debate. i'm happy we're having this conversation. and i'm confident that whatever policy that we end up coming out with at the end of this process will be stronger because it is one that wasn't formed simply within the four walls of cloudflare, but was formed through a thoughtful discussion with legislators both in the united states and abroad, law enforcement officials, civil society organizations, internet publishers, internet consumers, other internet companies. and together, hopefully, we come up with what is a set of policies and what is really a social contract that makes sense and that helps us understand as a society where are the maces where we want -- places where we want content to be controlled and the places we don't think it's appropriate. >> host: matthew prince is the ceo of cloudflare, and he's been our guest this week on "the communicators". >> guest: thank you.

.. the podium here and it is important that we use those the people can use your questions and also people can hear your questions, which is important. so i thank you for that i also ask for your forbearance to ask a question and get to the question because we have a lot of folks here today. it is now my honor to introduce our first speaker, our keynote speaker, mr. richard b. spencer comes with a 76 secretary of the navy. he is a proud veteran of the u.s. marine corps. he served on active duty at the helicopter pilot.

the flu age 46 is before the party for the private sector and working on wall street on wall street peace or percentage director for the financial management firm in his help on several corporate historical and veterans boards to include the marine corps heritage foundation , defense business board and chief of naval operations executive panel. let's give a warm welcome first time you spoken to enable astute audience to the honorable richard b. spencer. [applause] >> it's a pleasure to be here. there's some familiar faces in the audience and familiar faces as i look across as we are out this weekend at the reagan national defense forum and for those of you in the audience who might not have been there or had the chance to see the live

version on television, which if you were watching that, i suggest you find a life, you should know better inside watching television it was timely topics. i want to thank you call for her asking me to come and address this. i sincerely mean it, a gust group. the honorable bob work on my way in standing up straight because of the 4000-pound rucksack he was smiling happy. it's great to see him in great to see all of you. it's interesting times we are living in as the chinese fortune cookie always says. i would like to address with this group who i know in looking here, you have been enduring endorsers of national security and personal advocates for strong navy marine corps team.

i want to kind of a kind of address my thoughts on how we are going to take this institution going forward. i will pause and give you an update right now. saturday started out to be a good week in the pentagon, which doesn't mean that will keep on the same trajectory, but today is in a state because i swore that if undersecretary of the navy thomas mobley. tomorrow i get to swear in james hondo group is the assistant secretary for rdna and may think we are really putting meat on a frame that will carry the organization forward in a very positive to read. i think one of the first things we do when we address the topic of national security and acknowledge that we are a commercial nation. we are a maritime nation. we benefit from the use. we benefit from the sea lanes open for commerce and really

protect there. we have a responsibility to provide security and contribute to the collective safety and stability of the global nation not only for ourselves, not for our allies. it is not only the right thing to do, but as you all know, it's in our best interest to do it also. an overarching theme to american naval policy has always been freedom of system to support the open robust trade amongst nations. threatens the global stability with our notion and purpose have freedom essays at risk. and that we cannot abide. united states navy marine corps team as you all know is forward deployed around the world for the preservation of global stability. their presence is a deterrence to potential adversaries in every assurance of our allies, whether it be the green suit said the navy on shore, whether

it be the gray ships in the harbor presence provides stability. it's my job to make sure naval forces have the same for no longer in the sharper is better. the navy marine corps team needs to be ready to fight tonight and win. that is easy enough to say, but clearly it is a challenge to do and i must be blunt here. we have readiness issues in both the navy and marine corps. we are getting that done. we have a ways to go. yet despite the challenges we are facing, i am confident we will successfully tackle every single issue and right the ship. we are going to utilize the aid of some outstanding problem solvers we have within the organization and we are going to tasks and problem solvers from outside the organization. our seventh fleet forces are under the microscope right now and rightfully so.

the cns comprehensive review is an example of leadership and problem solving from within an organization will be done with focus. it has given us a deeper insight into the systemic issues and provided us a way forward to address the shortfalls that receive. my strategic readiness review has enlisted the outside aid that i just mentioned. it's still forthcoming, but we are looking at everything and i mean looking at everything from top to have the joint chiefs task our organization to goldwater-nichols and the fleet forces structure as you're well aware a multitude of obstacles in our path both current and emerging. let's go over some just to refresh your memory. framing issues born of the budget control act and continuing resolutions have taken a toll on readiness, and maintenance cycle can also cost us time and resources that we cannot hide back.

the infrastructure needed to grow in support of the refit and repair our fleet as you well know are showing signs of strain sand are woefully underfunded. technological leaps have put new affordable capabilities in the hands of our adversaries appeared a number of these adversaries have begun demonstrating renewed aggression that we have not seen in some time. these points are simply the basis for the environments in which we operate. so in the challenging world, how can we maintain our advantage? the key is to maintain focus on mission with three priorities in mind. people, capabilities and process. people our greatest asset. we don't win without them and we need to keep the winners that we have. we need to recruit, train, and power the subject matter expert and hold these people

accountable. our ships, planes, submarines, vehicles, all just hunks of metal. they can't do much without the human interface. many sailors and marines to bring them to life. our sailors and marines our sons and daughters at the desk in the world that what they do. they are all volunteers and if given wholly of themselves to ensure we at home can enjoy the freedoms that we sometimes take for granted. they are hearing the reinforcing message every single day now that they are our warriors then that is their job. they deserve the right you can leave the platforms to deliver the fight tonight. i'm dedicated to ensuring our people, our people, and these were fighters get the capabilities that they need. i'm also dedicated to ensuring our servicemembers ensuring our service members and civilian teammates receive the best training because its well-trained people that will employ their gear and extract

capabilities in the most efficient than effect of manners. we must foster an environment where our sailors and marines are given the choice and pots to challenge them and give them a career path that will keep them in organization. we need to ensure that our people have the professional and educational opportunities they need to grow as leaders and critical thinkers. we must also ensure families of loved ones who sailors and marines are taking care of. this families are entrusting us with the lab to their house band, wives, sons, daughters, brothers and sisters in the center were fighters over the end, they need to be sure their loved ones are being taken care of at home so they can develop their focus towards the mission. what are sailors and marines can focus 100% of their focus on the mission, they will be able to effectively apply war fighting capabilities whenever and

wherever they are needed. which leads to my second priority. getting the right capabilities into the hands of our sailors and marines. you all know our sailors and marines are the best in class and they deserve the best in class. they deserve it in a timely manner. to that end, directed and acquisition team to do their part in expediting research, development and acquisition process. our technological advantages are real. those advantages are diminishing. you can be sure there's some countries announced a result they're working hard to bridge these technological jobs and that is why my goal is to never send our troops into a fair fight. i learned from the world of business when you are facing competition, you need to have the resources and processes in place to compete and win and to stay ahead of the competition at

all times. when you take your hand off the throttle that he competition begins to close. it's bad enough but when the stakes here as you well know are much, much higher. i can assure you that near peer potential adversaries are just treading water. they are spending the money needed to develop the lethal capabilities that will challenge ours and they have a pat in many cases is much more expeditious than ours. fear not, we will answer this challenge. we must respond i'm all for a good internal research and development, rapid prototyping, accelerated learning and getting the capability or people need. i'm talking about true partnership. we talk about it this weekend by reagan based upon the concept of shared risk will yield shared

benefits. the u.s. government can be the only entity when it comes to acquisition that takes all the risk for the majority of risk. they must back to a true understanding of partnership with our industrial base that we can have a sustainable acquisition price for not a transaction oriented process that simply grinds down to the lowest common denominator. this is a partnership where we provide industry a clear line of sight to her needs and we must provide them a clear line of sight to a resources so they can invest in the necessary research and development and provide solutions to our challenge. the challenges we have in the navy marine corps team site or a mass and there's no relief we have all the resources we need. we must leverage every single aspect we have and as i said, that is both internal and

external partnerships. we must do this all the while by making sure we don't squander their resources of our taxpayers. the partnership i am talking about requires that we be a responsible customer to industry and frankly that is something we have room to improve upon. we can start by focusing on our third priority and that is process. to meet the threats of today and tomorrow, we must perform our processes. we've been talking about this for decades. we actually are starting to move the needle sometimes that means joining the teleservices to meet a common goal. the partnership is an example with the united states coast guard as they begin the acquisition process for polar ice break where we combine the best part is his. the navy knows how to build ships. so does the coast guard. we knows how to build large s.

bishops and we are teaming up to see how we can provide the best solution for her sister surveys. the navy will benefit. the coast guard will benefit. the taxpayer will benefit. we have a long way to go. we appreciate past congressional authorities for block in multiyear buys and we continued to use those to fund our programs. tools like these help us balance the economies of scale by ensuring the industrial base. the base at the end of the day provides us our capabilities. i also appreciate the bipartisan congressional advocacy in designing a 355 ship navy s. law. it's not the ships we talk about growing the fleet. implement the decision to wrap

loosely provided by congress with a fleet of the united states navy. as he pressed forward, and committed to expanding the fleet on the sea, under the sea and into the air do we have to lay the foundation for the growth. we must ensure the health of the defense industry workforce are in place. large capital investments need to be made today to build a fleet of tomorrow and to maintain that fleet the way that we should. so those that have these assets in future years have the capability to fight. i can't say exactly what the maritime fleet will look like in 20 to 25 years, but i can tell you it won't exist unless we get serious about providing the funding needed to build those capabilities today. we can't buy back time if we don't invest for the future we will be in a corner that will be tough to extract ourselves from.

the bottom-line ladies and gentlemen, urgency is the battle cry. in addition to efforts of congress reaching out to our industry partners to spur his industries. wherever this challenge someone else is almost certainly addressed it, whether directly or tangentially. and that they have inside on what works. we are looking for the best practices. the best practices that people have gone through similar situations. i found out just by reaching out by talking about her issues produces amazing feedback from outside the building and from some of the most unlikely places you can imagine. we'll see about forthcoming in the strategic review we are going to roll out in a week and a half. we've already reached out to industry leaders to learn how they have improved safety and i'm confident. i truly am confident after

seeing these people is what they've contributed that we will gain some valuable insight and improve our culture as we move down the road to work for a sustainable readiness. so what is needed? we need the right processes in place to recruit, train, equip and organizer people in a sustainable, responsible manner, giving them the capability to win anytime anywhere. the challenge may see daunting to want but i see opportunity. opportunity to enhance our partnerships that we just discussed. an opportunity to innovate and do we have any readers. the opportunity to lead and there's the opportunity to properly address what has been the most harmful entitlement to reaching our goal. the budget control act and continuing resolutions we've seen and will continue to be incredibly harmful unless we address this as soon as

possible. across the department of the navy, roughly $4 billion since 2011 and we have put $4 billion in a trash can come up with lighter fluid on top of it and burned it. $4 million as you know i can see a come if you're snoozing i can't tell what you're thinking. for billions enough, to destroyers. 3000 harpoon missiles. think about some of this. 2000 tactical tomahawk missiles. enough money that can bias the additional capacity and capability that we need. instead the $4 billion of taxpayers money was lost because of inefficiency of the ways of the continuing resolution. each member of our all volunteer force makes a promise to protect our nation from harm and to give their full measure to do so. it is time for a nation and congress to keep the same

promise to them by secretary amanda says that our nation can afford survival. another continuing resolution is a broken promise and one more chip away at our ability to survive. in closing i want to thank you offer the opportunity to stand in front of you and i'm going to stop bloviating and take questions from the floor because that is where we find the most interesting things to talk about. open the microphones. thank you. compaq >> good morning, mr. secretary. christological were for group now. this economic and national defense for them the commander of the u.s. strategic command general hate said when he was growing up he aspire to be a colonel program for a not a general because he had the

responsibility and authority to deliver products and processes to the war fighter. when the lieutenant want to be the kernels again that is when we will have things ready. how do u.s. secretary plan to fix the bureaucracy the war fighters deal with day in and day out whether that's in the fleet at the pentagon to ensure they grow up wanting to be commanders and not to say the admirals and secretaries. >> is a timely question because there's a couple things going on here. it is an alarming rate but the fact that there is one or two of these events relate to shot me completely. there are officers that are asking not to take command. that they would rather take another path and take command. when i was in the marine corps in front of me i'd rather not

take command. in a strategic review we are looking at.my. we have to provide and we will provide to actually progress will we be able to do it in four years. we are going to set sail to try to do it. we have to try to do it. one example that someone asked me this weekend was give me some context for this. here is a fine example. when i flew to battle fraud.

you couldn't tune in to an army frequency. talk about the center of excellence. we are such a center of excellence we couldn't speak to anyone else because we never thought they were that excellent. we have now gone and we tried to prime the pump to join. we had to set up the joint command. we had everyone to think about doing. it is now in our dna. can we now say okay, we have the understanding of joint in early dna stage and now we don't have to have as many as we have now? that might be one avenue we might have to look out for going back to providing the environment and the tools to extract the best from our people is something we will have to do. it's a valid question and we are focusing on it. >> mr. secretary. berman pulled mark.

today i believe the navy a short about 3000 enlisted men and women. in that context, the economy is improving. unemployment is down. we see him go through each ship type. the last 2530 years there's been no reduction in crew requirements. tumbleweed man a fleet of 275 ships. >> another timely question. should use you guys as my road. i will answer that question by backing in the something else. i think it was 20 times, ms. secretary gates i was brought in by michael barrett to secretary gates office to get an assignment for what the defense business might be working on and he turned around and all of a sudden since i was sitting mayor with my mouth shut, i got

assigned with modernizing military commerce issue in the department of defense education. at that point he asked, his chief of staff to get a kevlar vest and sends him on his way. we simply started the discussion, which is that the defense business board does so well. we started on military kermit. and now you have to live with this theme. now you have to walk out the door much more easily. i turn around and say good on a because came on. we will have to work to make it more advantageous and more challenging and more desirable

to be an enable enterprise than be without the door by competition. we're not going to win 100% of the time but will make an effort by the changes we're talking about here in the previously asked questions to make those people want to stay. that is part 1. hard to the question you asked what the economy bubbling along as it is, how are we going to find these people? three weeks ago i got an update on how we are recruiting. both navy and marine corps are doing well. if we have this urge right now, there may be some problems. the economy is strong to grow 3000, and you easily be able to do that. we also have to address? yes we do. if you look at the lcs, which i'd like to stop right now and talk about the lcs. the conversation change, it was

atrocious acquisition process according to everybody who wants to comment on it. you can take either side of the argument. that defines someone on the pro side, but the fact of the matter is we are now getting feedback from the fleet and commanders who are using these platforms and it is good feedback. god bless the as you do know is structured for a more efficient crew. we have charred doing that going forward. for legacy platforms where some of them in it, but this is how we enhance the capabilities of the assets on board to lighten the load. we have challenges. my only other point to the personal question is we have to be very careful the personnel. they are the most expensive asset we have. when you truly competed the lifecycle cost of the uniformed

career member, it is a very expensive proposition . right now, roughly 50% of my budget. and it's increasing. the great people who serve. that's the way we have to look at this and take this on as a positive challenge. they truly believe it is a positive challenge. >> lieutenant chris o'keefe, terminal attendant in the navy. so i have three sisters and lock three sisters in law, wife and brother-in-law in the navy as well. as we listen to conversations about the strategic review in the investigations, we see conversations happening and we don't see the inquiry is happening at our level, nor explorations aleutians at our

level and there is an element of cynicism that starts to set in when that happens. i wondered in your review process, how are you ensuring that maybe doesn't matter. digging down to get down to ensure that feedback that exists at the lower level is reaching higher levels unfiltered because there's partnership, not a confrontational way, that people are generally interested in collaborating. ..

