portuguese maritime patrol aircraft, u.s. intelligence from satellites. these kind of multinational coalitions to create security and environmental improvement are vital. alliances and coalitions. our allies can help us in things like freedom of navigation challenges. we need to do more of this as well from the sea. as i look at the tragedy unfolding in houston, i'm so proud of the u.s. navy sending to massive ships, a big deck amphibious carrier, a large landing ship dock. right behind them potential bigots in a hospital ship. when i was commander of southern command before being the nato commander, i deployed in this hospital ships routinely throughout the caribbean, latin america. my counterpart indo-pacific does

the same. this kind of humanitarian work from the sea is part of our ability to leverage the synergy of the ocean. we need new partners. i would focus in the century on india which will be a rising maritime power. with exercises every year with india, japan and the united states. and we need to work jointly within our own military, our marines, our coast guard, our navy working together. within the context that i've laid out here of international interagency private-public, all of that allows us to interact, for example, with the international maritime organization, to work with private sector maritime entities. entities. bluewater metrics, a small company that uses commercial

shipping to measure the oceans health. it's a powerful, private, public connected idea. we need conversations at all levels about the oceans, and we need to read more about the sea and that's why i'm so happy to see so many people turn out to a talk about the oceans. and it can be fiction. if you never read nicholas, the cruel sea, get up now, leave, go read it. it's such a fabulous book. we should understand the maritime thinkers like chester nimitz. we should understand that the battles, the hinges of history like jet linda, the rules of the game. and understand that as we look back to the fish of the world, so often the big doors swing on small hinges. and so often those small hinges

are maritime battles. trafalgar saves the brits. they stop islam. jet linda preserves the british fleet in world war i. midway is the resurgence for america. these maritime battles matter and we need to understand the impact on the oceans. i will wrap up now and love to take a couple questions or comments. i talked a lot about the oceans and you also find in this book a very personal story of my time at sea. many, many years at sea. and the seas can be terrible and challenging, and things go wrong. and over the last 60 days, we have seen two u.s. navy

destroyers in terrible collisions, 17 sailors dead. two but that in perspective for you, tragically, we've lost in afghanistan this year 11 soldiers. in the last couple of months we lost 17 of our finest sailors at sea. the oceans will challenge us, and that's part of sea power as well. but i will say this. i loved being a sailor. i loved my time of the ocean. it's the ultimate office with a view. i hope you take some time to get into seapower and learn more about the history, the geopolitics and what it's like to sail these oceans. thank you very, very much. thank you for coming out. thank you. thank you. [applause] >> i think it can go back and forth. let's start over here.

[inaudible] >> so appreciate the chance to hear you speak today. i'm working on a project i know illegal on -- unregulated fishing -- [inaudible] you talk about fishing in regards to ocean health. wonder if you'd comment -- >> i can. i have a piece coming out in op-ed called the coming war for fish. it sounds absurd, doesn't it, that we would get in the war about fish. but the conflict is growing, i . particularly to the south china sea where china has a massive fishing fleet that is encroaching. we can look in the north atlantic. we see partners that are traditionally very close come to violent ends overfishing violations. we see indonesia blowing up illegal fishing craft.

more and more we'll see wars over fish. just as in the past we've seen wars over land, water, oil. this is a war of a protein and it is increasingly the principal source of protein around the world. so think of it in the context of oil or water or another resource. to counter it we need international interagency private-public, the things i've talked about, but we're going to need robust cooperation between not just the navy's of the world but the coast guard of the world as well. it's a big topic. thank you for raising it. >> i served a couple years in the active navy, but what i'm wondering about has to do with these accidents, so-called, about the people getting killed, ships getting hit on the side

bigger doesn't seem to me that people who are too many the ships don't know what they're doing. i don't believe that. so can you give us an idea why these things are happening? >> i can. first of all, jim, i had the same reaction you did that it just seems beyond a possible coincidence that two navy destroyers would be hit and have that kind of tragic loss of life over such a short period of time. the navy is conducting incredibly thorough investigations and they will look at any possibility for a cyber intrusion or an act of deliberate collision. i think that's unlikely. more likely, i'll give you five things and i'm going to do them fast, bad leadership on the individual ship. the captain might be a terrific mariner but he or she might be someone that is office of the deck is afraid to call, got a

temper, bad environment on the bridge, possibly to number two, equipment. all those writers i could be working? are the early warning system built into them. number three, training. are we pushing are people too fast to hit career wickets and not giving them enough time in the basics of seamanship and navigation? number four, up-tempo, operational tempo. for those particular ships driven too hard? with people not getting rest? you would never want an airline captain driving you who have not received his or her mandatory eight-hour rest. unfortunately, i can assure you that those bridge watch standards are not getting that eight hours of rest. and fifth and finally, i would say number of ships and u.s. navy. we need 350. 350. ever responsible analyst agrees on that. we have 270. the ships are being pushed hard.

