The Future of the United States Navy

June 20, 2005

Unedited transcript prepared from a tape recording.

8:30 a.m.	Registration
8:45	Panel I: Strategy and Missions of the Future Navy
	Discussants:	Rear Admiral (Sel.) Michael K. Mahon, director, Deep Blue, U.S. Navy
		Thomas Mahnken, Johns Hopkins University SAIS
		Rear Admiral Mike McDevitt, U.S. Navy (Ret.), Center for Naval Analyses
		Robert Work, Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments
	Moderator:	Dan Blumenthal, AEI
10:30	Coffee Break
10:45	Panel II: Sizing, Shaping, and Posturing the Fleet
	Discussants:	Terry J. Pudas, acting director, Office of Force Transformation, U.S. Department of Defense
		Captain Karl Hasslinger, U.S. Navy (Ret.), General Dynamics Electric Boat
		Robert Work, Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments
	Moderator:	Thomas Donnelly, AEI
12:30 p.m.	Luncheon
1:00	Keynote Address:	Admiral Vern Clark, chief of naval operations, U.S. Navy
1:45	Panel III: Budgeting, Transformation, and the Defense Industrial Base
	Discussants:	The Honorable John J. Young, assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development, and acquisition
		Rear Admiral Paul Robinson, U.S. Navy (Ret.), Northrop Grumman Ship Systems
		Ronald O'Rourke, Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress
		Andrew L. Ross, Naval War College
	Moderator:	Frederick W. Kagan, AEI
3:30	Adjournment

Proceedings:
MR. DONNELLY:  Good morning everyone.  Welcome to the American Enterprise Institute.  My name is Tom Donnelly, and I do defense and national security studies here at AEI.

We've got a full day for you, so I'm not going to give too many introductory remarks except to point out that this is the second in our series of conferences devoted to the future of the military services, the armed services.  Back in April we did a similar day-long conference on the future of the Army.  And everybody should mark their calendars for August 18th, because it will be the Marine Corps turn that day.  We have the Air Force scheduled for the fall.  And we're also in negotiations with the SOCOM and the Coast Guard.  So we are an inclusive bunch here.

We've got three panels for you today.  The first one, which is about to kick off is essentially a panel on grand strategy.  Essentially, what do we need the Navy to do in the post-9/11, post-Iraq world?  The second panel will be more on military posture, military strategy and operations.  In other words, what missions flow from the strategic realities.

And this afternoon's program will be on the programs and budgets and other specifics about how to conduct these  missions that we foresee for future and that we have before us today.

Between the second and third panel, we'll be hearing a lunchtime address by Admiral Vernon Clark, which everybody knows is the CNO.  And he's a man who has done a lot to shape the Navy and reshape it for the missions it's got today and the missions before it.  So it's in some ways a valedictory address by Admiral Clark, but it will still be a quite one, I know.

A few quick ground rule administrative notes.  Everybody sees the television cameras.  We are thus under the tyranny of time even more than usual.  So we're going to try to keep it as closely as possible to the schedule.  And there may be only marginal breaks between the events.  So if you've got personal business to attend to, just keep that in mind.

Also, finally, the trinity of AEI rules about the Q and A sessions, first of all, wait for the microphone, identify yourself for the purposes of a transcript; secondly, keep your question brief; and most importantly -- third -- of all, ask a question.  Statements can be submitted later for the record.

[Laughter.]

I'm particularly pleased that this conference, because I've got two of my new colleagues here at AEI in Defense and Security Studies who are going to be moderating the panels, or two of the panels, which lifts the burden for me, which I'm very pleased about.  And therefore, I'd like to turn the microphone and the proceedings over to Dan Blumenthal to chair the first panel.

Dan, the floor is yours.

MR. BLUMENTHAL:  Thanks, Dan.  And thanks everyone for coming this morning.  I am Dan Blumenthal as Tom as said.  And I'm a resident fellow in Asian Studies here at AEI.  And I just recently left service in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, where I was in the Asia Pacific Division.  And I'm delighted to moderate this distinguished and important panel on the future of naval strategy.

And we really have an exceptional group of experts to discuss this subject, some of the nation's leading thinkers and practitioners within the naval profession who are deeply involved both inside and outside of the military and the government in analyzing the Navy's future goals and how they fit into the Pentagon's transformation plans.

And we have here--I won't go into too much detail on their biographies because you have it in their packet--but we have Dr. Thomas Mahnken, who is a Business Fellow at the Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies and has written on a broad array of subjects on everything from naval strategy to intelligence to conventional and nuclear deterrence and is very well equipped to handle the topics he'll be discussing today.

Next to him we have Admiral--or Admiral-Select, I'm sorry--Michael Mahon, who his the Director of the Deep Blue, which is the sort of in-house think tank to the chief of staff of Naval Operations.  And he's also a surface combattant officer.  And so he's both a the thinker and a practitioner in the naval arts.

And then we have Robert Work of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, who is a retired Marine colonel and served in a number of both combat and staff positions throughout his career in the Navy and in the Marine Corps.

And to his right, we have Admiral Mike McDevitt, who is a expert on the Navy and on strategy and on specifically the Asia Pacific Region, who will tackle the difficult issues of what the U.S. Navy should be thinking about as it faces some very challenging issues in the Asia Pacific Region.

And so this group of panelists, I can't think of a better group to bring together.  They've written on a broad array of subjects relating to the Navy, everything from how to combat the war on terrorism to the emerging threats the nation faces over a longer period of time and basically how to use the Navy to support the nation's rather ambitious national security strategy.

So without further ado, let me turn it over to Dr. Mahnken to begin.  And we'll follow in the order that they're seated, which makes things easier.

Thanks.

MR. MEHNKEN:  Great.  Thanks, Dan.  Given the time I have this morning, what I thought I would talk about is the role of the Navy in the so-called global war on terrorism.  And the basic argument that I'd like to make is first, that the Navy can make a major, though perhaps not a decisive contribution to this war.  And second, maybe perhaps theoretically (ph) that there's nothing novel about the role sea power can play in this war.  The Navy's role in this war will be similar to that that other navies have played in past protracted wars.

In other words, an 18th century sailor, a 19th century sailor, even an early 20th century sailor would intuitively grasp the role that the Navy needs to play.

However, the role that I'm going to sketch out does challenge the role that certain parts of the Navy have set out for themselves in more recent history.

So, first, what is it that navies do?  How in other words, do navies contribute to victory in war?  Navies rarely win wars by themselves.  I mean, although, history focuses on decisive naval battles, those battles are, you know, rare historically for a whole host of reasons.

That doesn't mean that navies are useless.  I would argue that navies make six contributions to strategy overall, two that are sort of in the realm of grand strategy and four that are in the realm of strategy proper, fighting and winning wars.  And each will be important in this war.

First, beginning kind of in the realm of grand strategy, merely by their existence, navies affect the way other states and other actors regard them, and they shape the competition that exists.

Second, through their presence, they shape the activity of other states, both friends, neutrals and potential adversaries.  They act as a deterrent to potential adversaries, an enforcer of international law and international norms, and as a coalition builder, a coalition enabler.

And then in moving to the realm of kind of strategy proper, the conduct of wars, navies have four roles, again, that will be important in this war as in other ones:  sea control, permitting friendly forces to use the sea and denying its use to adversaries, protecting and disrupting sea lines of communication, acting as a platform for launching strikes, including expeditionary forces.  And then last, but not least, everything else, because I think if history teaches us anything, it's that we buy navies to do one set of things, but often they're used for very different purposes.  So we should acknowledge that up front.

So, what is the role of the Navy in U.S. strategy?  And before I move to the future, I just want to point out that the Navy has already played an important role in Operation Enduring Freedom, Operation Iraqi Freedom and the broader global war on terrorism.  And if I have a fault with the Navy, it's that it hasn't done as good a job as it could in getting this story out and explaining the role that the Navy has already played.

Just three quick examples.  One, from OEF, one from OIF and one from the broader global war on terrorism.  For OEF, perhaps a fairly traditional Navy contribution, but naval air provided much of the air power at the beginning of Operation Enduring Freedom.  I say that, sort of a traditional contribution until you realize that of course Afghanistan has no coastline, and that the Navy was actually projecting power far inland at the beginning of the OEF.

OIF, it was Navy Seals, who seized Iraq's oil export infrastructure at the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom, preventing the Iraqis from sabotaging it.  This is something that usually gets one or many two lines in histories of the 2003 Iraq war, but it was actually very significant and would have--if it hadn't happened, if the Iraqis had sabotaged the infrastructure, it would have set back reconstruction efforts quite significantly.

Finally, on the broader global war on terrorism, I would just highlight again another sort of non-traditional contribution, that of Navy interrogators.  We hear a lot about Army interrogators--some positive, much negative--Navy interrogators, all Reservists, by the way, don't get much, if any press, but are working, quote, "professionally and effectively" around the globe.

So the Navy already is making, you know, a contribution.  What might that contribution look like over the long term?  So beginning with sort of the contribution to grand strategy, first, the mere existence of a strong Navy affects how others regard us.  The U.S. possesses the most powerful Navy in the world.  The next most powerful Navy, the Royal Navy, is an ally.  So too with many of the other most powerful navies in the world.  They're friends or allies.

I personally don't have a problem with that.  It's perfectly fine with me, and I think it's great that we don't have to face another strong navy.  And I think we should try to keep it that way.  I think a strong Navy may also be able to dissuade potential adversaries from challenging us.  Even if not, I think it's worth a shot.

