Afraid to take your issue seriously. You are never too young to have an opinion so that your voice be heard now. For more information go to our website, studentcam. Org. Welcome to todays conference on Intelligence Surveillance reconnaissance and targeting. This part of the series conducted by Hudson Institution for american seapower. Im seth cropsey, senior fellow here at hudson, and also director of the center for american seapower. I hope that you have monograph the subject of our discussion today, and if you do not, i believe that we still have copies out at the front desk, so by all means pick up a copy on your way out. We are very fortunate to have with us today bryan mcgrath, this man, my friend and coauthor of the monograph was also a retired naval officer, formerly Deputy Director of hudson sector for american seapower, a prolific writer and also managing director of the Ferrybridge Group which is National Security and defense consultancy. Its also a pleasure to welcome david larter, this man, also a retired naval officer and defense news best writer. I will offer some thoughts based on our monograph. Bryan will follow, then the three of us will discuss. We will conclude with questions and probably some answers. To the untrained eye, modern military Technology May seem, seem to have eliminated the fog of war that defined premodern battlefields. Victory in historic conflicts relied on the coincidence of skill and luck. The great commander sought to place himself in a position to impose his will on a chaotic battlefield in a single moment of genius, or a series of moments of genius. Nevertheless, reaching that moment required good fortune and the alignment of factors that were beyond his control. Intelligence traveled only as fast as a man could run, or a horse could ride, or a pigeon could fly. Victory, therefore, required months, if not years, of careful planning. Despite technological advancements, confusion and improvisation still define the 20 century wars. The u. S. Fleet at midway could only strike japans carriers as fast as its a dive and torpedo bombers would fly. Luck proved instrumental. Commander mccluskey decision to continue searching for japans carrier force, and the American Strike groups arrival just as japanese air wings were refueling and rearming played a large role in deciding the issue. Today, however, missiles and jets fly at hundreds of miles per hour, were in the case of Hypersonic Weapons, at over 100 miles in two minutes. Satellites rococo, advanced raters track dozens of targets. The case of the aegis combat physical hundreds. Laserguided weapons are accurate to within feet, or sometimes inches. Its tempting to believe that conflict is now mechanical. That any enemy can be found and destroyed without much trouble, that they the key to victory is simply building faster and longer range missiles. Munitions and delivery systems, whether aircraft, ships, submarines or landbased launchers are integral to victory, but it is a mistake to think that finding the enemy is any easier than before. And more specifically, that the modern u. S. Military could locate and destroy adversaries at will. Contemporary u. S. Intelligence Surveillance Reconnaissance and targeting is under equipped for the demands of great power of competition. Particularly in the western pacific. Without serious investment and overhaul, the u. S. Risks being outpaced in peacetime and defeated in war. American sailors face the same difficulty as unassuming ways aging fisherman. The sea is big and old. The u. S. Into Pacific Command is responsible for 30 million square miles of open ocean in the western pacific alone. Several island chains break up this vastness while civilian ships and aircraft sale and fly between some of the world most populous nations. Moreover, the u. S. Pacific forces alongside the regional allies face the greatest threat to peace and order since the soviet union. Peoples republic of china has spent the past four years increasing its material wealth, and the last 20 one on the mony the u. S. Backed Global Economic order. Trying to substitute their own the last 20 here over the last decade it has transformed its military from force only suited to internal Security Missions to one that can protect power abroad. The chinese have developed a military designed to counter american and allied capabilitie capabilities. It relies on Maritime Transport in a region defined by strategic chokepoints. Any largescale economic disruptions could spark protests and threaten the regimes survival. Thus, any conflict china fights must be short, intense, decisive. General secretary xi jinping does not fear conflict. He worries about a prolonged confrontation with the u. S. And its allies. Thus, the Peoples Liberation army possesses capabilities that will destroy and local adversaries military while also forcing the u. S. And japan to choose between risking highvalue assets like aircraft carriers or risking taiwan secession to china. Deterring chinese ambitions requires a mix of american and allied capabilities. However, the u. S. Military must field a very specific set of tools. It needs longrange standoff weapons that can penetrate chinese air defenses, strike aircraft to carry them, range extenders to enable strikes while keeping carriers secure. Air superiority fires to defend high target, infiltrate chinas denial network, and Surface Combatants for air defense strike and command and control. These assets have dominated diminished value without enough intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and targeting. China will deploy its missiles on aircraft, ships, submarines and landbased launchers. He is a relatively small and in most cases highly mobile targets that will be difficult to detect. The u. S. Must be able to identify these targets efficiently and at range. That is, there must be enough space between forward position in u. S. Surveillance tools and major fleet formations or longrange bombers to keep the latter out of harms way. Otherwise, the u. S. Must choose between the point carriers within strike range with chinas longrange missiles, thereby exposing them to risks not run since the second world war. Or backing out of strike range and allowing china to execute the opening stages of its plans unimpeded. Intelligence Surveillance Reconnaissance and targeting is of equal importance before conflict, chinese geography gives it strategic and bandages particularly and accommodation over taiwan. While the u. S. Must rely on supply and communication lines spanning the pacific ocean, and will have immediate access to regional reinforcements, china can consecrate forces in foreign reserves much more quickly. Nevertheless, china cannot strike from a standing start. It must concentrate air and Ground Forces across the taiwan strait, increased naval presence and prepare for a surge to disable taiwanese defenses while warding off the the u. S. And ad response. With enough warning, the u. S. Can increase the cost of the chinese offensive. Even two for 2. Attack separate plus a searching aircraft from japan and Pacific Carrier groups could make a real difference. But