there's some immediate tactical things we're starting to do. having the conversation is definitely what we have to do. my whole concept of people that i said earlier, who better to find a solution to a problem than the person facing off on the problem? someone the other day asked me what my job is as secretary of the navy. in a sense it's the hat to man, equip, train and deliver, but my true job is to clear maneuvering paths for those people who have solutions for problems. we have to engage in the conversation. the strategic review is going to be just that, it's more of a strategic level to have conversations about actual fixing that are going to take a cultural shift or big process adjustments. the cr is out there tactically working and you'll see it start in the 7th fleet and it has, obviously, overlays for the

whole fleet and marine corps, by the way, this is not just a navy issue. if i have to bring up an example how we're attacking this on a different way, one of the people who ened up contributing up some incredible insight was boeing. not aviation safety. this was boeing, by self-admission, they were the kings of making aircraft and knowing how to produce them. and the way you go from ten a month to 15 a month is make the people work faster, and harder, and all of a sudden, their industrial accident rate just started increasing dramatically. they said, whoa, stop. and they did quite a big review and they brought a couple of people on from the outside, and they did a multitude of immediate tactical changes to how people worked on the floor itself, but here was the cultural shift that they made. you will rarely see the word

safety in a boeing plant. the word is respect. and the concept is, john, i respect you. what are you doing on my floor without your safety glasses on? if you get hurt, you're off the team and you're not producing. i need you to produce. i respect you, please put your safety glasses on. having been at aviation safety officer in the marine corps, i can tell you that our concept back then was the bigger you painted the safety sign, the more you were all into safety. there was no correlation, actually, as to how you rolled it out. that's the kind of change that we're talking about, just to give you a feel and that's the kind of conversation we need to have, but i agree with you 100%. we have little time to let this languish on the shelf. the can and do loop has to be tighter. >> good morning, mr. secretary. my name is alicia elliott. i'm serving headquarters marine corps at the pentagon.

>> thank you. >> my previous job was out at 7th fleet at staff and the incidences that have happened hit close to home. my question is, having worked in the portion of scheduling in 7th fleet, how do we expect to meet the operational tempo in 7th fleet, but also meet our readiness metrics? because, the schedule is so hectic and changing, but we also want to be a responsible partner to our japanese allies and our sailors getting them ready for the fight. >> look it, not lost on anyone in the crowd. the navy-marine corps team is based for action. sitting around and waiting is not something that we enjoy doing. also, this organization finds it hard to reach into the bag to find the word, no, i can't do that. but, we have to come to a balance. we have to start weighing in a new word, which is sustainable.

we have to have sustainable readiness and sustainable operational tempo. you heard me, i think, earlier when we talked about the strategic review addressing how the vice chiefs task us. the fact of the matter remains, it's somewhat rhythmatic, capacity to do what we can do. it's hook's law, it's somewhat elastic, but you're going to reach a tension point where the object cannot go back to its original form. that's what we're dealing with-- you keep spreading. i can use tons of analogieanalo you spread the mayonnaise thinly, and you won't have it on the toast anymore. is it a pleasant answer? no, we'd like to fill all tasks that we're required to do, but

this is where we're going to have to work in teamwork to increase our capacity to fill the bill. we're in a-- we are on the back side of the power curve, but we're coming over the peak. we have work to do. i'll be the first to admit this and this is what we're working on right now. >> mr. secretary, jeff with military times. the leonard scandal keeps reverberating through the active and retired ranks of leadership. in your time here so far, have you been able to glean any systemic causes of this scandal that, you know, kind of keeps grabbing more and more leadership or do you view it as, you know, a failure of 7th fleet leadership or navy leadership at that time and it just filtered down? curious kind of what your take is on this whole issue. >> yeah, my take right now is that, is the pig is through the python. we've processed through and

we're seeing-- you saw that i issued a secretary of the navy letter censure last week and i think we're going to-- we're seeing the process do its job, but to answer your question, yeah, i'm concerned. i'm concerned across the board. when i see packages come across my desk asking for exceptions on retirement, seeing actions that were unbecoming of an officer or enlisted person, but yet the board of inquiry says, let him go with full-- let he or she go with full ruffles and flourishes, i have a problem with that. we have to make sure that every decision we make when we're making a decision for the naval enterprise supports and enhances the brand equity of this organization. we have a trust that is given to us by the american taxpayer

and the american citizen. if that corrodes or goes off center, i can't even imagine what the path is to bring it back on center and one of the messages that we are getting out to the navy, marine corps team is when you are making decisions, whether in uniform or at home going down to 7-eleven to pick up a quart of milk, think about the decisions you're making and what it does to your organization. it's that simple, in some ways, but it's that expansive because in today's world, with today's media, everything you do represents the united states marine corps and the united states navy. and we have to get that message through. it is something we are definitely focusing on and the message is loud and clear. the irony, not lost on anyone in this room, which, i will be the first one to say this is quite frustrating, is when you cross the line from leadership

to undue command influence, and it's something that we have to really work on and it's something that we have to tell the american public so they understand, and we don't have some people in the middle interpreting it for them. yes, sir. >> coast guard reserve retired. sir, we've been at war my entire career, if you really want to go back to 1990. we have some of the best people that we spend a lot of time and money, as you have stated, into training. yet, they leave early and we lose them. given the cost, given the ramifications of losing that expertise and not having an available to us, why are we continually decreasing the reserve side and why have we not further looked at the

congressional on retired reserve, letting at that door swing both ways. as you say, we get the bet from both worlds, they can go out, go to corporate, learn something and come back with maybe some ideas outside the box without it being detrimental to their career. we need to really change that. >> i love softball questions or statements. that's not just the navy, marine corps team doing that, that's coming down from secretary mattis. the citizen soldiery, the reserves are an absolute integral part of the war fighting nature that we have. the institution has proven itself the last 16 years, seamlessly. as we go forward and we look at the challenges that we have and let's address-- i mean, all of them count, but i'll address cyber as a blatantly obvious problem at that we're looking at. you really do have to have a revolving door and the reserve

component fits this argument to a tee. because if you're going to come in and help us with cyber, you have to remain current. i'd actually love for the ability and so would secretary mattis, for at that door to be swinging so our experts can go back out to the private sector and become current and come back in, but you can overlay that to almost every single talent that we have, whether the coast guard, the marine corps and/or the navy and that's actually being addressed actively as we speak, starting with cyber, but there's no reason that's not a best practice that can be put down to every single mos or speci specialspecia specialty. >> mr. secretary, tim oliver. one aspect seems to be there's multi-generational families into the military. and the question is about any of the separation from our general population. what are your thoughts? >> yeah, a lot of thoughts there.

hailing from wyoming, i'm a firm believer that everybody ought to serve their country in some capacity. and it doesn't have to be in the department of defense. it can be in the post office, it can be at the department of the interior, but as i used to listen to my father, who was a pt boat commander over in the pacific, he said it was fascinating. it's when harvard met iowa. it's when washington met florida. this country had a fabric back then that was intertwined tightly and it superceded socioeconomics, and superceded economic interplay. it's when america-- are we getting polarized because only 1% serve right now? and are' right within that 1%, only 40% are legacy. i don't know what i can do as far as the navy alone is concerned.

i actually, i'd like to put a footnote on the fact that it's an all volunteer service. it's an all recruited service. and that-- we have to watch out when we walk away from the word volunteer. and we start getting to all recruited because we start encroaching on professionalism. i don't mean that that everyone's not a professional, but all of a sudden we're getting a dna strain of professional warriors and are we actually taking from the american public and have a full span of appreciation for what we do? ins a problem. i don't have an answer for this. i have an observation and i share your concerns. but on the other hand, if i'm to be completely selfish, i love the people that we're getting because they understand the commitment. they understand the fabric. they understand their duty, going in the door right away. so, if i was to say a glass half full to that, they certainly are stellar

contributors to our effort. >> last question, i guess. >> sir, john retired navy captain. on the panel today, went to dinner with two cohorts and we're two defense contractors. two things struck me, we're all kind of working on some of the same things, but we're coming at it from very different perspectives and very different backgrounds and solutions. at some point an rft comes out and we retreat to our corners and compete against each other, one will win and the other walks away with nothing and i wonder if your process for acquisition, is there a way to get away from the winner take all prospect of things? >> i -- as i stated this weekend, i'm an unapologetic free capitalist, and at the same time i have an appreciation for the industrial base. in the private sector, it's-- it leans more towards winner

takes all as competition although you can have an is second best product if you put lipstick on it, you can also sell it. but when it comes to the question you're talking about, we have to think about this. because one of the feedback we got, we had a panel out in california that was fascinating. it was wall street's impact on the department of defense, and it was all based on capital and the flow of capital for the industrial base and benefits and problems that lie therein and two of the feedbacks were, let me back up and give you the 30,000-- but when i was once talking, i was complaining about the industrial system and how the quicks process a really quite painful. he said, richard, remember one thing, you're dealing with a capitalist free market environment. they are simply mirroring the system that they see and they

will capitalize on it, it's human behavior. so we have to change the system that we have. and in that, the question was how can you provide compensation for those taking risk? and what i mean by that is you might all attack a solution from different angles and to be very frank with you, that's what i want. i want the most robust, torqued, tested idea, competitive produced idea that i can get and only one person probably will win. but that doesn't mean that i shouldn't keep score and if, in fact, you have a stronger suit somewhere else, with a requireme requirement. filling the need of a requirement that i have, consideration ought to be taking place. i'm not saying you strip away competition, i'm saying there's an understanding. this is done in -- this is done in corporate america all the time it's called strategic sources when, in fact, you have those around you that provide

solutions on a regular basis that you can say, okay, we're going to have a sustainable relationship. you're not going to continue every single one, but you'll have a sustainable market acceptable return so you can go to the capital markets, assess the capital you need to provide me solutions. [applause] >> thank you very much. >> mr. secretary, thank you for your time. we know it's precious. i have for you a naval institute press book, tale of two navies which compares and contrasts the u.s. navy vis-a-vis the world navy and appreciate your time very much. >> thank you very much. [applaus [applause] >> all right. well, we're on track and we're going to keep rolling.

so it's now my pleasure to introduce our next speaker, bob werk. he was the 31st secretary of defense and he served under three dinner defense secretaries across two administrations. previously, he was the ceo of the center for new american security and from 2009-2013 served as undersecretary of the navy. he served 27 years on active duty as a marine officer in a wide range of positions, including command of an artillery battery, an artillery battalion. a member of the naval institute since 1974. so let's give a warm naval institute welcome. [applaus [applause]

>> well, good morning, everyone. just give me a second to get ready here. well, thank you for the introduction and i just want to say, as pete said, i've been a member of the u.s. naval institute since 1974. it's a wonderful, wonderful organization and i'm very, very honored and pleased to be here today. i'm going to be a little pugnacious and channel my inner marine and i don't know if the slides are available, but if you could pop them up. are they up? i can't see. let me just start by saying, look, what we have here is rising global threats. what does it take to win? in my view, it's very, very simple. the department of the navy, as well as the entire department of defense has to say and devote itself to one thing and one thing only, to be prepared

and ready and there's a difference between the two. i'll explain during my talk. i guess, i have to advance them. a-ha! technologically challenged. we have to be prepared and ready to fight and win our nation's wars, period! that's it. it's not a -- it's not a mystery. from the top down, every single person in the organization has to ask itself, am i prepared and is my organization ready to fight and win tomorrow? and if the answer is no, they better damn well be working on it. now, what motivates me is, i always think of the united states navy, 1898 to 1942, a 44-year period of peace, where the flights never fought

another near peer. in the midst of that there was a military technical revolution, but despite 44 years of peace, the united states navy shifted into war time mode immediately after one of the most grievous defeats they ever suffered and within six months had won one of the greatest naval battles in history. how did they do it? they were a peace time navy. they had collisions, nimitz actually ran aground. so, how did the navy prepare itself and be ready? now, i marked the end of the cold war on may 12th, 1989. that's the day that bush the elder said at a speech at texas a & m, the cold war was over and containment would no longer define the way the department of defense creates its program and budget. so, even though the berlin wall didn't fall for another six

months, or five or so months, and even though the soviet union didn't implode for another several years, from the department of defense perspective, that was the day the cold war ended. 2017, 28 years, every single '06 and below has known an entire period of peace. so what do we have to do as an organization to prepare them and for our forces to be ready to shift to war time mode immediately? so, what is the first thing we have to do? we have to unlearn the lessons of the post-cold war era. they are a drag on all of our thinking and we'd better just flush it down the toilet of history and start looking to the future to decide how we're going to work as an organization, not to the past. now, the post-cold war era was -- it's impossible, almost impossible to think of a period

that was so strategically favorable to the united states. i would argue that those 25 years could arguably be the most favorable period of time for any state since the era started. there was uncontested u.s. supremacy. in 1984 when you add up of the allies and the u.s.'s economic and military potential, which are the two primary means to measure hard power, over 70% of both economic and military output from the united states and its allies. there was an absent of great power competition. the soviet union imploded, china had not yet risen. the only thing that the united states was faced with a bunch of regional pygmies we could crush anytime we wished.

the famous lead of history occurred and democracy was on the march. generally, when you look at this period we had good multi-lateral cooperation on almost anything that had to do with global disorder. so, again, every '06 and below, every navy captain and marine colonel and below has lived in these circumstances by and large. now, all good things must come to an end. the post-cold war era ended. if it didn't end in 2008, i'll talk about that in a second, it definitely ended by 2014, that's when china began the serious dredging in the sea. and russia and crimea. and the destabilization in eastern ukraine. both of those marked the activities of great powers trying to secure their near

abroads. you can make the case that the era actually ended in 2008 when the global economic crisis occurred, the west was greviously hurt. china not so much and in 2008, russia fought a war with georgia, signaling to nato that you will not go any further in teams of nato expansion. whether it was a 20 or 25-year period we can argue, makes no difference. it was a coherent, strategic period with these very favorable characteristics. the next 20, 25 years we can't know for certain what the future will bring, but we are absolutely certain that it's going to be a lot more difficult strategically for the united states than the last 20 to 25 years were. so, any new strategy and any institutional attempt to get ready for global threats in the future must account for an

erosion of u.s. and western primacy. the united states is still the preeminent national power in the world. it's the single most powerful nation, but relatively speaking the u.s. and its allies, hard power is declining in a relative sense, especially against our great power competitors. and believe me, i think you all know, we are back to great power competition with a vengeance. a declining russia, a rising china, both meet the definition of a great power, and that automatically requires us to raise our strategic game. don't discount the ideological competition that's now unfolding as part of this great power competition. we fought the cold war to make the world safe for democracy. russia and china are competing with the u.s. to make the world safer authoritarianism.