Now that doesn't mean that other countries, other navies cannot pose a threat.  It doesn't mean that they won't seek to counter us in one way or another.  But having a strong Navy does give us a significant advantage, an advantage that others pay attention to.

Second, the U.S. presence abroad affects how others act--friends, neutrals and adversaries.  This is a traditional bread and butter Navy mission--presence--or as we now call it shaping.  And naval forces have particular strengths as tools of presence and engagement.

First, they're sustainable.  Naval forces are built to be expeditionary.  You can sustain a forward posture ad infinitum.  That's the way the Navy is built.

Second, they're less of an irritant than ground forces.  It's more acceptable to have naval forces deployed abroad.  Also easier to protect.

And they're also a more acceptable means of coalition building for a lot of countries.  I go back just a couple of years ago to when Japan started sending troops, or made a force contribution to Operation Enduring Freedom after 9/11.  It was naval forces they deployed to the Arabian Gulf.  That was seen as an acceptable way to contribute without making a large political step.

Similarly, as we've improved our military-to-military ties with India, naval forces have kind of been at the forefront as an acceptable way of building military-to-military cooperation.

Second, let's talk about naval power in the so-called global war on terrorism.  And the reason I say so-called global war on terrorism is because I think how we talk about things matters and how we talk about things shape the way we think about them.  And I think the term global war on terrorism is misleading in at least two senses.

 First, it's not truly global.  And second, it's not a war against terrorism in the abstract.  In fact, what we're engaged in is a protracted war against a coalition of Sulafist Islamic terrorist groups.

These groups exist at the national level, some exist at the regional level, and they're sort of aggregated over the umbrella of Al Qaeda, if you look at the global level.

And I think thinking about this war in this way is important because it points to some of the things that navies can do, and specifically the U.S. Navy can.

And the first thing that the Navy can do is exert sea control.  Now when I mention sea control in the context of this war, I usually see people's eyes rolling, because the term has kind of a musty 19th century air to it.  And it evokes images of lines of battle and Alfred Thayer Mahan.

But in fact, sea control is central to what we need to do in this war.  Now a number of years ago, back when Saturday Night Live was actually funny and back when Steve Martin consider himself a comedian and not just a serious actor, so a number of years ago, decades ago.

I remember he was hosting a Thanksgiving show of Saturday Night Live, and he was doing the opening monologue.  And the monologue was all about things I'm thankful for.  And it was a litany of things he's thankful for.  And one point he said, and I'm thankful for the Atlantic Ocean because without it thousands of Portuguese would be walking to the eastern United States.

Now with all due respect to Portugal, but to me this is a great metaphor for sea control because without the U.S. Navy and without frankly the Coast Guard, also, terrorists would have options that they currently do not have for attacking the United States.  Through sea control we can hope to prevent terrorists from attacking the U.S. by sea.

Again, not to say that it's 100 percent effective, but by exerting sea control we can make it an unattractive approach, make other approaches more attractive.

Another mission, protecting and interdicting sea lines of communication.  As I noted above, what we talk about as Al Qaeda or the global war on terrorism, is in fact an international network or coalition that operates across multiple theaters.  Some of their lines of communication are in cyberspace.  Some are on land.  But some are also at sea.  And interdicting those sea lines of communication through maritime intercept operations, is a central contribution that the Navy can make to this war.

This too, is a traditional naval mission.  The Navy has a rich history of doing this, going back to its earliest days, a rich tradition of combatting criminal organizations, lawlessness.  Think about anti-slavery controls, anti-piracy patrols.  Again, is kind of a bread and butter Navy mission.

And then finally, the Navy provides a platform from which we can launch strikes.  And I include air strikes, missiles, and expeditionary forces under this category.

This war has had some major campaigns--Afghanistan, Iraq.  It's likely to have others, but it's also likely to have many more small scale operations, raids, if you will.  And sea provides a great medium for maneuver and for launching these types of operations.

So, in conclusion, the Navy has an important role to play in this war.  It's what navies do and it's what the United States does and the United States Navy does.  And I think much of what I'm saying is that the Navy really needs to rediscover and recover its heritage.

The U.S. Navy is not only the Navy of Nimitz and Spruentz (ph) but also Stephen Decatur and Matthew Perry.  And the Navy needs to do a better job of tapping into that historical experience that it has in these basic Navy missions.

That having been said, the role that I've sketched out is different from much of what parts of the Navy perceive the role of the Navy to be.  If you follow the logic of my presentation, I think we're talking about a relative increase in emphasis on the surface Navy, perhaps decrease on naval aviation, more emphasis on smaller craft, less on larger craft.  And so this will require over time a Navy with a new culture, or more accurately a old culture, a Navy that returns to its roots.

And with that, I'll end.

MR. DONNELLY:  Well, thank you very much, Tom, for a very good, clear, succinct presentation.  I would take issue on the Saturday Night Live issue.  It's still occasionally funny.

[Laughter.]

But different panel.  Anyway, let's move on.  What we should do is move through the presentations and then start the questions since we have a lot of ground to cover.

So Admiral-Select, over to you.

ADMIRAL MAHON:  Thank you, Dan.

And I'm in the position here right now  feeling like I should just agree with the previous speaker and turn it over to Bob.  But I'd like to first thank the American Enterprize Institute for hosting this conference and the opportunity to participate in this panel. 

Up front I want to be absolutely clear.  I am not the strategist on this panel.  I am an operational planner or some people might say a pump kicker.  My job as Director of Deep Blue is to help fleet commanders around the globe take the forces that they have today and find better ways to use them, to get more combat capability out of them.

The CNO created Deep Blue in the wake of 9/11,  We're modeled after the Air Forces checkmate, which has been around since the 1970 and he's tasked us to provide him innovative and transformational ideas to support joint combat operations.  And that's what we pretty much do.

He's also specifically told us to focus our efforts on the global war on terrorism, and help the fleet commanders and conforming (ph) commanders beater perform their missions.

With that context for Deep Blue, let me move on to what our three principle drivers or imperatives are in our day-to-day work.  First and foremost, as you all know, our country is at war.  And supporting Navy joint and coalition forces in that war is our first priority.

Second, the U.S. is and will continue to be a global power with global interests.  That puts us in regions where there are competitors that challenge us.  And we are willing to work with the other services and coalition allies.  We are willing to work with the other services and coalition allies to protect those interests.

Finally, we live in a fiscal constrained world.  And we have limited resources.  And because of the realities of the budget process, and those limited resources, we are forced to squeeze every ounce of combat capability out of the forces we have.

And we look for ideas rather than resources solutions to problems first.

The timing of this conference, I think, could not be better.  As you know, the Pentagon is in the midst of a Quadrennial Defense Review.  And that QDR comes at a time right after the publication of a new national defense strategy.

The Quadrennial Defense Review is launching a discussion of strategies, roles and missions and capabilities.  And it's pretty clear that the QDR provides and opportunity to operationalize this new national military strategy.

The National Defense Strategy recognizes that we are in a time of unconditional challenges and strategic uncertainty, but it also asserts that we will still live in an era of advantage and opportunity.

This strategy implements the President's commitment to the forward defense of freedom as articulated in National Security Strategy using an active way or approach.  The strategy emphasizes the importance of influencing events before challenges become dangerous and less manageable.

Most importantly, the new National Defense Strategy outlines how we will deal with challenges we will likely confront, not just those we are currently best prepared to meet.

The four key strategic challenges are listed here in the top left hand corner of this slide.  From those challenges, the strategy postulates four national strategic objectives, how we will accomplish those objectives and then implementation guidelines for the strategy.

Now the Navy's view comes in in the execution phase.  And this is an important point to make.  The Navy does not make strategy.  We implement the strategy given to us by the Office of Secretary of Defense and the National Military Strategy, which is agreed upon between the services.

Frankly, as a naval officer, I'd like a strategy.  Throughout history all great navies have been offensive organizations.  They defended their national interests by being forward and taking the fight to the enemy.  Fundamentally, sailors are offensive warriors. Because of rules of engagement, we may not be able to take the first shot, but we are trained and equipped not to take the first hit while seizing the initiative as soon as possible.

We'll also understand the importance and value of forward presence.  If you want to influence events before challenges become more dangerous, you must be forward in the right places with the right forces at the right time and able to project power and sustain those forces without asking permission.

So what is the role of the Navy in the post-9/11 world?  To provide all weather combat credible power to the four corners of the earth under U.S. sovereignty maximizing options for the President any time, any where without a permission slip.  That is exactly what the Navy provides the nation.  That's what we've been doing since 9/11, and it will continue to be our role as we move forward in the 21st century.

Now every year the CNO provides guidance to the Navy and adjustments on how we'll organize, training and equip to execute the national strategy and defend America.

Admiral Clark has used his guidance to assign very specific tasks to individuals with deadlines to meet.  It's really a plan of action.  Now for the last three years, he's established three consistent priorities in his guidance.

First and foremost, to win the war on terror.  Second, to increase the operational availability of the Navy.  And third, to provide for homeland defense and homeland security.

Now this guidance is underscored by a division that he provided the Navy in 2002--Sea Power 21.  It is his path on we will organize, integrate and transform the Navy for the 21st century.

Along the lines of the comments that Tom made concerning the traditional roles of the Navy, Admiral Clark's vision for the 21st century involves the concepts of Sea Strike, Sea Shield, Sea Basing and Force Net.  They are essentially the traditional power projections sea control roles, but they are designed to take that capability from the sea, across the sea lane interface and move into the land environment.

