i think the more emerging issue and the democrats kind of illness, republicans have rejected it, should they negotiate with pharmaceutical companies on drug pricing. that, to me, is a >> you said i think what you said framed differently as what types of health care and what services provided within the health care system should be guaranteed. >> and also, ask that they be right on top of that, should the government be an agent of change within insurance itself. should it be an option that the government that is there. that's maybe-- in terms of that versus a single payer health care system, which i think for a lot of reasons, not just because of the republican opposition to it, some democratic opposition to it, i think really in terms of moving this incrementally further forward, those are the issues. where i think you'll see some of that balance. >> it's interesting, too, i would say, to agree with you,

congresswoman, something like medicare for all actually doesn't poll very well, it turns out. something like, depending how you frame it. >> eye care, dental vision, should it be included in the essential health benefits. i can tell you where that one falls. >> and mental health as well. >> yes. >> and that supports what you just said, by the way. those are majority. >> i took expansion to mean something a little bit different, but, yes, more things-- >> we're going to leave this program, but you can watch it in its entirety at c-span.org as we take you live to the hudson institute for a discussion about defense production among the u.s. and its allies here on c-span2. >> we have here representatives from the united states and some of our closest allies and partners. we're here because, unfortunately, with the wars in the middle east and europe, we've been reminded that we must be prepared to protect our interests with military force, should deterrents fail and we've seen what happens when deterrents fail, tragedy,

death, destruction. and both of these conflicts have shown us in real-time the importance of scale and adaptability and cooperation in defense production. allies are emptying their musicians stock piles, demand for ships and aircraft and outstrip supplies. demand for, as i said munitions. at the same time the proliferation of technology have allowed longstanding weapons systems, if not obsolete, at least degraded in their capabilities. allies will need to combine their industrial efforts to keep pace with dynamic and intensifying security challenges and that's the subject of today's morning, looking at how we might improve, strengthen and add to allied defense cooperation. we have an excellent lineup. we're going to start the morning with the ambassador from the republic of korea and then we'll shift it two panels of experts and we'll end the

morning with a fireside chat virtual with representative rob wittman. i'll turn to the first speaker, the pleasure of introducing one of our most stallworth allies, ambassador cho. he has a long and illustrious career, served in india, austria and united nations. he represents a country that long understood the importance of establishment and a strong defense industrial base. he's been personally a part of the key u.s.-korea bilateral relationship and has been at the forefront of working with our countries together to relook at supply chains and to navigate increasing competition across the technology sectors. most recently, he has played a central part in building on the camp david meeting of last year, with tri-lateral

cooperation among the united states, japan and korea and an expert on north korea and has worked for many years with the united states to enhance our capabilities to address pyongyang's increasing provocations. ambassador cho most recent a working with the president on his pivotal state initiative and maybe we'll hear about that and it's a great privilege to welcome him this morning. thank you so much, ambassador. [applause] >> well, good morning, everyone. thank you nadia, for your kind interaction. i first thank you to hudson institute for hosting tonight's forum. i'm so delighted to join you and pleased that leading korean companies are represented here today as well, along with many of friends. to me, this week is truly a

week of defense industry. on tuesday i had the pleasure of visiting a u.s. annual 2024 meeting and annual expedition to see the exciting ways more technology is deployed to advanced military employment. the korean parallel in particular a display of fascinating product produced by korean defense industry. as our global economic partnership continues to flourish, the companies here today have played an instrumental role in develop key industries and advancing continuing technologies here in the united states. we are at the moment in global security. each morning, we wake up to news of strikes and bombardment in middle east. russian or ukrainian advancement on the battlefield. north korean soldiers on the

russian front in ukraine or china air and sea maneuvers nearby. russia's invasion of ukraine reminded us how vulnerable we are to neighbors and conventional weapons. despite our many technological advances, they remain relevant in modern warfare, alongside weapons, suicide and dragon drones. at the same time the competition between the united states and china is intensifying and some specific countries, as well as terrorist organizations continue to threaten global peace and security. together these factors clearly demonstrate the need for stronger defense industry cooperation among allies and partners. russia's reliance on north

korean supplies, and the pacific and euro atlantic regions. moreover, demonstrate a display of hostility earlier this week by blowing up the road that used to connect north and south. while mostly symbolic, this demonstrates how pyongyang willfully established itself a menace in two theaters either side of the globe and it's vital to industries from korea, europe, and the united states come together to strengthen our collaboration and enhance our defense capabilities. only that will ensure an effective and coordinated response to many challenges to global peace and security we face. that is why today's event is so important. although there are many ways our nations can cooperate, i

want to focus first on the ship building which has always been a significant element of global strategic competition. the u.s. congress recently released a report highlighting the disparity and building capacity between the united states and china. to be blunt, it found that china is far ahead. right now china has 230 times the ship building capacity of the united states, while also possessing the world's largest maritime fighting force operating 234 warships to the u.s. navy's 219. the great 19th century naval historian famously side, whoever rules the water rules the world. and the power dynamics.