obtaining this Early Warning requires longterm surveillance. The u. S. Needs isrt feedback if it helps to shape the pacific battlefield and executed strategy of deterrence by denial. Specifically, it needs constant information on assets and positions within to utter miles of the chinese coastline, along with eyes on chinas coastal garrisons, airbases and ports in eastern military district. Important to note that similar thinking applies to Chinese Forces in the south china sea. The u. S. Requires constant surveillance of the pl lays pla Navy South Sea fleet ship and the Company Aircraft or amphibious units moving from force in Southern China toward both the disputed islands and the straits. China itself has recognized the importance of isrt. Even until a decade ago, chinas military remained largely backwards. It lacks centralized funding, did not rigorously simulate combat situations. Most of its Fighter Pilots did not fly at night. The pla primarily conducted Territorial Defense and internal Security Missions. Still china has steadily develop its antisunlit capability since the 1980s, staging a series of public tests from 20072018. And incorporating its antisatellite capabilities research into its space program. Satellite capabilities are critical to the u. S. Isrt complex. Not only do they provide valuable preconflict intelligence, they also serve as critical communication between, communication nodes rather between u. S. Forces and multiple theaters. The chinese strike would disrupt u. S. Operations globally while undermining american isrt specifically in the western pacific. Currently, the u. S. Lacks isrt capabilities with the range and staying power needed to properly to monitor the chinese. This impedes the trend its ability to deter conflict, to shape the battlefield United States ability and in the end to win a war. Opensource analyses can undertake the detailed technical examination of classified counterparts. Still, u. S. Maritime isrt has become so hollowed out, the lack of coordination and development is evident. U. S. Isrt is comprised of aircraft, surface and subsurface sensors, and landbased sensors equipped with radiofrequency, lightbased, electromagnetic and sound ranging tools. But neither the navy nor the department of defense have made enough effort to centralize the procurement, deployment and assessment of isrt architecture infrastructure. Thus, i think its fair to say that no one really knows what the navys isrt requirements in the western pacific actually are. By extension, no one really knows how current isrt capabilities actually relate to quantifiable u. S. Requirements. Im not making new observation here, but the fleet without eyes cannot fight. Several policy steps should be taken to overhaul the u. S. Western pacific isrt. For one, the navy should attempt to define the problem. Congress should provide funding for the navy to conduct a detailed classified study of pacific isrt capability and require it. This would allow navy to the target quickfix responses to capability gaps, as it would properly plan future acquisitions. Indeed, i think that all u. S. Armed services in every major theater should conduct a similar review. Certain stopgap measures and boost current capability shortfalls. The navys acquisition of him to foresee triton, uavs will boost isr ttip those by providing commanders with a high endurance, long loiter time Information Collection platform, but full Operational Capability isnt expected until 2023. In the interim, the Defense Department could we task u. S. Air force reaper uavs from Central Command and apply them to the pacific in a similar role. Those who answer or might object that we should not accomplish one strategic theater to benefit another are right. Both sitcom and indo pak, are essential u. S. Interests the navy should have feasible proposition since the program has only just reached additional, initial Operational Capability. In the mediumterm the navy should modify the stingray to serve as unmanned isr t platform, converting the unmanned carrier launched surveillance and Strike Program to the sievers, they carrierbased refueling system, was an intelligent organizational choice. The navy has lacked carrier air wing organic range extender since the early 2000s. Since the retirement of the a six and f14, carrier air wing strike shrunk. Any strategy employing standup strikes will require an aircraft that shows the mq25 role. By expanding its Mission Profile to include isrt with both increase u. S. Navy capabilities and i believe avoid extreme costs. Designers could emphasize longrange sensors rather than stealth or speed, thereby avoiding the difficulties that the program encountered. And ironic characteristic of strategy, i will close my remarks here. This is cyclical nature, tactical and operational message thought to be obsolete revived with new technologies or strategies to the same deadly effect as before their initial decline. Think about the scout plane concept that fell out of practice with the decline of battleships. The navy should consider reviving this concept, developing Medium Altitude long endurance uav like the mq4c or nine that can be deployed and recovered by u. S. Surface combatants. This would increase u. S. Isrt coverage for also making the uf Hypersonic Weapons and real guns by Surface Combatants more feasible. These spotter uavs could direct missions toward their targets while the destroyer or cruiser launching the missile, or whatever launching the missile, would remain out of strike range. The u. S. Was also coordinate redundant and independent Capability Development with its regional allies, particularly japan. The Japan Selfdefense forces are sophisticated. They are highly competent. But the Ground Forces, ground force, still receives most of the funding while air and Maritime Forces have not developed robust isrt capabilities or assets that would survive a massive chinese strike. The suggestions of hudsons isrt report apply equally to the defense of japan, and the suggestions of hudsons isrt ill leave it at that for the time being. Bryan . The podium is yours. Thank you, sir. Good afternoon of doing. Its nice to see Friendly Faces in the audience. Im not sure you all understand just how fortunate you are today to be here, because you get to see david larter with his hair combed, his beard trimmed and in a suit and tie. And that is, thats like a unicorn sighting here in washington, d. C. Thank you for the invitation, seth. Its good to be here. I also want to thank the third silent member of the writing team of agenda named harrison who happens to be one of the most deep, deep or insightful operations analyst that i know, and he the math because seth and i dont do math. Why did we do this study . What caused it . Someone just asked that the of the deeper actually somebody in the navy just asked me that the other day. A couple of things. Number one, there was 18 ndaa, National Defense authorization act, that directed the navy to do Something Like this, to do a study of its isrt sufficiency. Specifically, one of the things they asked for was the study include operations and a satellite then i