Under Sea Strike, we project persistent offensive power ashore. Under Sea Shield, we also project defensive global assurance with our defensive capabilities of the fleet.  And Sea Basing, we provide the capability to project joint operational independence ashore.

Force Net is an over-arching effort to integrate warriors, censors, networks, command and control, platforms and weapons into a fully netted combat force.

Admiral Clark's vision published in 2002, I believe, stands us well as we move into the 21st century.  And it certainly has positioned us to fight the global war on terror.

Prior to 9/11, the Navy and the other services planned to conduct two major regional conflicts or theater wars.  A key assumption of this strategy is depicted on the left side of the this slide.  The strategy assumed that if we had the capabilities to prevail in these two major regional conflicts, we could also accomplish other lesser included tasks like counter-piracy, peacekeeping and enforcement counter-terrorism and humanitarian assistance and disaster relief.

Thus, Admiral John Morgan, the Navy's Director of Strategy Plans and Information, has proposed a new three-one construct that supports the new National Defense Strategy that's depicted on the right hand of this slide.

The three-one construct postulates the capabilities required for stability operations, the global war on terror, and homeland defense and homeland security are not wholly captured by the capabilities required for major combat operations or the new term, for major regional conflicts.

This construct is intended to provide strategic context to help inform the investment.  There has been a lot of debate inside the Navy about the role or size of the circles and where they are really located.  But the construct has been useful in helping to inform investment decisions.

So far our analysis indicates there are several missions, tasks and capabilities that may not be part of major combat operations, but are unique to stability operations, the global war on terrorism and homeland defense and homeland security.

Sea Power 21 was implemented by a new global concept of operations that began taking shape in 2001.  The new global CONOPS disperses the combat striking power of the Navy by creating additional independent operational groups capable of responding to crisis situations simultaneously around the world.

This increase in combat power is possible because of the current capabilities of our ships, submarines and aircraft to project power and defend themselves in a variety of threatened environments.
   As the technological advancements envisioned in Sea Power 21 become available, the netted war fighting affect of our disbursed independent operational groups will grow.  The first step in implementing the new global CONOPS was the establishment of new independent strike groups from within existing force structure.  In the past, the Navy had 19 independent strike groups.  Under the new global CONOPS, the Navy expanded to 37 independent strike groups consisting of our traditional carrier strike groups that provide the full range of operational capabilities.  And these strike groups will continue to provide unmatched sustained power projection capability, extended situational awareness and combat survivability.

Expeditionary strike groups, which is really the new concept within these global CONOPS, consisting of amphibious ready groups, augmented with strike capable surface ships and submarines.

These strike groups are capable of conducting missions in lesser-threatened environments and have already proven themselves very effective in prosecuting the global war on terrorism.

Missile defense surface action groups provide security to allies and joint forces ashore by projecting their defensive capabilities.  Specifically modified Trident submarines will join this new global CONOPS.  They will have the capability of also projecting power ashore with Cruise Missiles and the insertion of SOF (ph).

These additional strike groups allow the Navy to better posture its forces for the global war on terrorism and to dissuade and deter regional threats from around the globe.

As the Navy transitioned out of major combat operations in Iraq, we implemented the fleet response plan, which was designed to dramatically increase the readiness and operational availability of our carrier strike groups.  In the past, our carrier strike groups went through an operating cycle that began at the end of a six month deployment and ended 24 months later at the end of another deployment.

As depicted in the top left of this slide, the aircraft carrier and its associated surface combatants and submarines would return from deployment and essentially have several months in home port awaiting the start of maintenance availability.

After the maintenance availability, the strike group began an intensive exercise training period that culminated in the Joint Task Force Exercise, or JTFX a few months before deploying again.  These periods of time before and after the maintenance availability were lost operational opportunities because the strike group was not ready for employment.

Under the fleet response plan, significant investments were made to increase the readiness of our carrier strike groups throughout their operating cycle.  Now, instead of returning from deployment, splitting up and standing down in preparation for a maintenance availability, the carrier strike groups maintain their integrity and readiness to surge on short notice and response to crisis.

Similarly, as soon as possible after they have completed their maintenance availability, they complete basic and intermediate phase training so they are ready again to surge in an emergency.

With the fleet response plan in place to support the new global CONOPS of disbursed naval forces posture to prosecute GWOT and deterrence, the Navy is ready, responsive and relevant.

To support the execution of the global CONOPS and fully exploit the readiness and responsiveness of the fleet response plan, the Navy supports a more flexible deployment construct that enables it to deliver the right mix of presence in surgeable forces.  We need to be postured for the global war on terrorism and deterrence.  We need to be able to surge naval forces on short notice on crisis response and we would use the concept of pulsing for joint and coalition exercise and theater cooperation under this flexible deployment concept with the naval strike force training, experimentation, and operations to strengthen our war fighting capabilities.

As I mentioned earlier, we have identified several task and capabilities that apply to the post-9/11 world.  In the prosecution of GWOT, the Navy is projecting power, sea strike, projecting defense, defensive assurance, sea shield and projecting joint operational independence, sea basing from the Latorals (ph).  This slide depicts some of these missions.

Right now in the Arabian Gulf, naval forces, coalition and U.S. Navy forces are conducting maritime security operations.  The idea here is that we are actually providing security for bridle (ph) infrastructure throughout the region.  It's something that the Navy really hasn't done in the past.  But we're doing it today, and we're doing it with our coalition allies.

We're also doing expanded maritime interdiction operations where we are actually on the hunt for terrorists on the high seas.  As Tom indicated, we're out there trying to interdict the flow of terrorist activity on the high seas and actually captured terrorists are using that to move between places.

We are also doing time sensitive precession strike, something that's kind of again kind of unique, something that we had not planned to do before, where you actually are dropping bombs in a very precise way inside of a country that you don't want to destroy.  And you want to protect the people that live in that country but take out the insurgents that are challenging the government.

Finally, and I think this is an important point that Tom made as well.  The Navy is enabling our allies and coalition partners to help fight the global war on terrorism.  Today we have an Australian commodore who is commanding Task Force 58 in the Northern Arabian Gulf, providing maritime security for the infrastructure in the Gulf, and the Iraqi oil platforms in particular.  He's embarked in the U.S. Navy Aegis cruiser (ph), and he's performing that mission as the task force commander.

We also have French and German ships operating off the Horn of Africa providing maritime interdiction and maritime security in the Horn of Africa, the Gulf of Aden region.

Similarly, we have allies who are operating in the Northern Arabian Sea off the coast of Pakistan interdicting the potential movement of terrorists and terrorist activity on the high seas.  The Navy is enabling our allies to participate in this war.

Emerging regional competitors have learned through Dessert Storm, Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan and Operation Iraqi Freedom, that our success is made possible by our unfettered access from the sea.  As a result, they are developing capabilities to deny us access with submarines, mines, swarms of small craft with anti-ship missiles, torpedoes, guns and rockets and high technology mobile air-breathing and ballistic anti-ship missiles.  These capabilities mean we must put a premium on a traditional mission of sea control from blue water to the Latorals and perform theater missile defense to enable joint access.

On several occasions the CNO has been quoted as saying,"I need tomorrow's Navy today."

We have taken advantage of the significant investment in our current platforms and modified them so that they can perform the missions required in the post-9/11 world.  Good examples are the SSGN where we've taken a Trident submarine and modified it to launch Cruise Missiles and to insert SOF (ph).  Aegis guided missile cruisers and destroyers are being modified to do ballistic missile defense, a mission they were not originally intended to do.

The F-18 E and F provides increased combat readiness, persistence and striking power and with the introduction of its APG-79 [inaudible] radar, the full capabilities of the F-18 Hornet will be realized.

We're using high speed vessels that are commercially available from our allies.  We'll kaput them to use in OIF.  We're getting ready to deploy a high speed vessel to Southeast Asia to conduct expanding naval operations and maritime security operations in that region.

The SSNs are actively providing intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance in support of the global war on terrorism.  The maritime prepositioning ships continue with their vital mission, but are also looking for ways modify them for GWOT.  We're currently using a maritime prepositioning ship in Southeast Asia to serve as a forward staging base to support expanded meal operations and other GWOT missions.

Based on the cost and success of this platform, we could be modifying many more of these ships.

To keep pace with the threat in the post-9/11, we will require capabilities that are current platforms just do not provide.  That's the reason why we need JSF, LCS, TDX and CJX.  And there will be speakers this afternoon that will address the those issues in detail or the those platforms in detail.

  The global war on terrorism is about finding, fixing and finishing terrorists and their networks.  The finding and fixing dominate the process and require the most significant resources.  In major combat operations, the reverse is true.  We usually know who and where the bad guys are most of the resources are spent.  Most of our resources are spent putting ordinance on target.  But generation of actionable intelligence are abilities required.

Data mining of terabytes of data, with visualization techniques to help us identify key nodes and breakdown networks.  Biometrics--Assistant Secretary McHail said it best in October of 2004:  Our enemies are brutal, clever and no longer in uniform.

I believe that in identifying these 21st century enemies, biometrics can play an extremely important role.  The Navy is deploying its first ships with biometric capabilities that are netted into the FBI data base, which allow us to identify terrorists on the high seas today.

Intrusive persistent ISR, capabilities that can get in to the terrorists' domain.  We're deploying those capabilities on our ships in the very near future.

In port, boarding team capabilities, our boarding teams have gone from non-compliant capability--correction, from compliant capability that we needed in enforcing sanctions to a non-compliant war fighting capability that we need in the global war on terrorism.