and there's strong bipartisan support in the u.s. to address this challenge. the bad news is that by working together the capacity exists for korea and the united states to build a stronger industrial foundation and one that will jointly support our friends aallies national security and economic prosperity. korea is the world's second largest ship building country with a 30% market share and reputation for efficiency and excellence. visiting korea's ship yard earlier this year to see our swift ship building, as he mentioned himself during the korea national day reception two weeks ago. of course, challenges remain, there are various-- full cooperation that we must address.

for example, u.s. low mandate that u.s. military ships must be built in america which have limited the expands with foreign partners. this is salient as approaching elections, increase the core to protect american manufacturing and the associated jobs. nevertheless, this is a pivotal moment and we must recognize that cooperation creates benefits than protection. while the u.s. remains unmatched in its ability to produce the most technology advanced military force, strengthening the military base cannot be accomplished overnight or by itself. we can best enhance our capabilities and innovation to ensure a secure future at sea only by working together with

trusted partners with the strength to compliment our own. recognized this and introduced a regional sustainable framework. it's a creative way to expand cooperation within the boundaries of the current u.s. law. it provides opportunities for allies and partners to help maintain and repair u.s. military system closser closer to the point of their name. korean companies have found ways to deepen our mutual cooperation, including participating in naval -- ammunition ship mro and acquiring yard. the momentum is there, but we must do more. this is the moment to deepen our partnership and strengthen our industries even further. ship building is only one potential area of cooperation,

but there are others as well. the u.s. national defense industry strategy rightly emphasized that we can enhance production capacity and address the critical capability gap by working together. the ongoing conflict in the middle east and europe that i mentioned earlier have shown how critical and strong and resilient the defense industrial base remains. the ability to produce defense capabilities at both speed and scale is absolutely vital. korea, the u.s., now european allies, all bring our own unique strength to the tables. strength that ought to be leveraged for our mutual benefit and shared responsibilities. korea, as the world's 10th largest exporter in 2023 offers many reliable approval and quick and effective solutions,

particularly with the conventional weapons. consider, for example-- refound nor for fire power, and the tank, with speed, strength and surviability in the most tense combat situation. and the rocket launcher, one of the most formidable rocket launchers and trainer which was developed in cooperation with lockheed martin and cost effective. i'm glad that the u.s. house of representatives also recognized the benefits of mutual cooperation by including a language in the 2025 ndaa, mutual enhanced defense cooperation between korea and

the united states. similarly, our u.s. and european partners bring their own strength and expertise to the table. for example, they are both leaders in aerospace, cyber defense, and advanced autonomous weapons systems technology. today's forum is an excellent opportunity to identify how we can each leverage our effective strength to deepen our collaboration. by working together, we can create more resilient and improve and level of success out of reach for any of us on our own. working together, will also let us better purse a research and development project, emerging technologies like ai integrated weapons systems, unmanned aerial vehicles and undersea capabilities. collaboration ensures that we

stay-- we stay ahead of the competition and enhance our readiness with the challenges that we have. let me close with a brief reflection of the launch we saw over the weekend. once it was thought that saving the booster from the rocket was impossible. but we can take inspiration from the amazing scene we saw on sunday as the booster floated back down and was plucked out of the air by two giant arms. tasked with a clear goal, people made it happen. that is why i know that although we face difficult barriers in defense cooperation, our commitment can and will make it a reality. so once again, i want to thank hudson institute for inviting me to bring us together today and now i look forward to hearing from all of you. thank you very much.

[applause] >> time for a couple of questions from the audience. so, let's see. who would like-- chris, could you introduce yourself and your affiliation. >> (inaudible) >> good morning, mr. ambassador. christopher bellow from provision advisors and defense and aerospace report. in your conversations with the administration and with the congress here in the united states do you feel like you are getting the right support and what else can be done in the short and medium term to help bring the needed, whether it's technology or whether it's actual armaments here to the united states so that together, as you said, we are a more formidable alliance when facing the chinese and the russians? >> well, that's a good question. but when you say--

it depends who you are. the defense industry cooperation is something, from my experience, it's something it takes longer than cooperation other than just the normal industries. because first of all, you have to build a trust between the partners. without trust, you cannot have defense industry cooperation. korea has become one of the indisdefensible -- indispensable allies of the united states. so far so good. to me i have -- well, i've been ambassador to the united states for year and a half, but i now already realize some difference and progress since my arrival last year. so we are working hard to build

on our trust and alliance and i think not only ship building, but also, we have many areas for future cooperation. including the items that i mentioned already. so, i'm quite optimistic. so, as i said, i'm this cooperation always takes time, but probably, i will make some kind of kind of progress within a few weeks' time frame. thank you. >> any last question? >> sir, can you introduce yourself. >> i'm at the office of the austrian defense attache and i was going to ask, south korea is sending significant amount of troops to russia, whether

this in any way shape or form with decision making concerning north korea right now? thanks. >> yeah, that's very serious issue. i'm dealing with right now today. first of all, we are still analyzing that information. we don't have any confirmed intelligence information on how many or weather the north korean troops are in the battlefield or how many of them are in the front. but i think it's quite likely that it might already happen, but if that is the case, i think this is something we have to deal with in a very serious manner. together -- not just between korea and the united states, but also together with allies and partners from n.a.t.o. members.