advisement. It seemed if congress were asking the navy to do such a study, smart people in the congress were worried that the wasnt work being done and so we watched. Seth and i, i remember communicating with that light which came out in the ndaa and we watched it we didnt see much coming out into the press, didnt see much attention being given to it so we decided we with get some attention to. Another reason to do this study was the National Security strategy that came out in the early months, i think january, 2018, 2018, had a very big idea in it. That very big idea was the United States posture for conventional deterrence would move from that of deterrence by punishment to deterrence by denial. These are very different ways of attempting to deter conventionally. In the one, the aggressor obtains some level of success in their objectives, and that, the threat of being pounded into submission by the cavalry coming over the horizon is thought to be enough to dissuade them. The other is deterrence by denial, in which forces that are present are sufficiently lethal and capable to keep the opponent from the aggression in the first place. Because when you look at geography in the region will look at in the western pacific, because there are so many possible targets of aggression, so close to the chinese mainland, where so much force could be marshaled in so little time, this decision by the Trump Administration to change the nations conventional deterrence posture i think was a very, very smart one. But it levies requirements. The force thats in the neighborhood has to be better. It has to be stronger. It has to have more weapons and ask to have more isr and it has to Work Networks that link all that together. There is a missile isr mismatch in the navy right now. In the january 2015 issue of proceedings, the three admirals in charge of the navy Surface Force then vice admiral roden, rear admiral fanta and rear admiral wrote an article where a put forward this idea of distributive leaked locality. In this article under the section where they were suggesting some things that they needed to operationalize this concept, they write persistent organic airborne Intelligence Surveillance isr and data relay come something they need, call, and important as if it is to the fellow is ability to confidently conduct dispersed operations apart from centralized command and control networks. Local combat Information Networks are essential to achieving localized how space awareness. Those networks need to be more capable than those existing today. They must be persisted in a somewhat denied or jamming intensive environment. Whether current vertical takeoff, Unmanned Aerial Systems have the persistence necessary to support dispersed offensive operations remains to be seen. By that they met shipboard helicopters. But the potential for them to augment Network Information sharing should be examined. The ability of hunter killer surface action groups to launch and recover fixed wing or partially fixed wing uavs will be pivotable to uavs in the fall. I mentioned this specifically because it was evident from that article, almost five years ago, that the three guys in charge of Surface Warfare in the navy believed the was an isr problem. They believed believe it enougn proceedings and make sure everybody read it. As a young man i was, i did a lot of Cruise Missile certification when i was on active duty. You have this, bunch of experts from the organizations would come on board, and in two days a very intense simulation, determine the degree to which you were able to deploy surface to surface weapons. Used to weapon called tomahawk antiship missile. It had a range of about 250 miles and i remember going through these certifications discussing the employment of this weapon, both with the teams and when we would sit around on our ship, you know, think about what would happen if we ever got tasm. Bottom line was, the weapons range greatly outstripped our ability to understand what we were targeting. And because once it was a fire and forget weapon, the area of uncertainty of the target grew as this sub sonic weapon moved down range. We got rid of tasm for many reasons, some of that associate with arms control treaties, but one of the reasons the navy didnt fight harder to keep it was it was are difficult to employ. We didnt have the situation awareness, the isrt to match the range. Now im looking at the navy that has tomahawk block format, maritime strike tomahawk, with ranges at nearly 1000 miles, looking at the sm6 and a surface to surface mode with unpleasant discussion of ranges over 200 miles. We have spent the money we need to get the weapons we need out there. The question in my mind was do we have the isr to support those weapons . My gut feeling was no, and i convinced seth that was a know anyone to get after this. So we got harrison and we start to think about it. Some of the things we thought about, im a former destroyer captain. I have relationships with lots of destroyer captains today, folks who have sailed through the south china sea. You talk to them, talk to anyone who operates in the western pacific today, they will tell you yes, we believe the chinese have us targeted. Its just the cost of doing business, that they believe all the time that some element of the Peoples Liberation army has been targeted. My supposition in starting this thing was, why can we create that same sense of certainty in the chinese destroyer and forget captains . Why cant we make them understand that they are always targeted 147365 in peacetime. Someone knows exactly where you are and there are enough weapons of sufficient capability and range in the theater to ensure that every single chinese surface ship over 100 meters long has weapons associate with it. That was the sort of, the operational imperative that we look at. This is 1. 6 1. 66 million square miles of water inside the island chain. This is a hard problem. Currently, i know of no such operational imperative that naval forces are operating under in the western pacific. Were they to be operating under that imperative, my understanding of the capability of the systems, their ranges and their sensitivity, leads me to believe there is no way they could pull it off today. There is a lot of discussion in these circles about National Technical means or over at assets or satellites. The minute you get into those discussions you go to a classification level that greatly exceeds this room, but the second thing is i want to go back to the congressional guidance, direction in the ndaa, which was report also in a satellite denied in private. So in order to bound our study, we decided we would not deal with National Technical means. We would assume either they were under the control of elements other than the three star operational commanders in the navy who would have the ability to task though systems, or that they would be gone. Or that they would be doing other things so we took them out of the analysis. You may quibble with that and we can talk about that, but i want to make sure you understand that it was one of our founding assumptions. We focus on Unmanned Systems