I mentioned time sensitive precision strike.  That's a mission that we expect will continue to be important.

We've also been doing an experiment with our expeditionary strike groups with the Marine Corps.  Over the last two years, we've been looking at what the right command structure is for expeditionary strike groups.  And what we've learned from that experiment, we deploy expeditionary strike groups lead by either a Navy flag officer or a Marine Corps One Star is that command capability itself provides a unique addition to the global war on terrorism.

It enables in operations across the sea-land seam that could not be accomplished with our normal O6-lead ESGs, because the combattant commanders are willing to assign that flag officer, general officer-led expeditionary strike group a joint task force mission.

Emerging regional competitors are developing capabilities to challenge our access.  And again, theater missile defense and distributed netted ASW capabilities will be critical in keeping pace with those threats.

As Tom indicated, we may take a look at our roots.  We may need to take a look at our roots and going back to the turn of the 18th century and thinking about how we employed our Navy then.

There are over 6,000 U.S. Navy sailors on the ground in Central Area Command area of responsibility.  From Afghanistan to Iraq and throughout the rest of the region, Navy aviators, maintenance personnel, corpsmen, doctors and nurse, Seabeds and SEALS, as well as numerous individual augmentees from active units or mobilized Reserves have been put in the line of fire.

To ensure success in the global war on terror, should the Navy returned to its roots and formally trained units of sailors for expeditionary missions ashore?  I offer that as a question for discussion.

Along those same lines, should the Navy reestablish a conventional riverine capability to counter irregular threats?  To support stability operations, theater security cooperation and to more effectively shape the environment, should the Navy develop an expeditionary training capability?  And again, to support stability OPS and help shape the environment, should the Navy establish its own civil affairs capability?

Now arguably, the performance of the Navy during the tsunami relief effort, was something I'm very proud of.  Abraham Lincoln Strike Group not trained in the mission was able to go out there and do it and do it extremely well.

But if we had our own civil affairs capability, would that have given us a leg up in making that happen?

I offer those questions for consideration.

This afternoon, the CNO will give you his perspectives on today's topic.  His visionary leadership over the last five years has served us well.

And I thank you again for this opportunity to participate on this panel.  And I look forward to your questions and comments.

MR. BLUMENTHAL:  Thank you very much for a very thought provoking presentation.  The PowerPoint and the slides are making me nostalgic for my old job at the Department of Defense.  But really, thank you very much for that.  And you posed a number of questions that either will be turned on you to answer yourself or maybe others here will be able to take a stab at it.

But let's move on to the strategy and missions of the future Navy.  Robert Work?

MR. WORK:  Thanks, Dan.

Well, I was going to describe myself as the runt of the litter, but after seeing my fellow panelists, I decided to say I'm the ugly duckling.

[Laughter.]

You know, you might ask why a Marine is on this panel.  And I'm really gratified that Tom included one on the panel on the future of the U.S. Navy.  My last job in the Department of the Navy was as the military assistant and senior military aide to the Secretary of the Navy.  And I went into that position as a Marine first and a MAGTFO (ph)--a Marine Air-Ground Task Force Officer--second, and an artillery man, third.  I was an artillery man.  But I left that job as a Marine first--I'll never be able to get that out of my system, nor do I want to, but I'm a departmentalist, second.  And I'm a MAGTFO (ph) officer, third.

So including a Marine on this panel, I think, is totally appropriate.  And thank Tom and AEI for including me.

I think it's good to think about this strategy in terms of an enduring naval competition.  You can track it all the way back to the Delian League and the Athenian empire, and they were always a constant, differing group of players.  And they all are trying to do different things.

Some are always trying to become the number one global competitor.  Others are just trying to participate in the race and maybe become a respected regional power.  And others are just in the race to become part of the nations that use the sea and do not try to compete against the top powers.

Now in 1890, the U.S. Navy made a very critical break.  It decided it was going to become either pushing number one or number one.  Up to that point it had been content to just do hemispheric blockade breaking and gear to course.

Well, about six decades later, some time between 1944 and 1945, the U.S. Navy achieved its goal and surpassed the British Royal Navy as the number one naval power on the planet.  The combined chiefs of staff of the British--imperial staff--sent Admiral King a text, an illuminated text on his retirement in '45, and having held the mantle of the number one power for over 150 years, graciously acknowledged that the U.S. had surpassed the Royal Navy.

And despite being pushed in the Cold War, it's a position we've never relinquished since.

Now a lot of people--I constantly use data points just to say the first thing you have to ask is if you're in this competition to win, where are you in the race?  Are you in the lead?  Is your lead shrinking?  Is the lead widening?  Are you behind?  All of those things will inform what you want to do.

If you take a look at the U.S. Navy today, it is astounding the lead that they have.  Now you can use all sorts of different metrics to do this, but essentially there are only 17 navies in the world that operate a combined fleet greater than 50,000 tons, including combat capable aircraft carriers, submarines and surface combatants with a full load displacement of greater than 2,000 tons.  Only 17 besides the United States.

The United States has 2.86 million tons of warships and they have less than that.  Those 17 competitors have less than that.  We have a 17 Navy standard in tonnage.

And you can just take a look at some of the other things.  It truly is a remarkable state of affairs.

The reason why I emphasize this is because many people--it used to be that you would count the number of ships in the fleet and compare it against another Navy and you would judge, oh, my gosh, the relative--our Navy is falling behind.

Now we use numbers of our Navy as an absolute measure.  And we only compare ourselves against past U.S. fleets.  So a 600 ship Navy 20 years ago has to be better than the 290 Navy today.  And that's simply not true.

Now the Greeks had a different way of thinking about the past than we do.  The Greeks thought the past was before them, and they always studied the terrain of the past that they had traversed.  They were afraid of the future.  The future was a like a thief in the night.  It came up behind them.

Too often we view the future in front of us and the past behind us, and we don't think about the past.  So I applaud both Tom and Mike's position that you really have to go back to your roots and study this.

Now Samuel Huntington divided this race for the United States, I think, quite nicely into eras.  The continental era, in which we were not competing against the top powers and the frigate was the ship of the time.  We were really focused on hemispheric threats.  In the oceanic or expeditionary era, we started projecting power over seas, and that's when we decided we had to compete against the number one navies in the world.  And that was known primarily as a battleship era.  In the trans-oceanic era, I refer to as the garrison era, because for the first time, we had large standing forces over seas.  The Navy is now worried more about reinforcing garrisons over seas rather than projecting power.  They do do independent power projection, but it's very critical for them to be able to reinforce forward garrisons.  And that was characterized by the carrier era.

So what the Navy has to struggle with right now is we know we're in a new national security era.  It started in 1989, not 9/11.  1989 started the new era.  9/11 just happens to be one of the wars in this era.  And you would expect the battle force to change as a result.

I think that you have to call this one--you take a look.  This is a quote by Winston Churchill in 1942.  And you ought to take the time to read it because it describes, I think, exactly the situation that the United States finds itself in today.

"The oceans are once again a threat, but they are also a bar because more of our forces are coming back to the continental United States and we're doing expeditionary operations primarily from a colonialist power projection base."

Now joint operations are greatly facilitated by our lead.  We command the seas.

Samuel Huntington says you have to conceive of the sea as base, and it is critical that because sea basing is not what he was talking about.  He said conceive of the sea as base from the coast--both coasts of the United States to just off shore, a country anywhere in the world that you can get to.  And if conceive of the sea as base, you don't need frigates because--as many frigates--you don't need to escort them across the base that you hold.

So when he was thinking--I think of it in terms as sea as base rather than sea basing.

Now Mike mentioned the QDR.  I want to spend some time on here because I think the QDR will be the first true defense review in this new national security era.

Essentially what we did in the '90s was take the Cold War defense problem, of defending the inner-German border and regionalize into two what were first called major regional contingencies and then major theater wars and now major combat operations.

It was a decade that I think historians will look back upon and say it was conservative strategy, a lot of uncertainty, not certain which way things are going, and it was right for the times.

But now our lens of the future sharpened by 9/11 is much clearer and prescription that we had been using with the Cold War is now out of date and needs to be updated.

As Mike said, there's really not a lot of concern about traditional threats.  We're moving more to these irregular threats.  And I think this is the first time that there really is a chance that there's going to be a new standard, force standing and sizing construct that's going to change.

Budget pressures are building up.  And it's really hard for me to see.  Right now we size our force for two major regional contingencies as Mike said.  We have to have enough forces to be able to go to one contingency and then about 30 days to 60 days later ship to another contingency.

It's really hard for me to see that surviving in this QDR.  I don't know what it's going to be called, but my prediction is it will be called something like one, one, one or something different.

The Navy will be tasked to conduct maritime defense and depth of the  homeland to include all types of WMD attacks against the United States--weapons of mass destruction.  So not only will they try to stop sea-born attacks coming in from containers, for example, but they will try to assist in stopping missile attacks against the homeland.

The second one, as both Tom and Mike have talked about, is to fight this persistent irregular war against extremists.  From a Marine's perspective, we're fighting a global counter insurgency.  From the Navy's perspective, it's this very sea-controlled aspect that Tom was talking about.

That is one of the big things.  And so we will probably be tasked only to do one major regional contingency shipping right out of our posture in this global war.

Now there's a metric called 10-30-30.  It is in my mind a metric that needs to be retired as quickly as possible, and I hope in this QDR it will.  What that calls for is you have to be able to seize the initiative anywhere in the world in 10 days.  You have to be able to win the war in 30.  And then 30 days after that, you have to go and win another war in exactly the same way.