the great democratic tie that started in the '90s has peaked and is receding, and both china and russia are doing everything they can to empower authoritarians around the world. we need to get after that. there's been a general intensification of global disorder and a pronounced uncertainty in everybody, both our friends, allies, and rivals on the willingness and the staying power of the west, to actually protect what they fought so hard during the cold war and in the post cold war period to build. the quote at the bottom, it stays, the current international environment, essential elements are in flux simultaneously, was actually written in 1989 by henry kissinger. those of you who say, oh, this is the most dangerous period in 70 years, i would say that's the height of concretconceit.

i would say talk to the people around the cuban missile crisis and berlin airlift, all the crisis that occurred. i went to spain in 1965 as a young kid. my dad was based in spain, was there for three years at the marine barracks and went to vietnam for two. i left in '65, everyone was there wearing hair as short as this and came back in 1970, the year after kent state at university of illinois, if i walked down the street in my rotc uniform, i would have something thrown at me or i would be confronted. we talk about how our nation is kind of in a hyper partisan kind of bowed-- wow, look, i will exchange today for that period anytime. so, yes, it is dangerous, but it's not the most dangerous, but it is very, very chaotic. so we need to unlearn the

lessons of the post-cold war because almost none of this em apply anymore. and we have to prepare for at least seven big national security challenges. i don't have time to go over every single one. if you'd like to talk to them in the question and answer period, let me go down them because it's quite a daunting list. we have to compete with great powers while avoiding great power war. we haven't had a great power war in 70 years, that's a good thing to keep. that's a nice record to keep going so we don't want to have another great power war for another 70 years or beyond. we're going to turn and respond to all means of strategic attack. we still have to worry about nuclear attack on the homeland so we have to have a strong defense deterrent. we have to worry about strategic countervalue cyber attacks. cyber attacks after our

electrical grid or agricultural grid ap we have to be powered for that and we have to be prepared for potentially over the next 20 to 25 years although it's a horrible thing to think about, population genomic attacks. attacks of genomic weapons designed to go after specific traits of human beings. we have to contend with minor-- i mean, nuclear armed minor powers. look, dprk is a declared nuclear power. pakistan is an unstable power that has a nuclear weapon. dprk, north korea, of course, is a hostile power. we have to worry about what are our allies thinking about extended deterrents. where does it go in we've got to get that right or we could see a big breakout as nations

pursue their own independent nuclear deterrent. and we have to restore conventional overmatch. look, i disagree with the secretary. we're at parity right now in guided munitions, battle network warfare with both russia and china. if we went to war with them, it would be one of the toughest wars we ever faced. go back to 1944-45, when the u.s. fleet was off shore and within range of an enormous volume of guided missile strikes, kamikaze. 5,000 sailors died, 368 ships were damaged. that is what we are faced with in spades. so we have to restore our conventional overmatch. we have to operate a newly or hotly contested operational demand. everybody knows about space, it's no longer a sanctuary.

everybody knows about cyberspace. some argue you ought to separate cyberspace and electromagnetic spectrum. the electromagnetic spectrum is contested. there's a new operational regime that's too totally new. the chinese said, look, you know something? i look at all american sense sers, they're designed to look at spacecraft in orbit. space operational domain called near space above 100,000 feet, planes can't fly and above that where spacecraft can't orbit. we're going to go after that and go after hypersonics and they did. they thought of it as an entire new operating domain that they could gain an advantage and they have an advantage.

we need to get ready and prepare for and withstand a technological tsunami. you take a look at the period between 1898 and 1942, there was mechanicization, and there was radar, sonar, a technological tsunami at that time and it was the military powers that could put them altogether into cohesive operational concept and organizational constructs that gave them an advantage when war came. so, we have to look at this technological tsunami and figure out what we need to dominate and then we need to get after it. so, what must the dod do to prepare and compete. prepare is a mental mindset. one thing i do not like about our readiness metrics. a commander officer can say, i'm just not ready.

it's totally subjective. i want to keep that ability of a commanding officer to say that, but i want all readiness metrics to be absolutely objective. measurable, so that we can tell whether we are materially ready to drop gloves and go. if a commander wants to say we are not prepared yet for high end operations in the electromagnetic spectrum and wants to tell their commanders how they're going to get there, that's totally okay. but how do we prepare? how do we get ready to compete? so, if you take a look at this, it really does get down to our people because that's where the preparedness has to be. you have to inculcate to everyone, we could be aboard next week. you have to have your division ready to go. you have to understand what your sensors are capable of and understand how to employ your weapons. talk to the guys at halsey group up at the naval war college. the halsey group are ones that

do really detailed analysis of campaign planning in the west pacific. what they have to do, when they get new people coming in from the fleet they have to spend a lot of time telling this is what the aegis combat system can do. this is what the rolling missile can do. we are not prepared anywhere where we need to be at this point in my view. we're going to have all sorts of operational and technological surprises. we're going to have to be able to shrug them off and keep going. and figure out, someone fired a long latch torpedo at us. we started eating those in 1942 and we didn't figure that out until 1944. so we've got to get after that. and so, it's all about the talent. it's all about the talent, how do you bring them in. now, you have these big seven challenges and as the deputy secretary, i always thought

about, okay, what are the challenges, what are the operational challenges we face and what do we have to do as a program to get after it? and in my view, all you have to do is listen to what secretary mattis says. this is his number one priority. we're going to rebuild a safe and credible nuclear deterrent and maximum lethality and readiness of a decisive conventional force. i want to rebuild conventional overmatch. i want to maintain strategic stability by going at least to strategic parity and i want us to be ready to go to war. and in my view, there's five things we have to do. let me go through them quickly. number one, we have to recapitalize the nuclear triad. wow, i have to tell you that i've served the obama administration proudly for four years, actually seven of eight years, but we are way, way behind where we need to be in terms of recapitalizing our

nuclear triad. all of the margin is out of the system. we delayed, delayed, delayed, delayed, delayed all of the decisions, now, we must execute the ohio replacement program exactly on time and exactly on budget. we have to replace the ground based strategic deterrent, exactly on time or exactly on budget. we have to do the b-21 raider, the bomber, we have to do the lrso, long range strike option, the replacement, because all the margin service life is out of the systems, they're going away in the late 20's and early 30's so we have to get after it. up until 1962, we would always trade conventional capabilities for into u.k.-- nuclear capabilities. after 1962 when president kennedy came in, he said we'll adopt a strong conventional

force, strong operational force and nuclear force. from '62 until now, whenever we built nuclear weapons we built it on top of the conventional portfolio. now we're being asked to start this huge recap period and let me just break it out for you in numbers. we spent about 3% of our portfolio right now to maintain our strategic deterrent. over the next 20 years that's going to bump to 6%. might be a little less depending where we end up on the top line, but about doubling of what we're spending now. we're not going to get any extra money to do it, we're going to get a big plus on defense and 3% on top of capability. or we have to be more efficient and grab the money out of it. which is why i have lost a little weight. carrying around that $125 billion was really hard, it was hard to hide it. it's an inside joke. it's a hard one.

okay. the second one, we have to dominate the cyber-- dominate cyberspace and the electromagnetic spectrum. wow, we have a lot to do to harden our dod systems. most of the things were built in the time we didn't wear about it. now we have to think of cyber hardening like we thought of emp in the cold war. we have to harden other things, an expensive proposition. invest more in cyber and electromagnetic decoys. we've got to practice, practice, practice constantly. we can't say stop the exercise, we're not going to allow the red team to jam us anymore, we can't do that anymore, we've got to fight through it. we have to prepare to fight, win in space. starts with the culture. the same thing, i just talked with the space guys all the time. look, they got used to thinking of providing space capabilities as a service to the joint force. it was a function. no, you're going to fight under

attack. you need to be space warriors. you might not be up there with your satellites, but you better be ready to go after the bad guy and protect your own because we need uninterrupted space-based combat force for joint force and we have to be prepared to fight. to restore conventional overmatch, you're going to have to pursue advanced technologies, ai, and autonomy, first among them. hey, look, in cars now, you're not buying cars, that don't take over from the and stop if they're ready to crash into something. you delegate authority to the machine and it takes over. am in every plane you have collision avoidance. now you have means you cannot fly the aircraft into the ground. you can't have control in flighted terrain because the plane will take over. there ought to be the number

one thing in the navy right now is to have an ai autonomous bridge system that says, hey, you're about ready to plow into a ship that's 12 times bigger than you, i'm going to take over until you get your crap together. that's what we ought to do, it's very, very easy, go to ai and autonomy into the battle network. we ought to have bridge avoidance, we don't have it and we could probably do it in a year if we tried. if you haven't read the chinese plan for ai and autonomy, you need to get a translation and read it. here is the comic book story. we will catch the united states in ai and autonomous technology by 2020. we will surpass the united states by 2025, and by 2030, we will be the world's leader in ai and autonomous systems both

for economic development as well as military activity. when i read it, all i could do is think of nikita khrunichev taking off his shoe and saying we will bury you. this is the key competition in technology. and we have to develop new operational and organizational constructs for conventional overmatch. look, what this means is, it's not about technology per se, in 1975, the u.s. krearmy says we' going to own the night. if all that was buying a bunch of night vision goggles, we probably could have owned the night in 1976. it took us until the mid '80s, because once you bring in night vision goggles, you have to train your squad leaders and your platoon commanders and your company commanders how to operate at night and what are the control measures you need

to keep a cohesive unit going. it's not about the technology, it's about the operational concepts and constructs that give you the advantage. and carrier battle groups, things like that. what makes it a programmatic issue, we have too many of our forces out and about doing silly things without question. we need to build up some slack so we can design new systems and test them. new organizations. what is the carrier strike group of the future? what does it look like? how much unmanned manned teeming is going to be a part of it, et cetera. you have to do war gaming and concept development. that costs money. so, there's two pressing questions for the navy and for everyone, given our challenges right now-- oh, i think i--

never mind. given the expected challenges and programmatic imperatives do we do a bias towards capability or capacity, new capabilities and new weapons and new organizations or just building the fleet? and do we bias towards shaepg the international environment or war fighting readiness? two key questions how you have to prepare to win. and i would say, we should not count on defense budgets big enough to address all five of the challenges i went over. you'll notice that increased capacity really doesn't help you there. it's capability that matters. and so, take a look at where we are. fy 17 we got about 21 billion dollars more than the obama budget asked for and that was very helpful. a lot of us go after immediate high priority readiness deficiencies. in fy 18 we built a program and

present it had to the trump administration based on $558 billion base and $65 million oco budget. 623 billion total. the trump administration submitted a president's budget that asked for $574 and 65, or about 16 billion dollars more than the program we already have right now built. now, the ndaa, of course, the authorityizers, they don't have a checkbook and are unconstrained by any-- well, let me say this a little differently. [laughter] >> they're simply unconstrained. [laughter] icht they have 626 base and or 692. so if you take a look, it was about, you know, 60 billion dollars more than the president asked for, which, wow, that sounds really awesome. the factee who live in the real world, they are the

appropriators, they say, look, it's 581/65 and 4.5 billion emergency supplemental primarily for bmd. that's 651. i would guess it's closer to 651 than for the 692. so, we already have a program built at 623. so if we get 61, about 30 billion more per year, that's a lot of money. you can do a lot with that per year over year. but you cannot grow the army to 540,000. you can't grow the fleet to 355 ships. you grow the air force and marine corps to 36 battalions and do all of the things you have to do to make this force fight. you just can't do it and then don't discount a year long cr. we're going to go into a cr, unfortunately, the only question right now is how long is that darn thing going to be and i'd like to just modify

what the secretary said a little bit differently. yes, the bca was a grevious wound and yes, cr's, we've been in cr's for 30% of the time since 2009. in other words, the department of defense has an eight-month fiscal year. imagine fielding a force or fielding a football team that could not tackle, could not block and tackle. they'd lose every game and you'd say gosh, why aren't they winning? because i can't block, because i can't tackle. the congress builds budgets, they pass budgets, that's their basic blocking and tackling, they're totally inept at doing so. now, one other thing thing is causing a problems. the two year balanced budget agreement. what happens, if you look at peak war time spending to

sequestration, it's the shallowest and less deep. it's the shallowest defense drawdown since the end of world war ii. that in and of itself wasn't killing us. what was killing because the cr which was inefficient and i'd think it's more when you awed up opportunity costs and things like that. here is the problem. hey, we'll have a balanced budget agreement for two years and right when you get the chiefs to the point where you say, i need to reduce the size of the force for capability. let's wait for two years and see what happens. things will get better and then we had another two year bba and i fear another bba. for us to get out of this we have to have a five year planning program and build the force over time. it would be good if we just got an agreement on what our out-year horizon is. so, would i buy capability and capacity, everybody here probably knows where i'd go.

listen, i hope, i hope that the secretary is right, and that the problems that we saw in the 7th fleet are confined to the 7th fleet only. i do not believe that. i do not believe that. i think all of our services have been forced to make cuts because of the last seven years of bugetary incompetence that has undermined our-- both our preparedness and our readiness to go to war. soy, what we should have is, look, right now while we're trying to figure out what the future fleet is, i resonate with what the secretary says, hey, i don't know what the maritime fleet is going to look like in 20, 25 years. i know it's going to be different. we need to get after it. right now, i'd hone the force we have, and what that means to me is, the best trained, the best maintained and the most overprovisioned force in the world. no more cross-decking the two

that we have-- i'm being facetious. let's buy enough missiles that fill over hole and have adequate war reserve stock. that's a big deal when you send that signal. we have to pursue modest capability, yes, absolutely. we need to reposition the spigot. let me explain, secretary rumsfeld used to describe the capabilities of capacity of the department of defense as a beer keg, a water keg, a whiskey keg, pepsi keg, whatever. the spigot was one third down from the top. i could turn on that spigot and get capability and capacity immediately, but when it gets down to the level of the spigot, i don't get anything else and i've got two-thirds of my capability and capacity i can't get to. so, what we ought to be doing right now, for example, we have