in this. The navy has a program of record to buy 70 mq4c tritons, 60 operational models and two early models im not sure exactly what theyre calling them. Those 68 aircraft are purchased over the course of a lifetime of this acquisition program. The operational requirement is for five orbits, which is a wy we describe how isr this size deploys, five orbits apiece, 20 airplanes worldwide, 20 airplanes worldwide. And we started to think okay, thats the navys major isr platform to fill this targeting requirement on this targeting problem. Could they pull off this 365 day a year, 24 7 targeting problem inside the first island chain . We assume no friendlier allied contributions to this. Thats probably not reasonable. We will likely have some friends and allies helping us locate aggressor surface platforms. But for the purposes of our inquiry we wanted to focus on our ability to support an operational requirement that we think is useful. We assume a representative level of surface ship density and posture for both the United States and china during peacetime. Peacetime, remember that. We are looking to bolster the conventional deterrence by denial of the United States navy, and we do that by putting more and more powerful forces or word that are supplied by sufficient isrt so that the of the guy always knows that when he or she is under way, that someone is watching. Thats what we are trying to do. We assumed the United States continues its commitments in europe and elsewhere, and we assume the u. S. Has ongoing surveillance in the north atlantic, the mediterranean, the indian ocean and the arabian gulf region. We are not concerned with weapons with the performance of weapons in this analysis, okay . I invite you to take a good dive into the monograph that we provided. There are a number of graphs and charts and tables that describe the operational challenges associated with attempting to just do what harrison referred to as low the grass. That is, if you wish to take an airborne radar operating at 50,000 feet that has about 287mile area of concern, if you want to look at 1. 66 million square miles every 12 hours, and thats just one time covering every one of those 1. 66 million square miles, you need five mq4c in the air at one time just to mow the grass. Mowing the grass is insufficient when you want to maintain target on targets of opportunity because as you know you will hit somebody and youll say hey, that somebody would want to stay on. Staying on that target requires persistence which takes away from your ability to continue to mow the grass. We talked in our monograph about what, the time to get to station does to the ability of airplanes and how many airplanes you need and how it adds to the number of airplanes. We looked at guam specifically, look at guam. I think of member along with something along the order of 2000 miles from the center of the south china sea. So i transfer would have to fly from guam 2000 miles to get to the middle, thats 4000 miles. Thats a lot of fuel a lot of on station time. Bottom line here is, if we are going to maintain a 24 7 365 target environment to the fidelity fidelity that i think we need their, the current by at mq4c is not going to get us there. Its not going to get us close to there. So we then decided we show this with our, what harrison calls pilot math. Now, pilot math as a couple of assumptions in it, which is that are no false targets. You are getting every bit of the Horizon Limited radar range. Theres no weather problems. This is just, this is the very best possible case for radar surveillance of these waters. There are other ways to survey those waters, but radar surveillance helps in a very important way. So what we did was back of the envelope pilot math that led us to believe that the mq4c is incredibly insufficient. In fact, if we devoted all 20 airplanes to the pacific, all 20 operational airplanes to the pacific theater, we would have a difficult time meeting the objective of covering the chinese surface vessels. As seth described, we made a few recommendations. I would like to drill down into a couple of those if i could in my remaining time. The first is, id like to see the Organization Task to do this research be an ffrdc that has the clear, clearance necessary to really get at a merged isr environment that brings in the satellite, brings in performance characteristics of the sensors that are in the region, that are on the airplanes to give a better view. I want, i want someone other than the navy to do this. I would like the navy to spending but i like some outside organization to report on this. I want to bring your attention to an interesting we talk about two particular kinds of Medium Altitudes, long endurance uavs. The navy had an idea most existed at the office of naval research. It was a tale said kind of aircraft that had long on station time, a variety of potted sensor packages that dramatically would increase the isr capability of disperse Surface Forces. The marine corps currently is working on a program called locks, blue the means the marine corps unmanned expeditionary capability, and if you go into the research i think we provide links in the report, if you go look at what the marine corps is asking for, i remember reading the industry date brief they provided and thinking oh, my god, this is what i want for the Surface Force. If you look at the mission set, it is a virtual overlap. Marine corps slots at different ways to get at their requirement, a ship base one could be the answer. Landbased ones could be the answer. They are looking into which would work best for them. But theyre putting real money against trying to fulfill this set of emerging requirements for isr to support marine corps operations and to support the commandants new vision of naval integration. I think we need to buy more mq4c, buy them faster. We need to spend some money on taking some of these mq9 reapers, and it is a time version of the mq9 reaper. We need to turn some of them into maritime someone asked me recently, should Navy Operating or the air force operate them . I dont care. I really dont care. I do care that we get more of these assets, or assets into the theater that could help. The four i step off and turn this over to david larter, i recognize what im talking about here is just the first several steps of the kill chain. I havent really spent time on the weapons. I havent really spent time on the networking. Those are important and if you want again to them, we we can talk about that a little. But that ends my presentation. I hope you enjoy the report and i look forward to davids questions. I think bryan assessed the opportunity to hang out today and ask if you question. Very interesting report. I had a couple questions off the top. First of all, one of the assets you left out in the report was 58 lead and them wondering what controversy see the p8 making to the isr . One of the things, one of the country we put ourselves was that we would deal with unmanned assets. One of the reasons was because man assets have other missions am especially the p8. It we were in a time of increasing tension or in a time where we