Now there are a lot of proponents for the 10-30-30, but I am not one of them primarily because speed is very, very good at the tactical and operational levels of war.  But at the strategic level of war, it has a much more mixed record.  Anytime you conflate speed with strategy, you start to get into a short war scenario, which really starts to get you if you're off (ph).

So looking back as Tom and Mike have said, if you look back in history, you say, wow, we really are kind of like the first expeditionary era and the Navy is going to be extremely important, as far as the one, the first one, maritime defense and depth of the homeland.

In the mid-'90s the Navy and the Coast Guard signed an MOU called the National Fleet.  A CNO and the Commandant of the Coast Guard agreed to have a national force of small cutters.  Normally in war time, or not always, but a lot of times the Navy and the Coast Guard merge in time of war.  I believe that would have been one of the options, to merge the Coast Guard and Navy to fight this persistent irregular war.  That is not going to happen right now.  The Coast Guard will stay in the Department of Homeland Security.

But it is imperative that you be able to draw upon the capabilities of the Coast Guard and that the Coast Guard can draw upon the capabilities of the Navy, if necessary.

So the idea of a national fleet really starts to come to the fore.  The Navy already is starting to help on sea-borne ballistic missile defense of the homeland.  As many of you probably already know, 15 guided missile destroyers are being converted by the Missile Defense Agency to have a long-range search and track mission to que the national missile defenses of the nation.

And three cruisers are going to actually have an ability to try to do intercepts.  By 2010, all 18 of these are supposed to be capable of doing both.  That mission may grow over time.  Eighteen vessels may be enough, but it is going to be a new mission for the navy.

Now as Tom said, the enemy doesn't have a Navy, per se, but he has a naval strategy.  It's called guerre de course.  We should be very familiar with it.  We practiced it for over a century.  And the British are very familiar with it because they had a heck of a time trying to stop us from getting out on the open sea.

Therefore, sea control is important.  The way you fight against an enemy fighting guerre de course is you conduct what is called a close blockade.  This theater is too big to do a close blockade along every bit of literal, but once you start to network and once you have broad area maritime surveillance platforms like the Global Hawk feeding multi-mission manned aircraft and LCSs, you can start to do a distributed blockade even though this is a very large area.  It's a conceptual problem, which is right now stressing the Navy, but in my mind I think they're on the right track with the LCS, which I'll talk about later.

Once again, however, you have to conceive of the national fleet.  There's about 160 cutters and boats that the Coast Guard has that the Navy would probably have to duplicate if the Coast Guard wasn't here.  If you do not count those as part of your Navy and you do not use them as part of your strategy, you're really going to have problems.

Now as far as joint power projection operations, in my mind, the one thing about this era that's going to be different than the garrison era is the likelihood of the nuclear weapon being used I think is very much higher than it's ever been before.

The enemy is not deterred and is obviously seeking to gain this capability and therefore, what the Navy and the Marine Corps have to do is, okay, we definitely wouldn't want to have this mission, but if we were told to go into a literal in which nuclear weapons might be used, how would we go about it?  The Navy and the Marine Corps thought a lot about that in the late '40s and '50s, but haven't thought about it since.  It's time to renew that.

It's also--try to think about that should be forcible entries.  In other words, we have to think just like in the first expeditionary era, that we may have to create access where there is not.  We do not have to do that in the garrison era.  We generally had access.  As a result, the sea-based maneuver fleet became a transport fleet designed to get reinforcements to theater.  And we allowed the amphibious assault capability of the fleet to get down to 2.5 MEBs worth of lift.  Now I don't believe you need to go much beyond that, but you definitely don't want to go below it in an era where everyone admits there's uncertain access.

Finally, you have to hedge against a disruptive maritime competition with China.  It seems to be there's two groups of people, people who say, oh, my gosh, we're going to fight the Chinese and people who say, no, no, they're in the WTO, we'll never fight them.  You know, everyone will sing cum-by-ya.

Well, when you look back over history at these race, the leading naval power always looks around and says, who is then next guy that I might have to fight?  The U.S. Navy planned to fight the British Royal Navy until 1924.  That is just what navies do.  They are constantly looking at other naval powers and they're trying to figure out, okay, even if it is unlikely, how would we fight against them?
   So we have to hedge against the Chinese disruptive threat.  Tom Hone (ph) from the Office of Force Transformation just wrote an article, which is very enlightening in that just by building a navy, the Chinese will disrupt the competition.

In 1908 the British, First Lord of the Admiralty, looked at America and he said, you know, my countrymen haven't figured out that if America decides to build ships, they will out-build us.  And I'm not certain they're not going to do it.

Well, the same thing.  China is a growing power.  It needs a navy.  It will build a navy.  So just by doing so, it will make our competition strategy change.  It doesn't mean we will fight them, but we certainly have to hedge against it.

Now the range of tasks presents a really tough design problem for the Navy right now.  Conceptually, they need four different fleets.  They have to have this strategic deterrent fleet to stop anybody from firing a missile against the United States.  That's our SSVN fleet as well as our theater ballistic missile shooters.  And as Tom said, you have to have dissuasion fleet.  In my mind, that's your nuclear powered attack force.  Nuclear powered boats can sink anything on or under the ocean with a great deal of impunity.  And therefore, you have to have that fleet.  Then you have to have this irregular fleet that's going to fight the global war on terror.  It's going to be a small navy.  Then you're going to have your sea as base power projection fleet.  It's going to look a lot like what we had in the Cold War.  And then you're going to have this, what I call a counter-A2/AD fleet, anti-access aerial denial fleet.  Because certainly, some nations are saying, how would you keep the U.S. out?

And so, you're going to have to have a component of the fleet that can crack that network open.

The problem is, from our perspective, we think that the most that the Navy can hope for over the next 10 to 20 years on average is about $9 to $11 billion a year.  So building four different fleets is totally out.  And so this is going to push the Navy towards developing a modular fleet platform architecture that's designed to form these integrated naval battle networks.

So the key thing will be, can you refigure your components?  Can you adapt the network to the threat?  And two, if you're going to do all of this, you're going to enter this new battle era that we've been talking about and just as Huntington predicted, when you shift to an era, you will get a new naval architecture.

Now in 1815 the British defeated revolutionary France.  In one fell swoop, they knocked off the top three naval competitors in the world--Spain, France and Holland.  They constantly would try to have a two navy standard.  They wanted to keep as many battleships at least as the next two biggest naval powers as combined.  By knocking off those three powers, they could do that with about a dozen ships of the line in home waters and nine around the world.

So in two years, they went from 99 ships in the line down to about a dozen.  They declared war on a trans-national actor.  It was called human slavery, human slavers.  And they started building a lot of small ships.  And in the meantime, they kept track of all of the different competitors and whenever they needed to make a move, whenever they needed to adopt something that threatened their tactical superiority, like exploding shells--the French decided to experiment with exploding shells in 1824.  By 1838, it's standard in all British combatants.  In 1840, there are 720 steamships in Lloyds of London, but there is not one British war ship because nobody else was making the move.

If you look back in that time, you say, how were they able to stay on top for 150 years and generally within budget, although it got really tough towards the end.

They adopted a strategy of the second move.  They said, we're number one.  We're going to exploit our lead, and we will make moves only when necessary to keep the lead.

And I think it's going to be important for the Navy to the think about this in this very difficult budget climate.

Again, I would like to thank you for inviting me.  And I look forward to your questions.

MR. BLUMENTHAL:  Thank you very much, Rob.

And let's move on the Admiral Mike McDevitt to cover the Navy will face the challenges out of the Asia Pacific region.

ADMIRAL MCDEVITT:  Thanks, Dan.

I'm going to change the paradigm a little bit from what you've been hearing for the three previous panelists.  And I want you to put yourself in Beijing and look at your strategic circumstances from, if it's possible, from a Beijing point of view.

In the interest of time, let me just assert that over the past 15 years, Chinese diplomacy has been very effective in securing all of its land frontiers, resolving territorial disputes, reaching security partnerships with all of its important neighbors.  But if you look out to your East Coast, to your maritime frontier, you see lots of problems and lots of vulnerabilities.

Now of course from a Beijing perspective, the weakness on your maritime frontier also has historic resonance because how did the century of humiliation start?  The Westerners, the big noses came from the sea.

And so the reality that Beijing faces today is that the vast majority of their outstanding, unresolved sovereignty or strategic issues are maritime in nature.

Taiwan is an island.  It's the U.S. Navy that effectively keeps the Taiwan Strait a mote rather than a highway.  They have a territorial dispute with Japan over islands and sea-based resources.  Again, maritime in nature.

Territorial issues in the South China Sea, the Spratly Islands--again, maritime in nature.

Where is China's economic center of gravity?  On their East Coast, vulnerable to attack from the sea.  How does their oil and most of their trade travel?  By sea.  Getting Chinese exports to the world and oil into China comes via the sea.  Again, maritime in nature.

And China's primary maritime competitor, at least the one country that can thwart Chinese ambitions is a maritime power that controls China's literal (ph), the United States, who is also closely allied, as it happens with one of China's historical antagonists, Japan, who also has an excellent navy in a formidable maritime tradition.

So, I think, if you're sitting in Beijing or standing in Beijing, you understand that control of the Western Pacific by the U.S. Navy is currently the greatest potential spoiler to your ability, if you chose to use force or military coercion or intimidation, to achieving or resolving these strategic issues.