58 bct's for combat teams. instead of buying ten more bct's, why don't we buy another national training center so we can train the national guard bct's more quickly and get them ready for the second whatever it might be. and do-- this is a big debate that the navy needs to have. is the fundamental goal to be prepared and ready to fight and win our nation's war or trying to shape the world so we make war less likely? i'm telling you right now, in the cold war, we would have never ever had this. when we were faced against a near peer adversary, every time we sent forces forward with the possible exception of the 4th fleet. we would send forward war fighting forces ready to drop gloves day one. we weren't doing the partnership building capacity and stuff to tiny navies around

the world. what we ought to do in my view, whenever they have an exercise we ought to send a training team from the united states navy and united states marine corps to help them utilize their naval assets better. we don't need to send ticonderoga type class cruisers to sail around taking away from war fighting training in my view. and this has to get back to preparedness, rather than readiness. okay. you know, the secretary was the good cop. i guess i'm the bad cop. i really do feel strongly this period of time we have to rededicate ourselves to we're a war fighting navy. 1989, plus 44 years, 2033, in that period of time there will be a military technical revolution associated with ai and autonomy. it's going to happen. we can either lead that revolution or we're going to fall victim to it. so the question is, if we had

to fight against china or russia, god forbid, i do not consider them adversarieadversa consider them geostrategic rivals. they're competing with us hard. they're confronting with us. they're confronting us. we need to compete, confront and contest them, without question. but remember, first goal, no great power wars, and the best view you don't have a great power war is to make sure their military planners know if they go after the united states navy or marines, or air force or army, it will be the worst day of their lives. you know, i think our brand is really good. i think, i don't know who did it yet, but the united states navy and marine corps teams, no better friends, no worst enemy. the last time we had a knock down dragout navel fight 1944-1945. the next time we have one, the results will be exactly the same. i'm ready for your questions.

oh, before i go, you know, i've been up here on my bully pulpit. reminds me with a joke about a pastor who would go around the northwest, pacific northwest and stop in towns and he would give sermons. he'd stop in one town and he went to the church. there was one cowboy sitting there. he goes, well, my son, i came here prepared to give a sermon and you're the only one hear, what would you like me to do? and the cowboy said, well, padre, if i had a-- went up on the north 40 and i had a trailer first full of hay and i came across a single horse, i certainly wouldn't leave him hungry. so, the preacher said, okay then. he got up and he started to do a hell-fire brimstone speech and went for about, i hope, about 40 minutes, and he said, finishes, and the cowboy puts on his cover, walks out of the church, he goes, what happened? so he goes running up to the

cowboy, my son, did you not appreciate the sermon? he goes, well, padre if i got up to the north 40 with a trailer full of hay, and found one horse, i wouldn't drop the whole load on him. [laughter]. so i dropped the whole load. i feel good. now let me hear what you do. [applaus [applause] >> no questions? holy moly. okay. >> bob here as a private citizen. >> hi, bob. >> hi. everything you've presented you make very compelling case, but when i see things like restore overmatch and i look at where we are as a country right now, and what i see is a relatively old empire that's not very

rich, 2008 really took a lot out of this country, and i know you've come down hard on congress and god forbid i never thought i would defend congress. i don't think so much they are inept, they are inept, but also a representative of the people and what you're asking is the united states to go on heavy war footing and taking-- well, comparison from what we see right now, you're asking people to go from where we are and we already think we're on heavy war footing because we've been fighting several wars since 2002. but you're asking us to go to a quantum level more of expenditure and commitment to war fighting footing. and my question is, how do you see convincing the american public that they should go in this direction? >> that's a great question. and it's really going to be--

well, first of all, i hope i didn't come across by saying i wanted the united states to mobilize and go to war footing. with the money that we are going to be provided by congress, i believe that we can materially improve our conventional overmatch, bob. i wasn't trying to say -- i am not-- i do not argue that we should try to fight for primacy at the levels that we enjoyed in the post-cold war era. i believe that we can be the most preeminent nation in the worldment we can remain the single strongest nation with proper economic and military policies working with our allies. so, to me, the best way to prevent war is to be prepared to fight them. so all i'm saying to the american people is, look, i don't think that you know the state of our readiness. i don't know if you heard secretary mattis, when he came

aboard he said i'm shocked by the state of our readiness. and so, this is nothing more than saying, look, we need to really, first of all, i argue in different forum that we have to up our strategic game. you know, we are so operationally and tactically focused. i sat in on a national security counsel deputy's meeting we were arguing whether to send one air force master sergeant to ukraine for training. if you look at the cia, they look more like the oss, the office of strategic services, than they have since the oss was first created. general haden gives a great example of when the russians went into eastern ukraine, he said, he came in and he said i want to df the flock, direction the forward line of troops of russian forces in ukraine and we couldn't do it initially

because all of our national and technical and intelligence means were tune today low powered radios in the mountains of afghanistan and we've lost the ability to do what we need to do against a near peer. so this has nothing to do with a grand strategy of primacy, this is a grand strategy of trying to maintain u.s. position as the preeminent force-- preeminent nation in the world having strategic parity, maintain the new start treaty, because essentially, parity at the strategic level, mutual assured destruction, is the underpinning of our theory of deterrents. i was only talking conventional overmatch. now, i personally believe we need to go after economic overmatch, but we're up against a competitor unlike we've ever seen before so we really have to do that. but i am not arguing for a mobilization. i'm saying with the money we have now instead of growing the

force, let's hone the force we have, dedicate ourselves to war fighting readiness, does that answer your question. >> question. >> you're like my shadow, everywhere i go, you follow. >> except on days-- for those of you playing along with the home game. you've mentioned what we need is not another cr. ... to a five-year deal. what is achievable and how

painful are the compromise will end up making? without are not going to get all the way to five years. >> did everybody here the question about, essentially, look, what i believe should happen is i cannot count on congress on coming up with the deal. look, bca, the budget control act runs out in 21. in the midst of this program the bca caps supposedly go away. but when you see what's happening in the tax reform and what it does for deficit spending, i don't know how it's all going to play out. what i would like the white house to do is give the department of defense a hard-core five-year projection. this is what you can count on in terms of budget growth, the 2% real growth, 3%, whatever it might be. you build your program based on that and we will fight as hard as we can to get it year-to-year

with congress. if we could just get that, then we will be in pretty good shape. but we really, really, really need to go after that. [inaudible] >> look, you know, i was a young first looted and then captain and the defense in the reagan era. and in 1981, 1982 we got a 15% raise one euro and like like a 25% raise the next year. we were filing -- flight typos, destroyers, perry, i think, it was granted in 1985, it started the longest defense drawdown of the post-cold war, 13 years long. i personally believe that's why another reason why i wouldn't

start a big defense buildup right now, because unless i am more confident that we are going to be faced with deficit reduction pressures in the next four or five years, i'd rather put my money into capabilities i can draw from the bank when i need them. yes, ma'am. >> i'm involved with the think tank group for international conflict and nuclear policy. you have spoken about nuclear triad and replacement. and i agree with your statement of our capability and capacity, prepare for future conflict. would you please speak about modernization of ss bn, including operation navy 97 and

navy in nine? my question is, does any ss bn or -- can carry miniature nuclear warhead to be squeezed or put into ss bn or any operation navy carrier? >> okay. look, the nuclear posture review as understand is coming to a closure and it's going to be very important. it will say what the trump administration believes about a nuclear deterrent force. i think it's no secret that president obama really was informed by world where he wanted to go to video nuclear weapons, and that all of the decisions that were being debated in the white house, even though the nuclear posture review that his administration did call for maintaining new

start numbers, the new strategic arms agreement with russians, maintaining new start numbers and having a triad. there started to be a big debate on whether we should go to a triad, i mynatt or a dyad. whether get rid of icbms. whether we need to develop the al sro, long strange -- long-range strike option. he was ready to direct us to do things the individual administration, but in the end he said no, this is much better left for the trump administration. so one of the things that is being discussed in npr is do we make new nuclear weapons? right now that b61 12 is the single airdropped that we have and we have life extension program for that. you could make the case that we want smaller nuclear weapons that would allow us to use them on different platforms, et cetera. upload in case russians try to

break out come you can make all of those arguments. but right now i'm assuming that the nuclear posture review will say maintain the triad at new start numbers and you need a survivable nuclear deterrent, and ss be enforced is the most survivable one. so regardless of how comes out a mostly confident the ohio replacement program is going to be funded. how many the missiles carry, how many they carry will all depend upon avenue start negotiations go. right now we have the option to extend it to 2026. i'm not certain president trump want to do that. i'm not certain what the russians say about that either. i don't really have anything to say about smaller nuclear weapons, because i do not buy the argument that you you want to make nuclear weapons more usable. a nuclear weapon is a nuclear weapon is a threshold once you cross you cannot bring back.

and so i wouldn't necessary spend a lot of money on miniaturizing nukes, but that's my own opinion. >> thank you. >> yes, sir. >> good morning, sir. midshipmen united states navy reserve. >> the raw. >> thank you, sir. i concur with your idea that we must make the forces we have prepared to fight and win a war should one, got a bit, start in the near future. it's in line with the idea that those who love peace are experts at war. war, if you want more, i guess general powell's philosophy as the reluctant warrior. so my question is to prongs. what if any lessons can we derive from world war ii on cold war era of military readiness as in taking what forces we have which were in some cases facing a deficit to give an example, the marine raiders in the pacific? and the cold war era of making the world safer democracy come

how could that be applied to say maintaining a world safe for democracy making the world untenable to authoritarianism as one of china and russia? and also i can't have a question the wisdom of going for more automation and say ai. perhaps i'm a a little old-fashioned but i always prefer that if there's additional system there must be a rock system, an analog system and its link with a new type of fire, sure, to increase the capability that i don't want us to get burned, if you know what i mean. >> sure. all right, i'm actually going to the -- to monitor the more fulsome debate with a lot of navy strategists on how you should utilize the fleet during this time of peace. and for the last 25 years, and i can track, i know exactly how it happened, but i believe the department of defense is now

more than the department at shag that it is the department of defense. it thinks for intensify put forces out to potential try to prevent war than the ready. and the reason why i know this is true is because we put every ready force that we have out about, at our surge forces are simply not ready. and we accept that, and we could accept that in a time with no great power competition. so i believe we should handle the navy just like we handle the submarines now. we tell the joint staff this is how many surface ships you will get over the next year. you can deploy them anywhere you wish. you can assign the missions we hope would be applied more towards war fighting. no, it's when we sin forces forward adopted before forward defense like we did in the cold war, rather than some amorphous

shaping activity. every thing we do ought to be building were fighting readiness allowing ships to practice trade that they will be required to do next week, if they go to war. so i'm not saying to stop sending forces out. i'm saying look, at this period of time we need to rebuild readiness and preparedness without question. you send out only the ships that you can without detracting from the readiness and laugh out detracting from any maintenance of availabilities in jakarta for defense with our allies in europe and asia, and you take a look at the central command area of operations here and from a strategic perspective we simply can't afford to do what we've been doing for 16 years and expect to be a good competitor against these two great powers. we have to do something differently. that's the first part of your question. we can do both but i would bias, it's not an either/or but i would bias towards war fighting

readiness when we sin forces out. look, people forget, the navy was a search fleet in the cold war. we had a 600 ship fleet and we kept about 100, 125 ships out. the rest of the fleet was ready to pound forward immediately. lance fleet used to call all the ss into east coast and say within 48 hours, go. within 4848 hours they would all sortie. it was a hell of a demonstration. that's the kind of thinking we need to come back to. we can shape the international apartment by convincing adversaries around the world, we could prevail if they tried to take us on. now, on the ai and autonomy, i realize that there is an argument to be made that you don't, democracy is usually going to have a human in the loop or on the loop. our authoritarian adversaries may not choose to find it that way. the soviet union conception of a

reconnaissance strike complex is told automated along the lines of the aegis system automatic mode. you press the button, you trust machines and they make all the decisions. i democracy probably will not go there, but here is where i would push back on. ai and autonomy actually will increase the resilience of your networks, not detract from it. if you design your networks right, your ai is going to be able to fight back against cyber attacks immediately. it's going to be able to do cognitive electronic warfare, going to the cognitive radar. and it will keep you, i mean, it will actually protect you. obviously there would be vulnerabilities. learning machines really rely on the data you give them, and if a bad guy gets into the data and manipulates it, you're in big trouble. you've got to think about how to do it. but we are in the early stages and i think we can solve that

problem. >> hoorah, sir. thank you. >> ladies and gentlemen, -- i do have one more. yes, sir this is the last question. >> good morning. french attaché. the question from a light point of view, a close ally. what do you think about interoperability with us, with our allies? because one of our concern is, and i fully understand your statements, and i share it, that you guys in front of your competitors you need to keep the throttle full ahead. one of our concerns is since we have less means than you guys to be a bit may be left aside of this full throttle movement. >> wow, this is one of the central questions, because the united states, we consider our primary competitive advantage

against our great power adversaries as our alliances. that is our primary competitive advantage. that's why secretary mattis, his second priority, is to strengthen alliances and partnerships. when you are operating forward in for defense, the first priority is interoperate with our allies. and listen, i have to say, this is one of the least understood things in it our department. the alliance and the cooperation between the united states and france right now has probably never ever been higher. and a close cooperation that we have in west africa and on a wide variety of different military things is quite remarkable. so thank you for everything france does for global security, and all of the things you're doing with the united states now. so to me you have to think less in terms of the thousand ship

navy and you have to think in terms of may be the 300 or 400 ship navy of our hard-core ally, and we have two interoperate together. we try to get allied ships into our strike groups and vice versa. we tried to have plenty of liaison officers split between our squadrons. we've looked to compete, i mean, two interoperate with better -- whenever possible especial our networks. two years ago the defense, , its called the defense technical industrial base. used to be defined as united states and canada. two years ago the ndaa changed it to united states, canada, uk and australia. we need to add france and germany to that. we have to have an open market. we need to get rid of itar for allies and we have to have, you know, compete so we have the best capabilities. so i think, i know that john richardson thinks a lot about

interoperating with our allies and how we can improve it. so it's simple to us because it's one of the ways in which we can remain, make the world continued be safe for democracy by working with our allies. [applause] >> we just wanted to thank mr. work, bob work, who's a friend of the institute for his accident and forthright remarks, we are presenting in this naval institute press book properly titled hell to pay. about the invasion of japan, which you brought up the first guided missiles and were we ready to take those attrition losses, and i think the answer is clear. so thank you, sir. we thank you for your time. >> thank you very much. [applause]

>> okay, we're going to take a five-minute break, and this is the only break, five minutes. robbie come here to be back in five. both of our speakers brought up the comprehensive review and we will talk to a panel of three experienced surface warfare commanders about that review, its scope and its effectiveness. and we'll get that in five minutes. thank you. we will have that break now. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

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[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> taking a break here in this conversation with the naval institute, looking at global readiness. and the lethality of the u.s. military recent collisions also involving the ships. and later we'll be hearing from the chief of naval operations on budget constraints and effects on responses to current and future threats. looks like the panel may be coming here. should be starting again shortly. [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> again, just waiting for things to get started adn here, a form talking about global security. expected to go for another hour and half or so.

we'll be hearing from one of the naval leaders about readiness and then also to let you know, life at 4 p.m. eastern today will have a preview of supreme court, a supreme court argument deal with religious freedom and anti-discrimination laws that is centered on a baker in colorado that refuse to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple. again, live coverage 4 p.m. over on c-span. both chambers of congress in today. if a second shot that deadline at midnight friday and they pledge to put in place to dig temporary funding measure that would be good through december 22 in the senate today they will be considering the nomination for the next homeland security secretary. a vote on her confirmation to limit debate scheduled at 5:30 p.m. eastern. could sit confirmation confirmation vote as early as wednesday.