we need to have, first of all, some coordinated response, so we have to, i think, hold some confrontation, as we have some information. but as i've said, this is clearly showing that the security of the indo-pacific and the security of the surrounding area is closely connected. that's why, i think n.a.t.o. invited members in july as permanent partner of the n.a.t.o. cooperation. >> thank you. thank you so much, mr. ambassador. thank you. >> thank you very much. [applause]. >> if you could stay seated. we're going to assemble now the second panel that will be joining me on stage. oh, okay.

take a quick break then. and then we'll reassemble. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

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[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> and the hudson institute taking a short break here. we'll wait until they resume and talking about their allies

and industrial capeabilities as they meet the challenges of the current global client. with 19 days until the election, we have a full day of live campaign coverage here on c-span. senator j.d. vance will speak to voters at a rally in pittsburgh. we'll have that live at 12:30 eastern time and then at 3:00, governor tim walz is joined by former president bill clinton in durham, north carolina. they'll be kicking off early voting in the state today. at 7:00 p.m., senator elizabeth warren and her challenger john deaton will participate in a debate to represent massachusetts in the u.s. senate and then later this evening at 8:00, vice-president kamala harris holding a rally in green bay, wisconsin. she's marking her sixth visit to the state since the start of her presidential campaign. also tonight at 9:15 eastern, former president donald trump speaking at the annual alfred e. smith memorial foundation dinner, a bipartisan white tie gala that benefits the roman

catholic dioces of new york. all of that on companion network c-span and watch them live on the free c-span now video app and join us live at c-span.org. waiting for the hudson institute discussion to resume. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

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[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> and again, live coverage here on c-span2 on the hudson institute discussion of defense production between the u.s. and

allies. on a break here expect to go resume shortly. tonight, incumbent wyoming senator john barrasso and democratic challenger scott marro will have a debate watching live at 9 p.m. eastern, have that here on c-span2. you can also join us on c-span now, our free mobile video app or online at c-span.org. [inaudible conversations] >> okay, everyone, please take your seats. we're going to get started in

just a minute. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] >> oh, good, great, jim, good to see you. perfect. mr. lee, the center vice-president and head of design in the special naval unit and mr. jim shurmur deputy managing director of american metal vehicles. thank you so much, everyone. looking forward to the conversation today. we'll start with the navy side of things and allied cooperation in this domain. in preparation for the panel i was reading the recent bipartisan congressional report on the u.s. maritime capabilities overall and it presented some pretty alarming pictures as the ambassador said, china has 230 times the capacity of the united states

in terms of shipping orders. the united states had five last year. china had something like 1,700, so it's pretty stark. mr. brock, can you tell us a little about how the department is feeling about this problem? i know you have been and i know the department of the navy has several initiatives underway? >> yes, the secretary's maritime initiative at its core is intended to restore the maritime power of the nation for several reasons. the first reason, of course, is that our ability to build on naval combatants and the numbers we need in the time frame we need and for the cost that the american taxpayer can afford requires a broader industrial base, maritime industrial base to make that happen. you know, as over the last 30 to 40 years, as our maritime

capacity, other than the naval, has almost entirely disappeared and china has risen as we've traded places with them as far as global ship building and the amount of flagged ships that we have. the cost and difficulty in building naval combatants has gone in the opposite direction. so at its core, the navy will benefit from a revival of the broader maritime industry in the nation and also, we will deliver what we need and also, it's pretty apparent that over the last 30, 40 years, we've outsourced the transport of our economy, so 99.6% of our imports and exports that go by sea and over 90% of our economy does go by sea are carried on non-u.s. flag ships. so, it's imperative, also, for economic security and for the maintenance of our vital trade in times of crisis and in times of competition and not just in

times of conflict, that we gain greater control over those broader aspects of american industry. >> thanks, steve. mr. lee, can you comment a little on the problem that i mentioned in the opening. you're in asia in the middle of what china is doing in the region in terms of its capabilities and how you see that landscape? >> well, the china ship building industry, commercial ship building to challenge our nation's ship building a long time ago. i think the issue is the-- they took over the conventional merchant ship like the carrier and tankers. for now, they even start to building like the lng carrier which requires high technology and high quality, so, it's a bit challenging for us as well

and china's ship building industry, they have a combined capability of both commercial and military, and so it can get synergy from to the military ships and a big concern for all of us as well. >> can the u.s.-- what can the u.s. learn from hyundai's model of that working together with your commercial building and i know that the navy in september to sort of discussed to look at what's going on. what are your perspectives on that and then i'll ask mr. lee? >> yes, we've made several trips to hyundai and the secretary himself was there in february of last year meeting with the leadership in seoul and also at the ship yard. a great deal was learned and a great deal more can be learned.