So even without the Taiwan problem, I think Beijing would still see weaknesses in its maritime frontier.  And therefore, it shouldn't be a surprise to anybody who thinks about it this way that in December of 2004, the latest Chinese defense white paper breaks with the tradition of land force dominance and clearly states that the PLA Navy and the PLA Air Force are to receive priority in funding.

Let me quote from the paper.  Quote, "While continuing to attach importance to the building of the Army, the PLA gives priority to the development of the Navy, Air Force and the Second Artillery"--that's their ballistic missile force, the Second Artillery Force--"to seek balance, development of combat forces in order to strengthen the capabilities of winning both command of the sea"--now for a sailor, when somebody talks about winning command of the sea, all of a sudden, alarm bells going off--"and command of the air in conducting strategic counterstrikes."

If the Chinese ambition is to win command of the sea, what kind of a navy would the PLA Navy look like?  I would argue there are two historic paradigms.  You will notice all of the people that talk about navies, we always wrap ourselves in the cloak of history.  We've got to break out that, but unfortunately it's in our--we cannot help ourselves--it's in our genes.  But in any event, one option would be a replay of the Imperial Japanese Navy, a very, very competent regional navy that was able to actively contest the U.S. Navy for regional dominance.

Now if the PLA was to do that, what would a replay of the Imperial Japanese Navy look like?  It would have carriers.  It would have an amphibious capability for a Taiwan scenario.  And importantly, it would have to have an effective anti-submarine warfare capability to be able to deal with U.S. submarines and Japanese submarines.  And perhaps even a significant sea-based ballistic missile force.

Like Imperial Japan, it would probably depend upon off-shore islands such as the Paracels in the South China Sea or at the mouth of the South China Sea to station aircraft.

I judge, in my opinion, and I don't think this is the road that the PLA Navy is going to go down.  I don't think that they're going to try to do either a mini-me of the U.S. Navy or the Imperial Japanese replay.  They're going to, mainly because it's just simply too hard.  One, it's expensive, and two, as I mentioned this problem of making sure your surface ships are not sitting ducks, it means you have to solve the problem of dealing with U.S. nuclear submarines.  And that's really a tough problem to deal with.  And so I don't think they're going to be able to go there.

Secondly, taking a significant number of tactical aircraft to sea, after all, that's what an aircraft carrier is all about, to carry airplanes.  And if you want to do it, you want to carry a lot of airplanes.  And right now I don't see the PLA going that route.

Now, let me say I'm not sure that they won't have a single small carrier or two like the Thais do.  After all, if Thailand had one, why can't China have one, or the Italians or the Spanish.  But in terms of a real heavy CVN-like capability like the French or the United States have, I don't see China going down that road.  It's too hard.  The Soviets tried it.  They spent a lot of money and got very little capability to show for it.

Okay, if it's not the Imperial Japanese Navy, what's the model?  Well, I think we see the model transforming in front of us as we speak.  It's what I would call the Soviet Union sea-denial strategy, updated with Chinese characteristics.

This is a maritime force that I believe will satisfy the vast majority of China's strategic requirements and deal with their maritime frontier.  What it would consist of would be land-based air power mated with cruise missiles.  Both the PLA Naval Air Force and the PLA Air Force are working on those tactics.  It also would be based upon the offensive use of submarines against approaching maritime forces approaching their frontier.  We see them going into the submarine role.  This is a role that the Soviet SSGNs were fulfilling in the Cold War.

The thing that's new that the Soviets didn't have the ability to do and the thing that I think has most people in the U.S. Navy concerned is the Chinese have a tremendous capability to turn out a lot of conventionally tipped ballistic missiles.  If they can ever figure out a way to make those warheads maneuver on the way down, so that in fact they could hit a moving target--which I should say it not a trivial problem--to hit a moving target, that would be a significant denial capability.  But to do that, you have to build an incredibly sophisticated targeting network based upon satellites and communications link and what have you that would be highly vulnerable to disruptions.

So once again, though, but that's an issue I think is a component of the PLAs sea denial strategy that I think we see playing out in front of us.

So if it turns out that--and I should say in this sea-denial capability they would also need certainly--and we see them doing this--but building a modest amphibious lift capability at least to be able to deal with the Taiwan problem.

So what does that mean for the U.S. Navy?  If that's the road that we think the PLA Navy is going to go down in the Western Pacific, what should the U.S. Navy be doing about it?

It seems to me there are four operational imperatives, war-fighting imperatives, USM has to do.  First, you have to consider that as long as we have a defense obligation to Taiwan, we need to recognize that sea-based tactical aircraft is the best way to trump any attempt to invade Taiwan.  In other words, to put it simply, as long as the United States maintains air superiority over the Taiwan Straits, the PLA Army cannot come.

Secondly, the prospect of these maneuverable warheads on ballistic missiles presents a real potential--presents a potential for giving the PLA Navy a real bonified ship killing capability.  So what do we need to do?

We need to do two things, I think.  First of all, as I suggested, we need to be able to defeat their network so that in fact that targeting is just too hard to do. In other words, they're system of systems, we have to be able to defeat.  And then we also have to be able to shoot them down.  And so those two things.  And I suppose there's a third alternative and that's what some people would call spoofing or using decoys so that when that seeker turns on, it doesn't see one target, it sees many, many, many. And the seeker has to make choices.

These are all tried and true things that the U.S. Navy has been involved in ever since cruise missiles arrived on the scene 35 years ago.  So it's not terra incognita in terms of the intellectual effort that needs to go into dealing with this.

The third thing the U.S. Navy has to do, I think, is what I would call a step function improvement in its anti-submarine warfare capability.  It's gotten quite good.  I don't mean to suggest that it's not capable, but as long as the PLA Navy continued to field very-difficult-to-detect-diesel submarines and multiply them in numbers, the U.S. Navy has to get better.

The sailor in me suggests that the most difficult task in all of warfare is to find a submarine because the laws of physics have not been repealed in terms of making the oceans transparent.  And it's just really hard.

Fourth, a thing that we have to do is I think is make sure that we maintain at least an adequate number of submarines in the Western Pacific or stationed in the Pacific Ocean.  And I'm not arguing that we need to build more submarines--far from it.  But I think we maybe need to think about how we distribute those forces between the Atlantic Fleet and the Pacific Fleet so that more of them should start showing up in the Pacific Fleet and less of them in the Atlantic Fleet.

Finally, I think the key to maintaining stability during this long, long period that we're going to envision that the rise of China perhaps over the next 30 or 40 years is to make sure that we keep an eye on what the PLA Navy is going and making sure that we rise on the same tide.

Today we have a decided advantage.  We need to make sure, that Delta, if you will, that advantage we have we maintain it.  So as we see them making developments, we make developments or change force structure around so that we keep our advantage.  And so long as China never for a moment believes that they could successfully pull off an invasion of Taiwan or successfully challenge the U.S. Navy in the Western Pacific, I think stability in that region will be maintained.

So what's my bottom line?  The Chinese have defined for themselves a really very ambitious agenda, establishing a sea-control navy.  Now they may not mean control.  I chose to parse their term into sea-denial.  But whatever road they chose, in the face of U.S. presence in the region is really a rather daunting task if that's what they really mean.

They clearly have a long way to go.  The Chinese is not 10 feet tall.  But what the PLA has been able to accomplish over the past few years has been very impressive.  They clearly are a learning organization.  They're dedicated to improving and becoming a more professional force.  They've put in place all of the head work associated with becoming better.  They've thought about it. They've written down their doctrine.  They've changed their regulations.  They're doing all of that.

Now we're watching them begin to try to execute it. They're at the very beginning of translating all of this head work, if you will, into operations.  Can they do it?  Don't know.  The jury is still out.

The U.S. Navy needs to become just as focused in thinking through the implications of what it must be able to do in order to ensure that U.S. sea control in East Asia remains in our hands and that we're not denied the East Asian Latorals.

I've spelled out what I think is required:  tact, sea-based tactical air, more specifically two carriers in the Western Pacific full time I think would be important contribution to maintaining stability, more attack submarines in the Pacific, improved anti-submarine warfare capability and the means to deal with maneuvering warheads if they ever get there.

The PLA Navy modernization is going to happen.  It just won't happen over night.  Navies take a long time to grow and a long time to turn over.  For example, most of the ships in the U.S. fleet today are going to be there 15 years from now.  We will be able to watch what the PLA is doing and evaluate its progress.  And we'll have time to take the appropriate actions.  So we don't need to have our hair on fire.

Thank you very much.

MR. BLUMENTHAL:  Thank you very much Admiral McDevitt.

We're going to open it up to questions now.  I would like to use the moderator's prerogative to ask one question.  And that has to do with something that everyone touched on a little bit, but I'd like to kind of tease out a little bit more, and that's this question called inner-operability.  And what I mean is, these tremendous access problems, I think whether with regard to China or--you touched on it a little bit in terms of other operations we're conducting in the war on terrorism.  But if you could ask--it's not really the work of the Navy--but if you could ask the State Department or the National Security Council what you need to do in the region, the Asian Pacific Region--let's concentrate on the Asia Pacific Region--in order to gain access in terms of security cooperation, in terms of which navies you deal with, which countries you deal with, where you need to be, where you need to base and so on and so forth, what would those tasks be?  What would the tasks be to get the Navy to the places that it needs to get to in this very, very challenging access environment?

ADMIRAL MCDEVITT:  Now, I was a former J-5 out at Pacific Command a few years ago, and one of the interesting phenomenon that I think continues to live on is the very good relationship between the Pacific Command, the U.S. embassies in the region, and the State Department on looking for in those days, we called it engagement--the new term of art is theater security cooperation--looking for agreements and help from embassies to facilitate the message that the U.S. would like to have various forms of access depending upon the political circumstances in the countries and the region.