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>> all right. i'd like to ask everybody to come back in and take your seat for our panel discussion. we need to have quite. i'd like to ask everybody to come back in and take your seat. okay. well, we've had two excellent keynote briefs this morning. both of our speaker speakers so

the comprehensive review. the u.s. navy issued a conference of review of the recent incidents at sea that occurred within the last year, almost almost always forward in the western pacific. one aegis cruiser that crowded, another i was involved in a collision with a chinese ship. and to destroyers that collided with large merchant ships that resulted in loss of life. 17 total sailors. that comprehensive review was conducted over the past, well, it took about 60 days. it was reported out approximately three days ago and presented kevin we thought we would invite a few folks in your today to talk about the extent of it, the adequacy of it, and perhaps the meaning of it. we've invited three experienced surface warfare officers who have had command and major command at sea. three individuals who have

stayed close to the profession, either through their government, the activities, or to their commercial activities, but they have stayed close to the profession. and finally each of our three panelists today have published for proceedings all in the last year at least, and some of them longer. so our first panelist i will just introduce is captain giancola, u.s. navy retired. john had command of oscar austin, and the destroyer. and the cruiser. is also nuclear propulsion qualified officer and brings a special from that. next to john is kevin, one of the only couple people i could think of that commanded three aegis cruiser turkeys commanded shiloh, chancellorsville, and thomas s gates.

and kevin has also been a regular contributor as i mentioned in proceedings as a regular contributor almost every month. and finally retired captain jerry who commanded the arleigh a. burke destroyer, the sullivan, and destroyer squadron 26. so instead of giving like many speeches can without which we t right into it, the discussion at which will open it up to the audience, have q&a and we'll get right at it. and so just to kick it off, i'll ask this first question. so you've all read the conference of review of the recent surface force events that was released by the navy. based on your experience, and maybe even based on some of the earlier comments today, do you see, in your view, has it been comprehensive enough? and is an important things you think will left out? and what do you highlight is

made an important thing -- what would you highlight an important thing as a top level observation? i will start with john. >> i did read, also looked at the gl reports they came out slightly before it and some other articles and readings. i actually become the first they did was look at the back and see was on the panel and look at the list of places they went. so i think that list, the names are recognized as subject matter experts are on there and the places went our everyplace evei could think of. so given the scope and scale, it was comprehensive pickets a little slow centric. naturally so. that's what the expertise is and those, abdel mike connor who represents the other forces. submarines and aviation. >> also saw some people from other services like carter ham. >> absolute. and a wide range of paygrade. there was everything from retired admiral took unc on the

panel. some junior officers. as far as surprises or omissions, i think when i read the gl reports and the comprehensive review, i was very happy to see, pleasantly surprised to see the deep treatment of the fatigue of the crew something i've been focus on since my navy time and since. and so i was very happy to see that. it's a little unfortunate that it took this event to kind of push that through. ..

look at some of the governing documents, primarily the standard workweek and changing the number of watch team. shift from three - 4. that's what struck me as what i would have liked to seen. >> okay but i do like that they recently came out and said we are going to institute watch build and ship routines that are based on the circadian rhythm. i thought that was in alliance with your comments. that is certainly something we been leading the charge on. kevin, in this report, it covered a lot of ground as john said, but did you feel there was a glaring omission

or an omission that is worth mentioning? is there something you think is important that may not come through on the first read? >> it was frank and unvarnished. it was deep. i was very appreciative of that. i didn't expect that flows very happy about that. i think the concern i have with regard to an omission is that it is very focused on seamanship and navigation. the question which should come to mind is, if our service forces are unable to successfully execute these blocking and tackling tasks, how can it possibly be expected that they are also able to do the more complex war fighting tasks which are coming to the floor after this extended period of profound peace which mr. work was

talking about. i would like to give you an example. the weapon system is remarkable. to change the service may be. it is designed to degrade gracefully. i can tell you from my experience that even if you take away control men and the training they receive, i have full confidence that every ship can go out there and successfully engage airborne targets. however, ballistic missile defense, if a weapon system is that 50% of its full capacity, in order to use ballistic missile capability, it has to be up to 80%. and making these numbers up but they are representative. every time a ship gets prepared to do a shot, quite literally, a team of rocket scientist come on board and they groom the system to make sure it gets from 50, 60, 70

up to the requisite 80%. this happens for demonstration shots. it is a worthwhile question to ask oneself if we took all of the bmd capable ships in the fleet out and we line them up and north korea launched something, how many of them could successfully engage? i'm right back to navigation seamanship, but i suspect that if call to war, we will be required to do a lot more than safely navigate the singapore straight. >> i totally agree. goes back to something that bob worked said about maintain in the bow and you could empty the barn and everyone could contribute without this cross picking apart. i think there's a lot of us

who also remember it wasn't all rosy even back then. going back to the 70s and 80s. i think the numbers made up for it which is the key critical point made by bob work. you really need to be that much better and not exhaust yourself on the day-to-day forward forces and except a slightly lower capacity what you want to spend all your money on capacity? it's an excellent question, but all of that is in play because what i took from both was that we are not doing either one well enough right now and this is an example. so jerry, he turned back to you with the same question, is there something you thought should've been in there that wasn't in there were a big take away that you want to foot stomp that came through your read in the report?

>> thank you. first of all, i would just like to commend kevin for his socks. they are pretty classy and i'm trying not. >> don't look right at them. >> i'm not. i'm looking back over here. >> the comprehensive review, i think was a credible sophisticated approach to really trying to figure out what's been gone. why are we at this juncture? is it comprehensive enough? of course not. it just can't be. the secretary is doing a strategic review that gets at some of the more fundamental issues that the comprehensive review just wasn't tasked to do, which is how do we get our officers to see more so they get the experience they need so that the kinds of stuff

that the reports sites are not anticipating the problems and being able to act in time to nip them in the bud becomes more of a second major because you spent so much time at sea. some people might argue that the navy in the military has become overly bureaucratic. i certainly resemble that remark, i spent a lot of time in the pentagon, but it's interesting to note that in 1941, president roosevelt told ml king, i don't want any repeaters in d.c. what he meant by that is i don't want my captains and flag officers doing more than one tour in d.c. obviously a lot has changed since then but it gets to the point that in that. that mr. work was talking about, as a profession we spent a lot of time at sea so

that the kinds of stuff we are looking at with solutions and not being able to navigate safely in a seaway were just not as big of a problem. we had 6000 ships in 1945 but in 1941, we didn't have, i would say we did not have an over match of capacity capability. the other thing come in my discussions with sailors and seals in the last couple years working on engineering training, i found a lot of challenges with manning and training. the minimum manning just is not a good idea. it hardly works for maintaining a ship. it can't work for fighting a ship in an environment where you have to undertakes i significant damage control actions. it doesn't work. the other thing i've seen a lot of frustration with is what we will call a gadget

overload. that comes out the report when you talk about the integrative development of sophisticated navigation systems on the bridge. what i'm hearing from everybody from e5 to oh six is we keep getting this stuff but it's not supported. we can get it fixed. we can't get training on it which, it's too much, it's all happening too fast. in the report, i think it gets to the point that we the navy need to look at how to get that rationalized and fixed. and then, i guess maybe my biggest concern, not concern, but as i reflected on the report, the biggest issue i see is that it talks a lot about, essentially saying if we just follow our own certification process we would be okay. i just don't think that's true. i think the certification process get you to a level of training that we come to look at as a training ceiling, but

it's really a training floor, and we need to get above that floor into the mastery level if were going do the kind of stuff that kevin talks about, fight effectively from the get-go in a multi- threat environment. >> a couple people, some of whom are very senior and some who are relatively junior called me right after this report and they said aha, a report said these incidents were avoidable and they go a long way toward pointing toward the commanding officer. my next question is, are these the fault of flawed command leadership and maybe senior leadership team on the ship or are these the result of a flawed system that produces them? >> i think it's a little bit

of both. you look at the numbers at any one cluster in any one time. when you look back there, many of the same things that i read in that report what i saw in these so maybe a way to do that us is to look into the same depth of investigation on the same stuff and if you do. >> i think they're having trouble hearing your. >> your on. >> is that better. >> yes. >> okay. i won't repeat the whole thing, but basically you have four points in the same time and space and certainly looks like a trend there. it could've been the commanding officers, unfortunately since were going down the road of discipline, we may not get what was inside their head. that's what struck me as a wide, wide to the officer not call the captain, those types of questions. why did the captain of the

john s mccain decide not to station the detail for an evolution rather than delay the evolution? we might not know the answers to that which would get to the answer of some of that. i've been reading the comprehensive review and down to the line item were were in that investigation. opening the aperture bit because maybe it's not all set up another some time but not that much time. and then really, the other piece that struck me is there is a part later on in the comprehensive review where it talks about sustained and how do we figure out how to learn the lessons and not repeat picking around the edges. i think back to the porter, the only reason i think there were no casualties in porter is that they had a bigger ship. they had a ship that was

300,000 tons instead of 50000 and the bow went underneath rather than into the breathing compartment. i was part of that. i was on the staff at the time. what did we not do that and how did our system not capture that and build in some things pretty did a lot. there is a lot of good stuff, but i would probably have to say not enough given the evidence. >> so you would come down on the side of it's more than just the system or the seven fleet. >> i agree said yes i would. >> that's. >> i sent my time mainly in the atlantic side, i go to bahrain as part of my job and i see some of the same challenges, the things that they can do in some areas they can't do it easily and bahrain because of resources. one big surprise, buried in the back of the report on page 143 it talks about the number

of gaps that see and the number went from 1500 to 6500. that's a four 100% increase they went from five. ship to 20%. that's a big difference. there was a narrative out there that the large piece of the collision was due to mechanical loss or misunderstanding of the way the system works but if you read deeper, they talk about the crewmembers who were fatigued and exhausted. again, that's a systematic issue and i don't think it's restricted to the seven fleet. >> i just wanted to comment on this question about if it's just seven fleet. one of the things i found a little disparat disturbing

about the report is it is couched as if this is seven fleet, but, anyone who understands anything about ships can read that these exacting things can be lied to a lesser or greater extent to every ship in every fleet in the world and i think it's important that people grasp that. i've given this some thought and one of the great things about it is this absolute responsibility for what goes on. the buck stops here. i cannot think of any other profession where the same kind of thing holds true. it's quite remarkable. they both specify these accidents were avoidable, they both indicted the ceos of both

ships nibble said there was failure in judgment on the parts of both ceos. i do not dispute this. having said that, davidson goes on for the vast majority of the report indicting the system in everything from operations, training, manpower, personnel, virtually every element of the spectrum he indicts specificall specifically. he then offers 13 causative contributing factors, some of these i viewed to be fluff, that's my opinion. seven of them are called fundamentals. every one of these is the responsibility of someone else to provide to that co.

so, who's fault is it? i think i'm amazed that commanding officers still take commands of ships because there are 361 wildcards on your ship that could do something crazy everyday and you can be dragged out behind the chemical shed and have a bullet put your head everyday and you guys still do it and they are responsible, but they play the hand that they are dealt and if they are not being dealt a fair hand, that someone else's fault and not just theirs. >> right. >> we will come back to that because there are some cultural aspects here about how far do you play the hand you're dealt and when you tell the dealer he's dealing from the bottom. to finish this line, how about you, do you think it's a flawed commanding officer for a system that didn't give them

what they needed to succeed. >> the tip of the iceberg is the commanding officer. it's clear there were some problems with the co on all four ships but i really think it is a longer-term systemic problem that we have, starting at least 15 years ago when we shut down basic and we got rid of saul smarr for all intents and purposes. >> we did? >> when i was a commander in 2002, 60% my chief engineers did not have the outfalls so the department was worried about getting qualified. the division officers had not been through slots basic. the only thing we had going for us for the chiefs, and those have now been replaced

by the blue shirts were the product of reduced training in the schoolhouse. case in point, gsm want a couple weeks ago his school was five days long so there are systemic issues. i know it takes a lot of measures to increase manning and restore training, but it took us 15 years to get to this point. does not happen overnight. someone has to shepherd this through the process. the other problem is, we kind of seen this happening even in the golden years when you and i were younger, where every class of shit that i've been on, and now working and

watching the acquisition community purchases and build the platform, gives it to the operators and the operator say they can operate this, we need more people. every ship in psa at least is getting more people on board since 63. that suggests a much deeper, broader systemic problem than just the training and performance of the destroyer. >> you talk about when we were younger. everybody up here, myself included lived in an era where we had more resources, you just take the training command that was separate and focused on the ships, there was a recognition out right that they were more complex and difficult to operat operate,

and by difficult to operate i didn't mean that the systems were integrated and were well-designed, but the complexity required you to get the most out of it, higher level training so their people appear who fired 25 standard missiles or tomahawks we've done things in the fleet like a laminate the proficiency missile firing, we shortened the schoolhouses five days for gsm a schools, as jerry just mentioned, we eliminated the surface warfare basic training, we eliminated the readiness course, we eliminated a lot of the maintenance checks, we laminated the people who tracked the maintenance tracks so we grew up in a different era and so i just want to make sure, from the viewpoint of our audience that people know

that we are coming up is from our experience, and we are commenting on what we've seen happen in the last 15 or 16 years, which includes all those things. let's talk for a minute. bill moran is coming in at the end and he is responsible for leading efforts to make the change for the comprehensive review. the next question is about privatization given that all those things have happened, and the point that was made by all the old that it takes some time to deal with it, do you think the privatization and urgency is right? each action item has an appendix, i listed them, there's like 58 action items

that are the right to get at that. are we doing the right things first to make sure we get a grip on this so we can build our way back out of it. i asked john to ponder that one. >> wow. so there's a lot of actions on there. my first thought was back to that discussion about sustainability, i would add an action to reconvene been the group once a year for the next five years and go down that list of action items and see how we did. don't reconvene the action officers i have to come back and say i did the task. reconvene the people because there's a lot of stuff that didn't make this report. i'm sure everybody who left here who got one action item on the table has a notebook of what it should be what it should look like so maybe set

a sustainment plan in place. that's looking brought up the long term. the other thing, there's a lot of talk about resource management and resources, the training that we do, they have a great program, i know nobody knows that a lot of those things that went away have been coming back. a lot of the agents training pipeline is very robust. nick power was kind of up here but agence was right behind as far as the quality of the training and the robustness of the technical detail and the tactical side. those things are coming back but it's generational so those gaps that are out there, they didn't happen today, they happened five years ago so that's why i harp on the manning thing, here's an idea, what if we took a couple ships

and amassed the three mc, combat systems manager and the top snipe and we made the master sheet to have all that experience at sea and who are not sure for the past five or six years of their career back to the ship and put them on watch bill and have that wisdom percolate down the troops. back to the fatigue issue, i've seen the brief on fatigue management, and it is not about letting your people sleep more and not doing as much work. it's about a fundamental scientific peace that i watch senior naval officers have the light come on. i would mandate that for every zero six in the navy. it's only an hour long and it's life-changing. finally, back to the brm piece. our training is also robust but it's once. tour for the captain is not really time to the ofr p.