the amount of automation, digitization, the efficiency at the ship yard, used commercial ship building to underwrite to the economy of scale to bring efficiencies and affordability to naval and special project building. we in the united states don't do dual commercial ship building, we build only naval at shipyards and that makes it extraordinarily expensive and also, our shipyards are, you know, not nearly as modern or up-to-date. so some folks like to say we build the most advanced naval combatants in the shipyards, which you look at that further not on time and more expensive. we need more modernizing our shipyards, 21st century shipyards and 21st century construction practices and those are many things that our friends in korea are already

doing. and one of the big reasons for that. they have a competitor in china and nothing makes you more lean and more capability and more efficient than a competitor that is working hard to take the market share. >> my understanding is last year, actually, korea surpassed china in terms of ship orders. congratulations. so, tell us a little about the visit at the ship yard. i was reading about that and it's remarkable how modern, how many ply employees, something like 40,000 employees using technology in manufacturing. >> yes, in the hyundai industry as a single ship yard, we are the largest ship yard 6.8 million square meter area. so, we have a dry dock and -- to improve our productive we have 15,000 our own employees

and 20,000 subcontractors. so we deliver 50 ships per year. this year i think that 48 ships year so that's the annual capacity and we're operating a small ship yard inside the world's biggest ship yard. and we have the state of the art technology from commercial yard to the navy ship yard might be something that the u.s. ship building industry, mainly for navy ships, but we have commercial ship building, we have a big competition in china so we have to develop our technology continuously and that comes to the navy ships as well. so some model of really embedding, embedding naval work within the commercial ship yard that we might not be doing and could be interesting to think about those types of models. now, i'll move from sea to land, mr. shurmur.

can you tell us a little about the model in terms of its approach to defense cooperation? because it does really team that you have a really particular successful mod until working through subsidiaries and actually doing the nuts and bolts, the nitty-gritty of cooperation. >> right, to think our model primarily has been one of developing intellectual property to date, primarily in germany at the headquarters, but when we find international partner to buy that product, we'll set up production facilities in their home country, so we built factories in australia and in hungary, recently to builds combat vehicles for those two countries. obviously the governments appreciate the job that that provides locally and the independence it gives them in a crisis to build their own product. but additionally, it gives the company and frankly, the collection of allies, more capacity globally to have those

plants and i say that because i think one of the greatest constraints on growing capacity right now is skilled labor. if you have a factory, you can conceivably go to a second shift or perhaps even a third shift, but if you can't find enough skilled labor there, that's just impossible. there's only so much you can pay and a lot of blue collar workers, particularly in america, it's not worth an extra $10 an hour to move across country to give up the local family that helps watch the kids, interest rates, it's difficult to buy a home, et cetera. so if you have several plants that are operating between typically 80 and 90% capacity and you actually have a lot more growth potential with that dispersion, a very large plant, you just have difficulty attracting enough talent. >> if you faced obstacles overall in opening of up factories in the united states, how are you balancing a sense

of, is it easy? are states making it easy? is the federal government making it easy, the dod? has there been a change? >> there are still significant barriers, so, in the case in the united states and i work in the vehicles business unit, that's what i'm most familiar with, in order to do classified work for the u.s. government, of course, we had to become mitigated. it's not impossible, but it's challenging. >> can you explain that for a minute, just what the acronym means. >> stands for fortune ownership and controlling interest, so to oversimplify, it's essentially a firewall between my company and the united states, american rheinmetall. my boss who runs it does not report to germany, he reports to the director. there are two employees, one is

a german, one from the united kingdom and outside who are not employees, who are u.s. citizens has to outnumber the inside directors so they can vote down anything that's not in the united states national interest. so we have three u.s.-- two retired three-star generals and a u.s. security expert. >> and this is with an allied country so you can see how the bureaucracy works. >> and i think it works very well and gives us an amazing amount of autonomy because my boss can go right to the small boards and the decision making rights that he has were substantially greater than someone who worked in a corporation of similar size and allowed us to be very agile and flexible, but i will say that it was a long road to get there. it cost a fair amount of money. you have to hire experts from consulting groups and law firms

to help you navigate that and then, also to get a facility clearance to handle secret data. so companies that are not already operating in the united states and they have to be willing to make that investment without a contract in hand in order to get in the game and that's challenging. and the second part building factories expensive and we looked at that option and decided to acquire a firm, that deal is not closed yet, but we're buying, planning to buy an american company that has four factories already operating in the u.s. to give us that manufacturing footprint. >> so you've highlighted a bit how dod, the problem with allied defense cooperation in many ways comes down to working through some of these bureaucratic hurdles to enable us to move faster in that domain. could you speak a little about your perspective? are we working on that? because it's a very practical obstacle to our ability to cooperate more effectively

together. >> through the-- you know, the primary message that the secretary has been delivering on trying to work with allies and get through some of these challenges is invest in america. to come to america and have u.s. subsidiaries and implement many of the things that you just said right now to make some of that possible. but the goal is to, number one, obviously, the law does not allow us from a ship building perspective not a weapons perspective, but the law does not allow us to build ships abroad. they have to be built in the united states. now, we have two u.s.-owned subsidiaries of ship builders from allied nations and we have one up in marinette, wisconsin and alabama, an australian firm, and so the secretary has