were really serious about isr of undersea assets of the Chinese Submarine fleet, our understanding would be that the t8 fleet would be very, very busy with the submarine threat and would be less of a factor in looking to surface conflicts. Theres also an issue of the cost of p8 and what threats it faces running around in that area. The cost of the reduced uad. By the way, if somebody is brave enough and doesnt understand the acronyms that we are using your, i would be obliged if you would just raise your hand and say what it is. In any case, there is a cost issue there and number issues of their in p8. Having difficulty, especially with chinese surface to air capabilities as they are now, and projected to be in the future. You discuss some of the threats they are facing. Ideally the global hawk that was shot down by iran at 180 million, and i hate to be the guy that brings up costs, but the discussion afterwards was, that there was reporting i believe in Foreign Policy that that really freaked out dod that they lost their 180 billion drone to an iranian missile, you know, missile that was built in iran. And there was some discussion of canceling the whole program. I dont know if thats going to happen. What would you say to people that say well, were spending too much money on exquisite isr assets that are too vulnerable . What would be the response . Its certainly an issue, but its not that there are no alternatives that are lower cost, and those alternatives are mentioned in our report. So yeah, its a lot of money to lose a drone, unfortunately its not the only uav with those capabilities and it does have extended range and so forth, but its not the only game in town. I think there are sort of two big ideas bound up in this question. One is, again gets it back to conventional deterrence. It your desire is to maintain a conventional deterrence posture, which what youre aiming at is to keep that first shot from happening, right . And so you will spend money on more exquisite technology in order to provide that confidence. Confidence. If the other guy is not deterred, which everybody calls this a failed a deterrence can that deterrence is august match to a certain level of will or desire on the other side, and if the other side will or desire exceeds your conventional deterrent posture, they are going to shoot. Then we start to talk about the shooting war and the things that are important within the shooting war. I think that once we get, once we get into sort of a general war or a hot environment, the discussion of cheap and many and fast and swarming, and all of those concepts that are important for fighting concepts, they are just less important before the shooting starts. Before the shooting starts these more exquisite technologies i think are useful. One more thing. I think we have to really think deeply about how Unmanned Systems lower the bar for conflict. The iranians believe that they could take a shot at a mq4c and it would probably get away with it. They got away with it because we did not consider lost of a mq4c a war inducing. So the question is, is everybody just going to start to believe that the unmanned vehicles everyone else are fair game . And thats just kind of a rest in peace, cosseting business. I dont know but we have to think about that. Dod, had good reason to be freaked out but i think of a better reason to be freaked out was not that that the drone had been lost but there was no response afterwards. Because as bryan was talking a deterrence, if you want to deter them from happening again, then you have to make it clear that there is a cost for doing it. That cost is not necessarily mean war. We have used forces many, many times most of the time without going to war. This sets up an interesting dynamic, right, if you have two opposing forces in a constrained area like us and the chinese potentially and we both have created these isr environments in peacetime that enable each other to know where the other is all the time, then the distraction of an isr assets is different than other potential aggressive acts, right . Because at that point you have to ask yourself is the opposing force trying to poke my eyes out before they do something bigger and more aggressive . So there is the potential, i referred to this in a meeting once as a conventional balance of terror in isr in a region where isr helps provide stability, sort of some sort of conventional stability to our region. You know, one of the things that you could get into it you were, say, a requirement person in the pentagon would be, wel, if they can see my global hawk or triton, maybe we should go even further towards more a low observable isr acid which of course will drive costs and which are taught what is involved in business, when you talk about the pacific. How do you guard against very dod like drives to not be seen and put the most exquisite thing up in the air versus your need for just a lot of coverage . We need some of both. We need volume and then we need some, we need some low signate more exquisite stuff to do the really serious missions where you may not want the other guy to know that you are doing. I found what other really interesting things i found was the organic isr from Surface Combatants, my background is on surface ships as well. One of my areas where i was always uncomfortable was the idea of targeting the harpoon missile meant that you would send the helicopter over the horizon, and if your sin it against a relatively capable Surface Combatant theres really nothing for them from shooting down helicopter and, of course, youre risking the pilots life. The unmanned isr key asset from a Surface Combatant then seem to solve that problem but you also run into the problem now of saying to your friends in naval aviation, hey, so we need a drone that puts to certain extent, not completely out of business but am wondering whats coming together, this distributed, it seems like its going to need some teams working together and am wondering if you believe the navy is set up to create the kind of isr coverage youre looking for and especially the sort of organic surface ships because you have to go through aviation. A long preamble, im sorry. I look at so. I consult to the navy. So you have to all take that, put it away because what is going to tell you now are my opinions, not what i get paid to do. My opinion here is that this is a very sorting bureaucratic problem. We allude to that in the report thorny in the first draft of it, i did a hell of a lot more than allude to it, i backed the language out a little. Surface people like dave and me believe we need more organic isr. We need that, we need something that takes off from my ship, is under my control, completes my fire control loop. Anything that takes off from my deck is paid for my airplane guys in the navy. The airplane guys have quite justifiably said for years, you dont have a requirement for that. You havent showed as your requirement. This, part of this is a function of missiles moving out in capability after than the isr could catch up to it. This is why i think the Congress Asked the navy to do its study, was to determine