in other words, let's tied into the whole generation process and not thursday night before monday's underway. you can build a team effort. they talk about small team leadership. on the nuclear side, i own my watch team in their training. it's not that we on the surface ships but it could be. take that team over and a refresher. that will help but do not man for that. that the flyover for those ships. so my two training. [inaudible] danger of going back to check

the block mentality. >> to report that we will have teams go aboard the ships that are forwarded.into a readiness assessment on those ships. >> right. >> secondly, it says we will immediately stop and void out the risk assessment management plans a been using, particularly in the seventh fleet because they had just become, in the eyes of the report that that's just a way to say we didn't do a certification and also talked about the immediate need to have pack fleet and pay come. it's very interesting to me that all of the world we have this global force management plan and you have to do the rfs, request for forces process but in other places at

the one-stop shop. in hawaii they own everything from the west coast to the indian ocean so now they're basically telling them to feel free to do your job. so that there, those are the immediate ones that left out for me but kevin, what else is there much mark what are the priority things we have to get to on the premise that another one of these could take out the navy completely. >> i thought it was very interesting how you talked about the historiography of this and, i think it's important that we keep that in mind because in my view, we are crossing the rubicon again after the report much improvement has been made, but in the report, it talks about how this process was slow, insidious, and over time and people may have been confused by the good results that they

were getting. i found that to be too much of an excusing of people and unfortunately, when the curtain was yanked aside by admiral davidson there are few people standing around and the music stopped and they went and they didn't get it so admiral coin who i don't know, i don't even know if he's a surface worker, i sincerely doubt, was he doing the nap check on the ships? >> i think this goes back and all those people who have left on gone to their villas on the coast. >> it appears this was all about resources and the problem is that it's difficult to get them so the immediate actions appear to have been turn on ais and use ais, get more sleep, and you will not write your own standing

orders. now, the review i think is very complete because it ties things together over the course of one's career, individual, team training, but there are other things, this will take a while to implement as it points out. in the immediate term, i think we should not be shy about stealing a page from the submarine community, and that is several things. one, my observation is that we have a history of assigning our very best officers to our very best ship. the summary community assigns its best officers to its very worst votes. this has an effect for both of us. we need, you can have us be generalists and do everything in the world, or you can have

your ships work, and we do not keep our people close to ships throughout their career and indeed, to stay close to the ships is not a positive contribution to your career. why are you not in washington? there's value in the spread of not debating that but we take our best talent and we immediately get them away from ships. the third thing i would steal from the submariners is, there submarine squadrons are run very differently from ours. if you are a submarine squadron commander, first of all, your training officer and your engineer, they come from command of the votes and they are some of your best guys. these squadrons don't the play, but if something goes wrong overseas, they are on the hook to go there and they

stay there until it is fixed. now, we honestly do things differently, but i think that we would benefit from a little bit more concentrated expert leadership at the waterfront of our community. >> just for the audience, the surface may be, for many years had readiness squadrons and tactical squadrons as a separate entity and you would grow up with the kind of nurturing and inspection that maybe you associate more with today's subway squadrons from your low numbers and your high number destroyer squadrons that would operate you forward. at some point, in the late '90s we said were just going to single up and the tactical does run will do everything. there was some limitations there, the experience and manning was not increased, and

that's one of the things that came up in the report, and another immediate action that i failed to mention was that the navy has already taken action to set up surface groups in japan that would provide this community readiness guidance that was lacking so jerry, what you think? we need to bring back readiness squadrons and is there something else we should be doing so people can sleep at night as we tackle this 58 list? >> i can't begin to comment on a prioritization of so many action items off the top of my head. so we'll just put them on the table here. but, as i looked at these incidents and listened to my, to the grumpy old grippers and

the guys currently serving on ships, even high school classmates saying jerry, what's going on with you maybe , it struck me, and we talk about this at dinner last night, it's like okay, the solutions are obvious. why are they so hard. well, because in our day it was all good. that's how we remember it. we did run into things, that's why we had command. >> that's why you still have command. >> and so, clearly that initial reaction of mine is not appropriate because something is changed, something is different. it's not a simple issue, where, why can't we get the experienced guys like does run

commander or post does run commander to go out on the ships, we grew up that you walk on a ship in about ten minutes you know the condition of the ship just by what you see when you get on the quarterdeck, how you're greeted, who you talk to come he could very quick sense of where that ship is that. apparently, we have not, we don't have that ability anymore or is it something of a deeper cultural thing that says we really need to be in a kinder gentler world that we used to b be, is the millennial thing, i hear that a lot, which i think is an excuse, my son is a millennial, he was in the marines for four years, he doesn't have that supposedly millennial problem. there something else there. i think the report gets at, to go with what bob's approach, gets at the readiness side of

it, the metrics, the objective measurable things, but i think it misses a lot of the preparedness side, mental game that has to happen. so going into a separation scheme, where's the master helmsman. what are you thinking? or, the ship where the cic in the bridge on talking to each other, those were just basic things back in our day, and so, i hesitate to get criticize it because i don't know where they're at today. even spending time with them, i don't understand the difference between what it was when i was there and what it is now. something has changed. i don't know where the priorities lie. my gut reaction is, let me go out and stand on the bridge with the ship underway and see how they do things and talk to

them "after words" and so you might want to think about this. >> one thing that does kind of come through, and i agree with you totally, i think this, these generalizations about the young people can't do it, i think that's just totally false. i think it's a matter of setting people up for success, and lest we recall to family the days of the past, the fact is we always had that tension between are you a ship that passes inspection were you a ship that can go to war, and those might not have always been the same thing. it depended on what the inspection was. if the inspection was let's go out and shoot five standard missiles against a very robust profile in threat, maybe yes, but we remember that one of

the reasons we did away with those readiness squadrons was because there was more emphasis on the electrical safety program and 3m then there was on war fighting, and that really gets to my next point which is i think that the report kind of equates culture with can do. it kind of went there because can do, if you're going to criticize some of these culture, criticize them for being can do. but, i think it might be more than that and, are we creating or have we been living off a culture where the results were dependent on the co and there were ceos out there in our day and i think you could say the same today that are getting it all done, they're doing the training, they're doing the blocking and tackling, and

they're getting to the higher-level war fighting peace, but then there's ceos who don't and what kind of leeches through with the report, start with you because john doesn't want to be first anymore, is that are we leaving too much to the individual ceos? and, in fact, maybe we've always been doing it that way but now it's really showing itself with all the other stress. >> i do think we are leaving too much, particularly, this was not an issue necessarily in those long gone days as you refer to them, first of all, when my dad, he had a chief petty officer who had forgotten more than he would ever know about gunnery. we do not have that anymore. just as we have generalist, we are generalists as surface warfare officers, we have

somehow drank the kool-aid and now we want our enlisted personnel to be generalists also. so, the days, my gun system is nonfunctional, i have this crusty chief here who has forgotten more about guns, on the other hand, he is coaching his kids soccer team and he does have an associates degree so, we are taking away some of the tools they had before, and at the same time, the complexity of everything is going up. so, to presume that all of the things being held static, it's becoming more difficult to keep up with the marks of technology and as an example, this is the john s mccain, if you boil this down to exactly what happened, it's hard to understand unless you are a ship guy, but no one knew how deep briggs council worked. that kind of came out.

no one could figure it out. >> under stress. >> and as you read more, the training that was supposed to be applied to that counsel was cut so no one ever received the training in this new system which is acknowledged being more complex and difficult to use and not inherently easy to use so as always, there's more to the story. mccain is a good ship with a good reputation. they put the cross deck people onto the mccain who weren't properly recoiled and weren't familiar with the system anyway. >> but it's a very complex system and these guys play the hand adult. so, if they are not being dealt the right people in the right numbers. >> and you have to have this presumption that the submarine community is also doing this, this back to world war ii look with the presumption that medications are going to be

interrupted and some marines will have to go out there and connect their wartime missions without depending upon being micromanaged, and i cannot see why ships should be any different, but if you are going out there and used to being micromanaged from above or hoping that you'll get your full crew capacity or that someone is going to fix something for you, that is a mistake. >> i agree. >> so i'm in a stop there, even though i haven't met john and jerry tackle that last one come and i see time is progressing and i'd like to open it up to questions and encourage the audience to get the microphone. if you have a question. >> sydney. >> yes, for the whole panel, the thing, the many disturbing things that disturbed me the most is that the idea that maybe we can operate our

systems if we can't actually drive the ship straight, but maybe, if we actually had a live, no notice michelin launch we couldn't actually shoot it down. so, we know we've seen the problems, but what are the implicit problems or probable problems with the much more complex fighting skills that might be the next thing to look at? >> do you want to grab that one. >> all tackle that one. i wasn't in a talk about this based on our phone conversation, but i will now. >> and also, secretary wirth made it clear, where he thanks our priority should be, i would answer that question with another question which is, anybody in this room, when was the last time we had an unconstrained asw exercise

where not in the ocean, but you go out with and on alerted sub, you're given a mission you can fire as many torpedoes as you want to fire, you have to win. we don't do that. same thing goes for air defense exercises that are unconstrained and on alerted. we don't do that. there's lots of reasons we don't do that. not the least of which is expensive people can get hurt, all that kind of stuff. so the question becomes, let's take that and hold that thought and step back to the interwar period. how did we do what bob works said, how did we hit the place running in 1942 after essentially, with the exception of some convoy duty in world war i, essentially not fighting for 40 some years, coupled generations of

officers. >> he left out world war i but i think he meant major fleet action. >> yes, and so, what's that? right. they were on ships but they didn't go to see a lot. so the question is how do we do this in a war. and the answer, by my reading is that if the fleet didn't have a lot of operational requirements. when we did the fleet problems every year, the 21 fleet problems come the fleet did the problems come the whole fleet except for the asiatic squadron and a couple ships here and there, fleet laid red, fleet played lou, everyone went to the debrief and you learn from it. everyone went to the war college so you have this common reference training exercise together. you had very frank, honest and open debriefs. lieutenant rickover was contributing to the debrief for one of the flight problems

as a debrief. c had this kind of luxury of being able to do experimentation and trial and error that we can do today because of our operational units, but we could do it if we built the right kind of networks capability, we have all these trainers out there, but the report touches on this a little bit, but if you had, let's just hypothesize for a second, you had a capability of taking a trainer system that not only does tactical training but ties you to your own ships plant status so that you can't just wave a way that

generator that's been out of commission for three months because you're waiting for parts, that's real stuff, that the force commander can't waive away the fact that his magazines just got emptied her that the ship just got damaged and he had to figure out how to get that ship back out of the danger area without significantly degrading his capabilities and back to get repaired so you can do everything from what we do now with bridge trainers and combat systems training, you integrate that in a way that allows you to do the fleet problem process again despite the fact that ships are overseas and committed. >> let me jump in on that fleet battle problem. i think that's a great spot to end on this one question because we want to get to others, but we know we need to do this and, i think, both our first two speakers spoke to are we so busy being forward and doing forward presence ops

that were not taking the time to do this and do it right and to answer your question again sydney, i think there's plenty of ceos out there who can do the blocking and tackling and the tactical part, but the question is is the system serving on average, the average person to get it right, enough of the time and certainly i think the recent events have revealed some weaknesses. the question over here. >> the morning gentlemen. james olson at the george washington university. i'm curious as to your thoughts on the current pipeline. is there a need or necessity to move toward an aviation training pipeline with the standard across the fleet or is there some way to pass forward and address some of these issues that we are currently seeing. >> i think i know what i would say but i want to hear what the panel has to say. i open this up to kevin and john. >> let's see if this works. >> this is a painful subject

to the surface warfare community because we are in love with being generous. we want to be able to do everything a mile wide and an inch deep. there are no other professional navies in the world which do not deploy, which don't use professional engineers. or and professional ships, combat engineers. people don't like this, however, the evidence would suggest that, if these ships have had expert engineers, expert combat system engineers, that things might have gone better, that a line could be held more effectively so, i'm a product of the old-time swat stuff, and it works for me and i liked it,

but on the other hand, i am not sure that we should not be going to you, would you like to be a professional engineer and spend your career really being an expert at something. >> muller admiral done, i can tell he has a similar question. >> i did not put my predecessor up to that question, however those of you don't know, i am a naval aviator. i started out as a surface warfare but then i graduated. [applause] some years ago, like in the 1950s, naval aviation had a mishap rate which was atrocious. 350 aircraft. year were demolished in accidents. the idea of going to a replacement squadron concept

came up and was instituted. that's where you take people right out of the training command, those coming from shore duty and put them through a period of intensive training in a type of aircraft that they will fly, learn all the systems, learn how to employ those systems, and after instituting that, mishap rate is down to where it's less than 30. year, maybe even less than that sometimes because everybody who goes through a fleet squadron goes through the rag and the replacement training first. why doesn't the surface community do something like that? a couple of you have lamented the demise of swats but it goes beyond that. in order to learn this systems

of the ship they are going to, i think that would do wonders toward reducing events that have occurred recently. >> thank you. >> the summary want to take that on? >> thank you. certainly there are some logistical challenges to that with the way we train the officers. the ship is a great classroom as well as spend a lot of time building simulators only have a ship that we could learn on. maybe there is a way, would they be better off given to another ship perhaps for the training to get to a certain standard before they go back to their parent ship to the back to see when the ship is ready, but again it has a huge logistical challenge and, if i'm a co, i might want to cherry pick that one incident who did a really good job.