opened that others would follow, follow that lead, including some of the world's, you know, best and most capable ship builders and of course, there's the ongoing effort to acquire the philadelphia ship yard that's working its way through the system. but, there's a lot of advantages to having a u.s. subsidiary, right? it's not only the political support you get from u.s. jobs and u.s. economic activactiviti especially in places that are currently, you know, not-- that would require more economic vibrancy in the coastal areas, et cetera. but there's also real strength in diversification of not only where we can get our domestically, but advantage for the ship builders themselves to be located in the united states. if you think about the strategic depth that that offers, right? if you're building or repairing

ships in northeast asia, you might not be doing that in crisis or conflict. so, it also offers the world's ship builders the depth to be able to do it in more of a sanctuary space in the united states and also allows the united states to have more capability than ship building. we as an alliance, we often think of alliance as strength in numbers, and the powerful deterrent effect and also, if conflict was to arise, you know, many, including the secretary austin says, hey, our navy is much bigger, because we'll add in the combatants of the navy that are there with us. what is bigger deterrents than that is what our industrial capacity that they can bring. the ability not only to have ships, but the ability to produce many more ships and leverage the collective strength of our alliance and i

mentioned we don't have much maritime capability in the u.s. anymore, it's pretty much naval and our competitor is a full spectrum global power across the entire industry, from shipping to ship building. but what we do have, as tremendous advantage, we have very close allies that are the best ship builders, not only in asia and korea and japan, but you've heard about who builds the ice breakers, an n.a.t.o. member. so we have a lot of industrial gas capacity among our alliance and we need to pool that effort in ways that has fighting capability not only in our navy. >> and what has been your experience in working in the u.s. with american companies, the exchange of ideas. with can you tell us, what we

just mentioned we have to figure out the opportunity and so, start to have that and with the technology we can share and we can co-develop for the future market. that's the area that we are taking the opportunity for the future program, but in the meantime, we also have good conversation for the-- just for the combatant program for korean navy as well, like the-- we have the good cooperation drs for the next generation korean destroyer and the-- and we time to time talk to lockheed martin to develop the new market for the foreign navy export like the-- so some military vessels on

there. and there are a couple of -- it's happened. also, we engage with the american ship builder and we open our ship yard to invite them to show the-- our facility and how we're working on our ship building again, and that's the start that we can have -- which area we can have cooperation. >> and are you face-- do you face opposition that hyundai is taking american jobs or how do you look at those issues? >> we're not replacing any american jobs, actually, so we think the analyzed ship costs, 70% of the costs comes from the ship yard, it's the procurement and do only 20% and then -- so if we can translate to u.s. ship building industry, it can

create, expand the maritime industry inside the u.s. which means we can create more jobs in the u.s. and not replacing any american jobs. that's our thoughts, so, we think that we can help the u.s. ship building industry to have-- to strengthen its capability and we may have more jobs in america which will be mainly for the maritime industry. >> thank you. jim, let's go to the subject of innovation and the experiences thinking about what's happening in ukraine and the pressure to innovate quickly, which the ukrainians have met quite well. how are you thinking about that? how is the company thinking about that and does our system make it easy to do that? you can see the opportunities, but sometimes it's actually difficult to act on them. certainly, so, i think one thing that we're working on and really the primary credit goes to the u.s. army and the way

they've structured this, the program xm30, combat vehicle, intended to replace the bradley. it's one of the erm a army's pioneer programs and enforcing pretty strict modular open systems approach standards so they've kind of defined the architecture they want to use. and the goal there is to make it significantly easier to integrate a new component. so if a better jammer is developed, a better sensor is developed. it can be frp much more easily and quickly put on the platform because the platform itself, the steel box, engine and transmission, that technology will continue to evolve. it evolves very slowly, but the technology that's in the electronics, in the sensors, in the warheads, the software, na changes very rapidly. so the ability to swap those components out, i think, gives

the army a lot of flexibility to make changes as they see things evolving on the battlefield. >> so, that's a positive story. the army has been able to do that pretty quickly and in response to events as they unfold? >> right now i'd say that the promise is there. we haven't actually delivered the platform and so i -- we're kind of pioneering in the space and when you're a pioneer that ends one of two ways, either you're lewis and clark and you get parks and statues and that sort of thing or you're a downer party and everyone freezes in a cave. [laughter] >> i'm hoping the first one. >> be positive. >> i know. but we're going to have to deliver the platform and then the proof is in the pudding as to whether that approach really works. i believe in it, i really do and it's just going to be aage cha challenge to get there.

>> and i'll ask a question, when you say allied cooperation, where should we be in a few years. >> i say that because when i started out at the pentagon many years ago, i went in as a young grad student and i thought, gee, i'm going to learn about international defense cooperation, and i got to the pentagon and quickly realized, like, well, one, everyone sort of wanted to build their own tank. everyone wanted to do things their way and i figured out over time that probably wasn't a match for me, that was it really? and today we're here some 30 years later knowing that it's really a necessity, right? that we need to pool our resources because of the threat that we face. what can we hope to achieve the next five years or what would make it possible in your mind? obviously, this is a hugely complex issue. steve, what do you hope for in this domain? >> the first thing that i hope