whether or not such a requirement exists. Marines clearly believe such a requirement exists because they have begun to move forward with this idea. I dont know whether its a program of record. I dont know exactly what it is or not. I know theres a lot of talk about it, but there are bureaucratic problems here between the surface people and the aviators, and then the isr people here because aviators why trucks they buy trucks coming to infix in the pentagon they buy isr. And they also by the isr from the satellites and so theres a question of what they consider to be sufficient. These organizations have to come together to determine whether there out to lunch or whether they got it. I think congress is concern about this indicates that the Congress Wants to know whether they got it or not. Im looking for agreement here, and that is that one of the problems that stands in the way of the kind of bureaucratic reordering that the report recommends, and we support, one of the obstacles is its very difficult to relate such a reordering to a particular strategy. What is the navys role in, if theres a conflict in the western pacific . What is the navys objective . This goes back to come and the difficulty here goes back to the idea as it is currently construed and Defense Department of joint warfare and its discouragement of individual surfaces taking the lead or presenting their ideas are doing anything about it that doesnt mean everybody is involved in the game. But that wasnt my Central Point. The Central Point would be easier to reporter the bureaucracy come specifically toward this end if it were clear that reordering the bureaucracy servers a strategic purpose that has been explained and understood. You cant get us in governmt that somebody taking a potshot at a joint nest in minutes. Absolutely. I want to move on to a couple other issues while i have both of you up here. Theres this renewed push as of the last few weeks around 355 ships in the navy. The acting secretary of the navy has made it very clear he wants they plan to get us there by 2030. He was echoed by the National Security adviser just recently in the reagan National Defense forum who said when President Trump said 350 350 ships, he ms 350 ships. And if you look at that situation in comparison to what cno said just recently, well, then ohio replacement is going to be 40 of our budget for the foreseeable future. It seems like theres a lot on the wish list, and not a ton of resources with which to execute that. And im wondering, you know, how do you make the case for what would be spending on a lot of extra isr, what would you say would be essential isr capabilities in balancing against the political promises and the things the navy wants to do to what it said it needs to do and what it says it is required to do under its mandates to for our National Security obligations . Well, its a really good question because the increases that the administration has proposed and have been agreed to by congress over the past few years are going to turn around. Two years from now. So were going to start seeing decreases in the defense budget, beginning with 1. 8 . And as difficult as it is to reach 355 ship role in 30 plus years, its its going to be more difficult with the budget on the decline. So im afraid i dont have an innovative or creative or imaginative answer to your good question. I just have a very simple one, and that is that if the American People and their representatives want to be safe and want to understand what threat is materializing in the west pacific and is likely to continue to materialize in the future, thats money. Number one, they work and comparing your gross size to other navies of the world gross size and they work in comparison to previous u. S. Navies. There must be a better way of qualifying, or, quantifying a navies power. I just do not know what it is. Acting secretary has made it very clear what he wants of his uniforms. How do we get to 355 within 10 years. The National Security advisor as david said made it very clear that that is an administration goal. If we continue to count ships the way that we do today, to 92 ships today, 355 ships is almost 22 larger. About 40 billion more dollars a year to maintain a navy of that size. You cannot just buy the ships. You have to maintain them. You have to give them fuel, greece, parts, draining. 21. 7 increase in the size of a navy is gigantic. I would not want to be one of those uniform for stars in the navy, or three stars, that has to figure out how to send the acting secretary a shipbuilding plan that its you to 355. If we count the same way we do today. We ignore smaller ships, m2 fours, they are important. In this network naval force. We do not plan to count large unmanned surface vessels. They plan to have 32 missiles on them, a piece. We are not counting these things as part of the navy. We did not count Coastal Patrol boats in our ship counts before. The secretary made this tribe during his time to increase the navy shift count by counting things that was not being counted. He got pounded by the hill on it i think the secretary would be well advised to bring the hill, the joint staff and the Navy Uniforms together. Go out to some Conference Center for a weekend throw 75 pizzas in a room and say come out with a new way to count that you all sign up on. Sign up with. If the goal is to get to 355 as we currently count, it is a pipe dream. There are 840 billion additional dollars a year for the navy unless number one a giant defense increase that funds all the services larger happens, which is the way we normally do it or number two, a serious strategic choice is made to privilege seapower over other elements of military power. I do not see that happening. That goes back to goldwater nichols. You know, the United States in the past has made Strategic Decisions to underfund, to defined, one service and to up fund rate funds for another service. Strategic rock forces during the eisenhower administration. It is needed to compete. It is not as though that has never been done. In the current Political Climate , it is extremely difficult. I agree with brian that simple ship numbers are not a foolproof expression of power. I am searching for a better one. I also agree without any question that simply counting the legacy ships that we have right now as ones that will be included in whatever number is decided on has limitations and faults and that we should be looking at, you know, if we make as much of a move towards unmanned vehicles on surfaces as well is in the air, those absolutely would recounted at the same time. We are going to build extra large diameter unmanned surface vessels. Those are diesel submarines. Diesel submarines without people in them. Why would we not count those . It just does not make sense to me. The acting secretary needs to change the frame of reference as he pursues the number. One more question before i turn it over to the audience. I am a hopeless nerd about wargaming and things like that. I am interested, you mentioned in your report about the chinese , the chinese essentially, the assumption being that china can see all of