>> one observation on that, i've never seen it so tightened up as we are right now. we used to have all these different classes of ships and now, if you just look at the crew, it singled up on the things that remain and were really down to about three classes on the amphibious side and the service force is sent off to the msc. i don't know. i think there's an opportunity there. you have something on that. >> this speaks to something you alluded to before. part of the problem with our community is this attitude where we refuse to say no to anything including, you take my point, and it seems we would rather suffer the

consequences then say no to anything, to our own peril. >> i was asked, not long ago, what's the difference between your zero five command in your zero six command? i answered him, i said i learned how to say no. the difference was if you're in oh five and that's your first time out there, there's a degree of competitiveness and were all type a personalities and it can lead you to make some bad decisions. i still recall one of the times i heard some sailors pretty bad was during an exercise that went into the evening and it started to rain and got dark but i had to check this block. some he said if this is your last event today and if you don't finish then you don't certify so i kept boarding team aboard the ship, i sent food of there, we got into the evening and we got activated as the assistant air defense commander.

i went to that ten years later as the co, but i had to activate. i was asking you to both. i said well yeah and when i did, i lost the bubble. i started to maneuver the ship and i put six sailors in the water and i think that was driven by that can-do attitude. that can-do attitude is personal. i get a call that said okay come on monday your ship hasn't told anyone, your certification expired long ago. you're gonna get underway in your all gamete out there vacate in your little toe exercise. i had never set foot on the cruiser until friday. i didn't know the crew. i had been on the nuclear plant for two years so i said no. he said what you mean. i said i'm not gonna do it. he said then call the chief of staff because i do have the authority to do that.

i did. to his credit, chief of staff said okay, when you think will be ready. learn the crew, learn the ship and then i'll do it. i would not have done that in oh five and i think that's been important learning. >> we've only got a minute left and i'm not going have time for any more questions, i'm sorry but 30 seconds kevin, a last observation if there is one. >> yes, we need to ensure that risk management does not turn into risk avoidance because everyone is scared right now, understandably so, everyone is concerned, we are in the business of fighting our nation's battles at see and we are not in the business of avoiding every possible risk just so i don't get in trouble. >> i totally agree.

jerry, a last 32nd observation? >> i'll just playoff what kevin just said, when you read the report, it comes out almost with the emphasis on safety and risk management, it's almost a risk avoidance kind of message. i know and i applaud the efforts to get that course, to get the folks going out and to think tactically and get their head in the game, the prepare part about what will it mean to go and combat, what does that mean, how i get my crew prepared, that's going great. at the same time i hear ceos telling me they get cited for coming in after midnight because of the way their schedules are driven because that stresses the crew et

cetera and so to me there's a bit of a mismatch in messages. i agree with kevin, my recommendations would be to be very, very careful about the safety and risk management side of things, but at the same time, we have to be able to go to war in a way that's effective, whether it's safe or not is part of the equation, but not the equation. >> john, did you have a final thought? we will fli flip the stager. >> against both the secretaries talked about innovation and change and i use the circadian thing as an example but here's an idea that was grounded in science, was researched extensively, and yet it took 7 - 10 years to go for a good idea and bring it to fruition. and why?

because we've always done it this way, we don't understand the science behind it, but what's the next thing? is in cyber? is it in weapons technology or shipbuilding? seven years, is that fast enough? what can we do? innervation has always been a strong suit but we've got to find a way, i've lit written a lot of proceedings articles and it seems like everyone i write a get a note from somebody on active duty who says thanks for saying that you wish i could say that. say it. i guess is what i would say. >> i think each of our panelists for this great discussion. thank you very much. [applause]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] : [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> given our discussion so far today i think it's appropriate to have admiral fillmore and who's the vice chief of naval operations and who's in charge of the follow-up to the conference of review and also

has a view on our conference theme, are we ready. he's been very outspoken on the topic of readiness predating these incidents at sea, and also now charged with the correction loop. he is a career navy pilot who commanded at all levels in the patrol reconnaissance community. he served in the responsibility such as commander of virtual and reconnaissance group, commander in war for, and as chief of naval personnel. another area that will come in to play in all aspects of these questions about readiness, ready to fight at the high-end, and the comprehensive review. since 31 may 2016 he served as the 39th vice chief of naval operations and in indispositios i mentioned just testified very forthrightly on readiness. he's a member of the naval institute and served present as an advisor to abort.

a board. let's give a warm welcome to vice chief of naval operations, bill moran. [applause] >> good morning. i wish i'd been are all morning because i i understand the conversation has been terrific. just listening to the wrapup of the panel, i'm a little concerned, i'm just going to cover old ground but i will do my best. the theme here is about what it takes to win and the comets at the very end of that panel were incredibly important and i will put stop. we have got to bring in, train, delivery experience for our sailors, and in particular our commanding officers, to wake up every morning, assess the risk and decide how to move forward. the end of the day though we have to win.

and when you think about a fight in the south china sea or anywhere else around the globe, that's going to require an awful lot of risk-taking. question for all of us as we work our way through this discussion is how do we train people to assess risk and take the appropriate action, given the circumstances that they face day in and day out? so this is a perfect venue for me to come talk about a lot of different things, and i hope no one asks me what my prediction is for whether we will have a budget on friday or not. i really have no idea, but we all need to pray that we do have one. so look, as the vice chief, i've focused practically every single day i get up on what it takes to win. but a good deal of my time is spent on strategy, risk in

resources. and help answer the important question that's on the board this morning, and that all of the panelists appear to have addressed in one form or another. but my answer to your question is quite simply we need more money, but we need money that we can count on more than anything else. money is got to be in the right accounts. it's got to be at the right time. it's got to be predictable so that we can make efficient use of taxpayer dollars. i think the secretary spoke to it a little earlier today, that when you address continuing resolutions, they are painful when you're trying to operate a business as big as the united states navy. and they cost a significant amount of resources and waste an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out to move faster in a world that's moving faster every single year. the secretary talked about the

navy estimates since 2011-2012, we've lost because of continuing resolutions on the order of $4 billion that we could have spent. we could've done a lot with, we could have addressed a lot of problems. more often than not in the process of losing that money we continue to ask our people to do an awful lot. and they are, i think you would agree, pretty incredible. they have been incredible for the last years at responding to important demands by our combatant commanders and a national security staff. but we have an obligation to resource our people properly for what we ask them to do on a day in and day out basis. more delays in budgets, more delays in continuing resolutions

are not what we need. staying ahead of. or near peer competitors like russia and china, a continuing the against violent extremist organizations takes money we can count on. for the navy this is money to pay for more ships, aircraft, munitions, more capable ships, aircraft, ammunitions. and professionally trained and disciplined sailors to operate in a far more contested environment. the truth is, the truth is we have the smallest navy we've had in a century. i can remember as a junior officer come into this wonderful organization in the early '80s, when we had one existential threat. we knew a lot about that threat. we knew how we were going to fight that threat. and we had 600 ships, or thereabouts, and a whole lot

more airplanes than we have today. and on any given day as a junior officer with that size navy, we have 90-100 ships deployed around the globe. so our bench back in the early 80s against one threat was really deep when you think about the numbers alone. today a much different story. except on any given day, we've got 90-100 ships deployed around the globe. we have four, potentially five adversaries instead of one. we have half the number of ships and our planes than we did in the '80s. so without growth, we can't do what we are being asked to do at the level we are being asked to do it. and we can't make the deficit of simply by capacity, or silver by

capability alone. that is important but it's not everything. the absence of money that we can count on means we risk lives, our effectiveness as a naval force, and perhaps even the survival of our maritime standing in the world. to repeat a favorite quote, our nation can afford survival, if possible. last year at sna and last year at testify in front of congress i overstated the obvious by saying that the fastest way to grow both capacity and capability is to make whole what we already have. that story has not changed. for the past several years to many ships come subregion aircraft have been part, not ready to operate due to maintenance delays and throughput capacity. we were not resource to make

whole what we already own. we were not given to our war fighters the time and the tools to build capability to their own experiences. we were making tough choices, often bad choices, between operations, readiness and growing the force. as the conference of review of the recent surface force mishaps in seventh fleet and elsewhere, these issues and others contributed to the collisions because we took our eye off the ball and continued the analogy, we were executing a full-court press when we didn't have a sufficient bench to play the entire game. a slow erosion of it is emerged in parts of our navy, losing ground on operational safety, teamwork, radical candor, and

professionalism. we got sloppy and complacency set in in places. and we got complacent with our own standards, how we operate at sea. and i think it was just really talked talk about before i walked in, that can-do culture which we all love to be part of in our business, which is a great strength, good and at times does become a weakness in some respects. much of this is why size of the fleet and the quality of the force matter as we tried to move forward into the future. anytime an organization has the qualities like we experienced this summer, it is a shock to the system. a wake-up call for action. and we are fully committed to

make this right. just this past tuesday we brought together for the first time an oversight board in the pentagon, chaired by me, supported by admiral davidson and abdel swift, and a host of other important players. and because the corrective actions go beyond the surface navy, to syscon, to our demand, organize and operate, they testing to oversee the board to in the implementation of over 50 recommendations from admiral davidson's very good work in that report. as well as other recommendations from the gao, and our own ig, and the good ideas that are going to come from our fleet ceos around the globe. the oversight board just to be clear is simply to remove

barriers to anyone with the responsibility of intimate actions. we are going to help prioritize those actions and remain focused on addressing root causes with necessary resources to make them whole. to get after this will take a lot of time, and it will take money, and it's on senior leadership to set the tone and get it right. the fleet, the public, the media and congress have the right to ship a bright light on what we are doing. but make no mistake about it, folks. we are in this to win. so back to the question of the day here, what will it take to win. step one was taken, frankly, in fiscal year 17. with a much-needed injection of writing this dollars which helped us buy down some of the

maintenance backlogs where expensing and begin to invest more in spare parts. step two was working to fill in the holes in fiscal year fisca. and the tragic incidents over the summer accelerated our focus on wholeness of the fleet. step three will be a day by day effort to create the whole navy native by fundamentally getting after the basics, blocking and tackling. because if we fall short of today's training and experience, we will fall short in the same areas in the future. you cannot buy that back. several years ago i, our accounts were needed repair, pretty clear. but it took a backseat to procurement accounts. we sought to grow the force and improved capabilities. there was simply not enough money to maintain a balance

between them, especially as the demand to operate the force were high and increasingly growing year after year. as we reminded earlier, every year for the past ten years we didn't even start the year with a budget. so we didn't have the money that we needed, the money we needed to count on. with any luck, and i mean we might need some luck here, and a budget emerges for 18 will be able to stay our readiness objective that we started in 17, will be able to implement fully the recommendations of the conference of review and other important wholeness issues that are identified in the process. to lay the foundation to create an even better fleet for tomorrow. with readiness and wholeness stabilized in our budget, and a

comprehensive review fully addressed, we will be able to fund and build for your larger, more capable force in fiscal year 19 and beyond. much closer i believe to the navy the nation needs, and certainly not the smallest navy we sat in a century. we also have to take a look at our game plans in the fleet. what is the right model for our forces overseas? how do we fight with those forces that are forward deployed? we all know the game plans shift as adversaries change, here in some places man-to-man basketball defense is necessary, and in others a zone works just fine. but the trend over the past decade as we're spending a lot more time in zones than we are in man-to-man. and when you become a one-dimensional team, you are at risk of losing. the navy has always been

equipped, trained, and manned to fight at the high-end of warfare. they plug and play force in the joint survivor, a lethal war fighting team that move seamlessly between around the globe. the new defense strategy and supporting military strategy would likely still value very highly a maneuverable, flexible and resilient force. and i believe it will also still value forces that are in the neighborhood when tensions arise, forces that we can employ that have wicked jab to fort and adversaries intentions -- the work. to do this around run the globn we need money, money that we can count on so we can buy more ships and more capacity into the future. and maintain the readiness and wholeness investments we've made over the last two years.

today's 278 ships or even a 305 already planned won't get this done. there's a number of studies out there that speak to a navy in the mid-three hundreds, pick your number, doesn't matter. all we know right now is we need to start building towards a larger number. and while we are looking hard at ships we're also looking very hard at capability. to raise the bar a naval power by making our existing ships more lethal well into the future. winning in the future will take developing technologies that will continue to set us apart from adversaries. and in some of these areas, just catching up. directed energy, artificial intelligence, and networks, digital, cyber, advanced payloads. all will require stable funding and a commitment across the government, and to commitment from our industry partners.

our approach is less about driving to a specific number of ships and more about what we can achieve like finding without the, networks and it has technologies, a fleet were everything, platforms, isr, data, or fighters can talk to each other, and machine speed. where information is passed seamlessly to every asset and every operator, and win the environment degrades, we recover faster than our adversaries. counting ships tells us less about how to win then measuring the right capabilities enabled by the right advanced technologies. i like our odds in this contest. and make no mistake, it will be a contest because the technology around the globe today knows no boundaries. but to win we need money we can count on to get there ahead of our adversaries. let me close by talking about

our folks. as you heard me speak before, you won't be surprised to hear this. the most important factor in this entire discussion is the human element, our people. another hard lesson of a comprehensive review was reminder that more ships, better ships, smarter ships are merely dangerous objects in an otherwise unforgiving sea. unless we have savers with the right confidence, composure and character to deploy and execute safely everyday -- sailors. we will when we went at the end of the day because of our people. we owe them the training that moves at a pace of technology, that acknowledges that young americans today learn differently than we did. training that is timely, local,

and available at point that needs must be our future path. this, too, is going to cost money. but it cannot be traded in the ocean of tough choices, or we risk losing. to win we need money we can count on. we need the support of congress, and i think we have seen that, now it needs to show up in a signed budget. so i appreciate, pete, and the organization here, the opportunity to come and speak to this group. i have a feeling i have covered a lot of the same ground. i also have a feeling i'm going to get different kinds of questions. i'm going to ask p2, enjoy me, and i look forward to your questions. thank you very much. [applause]

>> well, just to recap because you spoke at another event this morning to the information warfare conference that's going on and another part of town. secretary kerry on strong on the issue of increased resources and the disruption of it that you brought up on the continuing resolution here you also talk that need to be tough and lethal. secretary work really said if you can come down, it comes down to a choice, capability, he would take capability overcapacity, making what we have whole and useful. he basically said was a no-brainer. he also made some comments about the congress that you can't say. but he basically said if you have a job to do and they don't do it, then they are not cutting it. and then in our comprehensive review panel we really just went

back and forth on what are the important elements of the review, how can we get at it, and the privatization of it, something you are very close to as the leader of the comprehensive review follow-up. such is to start off, i mean, the dilemma appears to be that we see the need for correction and we don't ever seem to quite get there. example, you mentioned, so did secretary spencer, 2017, 2018 we're going to fix readiness. and in 2019 the planes will come off the ground on capacity. but here we are, you know, i just got, on friday the hall was used as an example by the m3 five he said using it as an example is a testimony in front of, he said the dock landing ship at its availability confirmed three years due to can

continue resolution. each year the navy had to make decisions about how to slow spinning. and when they had in this the start date at a private shipyards it kept losing his place in life ultimately the available he took place, increase costs from 449, 111 million and the time and maintenance went from 207 days, 696 days. that's a shift example. example we recently had the air boss say, you know, up to two-thirds of its aircraft, the ones that are outside the maintenance loop are not ready, are not operationally available like they should be. so are we stuck in this pit? are we going to get -- what gives us confidence, vice chief? because this has been tough. what gives us confidence we can break this cr business and get beyond the whole we are in?