it won't be any one of those but my bet is it will be a combination of them. thank you. yes, sir. >> good afternoon. i read a new chapter on the indian ocean about how you see the east as a currently embroiled cold war. so why do you consider it cold and what would it take to turn that? >> great question, daniel. as i was writing the book about a year ago it seemed a little cooler than it does now. the cold war analogy in the book comes from the shia and sunni tension which is religious of course in character. i delayed by a geopolitical tension between persian and arab those of you, most of you are christian, so we've seen this movie before in the christian faith. it was called the wars of the reformation, the 1500s, catholics and protestants with

an overlay of the geopolitics, spanish empire, british. one-third of europe's population is skilled. it lasted 100-150 years. no historical analogy is perfect, but that one kind of rings the bell and the war is getting hotter, not cooler. thanks. yes, sir. >> my name is jack. i've recently recommended a book by a former sub commander u.s. navy called blind man's bluff. i found it a great read. the question is, is a chapter still be written under your scenario for the american submarine forces, and as a part of our triangular strategy, the national defense? >> the subsurface world will continue to be absolutely

crucial, and the tension there is whether or not at some point there would be a technology that effectively renders the oceans transparent to overhead sensors. thus far, submarines are able to continue to be very well hidden. as long as that is the case, i think they will be in the end a preeminent platform of war. it hurts me to say that as the destroyer officer. if i were an 88 would really, really hurt me to say it. about the carriers. but submarines, because of their cloak of invisibility, until that is pure, the will be at the center of our strategy. that's why it's important that we build them come invest in those technologies, and secondly a final point, our allies operate submarines effectively as well as we do on diesels in

close. so when you can marry, which we don't do, so when you can marry at the allied diesel capability to the u.s. nuclear capability, that's a very potent ability to control the seas and project power. >> my father is an army but i still appreciated hearing you speak. [laughing] >> thank you. >> a lot of what we've been reading and hearing, north korea is said to be an air force more of the land-based conflict but you discovered as a maritime one. i wanted you can expand on that? >> it is particularly maritime from the defensive perspective of the united states and our allies. ajmer just seen over the weekend, north korea launched a missile over japan. the ability to knock down those long-range missiles which is really what w we're worried abot with north korea, in the macro sense, much of the would be based on destroyers operating at

sea with the aegis system. secondly, if come at a advocate this, i don't think there's a good military option against north korea, but if we are forced to take one, the ability to control those ocean approaches to north korea and to cut off their ability to come out after our aircraft carriers will be crucial because our land-based air on the korean peninsula will be highly at risk. those aircraft carriers which can move 1000 miles a day operates 75 attack aircraft, our nuclear power don't need to be refueled, that kind of capability at its mobility around the peninsula will be crucial. i don't mean to say that the efforts of the army and air force are not can be critical as well. again, big doors swing on small hinges. i think the maritime part of this both defensively and offensively from the carriers will be crucial. thanks for that.

yes, sir. hey, master chief. [inaudible] >> i've written quite a bit on south china sea especially as it applies with the u.n. conventional, which if you could touch upon the u.s. -- >> i can. so get a vote on the same sheet. the south china sea, big body of water, think gulf of mexico. china claims it as a territorial sea. they say that we own the entire body of water. they show us a dashed line. we on everything inside. we own all the hydrocarbons. they are territorial seas so we will control the shipping and we will simply annexed it big it would be as note the united states simply declared the gulf of mexico where a u.s. territorial sea. it is a preposterous claim. it is gone to the international