I think things have gone fairly well.  Obviously, over the long term building a better relationship--security relationship with Indonesia would provide an interesting opportunity to access that we do not currently have, continuing to work with the government of the Philippines so that we can perhaps over time evolve temporary access arrangements with the Philippines.  That would be a couple of things that come to mind, and in both cases, those imperatives are dictated to large degree by the old maxim of location, location, location.

ADMIRAL MAHON:  I guess my view is slightly different, although I don't disagree with anything the Admiral is saying.  But access is what the Navy provides, and the concept of sea basing or joint sea basing allows us to operate independently of shore bases--it will allow us to operate independently of shore bases, and that's why the concept of sea basing has been adopted in the joint environment.  So it's being able to establish a sea shield around that joint sea base so that we can project power from it.

MR. MAHNKEN:  I'd like to take the question on [inaudible] from the perspective of interoperability.  Now, when the Royal Navy commissioned the Dread Not in 1906, it totally upended the combatant design regime, and everyone had to scramble to catch up.  So everyone started building all big gun battleships.

The U.S. introduction of the VLS, actually the Soviets were a  little bit ahead of us, but it was a single purpose system where the multi-purpose Mark 41 VLS upended the design regime, but its effects were not immediate.

Right now, almost all of U.S. Navy battle line combatants I'll all them are VLS standard, and the rest of the world is now catching up, to the point that within the next five years or so, there's going to be 2,000 allied VLS cells in the world.  Mark 41 VLS cells.

In the Pacific alone, three of our major allies are pursuing Aegis VLS combatants.  In the past, in the Cold War, we had a blue water fleet, and the allies had more coastal fleets, and we tended to be dismissive of their contributions in our independent strike operations.

In this war, if we do not include them as part of the naval coalition of forces fighting this war, and we do not take the time to interoperate with them, and it will be a really, really, really loss in overall naval capability.

ADMIRAL MCDEVITT:  One quick point.  There is an important new  term of art entering the lexicon, and it's called capacity building.  And it relates to this issue of interoperability.  It doesn't relate to the State Department, but it relates to interoperability, and the idea is that one way to empower these many friendly and allied navies around the world is to help them improve capacity by sharing our network information in a way that they can use it, and, therefore, things that they could never afford to pay for themselves, if we can help them improve their capacity by making their situational awareness of their own region better, it will, in fact, contribute to the overall security of all of us.

And so that I think is something that you're going to be seeing.  You're going to be seeing it play out in the--with the Litoral countries in the Straits of Malacca.  You'll see it play out elsewhere around the world.

MR. BLUMENTHAL:  Thank you very much.  Let's open it up and just remember the ground rules.  Right here.  Wait for the--there you go.

MR. PREEG:  Ernie Preeg [ph.], the Manufacturers Alliance.

A follow up to Admiral on China, Admiral McDevitt and perhaps Dan Blumenthal.

Two related questions.  One is the--my understanding is the Chinese strategy is more than a naval strategy.  It's a maritime strategy.  The rapid buildup of the Navy modernization, together with the rapid expansion of modern shipbuilding, merchant marine, with the intent--not just the Taiwan of balancing, but to be the number one maritime nation throughout the East Pacific around to the Bay of Bengal.

And I wondered how this prospect, which to me seems quite real and moving fast, would affect what our strategy would be in terms of a maritime presence in Asia.

And the related question is a couple stories in the last 10 days--Bill Gertz of the Washington Times--that we've been behind the curve.  Our intelligence people--we'll continually surprised-- the Chinese moving much faster, particularly in the navy, and what is your reaction to this?

Is this really moving faster where it's not that much in the future, but it's not--it's happening rather short to medium term?

ADMIRAL MCDEVITT:  Well, with regard to their merchant marine capability, I really don't pretend to have any particular expertise on that.  I wouldn't be surprised to see if they're building merchant marine or merchant vessels at a high rate, both to sell and to use.  But, for example, I think as we've discovered with the shipment of oil over the years, the carriers tend to be--once it's pumped and it's in a tanker, it tends to be fungible, and, you know, the flag carrier isn't nearly as important.  So whether China wants to carry everything in Chinese flag ships, they may or may not chose to go that route, but the United States in terms of the competition, you know, we stopped competing in the merchant marine era decades ago.  And so there is no competition.  The competition that the PLA--or excuse me--the PRC would have in shipbuilding would be with the Koreans and the Japanese, and the other people who are--who have the lion's share of the commercial shipbuilding business in the world today.

Regarding the intelligence issues, I--you know, I'm not in a position to judge whether we've been surprised or not on the intelligence.  I'm just suggesting to you it takes a long time for navies to turn over and ships and submarines are hard to hide.  I mean you can build big shelters so that satellites can't look down on them, but eventually you're going to see them.  So the point is in terms of--we're not talking about waking up tomorrow--a year from now and finding, whoops, gee, we didn't know about those 50 PLA submarines.  I--our capability is better than that and so we may be surprised in terms of unique aspects of how good, bad, or indifferent they are, but in terms of the total numbers I would be surprised if we're surprised.

MR. MAHNKEN:  Just actually on the second part, and again I won't speak knowledgeably of the intelligence but just, you know,  another way that I think about that same issue is Mike started off by saying, you know, there's two groups of people on China:  those who see China as a threat, those who don't.  What's been remarkable to me is maybe over the past maybe five years is how that--the locus of opinion has really shifted.  In other words, people that I know and respect who five years ago would have said well, we really don't have to be concerned about a Chinese military buildup aren't saying that anymore.

They're much more concerned, which, in turn, makes me more concerned that--in other words, the locus of expert opinion has--I think has shifted pretty significantly.

MR. BLUMENTHAL:  I'll just add one thing because you asked me the direct question and that is as Admiral McDevitt pointed out very well, it's a different kind of power projection.  They're a continental power.

One thing to look.  You know, so they don't need to do the same sort of power projection that the United States needs to do necessarily to project power, but one very interesting thing to look at is the military relationships that China is forming throughout the region, whether they be in Pakistan, deep water ports or Cambodia or at different choke points or in the Philippines for that matter.  So I think there's this kind of subtle game for, you know, for access and influence and power projection in that sense.

MR. MAZAFURF:  Hi, I'm Joe Mazafurf [ph] from the John Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, and let me first--I do follow intelligence, having been a naval intelligence officer, and my reaction to the Gertz article was his sources were surprised, not naval intelligence.

My question is this: in this room, taking Mr. Work's [ph.] observation about navies in competition, my sense is that the United States Navy is not in competition with any other navy in the world right now.  It's, in fact, in competition with its other sister services, particularly the Coast Guard.

And this goes back to the observation that several of you made about going back to its roots, where the United States Navy was, in fact, a coastal, relatively small expeditionary force, somewhat similar to the way the Coast Guard is operating today, even in the Persian Gulf.

The question I have is that being so, what's then the strategic case for why I ought to invest in a navy as opposed to a coast guard?

ADMIRAL MCDEVITT:  Obviously, from my perspective, is to defend this country forward instead of along our coast lines, and that forward layered active defense is what the Navy provides.  It's what we've always provided.  I think that's pretty self evident.

MR. MAZAFURF:  [Off mike.]  Well, you pushed back.  The government, in fact, [inaudible] does not.

ADMIRAL MAHON:  If you take a look back through 1890, through waves of euphoria, through all sorts of different things, it turns out that the United States goes to war with large land forces about once every 16 years on average.  The range can be as low as five years.  It might be as high as 23.

The period of peace between those declarations of war is about 13 years on average.

So sometime after we get out of Iraq or maybe even before we get out of Iraq, it would be prudent to say that sometime over the next two decades, we will have a major power projection operation on our hands.

The thing that will be different about it is unlike the Garrison era, we have to assume we will not have access; and, therefore, the role of the Navy will be what it was and that is to go and create access where it is not and support joint power projection forces when it gets there.

So you have to have a small navy to fight the irregular war, but you need to have this big navy and keep your powder dry.

ADMIRAL MCDEVITT:  We need to remember the Coast Guard is a law enforcement agency, and they have many missions other than the War on Terrorism.  If you conceive of the War on Terrorism as a law enforcement agency, then maybe your hypothesis would be--or a law enforcement problem, then maybe your hypothesis would be correct.  But if you conceive of the War on Terrorism as a combat operation and we'd like it to be an away game, not a home game, then, in fact, the money ought to go into naval forces whose primary mission is combat operations and away games, not home games.

MR. BLUMENTHAL:  Just wait for the mike.

MR. PHILLIPS:  I'm Howard Phillips with the Conservative Caucus.

One of the panelists said, if I interpreted it correctly, that today's 289 ship navy is superior to the Reagan era 600 ship navy.  I'd like to understand why that is the case, and second I'd like someone to comment on whether our shipbuilding capabilities are dangerously deteriorating, as some have suggested.

MR. BLUMENTHAL:  Who would like to take that one?  Who said it?

[Laughter.]

ADMIRAL MAHON:  I haven't talked with any Navy officer who has said, hey, while I'd trade in this fleet for the one that we were sailing in 1989.  I have never spoken to a single one.

We had 14 deployable carriers in 1989.  Each of the carrier air wings, for example, could strike about 162 targets a day.  Now, an air wing can strike over--almost 700 targets a day.  So it is the equivalent of having almost six carriers forward for every single one you have.