for is that ship builders and ship buyers take advantage of some programs that are -- that are new and ever present and yet to be tapped. and that they last get behind some initiatives, following initiatives that would make things better. so i would explain. the first thing is, everybody knows that there's been about 1.1 trillion dollars putting into the money and also the ira money, and in discussions over the last couple of years with department of energy, we now have the ability to make the-- some of those funds available to the ministries that were primarily focused on ev's and light trucks. and the advanced manufacturing program is about $45 billion, and we're talking, i think, ford, general motors got 9 and 8 billion dollars respectively

to build ev plants and now shipyards, greenfield, modernizing something that already exists in operation, that there's not been a single ship builder yet to apply for a loan, but that many is there and that's underwritten by goe and that's treasury rates. and the second, title 17 clean air financing program, that's treasury loans for the ship buyer, 70 billion dollars there. and when the secretary went to meet with the ceo of maersk, said if you could finance ships through goe, would you do it? of course, you in america can't build the kind of ships we want it buy. if we could build the ships that you want in america, would you prefer to buy in america, especially in times of conflict? he said yes. not only are we trying to do on

the supply side, meet with ship builders and tell them about the new possibilities to invest in american shipyards, but on the demand side to speak to the world's biggest ship buyers and tell them that they also have some great incentives to take advantage of and then all the efforts ongoing, you know, you've heard of probably the kelly legislation and the legislation, the ships act, in various things related to that. in title 46, we went and saw pete buttigieg and secretary buttigieg and del toro have authorities in law to build ships, what they cost overseas except that account hasn't been funded since 1983. if money can be built into that account we could build ships in america for the same price built overseas and that's how we had 7,000 flag ships and the world's biggest ship builders in 1960's and 1970's, still in law and then also a lot of collaboration that we need to do on work force development.

in fact, you know, i'll give a shout out to hyundai and we signed an agreement between mit, versus of michigan-- university ever of michigan and hyundai and to tap into the expertise that the koreans have in their shipyards and also at the national university is assigning to this to get after a major weakness we have in the u.s., there's only one university left in america, one ro1 university in america, to post doc in ship building. we don't have any of the engineers, office managers, and if you were to open a ship yard in the u.s., there would also need to be a lot of things done to bring your white collar work force and management over because we in america don't have that skill set anymore. there are a whole bunch of

things going on right now to try to tackle the problem what i said in the beginning, in order to make the business case, we need to create a conducive set of incentives for commercial ship building in america that then sort of allows competition and great advantage to naval ship building there after. >> thank you so much. mr. lee, allied defense cooperation, obstacles and opportunities in the broad sense from your perspective. >> definitely adhering to the u.s. law and regulation. so, i think that that is the main hurdle. but the opportunities -- we think we have to make them more broad terms like maritime industry. ...

we can have cooperation between two countries. we can build up the great ecosystem for the maritime industry. we could have used shipbuilding industry also have -- [inaudible] so that is a win-win strategy. >> thank you. >> i guess two points. one, back to the workforce topic, sort of pivot off of that. some of our immigration laws are really challenging not necessarily permanent come immigration talk about here but with a difficulty getting the necessary paperwork to bring some for engineers over from europe to help train our engineers and some of the workers will be building the sickles in the plants here in the u.s. we have had to bring them over temporary time and then send the

back for a couple of weeks and then bring the back over, and it wastes of money to put them on a plane that often but that is unfortunately what the rules require because the paperwork is fairly onerous. low ranked some of those barriers particularly i think you are working defense programs for national security of the united states i think that would be beneficial. the second thing across the allied nations, it's very difficult to agree on how to harmonize requirements. to build a jet, to build a ship, to build a tank all of our needs are so different that is a pretty unrealistic and we have seen programs that fell apart because ultimately one or more countries backed up and change their mind. but i do think it's achievable for us to agree on some standards and some boring things like interfaces for components. imagine a missile with a seeker if we reached an agreement on the interfaces between that

seeker and the missile we might develop a seeker that were not willing to export to other countries even to our allies but it would be much easier for allied nation to put their own seeker on that same missile, and now we've achieved some synergies between countries and across allied nations. standards like that and a positive example, u.s. and nato agreed on standards for artillery ammunition along e ago so we're all able to fire one another's ammunition through our canids, and the ukrainians are benefiting from that foresight, back in the '60s '60d '70s. more efforts like that, really boring engineer level would be beneficial. >> i love all those edges because their concrete and implementable. now to my friend in the front row and can introduce yourself and stager affiliation. >> i will. great panel, thanks, everybody. defense and aerospace report. my question is to you, steve. almost everybody would welcome

an notion of increasing american capacity, getting ships built out faster but we understand somethings are exquisite like submarines that will take longer but everything else we can move faster. the frustration some people in the u.s. existing and social base have is we are where we are in part because of the united states navy. naval sea systems command has a way of doing that. secretary spencer reached out brought in prime for the consolation frigates and almost as one of their innovations has not been adopted for whole variety of reasons. i'm not trying to make a case in this ultimately but it was designed to indicate and change the system and it said the system complete change the ship. it's them were expensive, it would be deliberately late. what are the things the navy can do to accelerate this process? whether it's for existing yards because they feel remarkably straitjacketed the navy has a certain way of doing think, some of them predicated for good reasons that date back to

