mr. whitman. >> thank you for joining us today. thank you for your service to our nation and for your leadership. general allen, i want to go to you and pick up some of the words from your testimony. you stated that throughout history insurgencies have seldom been defeated by foreign forces instead defeated by indigenous forces and insecured by the forces in the country. in the long run our goals can only be achieved and secured by afghan forces. transition is the lynch pen of our strategy. how do you make sure that the linchpin doesn't break? as you stated this has been a long and difficult and costly campaign. how do we make sure in the transition that there is enough time and space for the ansf, the afghan local police, the government, in fact, to make sure that they can actually have a chance of being successful in pushing things forward. and then as a follow on to that, as you are looking at conditions on the ground, what will you be considering as far as capabilities of the afghan national security force, the kabts of the ene

mr. whitman. >> they y >> thank you. i thoroughly enjoyed our visit out there to your command in south korea. it was a great opportunity to go there and understand the challenges that you face, and we wanted to make sure we understood a little more about those today. you speak in your testimony about the north korean army, the korean people's army having about 800 service combatants. can you tell us what are their capabilities and limitations in relation to our fleet structure, our surface combatants currently forward deployed in japan and the japanese maritime self-defense force ships that are also there in the region. >> congressman wittman, thanks. first off, in regard to maritime, the thing that concerns me most out of the 800 combatants are their submarine forces that the north koreans possess. particularly the ones on the west -- in the west sea because that's shallow water out there. and that's of concern. and also on the east sea. so we watch that very carefully. i can go in more detail in a closed session on tha

mr. whitman. >> thank you, mr. chairman. dr. lavoy and general thurman, thank you so much for joining us today and thank you for your service. general thurman, i thoroughly enjoyed our visit out there at your command. south korea was a great way to understand the challenges that you face and we want to make sure we understand a little bit more about those today. you speak in your testimony about the north korean army, the korean people's army. having about 800 service combatants. can you tell us what are their capabilities and limitations in relation to our fleet structure that is currently deployed in japan and the japanese maritime self-defense force ships that are also there in the region? >> congressman wittman, thanks. first off, in regard to maritime, the thing that concerns me most out of the 800 combatants are their submarine forces that the north koreans possess. particularly the ones in the west seas because that's shallow water out there and that's of concern. and also on the east sea. so we watch that very carefully.