our ships within a certain area of the western pacific. Based on what you know, and it is unclassified, what is is your sense on that . Is that a safe assumption to say that they know . That also kind of limits, it is also limiting if they really could see everything we were doing and everywhere we were. I think the technical term for the perception that the chinese enjoy targeting ubiquity within the first island chain, technical terms, it is crap. Things like sunspots, things like weather patterns, things like maintenance of facilities. Things like nutrition. All kinds of things go into what the probability of detection is at any one point in the ocean from some other point on the globe. We tend to think, and people tend to think that there is this pizza wedge and it is seafloor to 100,000 feet. If you are in there, they will find you. That is just not the way that it is. It is hard to do. It is really hard to do. There are tools that will make things easier. The concept that they have at all and there is just wrong. The concept that i have that we should be able to do the same thing within the first island chain is hard. Weather gets in the way. See state gets in the way. Temperature. Again, and sunspot activity. All of these things get in the way. The other thing is, we have to understand if we are going to operate in that environment all the time, we have to understand from day to day, hour to hour, where are the weak spots in that complex . Operate near those weak spots and project power from those weak spots. That is a technical challenge that i think the navy is working on. I want to return to something you said before. That is the perception. Among our ceos of their vulnerability. I am reminded of an old sawhorse in the navy. The question is, how many mines does it take to create a minefield . The answer, zero. If the ships captain thinks there is a mine there, he will act accordingly. And, from participating in tabletop exercises, several years ago, beginning several several years ago, the perception of the naval officers playing a game was, they can see us. And they can target us. I agree with brians technical term, but, when you see people actually doing things at least an attempt to simulate the real world, a different story. We intended to have time for questions. We will open the floor to questions. Would you please identify yourself and your organization, if there is one. Would you also tell us who your question is directed at and, last, we do ask you a question in the form of a question. We will start here and we will move back. And, please wait until you get to mike. I am peter. And Intelligence Analyst and a former diplomat. I can pretty much promise you they have agents in almost every single court in the western pacific, just like in pearl harbor. They know every single ship coming in and out. At least that they can fix. I am wondering, is it okay to include vessels . The other question is, did you look at wide area Surveillance Drones at all . Parking one of those in the stratosphere in the islands would take care of a lot of our problems. Lets start with the coast guard. I do not believe the United States coast guard has a role in the south china sea. In the story. The coast guard does not have enough to do the missions it has right now. When we assign them naval missions, we tell tell ourselves of false narrative that we are making it better. We are not. We are taking away from some other thing that the coast guard is uniquely confiscated to do. There are some interesting concepts about airships for surveillance. Some of the things you are talking about. We did not think about those. We did not cover them specifically in our inquiry. Mostly because they are not programs of record or ideas that are seriously under consideration by the navy right now. At least at the level that we understand the classification. Other questions. All right. There is one over here. Thank you. My name is jeannie lynn. I would like to come back to your topic. In the era of Great Power Competition. The number of ships does not reflect the capability of our naval surveillance. You made it clear that we do not have adequate money to fund the required 40 billion. My question is, in the view of using the whole government, why dont we use the ids. If you looked at the budget, the dod requires 750 billion. The state department allows 40 billion. One bill of making 20 of the ships amount that you are talking about. If were talking about distance, why not talk about the distance between the bay, vietnam taiwan to china. Is there a different calculus that we should look to and increase the capability of our navy and surveillance. Not only that, but to detour china. I am afraid when i heard the recent news that our assistant secretary just resigned because he is the top pentagon asia hand and he resigned because what he proposed not being approved. Having direct ids to the current administration. Would you give constellation to the state department, to the ally into our Human Resources in the Defense Department and the state department, especially it is being stressed that in the strategy, it is at the heart of it. Our recent are admitting the u. S. Had no presence. Would that somehow undermine your work . Thank you. Government approaches have been to the question of china, for example. Have been discussed at high levels of government. Vice president pence advocated from his platform last year. Sort of a gap between the distance between saying this is something that we need to do and naturally having it happen. It is important to begin by saying this is needed. I would like to tell you something about your point about the basis that we have in the west pacific and how much we operate. The proximity question that you point out is correct. There is no arguing with that, geographically. Those bases have to be defended. That supply and that defense is something that we rely on allies for. For example, with guam, that is us. That is our supply and hours to defend. There are still limitations, very sizable limitations on the ability from the bases in japan from which we operate to guam. The whole region. Maam, i thank you for your question. It is a very smart one. I do not want you to think that because you are sitting in a room with guys whose past where in the department of defense that we do not either value or prize what it is that the state department and the rest of the government does. We do. Our alliances in that region, as far as i am concerned, are among the most important that we have. They are tended on a daily basis by hardworking diplomats. I am confident that they continue to do their very best to Carry Forward the message that where involved, we are engaged, we care and we have your back. Secretary shriver, i think that is his name, i do not know him. I understand from people that i respect that he is one of the best. I want you to know that there are a lot of very good, very smart people continuing to work, continuing the work that he was doing or others ready to come back into government to help. They are there. I do not think that you will see a big change in our policy or