The introduction of the VLS, this 289-ship Navy, these 71 battle line combatants have a bigger magazine capacity of the 600-ship Navy.  The force ratios that the--in other words, it can carry more missiles.

Now, there's fewer platforms, but they're more dense.  So once you concentrate your forces, you bring an awful lot of power to bear.

In 1990, there were 93 U.S. SSNs.  There were about 264 Soviet SSVNs, SSGNs, SSNs.  It was a force ratio of about one sub to every 2.84 Soviet subs.  About one sub to every three.

And I never talked to one U.S. submariner who didn't think that we could go and wipe them out; that we could take them on.

Now, it started to get a little bit hinky when the Akula came out, but the submariners were extremely confident.

Now, if you count up all the submarines in the Soviet and--excuse me--the Russian Federation and the Chinese fleet, the force ratio is better with a two navy standard than it was in one.

So if you take a look at this navy, I just don't think there's any comparison.  This is a much more capable, networked, interoperable.  It can talk with joint forces.  It can call upon joint multi-dimensional battle network assets like B-2s carrying 2,000 pound J-DAMS.  This is a heck of a fleet.

I think it's probably the finest fleet this Navy has ever put to sea, and it's certainly the best navy in the history of the world.

Shipbuilding.  Yeah.  That's a tough one.  In 1815, what the British Royal Navy had is it could stop building war ships because they had the largest merchant capacity in the world, knowing that they could start building war ships very easily.  We do not have that luxury.

For the first time since 1890, we're faced with a potential competitor who might be able to outproduce us.

So shipyard capacity is an extremely important issue and one that needs to be worked out relatively quickly.,

MR. BLUMENTHAL: And we'll take on the shipbuilding in a later panel as well.  Right back there.  The gentleman back there.  A mike is coming.

MR. PULMAR:  Norman Pulmar.  Only one of our four speakers has given any significant comment to the U.S. submarine situation. I'd appreciate hearing some views from some of the other members on how many SSNs they believe we need, what kinds of submarines, and at what rate we should be building them.

MR. BLUMENTHAL:  Submarines.  Go ahead.

ADMIRAL MCDEVITT:  I'll start, since I have no vested interest.  I'm a surface officer, a black shoe.  I spent my career looking at for submarines, unsuccessfully.  I think we have just about the right [inaudible] quite frankly.  Should they be conventional or nuclear powered?  As long as we're interested--where all of our most interests are is across oceans, I think we probably need nuclear powered submarines because they can go fast and they can stay a long time, and they don't have to put anything up to recharge batteries or whatever it is.

And so my problem is like everything else in the shipbuilding account the cost per ship or cost per sub has continued to skyrocket.  So how do you get the cost down?  I don't know.  But certainly having 50 or I think it's about 50 or 51 whatever we have right now SSNs seems to me about the right number, and probably we need to, as I suggest, figure out how better to distribute them around the world so they can be in areas where they may have more leverage than the do right now.

MR. BLUMENTHAL:  Tom, plese.

MR. MAHNKEN:  Yeah.  I agree with what Mike said.  I mean in terms of overall posture, I think it's about right.  In terms of nuclear versus conventional, yeah, it's--it should be a nuclear force.  I think it's important to work closely with our allies who have quiet diesels and with friends such as we're doing with the Swedes so we can figure out how to operate with and against quiet diesels.  And as to redistribution, yeah, I mean I think Asia is the primary theater where subs are going to be used, so we might want to think about how to base them.

MR. BLUMENTHAL:  Over here.

MR. DIAMOND:  Vick Diamond [ph.] from Raytheon.  My question is for Mike McDevitt.  Mike, I understand that you're hedging against a competition at sea with China, and you put the perspective from Beijing as a negative, pessimistic one, looking at their security challenges.  It would seem to me that in the interest of a fair, balanced hedge, you would have to consider positive outcomes of policy on our side, and if you took those same laundry lists of security challenges that China faces that are mostly at sea, it would at least be possible to consider that changing the word U.S. spoiler to the U.S. is the only potential guarantor of those security concerns, shouldn't we then at least consider a policy option that encourages China to cooperate with us and see a mutual security benefit at sea and what would that policy agenda look like if we wanted to come out favorably rather than being forced towards a conflict?

ADMIRAL MCDEVITT:  By what I said in terms of Mr. Teat, China is the strategic problems that they're trying to reconcile is based strictly upon what China says they want to do.  It certainly doesn't preclude.  In fact, I'm not suggesting that conflict is inevitable.  To the contrary, it doesn't preclude or suggest any one outcome.  It could be the whole range of plausible outcomes.  My only point is that, so far, if you think about the last post-Vietnam era maintenance of stability in the Western Pacific, there has really been this sharing of stability, if you will, or sharing of military dominance, let me put it that way.

China has been the military dominant power on the continent of Asia for some time, and nobody is talking about invading China.  But by the same token, the U.S. and its allies has been the predominant military power on the Litoral or the seaward approaches to China.  All of our allies, most of them are archipelagic or island states and what have you.  So, we've maintained this region of stability.

Well, as long as the PRC now--or the PLA--in terms of its avowed statement in its white paper--now, they could certainly repeal that next year, saying that they want to achieve control of the sea.  I'm not sure how much of the sea they're talking about, but that suggests that they're putting the gauntlet down and so that that suggests that there may be some incipient naval or maritime--the competition for influence in the maritime domain, which is kind of been our backyard, our turf.

I'm not suggesting this is good or bad. I'm just saying we need to watch what' going on and keep track of what's going on an make sure that the current advantage we maintain is not lost through inattention or deciding that our interests are elsewhere.  As long as our primary allies in that region are island and archipelagic states, many of them very close to the mainland of China, we need to pay attention to that.

MR. BLUMENTHAL:  One more question, so let's--this gentleman over here.  Yeah.

MR. CROFT:  Stan Croft from Business Week.  Tom, you said that the existence and the presence of a navy affects the behavior of others.  And, Mr. McDevitt, you said that the Chinese have been very adept at diplomacy recently.  So my question is not how the existence and presence of an expanded Chinese naval force will affect the U.S., but rather how it will affect the neighbors.

Will they be afraid and be closer to us or because China is there and is not moving, will they be more estranged from us?  Will it be a backlash against the successful diplomacy?  Will the Chinese back off, as they did after Mischief Reef [ph]?  How does this play out in the region?

ADMIRAL MCDEVITT:  Most countries in Asia don't want to have to chose between Beijing or Washington.  And most countries in Asia don't want to only have--have the only choice be Beijing.  They don't want to have to feel like they need to run all their policy through Beijing to get a chop if that's okay if they do X, Y, or Z.

And so they like the U.S. around as a balancing force that acts as--in their--from their point of view as a hedge.  So you--whenever you talk privately to friends and allies throughout the region, they're encouraging us, the United States, don't leave.  Don't leave.

It's not that the--as I say, they don't want to have to choose, but by having us present, they hope to avoid having to choose.

MR. MAHNKEN:  Yeah.  Much the same way--I think--you know, we are a much more attractive naval ally or naval collaborator than the Chinese, first because we are a Pacific power, yet we're not right next to them, and we don't threaten them; second, because of the capabilities that we bring to bear are much more attractive to the Asian Litoral states than the capabilities that the Chinese bring to bear.  So, yeah, I think we're just a much more attractive partner in that sense.

MR. BLUMENTHAL:  Well, thank you very much.  We've run out of time, and we're going to take I guess a short 10-minute break, 10-minute coffee break, and then go on to panel two.

So thank you very much to an exceptional panel.

[Applause.]

[End Tape 1, side B, begin Tape 2.]

MR.         :  I think we have just about the right number, quite frankly.  Should they be conventional or nuclear powered--as long as we're interested, all of our most important interests are across oceans.  I think we probably need nuclear powered submarines because they can go fast and they can stay a long time.  And they don't have to put anything up, to recharge batteries or whatever it is.

So, my problem is, it's like everything else, in the shipbuilding account, the cost per ship or cost per sub has continued to skyrocket.  So how do you get the costs down?  I don't know.  But certainly having 50--I think it's about 50 or 51--whatever we have right now, SSNS, it seems to me to be about the right number.  And probably we need to, as I suggest, figure out how better to distribute them around the world so they can be in areas where they may have more leverage than they do right now.

MR.         :  Yes, I agree with what Mike said.  I mean, in terms of overall posture, I think it's about right, in terms of nuclear versus conventional.  Yes, there should be a nuclear force.  I think it's important to work closely with our allies who have quiet diesels, and with friends, such as we are doing with the Swedes, so we can figure out how to operate with and against quiet diesels.

And as to redistribution, yes, I think Asia is the primary theater where subs are going to be used, so we might want to think about how to base them.

MR. DIAMOND:  Dick Diamond from Raytheon.  My question is for Mike McDevitt.

Mike, I understand that you are hedging against a competition at sea with China, and you put the perspective from Beijing as a negative, pessimistic one, looking at their security challenges.

It would seem to me that in the interest of a fair, balanced hedge, you would have to consider positive outcomes of policy on our side.  And if you took those same laundry lists of security challenges that China faces that are mostly at sea, it would at least be possible to consider that changing the word U.S. "spoiler" to U.S. as the only "potential guarantor" of those security concerns, shouldn't we then at least consider a policy option that encourages China to cooperate with us and see a mutual security benefit at sea.  And what would that policy agenda look like, if we wanted to come out favorably rather than being forced toward a conflict.

ADMIRAL McDEVITT:  By what I said in terms of China's strategic problem that they are trying to reconcile is based strictly on what China says they want to do.  It ce