1940s but there's plenty of stuff you can do completely differently. even if you brought hyundai and is highly automated systems to the united states there might be an '05 who ago that's just not how we do things. he just had to go back and do it ask why ncua. what does make have to do to change this dynamic fundamental? >> first of all, what the current secretary has stated clearly since he's been in a position is standardization and no changes. in fact, we have granted flexibility instead of putting more changes in working constraints on them, or just keeping things as they are, we have given the more flexibility. to try to get that ship back on schedule and out on time. he is looking at internally, and as you mentioned, the things that have been put in place over

the years. each one with good intentions but they accumulate and make things, make things more competent. a good example of doing things quickly and on budget on time and the federal government, and this is one of the recent secretary set up the ship of builders council so we have a new council that includes format departments and has dhs, coast guard. it is commerce, noaa, transportation and dod, army and navy come five federal shipbuilders and ship containers come together to ship perspectives, partly he stated that because he was impressed with the national security vessel that was built up the second one was just rolled out and delivered. the ships building for the first time in 40 years for the state maritime, that program is on time and on budget.

part of the reason is of course marad does not have to meet a lot of super onerous requirements that really makes things harder to build and make the price go up. there is a differentiation in types of ships. right? some of the requirements need to be more stringent for combatants have to do things the russians don't have to do. be survivable but there's of the ships of course that might not have to meet those requirements. has also called for innovation in the manufacturing process. we really focus on innovation of like weapon systems. the u.s. gizmo gadget out there and what we could benefit a lot more from his actual innovation and how we build things. if we could build things that are not super innovative but we need but we build them in an innovative way, where there on

time and much less expensive and much higher quality, so we call all these other entities on how can we get more innovation in production manufacturing? that doesn't have to occur overseas. that can also be homegrown here, the innovative here and u.s. because that's what we are known for. so that's what i would say. >> thank you. the gentleman behind and then we have time for one more, sure. >> two quick questions. what i'm hearing about the ship capacity, what would be the new concept for the liberty ships for supply chains for world war ii? would supply chain ships be able to be outsourced? but more i'm curious with korea having a green city. are we closer to a green fleet? do you have ships that are much more green? with being able to put batteries in boats and computers. you should be able to run less

on nuclear, even use motion of the ship for hydra. are you it modern compulsion that's more green? >> we do the system for the commercial ships. we develop the maximal field and -- [inaudible] but for the military ship we still rely on the conventional oil for propulsion system. we are applying some of the hybrid propulsion. it is for, to have a more i find operational profile, we can have small electric motor during low-speed which will eventually have a more efficiency propulsion system.

>> last question. the woman -- yes. >> thank you very much. i worked as a researcher at georgetown university. i have a question regarding the newly published actually just been published this year defense industrial strategy at the european commission put forward with the message of allowing and like promoting the defense procurement within the european union as being primarily from european defense companies. and i am wondering what do you see opportunity for something that could be seen in transatlantic cooperation, given the fact that we will have this primacy for the european union, thank you.

>> jim, if you want to comment? i'm happy to also. >> i apologize, i have not that study so i don't know what all the implications are. but i presume from your question it would limit the export of materials from european and other countries. i think that's going to make it challenging and, frankly, i don't think the european defense companies will appreciate that because they want to keep working and exporting to keep their lines running. so i think, i suspect that a shortsighted but i the city sydor would want to comment more than that. >> i haven't read it either it will just say that the outgoing nato secretary general stoltenberg had remarked on the board's of keeping the focus on data as opposed to a separate european defense capability, and i'm agreeing, i very much agree with them. i would read that study with that in mind. thank you so much, everyone.

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>> okay, folks. we're going to start in just a minute. take your seat. [inaudible conversations] good morning and welcome to the has is a too. i'm tim walton senior fellow at hutchinson for defense concept that technology and a delighted all of you have made the time to join what should be i think an illuminating conversation with some illustrious leaders in the field. to reduce them i will start up with michael kuenzli is a

deputy, deputy assistant secretary of the army for exports and cooperation, distinguished career in army aviation and to serve as an acquisition civilian in aviation but also army space and missile roles and is now focus on export controls, or export controls and et cetera exports to allies apart is our second panelist is rob smith who would servef innovation officer at saab and corporate. he prayed to serve as a british, professor and helps stand up nato defense innovation exxon et cetera for the north atlantic and the nato innovation fund in his role as nato's first and inaugural head of innovation. lastly, we have mr. mike smith who after starting his group in the u.s. navy served as in various roles in uap systems, lockheed martin, as president hii nuclear power business and

in our conversation he helped establish joint venture in india. he is now defensive usa president and ceo. in terms of her plan for today i plan to kick off the conversation with a few questions for panels and opening it up to questions and comments all of you may have. my first question asked before each of you please of the topic of the unique contribution allies can bring. mosier conversation today's focus on what can allies bring in terms of defense and social capacity? driven by the war in ukraine and the prospect of a potential conflict with china we're looking to allies contributions to either excellent defense and doesn't capacity here or across the broader defense industrial space. i think it's fair to say allies have unique perspectives, either their geographic situation, security circumstances, technology basis can differ and that tends to bring different ideas regarding operational