the effectiveness of our policy because of the loss of one person, no matter how good he or she is at their job. This whole government thing is absolutely essential. It is not just the navy, it is not just the military that will keep the peace in the western pacific. It will be making sure that our network of alliances, i would not trade our friends for chinas friends. Specifically, i like to be much more friendly with vietnam. I would not trade that. I share your fear of that network diminishing. I dont know if i have much of a fear that its going to happen. I think we will be able to keep our friends. You are looking at the wrong guy to defend the personnel decisions of the administration. [inaudible] i think that that is a fair charge. Question towards the back of the room. Good afternoon. Brian mcdermitt feared i am a Strategic Red Team analyst for a defense agency. Thank you for the presentation. You already kind of answered one of my questions. Did not know if you have thought about using balloons which are systems used over our basis in iraq for Early Warning. I will defer to your expertise on Naval Surface vessel knowledge. Keeping all the assumptions in place, increasing the program a record. I will make the assumption that the navy will not increase manpower. I like to hear from both of you gentlemen. With no increase in people power, but asking for an increase in procurement. I assume that will mean more technicians, more drone drone pilots, et cetera. Reducing or cut. Thank you for your time. Cup for what . Making the assumption of increasing 4 m q4 which will mean more drone pilots, more maintainers. Same thing for m 25. What would you recommend to reduce or cut . The business of advising the navy or anyone else on how they should make do with less money. I am here to tell you that they do not get enough. Explaining to the American People why it is that seapower is different and why they should be funded. The airships, surface vessels and airships, those are good ideas. Programs of record and other things that some institutional momentum that we are aware of. Sure. Last time i counted the civilians who work for Central Agencies under the secretary in osd. I think we ought to found that problem by looking at the number of people, their functions for keeping such a large force. That would produce significant savings that could be applied elsewhere. More applicable to combat itself. A Great Power Competition or we are not. If we try to find it with postcold war impost cold war mentality, we will never get there. Americans leaders have not made the case effectively that we need to get serious about it. A larger civilian workforce today then we did during the cold war. Maybe we should. I think that it ought to be looked at. Question . The mic is on its way. Question regarding the use of National Technical means. We dont have access at this level. How could they fill a niche role that does not unnecessarily duplicate the efforts. Also, are these doing active or passive . Both active active and passive. The way they fill the niche, you are able to do the focus search. Perhaps the overhead asset gives you a general area of interest. The maneuverable more programmable m q4 or mq 9 then does the focus search and stays on the target and provide that data back through whatever network. Whatever networks. [inaudible] i am not what you are talking about. Just as a way of trying to say what we are doing in this study is presenting the very best case we are not dealing with false positives. Perfect radar gauge. We are giving you the very best ranges and numbers. Time for one more question. Yes . My name is roland evans. My question is quite simple, really. We have seen back in the 1990s, i was a survey or in the china sea. My question is very simple. That was going on back then. My question is why does the u. Se chaos for the psychological point of view. A helicopter. To me, it would tie up and make them spend a fortune of their budget on watching this in the sea. Not a good idea. [laughter] there is a whole range of things that the United States could do, but is not doing right now. You know, that one could certainly be considered. I dont see why not. To expand a little bit on that, the defense of taiwan is an area where this administration has improved over the record of its predecessor. It has come this far, but that leads between here and the other side of the room. We are not doing that. There are all sorts of things that the administration could do if Vice President pants suggestion about a whole government approach to our, not just china, but to our alliances and to the Security Architecture that we had in the west pacific. Making it possible. The administration has done some of it. There is a lot left to be done. I applaud the progress that is taking place so far and hope that this administration succeeding dollar in the future take the same view. Act accordingly. Im also a former officer. Looks like we are in good company. Surface targeting using aerial assets. Im curious to hear all of your thoughts in the realm of undersea welfare as well. Chinas Nuclear Attack submarines have stealth and endurance and attack capability that could really threaten our communication. I am curious to see what your recommendations would be for improving the undersea warfare. One of the areas where im actually really satisfied where things are. I know its dangerous for me to say things like i am satisfied. The qr 15, victor 15 system that we are putting on our ships, turn those ships into significant long range active and passive asw platforms. I have not even got into the worlds best submarine submarine force yet. There is no military skill where the difference between the number one nation in the number two nation is larger than subSurface Warfare. It is just that good. I put those things together with unmanned undersea vessels. Unmanned surface vessels that are essentially gliders that can carry acoustic platforms you need them. We are doing quite a bit to ensure that we maintain that undersea mastery under china versus their submarines. I think one of the things that we have to worry about is the kind of arrogance that i just displayed. Undersea warfare dominance is not a birthright. China has a lot of engineers working really hard to try to figure out how to make the sea less opaque. I know our summary and force says we will just get better faster so they can just understand the department. I do not think that that is a Winning Strategy for the long haul, and we have to continue to take their asw capabilities a little more seriously. Weve got to go. I saw the pearl harbor your for her the participation from the audience. Thank you. Thank our panelists. Everyone else, please. [inaudible] good to see you. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. I hear those things all the time i hear them discussed. I do not understand them. [inaudible] as far as i am concerned that chinese fishing boat is not a fishing boat anymore. We have to stop talking about them like that. We have to talk about them as legitimate targets of war. 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