>> yes. >> sorry for the long question but i try to summarize in the morning do not able to attend. >> i'm sorry i missed it and it probably would have been useful for me to ask some of those folks a question or two. there is no question that when you look at the backlog for maintenance, just on the surface side, and are in, our nuclear yards, we've got a big hole to dig out of. an injection of cash in 17 helped a lot. it helped avoid deploring more maintenance into the fiscal year '18 which carries a bigger price tag to it down the road. so we got started on that in 17. we took no reduction in readiness in 18 purposely decide at the corporate level we're going to maintain and sustain that readiness so we could continue to buy down the backlog

and get onto a predictable turnaround cycle or our ships and aircraft, same. we have issues there with super capacity in our depots. issues there with parts and supplies at all those account came under enormous pressure over the last five to eight years. it started really even before sequestration, but it was magnified by it. and i was in, i was director of warfare during the very beginnings of sequestration and to sit around the table and look at the choices of continuing to fly and operate places where the nation said we need our air wings against how much do i continue to find at what levels to enable our accounts that put engineers on the flight line, part in the lockers and all those things. those are false choices. you don't want to make them but you have to make do. so we made those decisions, and

now they are coming home to roost in just the amount of time it takes to turn around a ship in maintenance or get airplanes through maintenance. so the vectors are in the right direction. our job now is to make sure that we stay committed to that. and the hard choices again will be made if we don't see the higher top lines that we talking about here in 18 and in 19. we will come down to a choice between operating the force, maintain the writings of the force and by a bigger force. what i mean bigger onto type of physical platforms. talking about the capabilities that make those platforms more advanced and more lethal. so those choices will come before us again. but at the end of the day, right now our focus is on making sure what we have is ready to fight, and that includes the operating of the force experience and it includes the holders of the forced to make sure that when it

does come to see it has what it needs. >> so in interest of getting to audience questions i'll just ask one more question and then i will open it up. for the comprehensive review, we've all seen large efforts like this get underway. usually at the beginning people remember why they are there, and then you go in for the really hard things. because the fact is that if it were easy it would've been solved. so give us, our audience today, the impression of urgency and commitment. image and commitment into remarks. when you got that group around the table, do you think they are ready to seize the day, and are the inner for the long haul? because it seems like when you really get down to the second, third or the level of detail in that report, it's across the whole spectrum. are we really, did you see that

right look, did you see the right energy and if you like you're the top get her to get done? >> i don't need a lot of whole lot of top coverage. i'm going to apply top cover from my level because i think as the vice chief i i spend like a set a lot of time on resourcing decisions, and i think some of the resource in the room know if we're not following the objective of getting the force back to an acceptable level of holders and readiness, that i'm going to make sure that we are resourcing the changes we think are necessary. but i think we all have to be really careful here. i often think back to those that were in my shoes or in our shoes years ago in naval aviation when we were crashing airplanes right and left, and we had a horrible safety record in the 70s, \60{l1}s{l0}\'60{l1}s{l0},

'70s and '80s, early '80s. >> admiral dunn mentioned that earlier. >> i i wonder what those people thought about how committed they were to reducing the mishap rate and, you know, i was the benefactor as a young gao of a lot of programs that were put in place, and all of this by the way didn't cost a lot of money. it's policy, standards, behaviors that can often change it. naval aviation took, it took arguably affected, a decade and a half to set new standards how you operate to try safety and the mishap rates down. i think about the submarine community in the mid-2000s, went through through a similar point in time. they looked very, they were internally at the own community and make some changes that were informed, procedural changes, funding challenges. all of the things that argue it took a decade for them to pull that out, and today operate the most effective, safest submarine

force in the world. >> so now is it the surface communities turn? i guess so. but we will all learn. every community is going to learn on the content for -- comprehensive are you. a lot of those things are brought up our behavioral in nature, are about setting and maintaining standards. not a floor by raising the floor. and continue to do that. so is a commitment a sense of urgency? >> absolutely. was a commitment and sense of urgency post reported? absolutely. none of this is worth the paper treat non-vote unless we follow through. so the oversight board is going to be there for as long as it takes. i'm committed to it, and i would hope that anybody who comes in behind me down the road would say the same thing, because it's too important to our navy, too important to our people. >> thank you. and with that i'm going to open

it up. i can see robbie harris out there with the mic. >> congratulations to you, vice chief. good morning. congratulations to you enter the naval institute. it's been a superb morning, the speakers have been spot on an honest and i appreciate that and i thank you for that. as i think back over the three sets of speakers including the vice chief, all have touched on fundamentals, if you will. and he to go back to the secretaries introductory comments, and he got the question about the fat leonard situation, and he agreed that it's not just the seventh leak problem. bob work agreed the fat leonard thing is not just a seventh fleet problem. it actually calls into question i think and, unfortunately, the moral fiber, the ethical fiber -- the ethical fiber of the u.s. navy, particularly the navy

officer corps. and i wonder what the naval academy and rotc at ocs for that matter are doing about that? that's the first fundamental. the moral fiber, ethical fiber of the u.s. navy has been called into question. in go on to bob work this morning, and bob's discussion about how we have bias in favor of presence rather than capability. it's a fundamental question. why did we do that? and then the most recent panel this morning, gerry roncolato and the others, apparently some of us don't know how to operate ship control. their offices of the decker don't understand the rules of the road. there are cos who don't enforce their night orders for it's pretty fundamental, you know? now, it calls into question how did we get into this situation

in which the very fundamentals of our navy are called into question? i'd love to hear an answer. >> robbie, i threatened to address that in my remarks, so i was a bit those for the record, if you will. so it's a combination. there are systemic issues that are in play here. i think we all agree. i call those contributing factors. the causal factors for the mishap, mishaps, are much more local. there are leadership issues. in naval aviation when we go look at a class a mishap would lose an airplane or loss of life, causal factors are usually the result of several steps at any point of the way, any single action, single decision, single question. someone mentioned that earlier.

just the courage to ask the question. would have put off the mishap. but not necessarily change the systemic pressure on the environment. so we have to look at both of these things. the root cause of each one, and then the root causes that undergird the environment and the pressure that were asking ourselves to operate in. it goes to training fichte goes to leadership. it goes to manny there so many aspects of this that are out there. i don't, you know, that are so many time colleges want to stand up, i guess i will do it right here. i am so proud of our navy, the men and women that we have at sea are no different than a minute in women you serve with. they want to do a a great job. nobody wakes up in the morning and tries to do a bad job, right? they tried to make the right

decisions. we are constantly faced with different pressures out there that are frankly no different than others that it gone before that. so the moral fiber, the ethical fiber, the backbone of our people and our navy is strong. but our people are not perfect, people expect perfection the world we live in expects profession -- perfection it anytime you fall short you criticize and you go under the microscope. more so today than any other time i think is major -- is maybe the major difference. so i will stand up very strongly for our men and women out there that are doing on any given day incredible work. there are many, many examples of excellence in our navy over the last year at the same time we've had these other tragedies occur. so i think for all of you that our entire navy and active duty,

research in the room or just support the navy generally, we got it talk about the good things, the great things that our navy is doing. and recognizing that it is our responsibility to learn from the things we got wrong and be willing to admit when we got them wrong and then go after them. the perpetually way you grow as an individual, as a professional and as a force. so that's what i'm going to stay focused on this. the oversight board we all agreed that the center of the universe if you will about the lanes in which we do all of the recommendations in the cr, the challenges that have been posed to us by congress, and other organizations, the sin of universe is the ceo of the bridge on the ship. the co of the squadron, the submarine. everything we do need to be making that job of that person easier to manage, less strenuous

in terms of having to fight resources and challenges, manchu challenges, all of those things. and not adding into the rough sack that is already pretty happy right now. so my concern as we enter into these oversight responsibility is that we don't just buy on a bunch of response action simultaneously and overwhelm the fleet with all of these things were trying to do. but that we prioritize in terms of the safety, safe and effective operation of our fleet first and foremost and then we start looking at other systemic issues that need to be addressed. but do it in a measured way instead of just going like we are all prone to do with naval officers is to just go solve the problem. the sooner we solve it the better. there has to be a pace that the fleet can tolerate, and i think that's an important aspect of how we go forward. thanks, robbie. >> we had a question earlier about including younger voices

in getting their feedback. and it just going to ask you, it may be premature because you just started this process, but do you envision this having a feedback loop? what you just said reminded me where you get at maybe a department head up to command officers in the fleet, feedback either on what you're changing what you're contemplating changing as to kind of get what you just said, you don't want to crush them while saving them. >> you know, something the surface community start a few years ago that a starting to bear fruit is similar to what other communities have done with what i call their weapons and tactics, experts, prose from dover, you know, that utis. and i think we go to them early and often in this process and get their direct feedback. what are they saying? because it out much closer contact with the fleet.

they care about because they were chosen to reach that patch wearing to take the others. >> that's contemplated in your process. sydney, are you at the microphone? >> yes here. >> launch away. >> wishful thinking on your part, admiral. admiral, i was taking notes what you are saying. admiral, you mentioned the 4 billion figure. quick math interns with the crs have cost us. that's actually in terms of the whole megabudget that's less

than half percent over the years but where does at 4 billion come from, and what is the litany of other impacts from the cr? do you have figures on if there's another two weeks without delay and availability? i mean, we can't overall overhl certain aircraft or other things that would be forbidden as new starts or not allowed to go because are part of a budget increase. >> sydney, so if you want to stroke the check for 4 billion right now, i've got a lot i can do with that come even though it's half percent. but if you look at where we were at the end, in the final '12 budget that was proposed and we are today, we are $100 billion short of where we thought we needed in terms of money, reliable money we could count on to build the navy. we needed to fill the national defense strategy in 2012. even thing, the world has gotten more complex, harder to fight

in, and we are $100 billion short in the trajectory 12 put us on. crs are painful. sequestration in the immediate cut in 2012 was really significant. all that said, you know, win for the last ten years, and arguably two-thirds of the last four decades, we started every year under the cr. we've gotten pretty good at only playing three-quarters of the game when we have given points to the opposing team every time we've done that. the fleet commanders have the list, and it's -- based on when, when that money in terms of a budget shows up, so everything for maintenance deferrals, aircraft maintenance, operations, those sorts of

things are all well understood in terms of the level of budgeting. so let's pray we don't have to go there again. we had to do that last year right up until the make timeframe when the budget came in, and then the new administration added a significant amount of cash into orbit is accounts which allowed us to catch up to the deferred maintenance that had already begun. we understand very, very well what's going to happen if we don't get a budget at the end of this quarter. >> okay. jim, were you at the microphone or just kind of pain? >> i met the microphone with a quick follow-up. you used the term radical feedback, or radical, in your comments, radical candor. i wanted to pull the sprinkler bit on that, or have you obviously give some more on that. the performance aspect of cos and the leadership teams have

been well without the morning especially in the previous panel. i was curious to get a little bit more for the crowd to find how we're going to come and 80 will get at that. i will contend with done a fairly poor job over the years of actual being honest with ourselves and knowing our strengths and weaknesses and, you know, our system we have now doesn't do a very good job of that, nor do we do good job at that. i was just wondering your thoughts. >> jim, as you know, over at the naval academy we see this a lot with young men who are dying to get feedback on how they are doing. and both those in leadership positions also as subordinates, and i think much can be said at the same kind of behavior occurs in the fleet. and if you look at the collisions, especially mccain and fitzgerald, the lack of the questioning attitude really hurt

us. and that, that can be driven by how young junior officers are raised, but i think it's largely the atmosphere that is established by the triad, and a particularly commanding officer. we've got to do more. we've got to focus more on our commanding officer to get them to understand and learn the lessons from these two tragedies, that they don't want to be that commanding officer. the way you don't be that many officers by having forceful backups. forceful backups come from junior officers and crew members across the spectrum who, when they don't feel right, doesn't look right, it's not standard procedure, commands are not exactly standard, that the question it. i just that question alone can often avert a disaster. so that's what i mean by kind of a radical candor. it's a strong term that i used

just to get people to think about how candid are you going to be. that's all. nothing more than that. >> thanks, chief. you have a lot on your plate, you need it for the vice chief do have a lot on your plate, but today particularly so, and we want to support you if there's anything we can do in this effort, let us know, whether it's a survey, whether it's some type of pulsing to get information from our constituents, our members. but we want to thank you for taking the time here today, your busy day, to come talk to us. and it's good to hear that you feel like a comprehensive review has seized the team for action and commitment. so we thank you and we appreciate. let's give the vice -- [applause] >> can i accept this? >> i don't know.

>> thank you very much. >> you can donate it to the office. >> thanks. >> i'll wrap it up here. so we heard a lot today. i've already qaeda summarized for the morning. i'd like to just think anybody for coming out today. i'd like to thank our speakers for giving us their the topic d also like to rethink our sponsors very quickly, which is usaa, lockheed martin, rmf, and textron systems incorporate. we couldn't do a program like this without your support. so again we thank you and we will call it a conclusion right here. [applause] ♪ ♪ [inaudible conversations]

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>> and also like today, for the eastern time will have previous of the supreme court argument either with religious freedom and anti-discrimination laws. centered on the case of a bakery in colorado that refused to make wedding cake for a same-sex couple. for people eastern on c-span. both chambers are in today. they pay sick of it shut down deadline at midnight friday with plans to put in place a two week temporary funding measure that is good through december 22. today the senate will consider the nomination of the next homeland security secretary with a vote to limit debate scheduled at 5:30 p.m. eastern, and a confirmation vote possible as early as wednesday. also some point this it is going to be expecting the house to

send over a short-term spending bill to fund the government until december 22 pick about likely on that later in the week, and another on starting taxi from negotiations with the house. the house gaveling in at 6 p.m. eastern with a vote scheduled at 6:30 p.m. on going to conference with the senate on the tax reform bill, and later in the week possible legislation on guns, also government funding and gun legislation. you can follow the house live on c-span, and the senate live on c-span two. >> tonight on "the communicators," matthew prince, co of the internet company clouds layer who successfully booted and a neo-nazi group ofe internet joins us to discuss those actions, hate speech and the first amendment. >> once you start down the path of saying that this invisible deep infrastructure company that is running the network gets to make decisions, i don't think

that you might like where you come out at the other end. it's a little bit i can to if phone company was listening in on the conversations that you had and decided they didn't like your tone of voice of the language you're using or the topics you are discussing, if they just pulled the cord and shut down the phone line, that violates a social contract which we had with the phone company for quite some time. what if think is happening is a number of companies like cloudflare that odd are that dp infrastructure that runs behind the scenes and makes internetwork. and the question is whether not we are the right ones to be making the decision on what content should and shouldn't be allowed online. >> watch "the communicators" tonight at eight eastern on c-span2. >> president trump left the white house this morning for utah where you will address the state legislature there picky spoke with reporters before boarding