court. it's been soundly rejected. china continues to front this claim in, supported by building artificial islands and saying that's china's territory. that's chinese territory. that's chinese territory. they are playing a long game, master chief, and their hope is that over time will simply become tired of the challenge. if i were a china strategist i would do exactly the same thing, lie. because what china does not have, or hydrocarbons. china needs those. it's part of the long-range plan. so i don't think we're going to go to work about this pic i think we're going to charlton on the high seas, one hour per point over the artificial islands, steam our ships to their territorial sea and will continue to make the case under international law and the united nations convention on the law of the sea that we are observing

and enforcing customary international law, as described by the international courts. i think if we stay in the game and stay serious, we will avoid a real confrontation. if we back down, we will regret that in the long throw of our nation's history. yes, sir. >> it seems like even amongst naval officers the awareness or general understanding of seapower and naval power comes and goes whatever, and major book was written -- [inaudible] or something tragic happens. what can we do to maintain a common awareness consistently about seapower? >> good question from someone named minerva which of course picks up on athena, the goddess

of wisdom. i do want to stipulate that the world preeminent lawyer probably up here in history, the great strategist, stavridis, down here. but i'll take your point of how do we maintain a level of knowledge and understanding. the and is the old-fashioned way which is education. it means in our rotc programs at the naval academy, even at officer candidate school when we take graduates from universities, we need to ensure that we are not only covering administration and inspections and all the important things we want a young officer to know, but also our history and why strategy matters. that blog into the educational process for a naval officer needs to occur really at every

step -- plug. when you go through were college in her late 30s and even in executive education programs like we run up at tufts, the fletcher school over at the kennedy school, there is no simple easy way to do this other than education. yes, sir. [inaudible] >> my grandfather was in the u.s. navy as war. he said if you want a fight, join the army. my question, two points are chinese -- issues. first of all, they have built an open source, these kind of ports that we see in japan from the u.s. fleet and that you mock attacks on them, you know, the japanese attack on pearl harbor. secondly, they seemed to be building ports all over the world especially for example, pakistan.

karachi port is at 50% capacity yet their building one right next door. of course the indians are thinking from the indian navy, this is going to be a direct -- how do you deal with these kind of issues? >> let me add one to your lady which is a very good one, china is also building a massive overseas military base in djibouti. in the second chart i should do with chokepoints you will find very much this program in fact, they are using the playbook right in front of us. so the answer is when you want to do with the network you have to have a strong network. so we need to leverage our starkest comparative advantage which is our allies, partners and friends. this is why india, particularly this alignment of the united states, india and japan is so very powerful. so the short answer is, they're going to go a network. we need to maintain and

strengthen our network. i would argue back to values, our democratic alignment with nato, with japan, with australia gives us a much bigger pool of partners and china will enjoy. i think we have time for one more year and one more there. >> thank you very much. i'm a retired air force officer, and i first wanted to thank you for your amazing contribution to your service to this country and your comments on -- [inaudible] >> my real question was come you served conge conversation of st, vis-à-vis the chinese in the south china sea. two observations if i may. as an air force guy, the picture just before your naval war college photograph, just before the naval war college photograph that was, in fact, dash and were college in the background? >> it looks like you. it's actually not. i've got a serious research on

this. go ahead and ask a question. >> the word about count is you married about three levels above your authorized paygrade. >> don't we all? [laughing] >> of may 2 that because your wonderful wife, laura, our children preschool and i want to equally thank laura for that. >> very kind. thank you very much. thank you. [applause] >> young lady, you're the last question. >> i heard you said nato countries and russia need to work together to combat global warming. is nato hurting us in the suspect? >> i think that's a true the question by the way. i think that nato is helping because it creates an alignment of nations who share fundamental values as we talked about. secondly, nato helps us because the nato nations together have 52% of the world's gdp. so they have enormous economic capability to address these

kinds of challenges. thirdly, nato provides a forum, place where these nations can gather and discuss crucial issues to include the security challenges that come from environmental degradation. so i would argue nato is a force for good, a multiplier effect would be if we could condense our russian counterparts if you will to join at least in that conversation. we may continue to disagree with russia on syria and ukraine and cyber but telling not agree on the challenges to the environment into the ocean? i think there's at least a chance of that, and in that sense i think nato is a force for good. let me close by saying thank you all for coming out today, for thinking about the oceans, and for supporting this incredible festival, the national book festival. it's an honor to be here.

thank you very much. [applause[applause][inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> booktv is on twitter and facebook, and we want to hear from you. ..