concepts what's promising of works. wanda asked did you what are your observations been regarding promising areas each allies come up with us role of the circumstances. the commission with the trend or should be shared more broadly. >> i'll start. certainly what we've seen here recently is just an unprecedented demand on, it is really driven by ukraine, on innovation, on the sharing of technology and just international agreements in general. that's been one of those things that we've had to adapt to but the real benefit we have is, is we have more folks, more partners and allies with shared values that are contributing to our ability to take our weapons systems forward, to build resilient supply chains, to go

distribute production facilities. so all of that is beneficial. >> thank you, michael. >> let me pick up on that and take it further perhaps. when we think about allies and how will put my old hat on now, ten years on the secretary-general staff and lived and breathed this through the of brussels at least. there is very much a political element when we think about this. whilst perhaps the logical approach is to have areas of specialization among countries, try to make things as sufficient as one might wish to see, the politics of that makes that incredibly difficult, and a credibly hard because of motions of summer did sort of a nationstate, how we operate, de lafayette fonz. i think how allies bring some of these -- via phone. i think actually we have to

recognize it's really unlikely to have some super efficient model for nations all are contributing their part, some beautiful picture. that's not likely to occur. i think rather than look for efficiency what we should be looking for is effectiveness. does that mean is going to be the most efficient way of doing it? certainly not. it's going to be sticky and spent be difficult and fraught with some of the political elements that we were on our last panel. but the other point to this, sort of -- i think allies writ large and mike answer this two ukraine, recognize that the cost of conflict is such that we perhaps collectively forgot over the last 25 years or so. one example of that and i think

jim talked about 1.5 on the last panel, artillery shells. you look at the cost of the 155 artillery shell and before the russian invasion of ukraine, approximate $2000 roughly. today, it's near to around $8000. so the point being that inflation associated to armaments when they are in quite a challenge and supply level, supply days the same broadly thinking but does one thing, price up. what can allies bring is not just parliament the production of traditional things how he thought about this. i think there's entire world where we start to bring in capital markets, of the thinks come areas we haven't really considered at a proper detailed level in the context of defense and defense production. allied nations have a fast wealth of experience there, pun intended, which could really be brought today.

>> a follow up on that but mike first over deeply. >> first of all good morning and thank you for having me. i think michael and rob are onto something but it also think we're all suffering from a field of creativity. let me be very simple. i think we have to demolish and explode what it means to be part of the use defense industrial base. it doesn't need to be in conus in the continental united states. when we would think about we need to expand that did the westward where the threat is. we will not be able to shrink or vaporize the pacific ocean but we can diminish its influence on our ability to wage war to protect national security far to the west. what i mean is we talked about the rsf and that's great, an important part of all this. we need a people to work with partners to maintain, repair, overhaul forward.

we didn't army pre-position stock. >> we done things like that, reposition the gear were going to need we also need to create production capacity. one thing we've done at hanwha is built of factories that produce for word and we're look finding ways to help the army produce in australia the things that it will need when it's time to face china head on. so i think we need to kind of re-create and rebuild capacity. it's great we have incentives to get shipyard. i was chief operating officer so i know shipbuilding is great to have incentives to build commercial and naval in the single yard, but we don't to build the ships were trying to build no. we have to virtually create geographically dispersed capacity overseas. as we are thinking about it we need to think about doing it where we're going to need it which is in the pacific rim. that's my thought when you think

about allies can contribute to the industrial base within the u.s. and national security. >> thank you. michael, continue with you if i could, the character of cooperation simply changing. it's accelerating picky spoke a little bit about that. can you expand on how else it may be changing. is it still the u.s. trying to help of allies atop some its own concepts and capabilities or is going to be some nascent bilateral multilateral cooperation innovation? >> that's a great question. so yeah, in the past was really about us helping other nations. what we really found is other nations are catching up on oe on par with us, right? so our recent aukus agreement, that is an agreement overarching agreement between australia, uk and the u.s., where all of us are mutually benefiting from that agreement as we pushed different types of science and

technology. we look at things like distributed production, facilities as well on a bilateral standpoint with some of our allies. so yeah, the nature of the has changed. and the ability, again, i'm not just look at production. we're looking more at coproduction and less co-a co-a simile. that is the other thing we have done previously where we're all using the exact same supply chain we are assembling in different countries. we've advanced past that to actually being able to produce and the second sources. >> there's always been agreement codevelop as rob was making sometimes it's difficult to narrow down your performance parameters requirements to the things that make sense for broad range of countries. is there interest in trying to find government reference architecture, other approaches

by which we can facilitate that innovation is not just coproduction? >> there is, and i think they highlight it very well, module open system market architectures one a what if we agree on what the standard is we open up competition worldwide. so it's not just in the u.s. it's also open to foreign companies as well. it's mutual beneficial to all of our international base. >> obviously rob you had some thoughts on the can maybe expand on your thoughts about specialization and had to be top of it as opposed to getting to scale? >> the point i think about this is kind of three mounts to try and climb. one is that you i've never worked anywhere ever weathered enough money, it's good, we got enough money, thanks. sink in my household as well, to my kids.