Transcripts For CSPAN3 Global Security The Navy Part Two 20180103

He had to reach across the aisle. Q and a, sunday night at 8 00 eastern on cspan. Coming up next, a forum on Global Security and a recently completed naval review of the seventh fleet collisions at sea that took place last year. The vice chief of Naval Operations also speaks at this u. S. Naval institute forum. I would like to ask everybody to come back in and take your seats. Okay. Weve had two excellent keynote briefs this morning. Both our speakers spoke to the comprehensive review. The u. S. Navy issued the comprehensive review of the recent incidents at sea that have occurred within the last year, almost all obviously forward in the western pacific. One aegis cruise hear the grounded. Another that was involved in a collision with a chinese ship. And two arly burke destroyers that collided with large merchant ships that resulted in a loss of life. 17 total sailors. That comprehensive review was conducted over the past well, it took about 60 days and was reported out approximately 30 days ago and presented. And we thought we would invite a few folks in here today to talk about the extent of it, the adequacy of it, and perhaps the meaning of it. Weve invited three experienced Surface Warfare officers who have had command and major command at sea. Three individuals who have stayed close to the profession either through their government activities or through their commercial activities. But they have stayed close to the profession. And finally, each of our three panelists today have published for proceedings all in the last year at least. And some of them longer. So our first panelist ill just introduce, is captain john cordle, u. S. Navy retired. John had command of oscar austin and the destroyer, and the cruiser san jacinto. He is also a Nuclear Propulsion qualified officer and brings a special bent from that. Next to john is kevin eyer. Kevin eyer is one of only a couple of people i can think of thats commanded three aegis cruisers. He has commanded shiloh, chancersville and thomas s. Gates. And kevins also been a regular contributor as i mentioned to proceedings in as a regular contributor almost every month. And finally, weve got retired captain jerry roncolato. Instead of giving like mini speeches we thought we would just get right into a discussion, after which well open it up to the audience, have q and a, and well get right at it. And so just to kick it off ill ask this first question. So youve all read the comprehensive review of the recent Surface Force eechbtsd that was released by the navy. And based on your experience, and maybe even based on some of the earlier comments today, do you see that in your view has it been comprehensive enough . And is there any important things that you think were left out . And what would you highlight as maybe an important thing that you take away from it, as a top level observation . Ill start with john cordle. Actually, i did read it. I also looked at the gao reports that came out slightly before it and some other articles and readings. I absolutely the first thing i did was look at the back and see who was on the panel and look at the list of places they went. I think that list, the names i recognized as subject Matter Experts are on there. And the places they went were every place i could think of. Given the scope and scale i think it was comprehensive. It is a little swo centric naturally so because thats where the expertise is. And there were others on there to represent other forces, submarines and navigation. I also saw other Services Like carterham. Absolutely. And a wide range of pay grades. There was everything from a retired admiral to a qmc on the panel and some Junior Officers. As far as surprises or omissions, i think when i read the gao reports, and the comprehensive review i was very happy to see and pleasantly surprised to see that the deep treatment of fatigue and crew endurance, something i have been focused on since my navy time and since. I was happy to see that. Its unfortunate that it took this event to kind of push that through terminal velocity to become policy. But it is. I think thats encouraging. Then i sort of looked at the gao report. And everything you talk about fatigue goes back to the work week and manning and things like that. So i did a pf control function seven for manning and manpower. It came up 66 times in the report. I flipped to the back the look for action items and only found one. It was to do a study. So i guess if i saw an action item in there i would kind of like to see Something Like lets go back and look at the gao reports take the action items from there and look at some of the governing documents like theon nav instruction. Primarily the Standard Navy work week and changing the number of watch teams per ship from three to four to bake in those gains from the crew endurance part. Thats sort what have struck me as where i would have liked to have seen. Okay. I do note that the Surface Force did recently come out and say we are going to Institute Watch bills and ship routines that are based on a circadian rhythm. I thought that was an immediate action in the line of what your comments are. It was out on the due date, on time for the right. That is something you have been leading the charge on. Kevin ill go over to you. I mean, in this report, it cuffed a lot of ground, as john said, but did you feel there was a glaring omission or an omission thats worth mentioning . And is there something that you think is important that may not come through on the first read . Well, i do think that it was a frank and unvarnished report. And it was deep. And i was very much appreciative of that. I didnt exactly expect that. So i was very happy about that. Right. I think the concern that i have with regard to an omission is that it is very focused on seamanship and navigation. And the question which should come to mind is if our Surface Forces are unable to successfully execute these if you know blocking and tackling tasks, how can it possibly be expected that they are also able to do the much more complex war fighting tasks which are coming to the foreafter this extended period of profound peace which mr. Work was talking about . And i would like to give you a specific example of this. The aegis weapons system is remarkable. It changed the surface navy. It has been designed to degrade gracefully. I can tell you from my own experience that even if you take away fire controlmen and the training that they receive, i have full confidence that every aegis ship can go out there and successfully engage airborne targets. However, Ballistic Missile defense, if an aegis weapons system is at 50 of its full capacity, in order to use Ballistic Missile capabilities it has to be up to 80 . Now, im making these numbers up, but they are representative. So every time a ship gets prepared to do a sm3 shot, quite literally a team of rocket scientists come on board, and they groom the system to make sure that it gets from 50, 60, 70, up to the wrerequisite 80 . This happens for demonstration shots. Its a worthwhile question to ask one self, if we took all of the bmd capable ships in the fleet out and we lined them up and north korea launched something, how many of them could successfully engage . So im right back to navigation, seamanship, these are the fundamental capabilities which ever Surface Warfare officer should have. But i suspect that if called to war, well be required to do a lot more than safely navigate the singapore strait. Yeah. Totally agree. I mean, it goes back to something that bob work said about the previous surge capability that we maintained. That you could ring the bell and empty the barn and everybody could contribute, you know, without the special groom or the cross decking of parts. Although i think there is a lot of us who also remember that it wasnt all rosie even back then. I mean going back to the 70s and early 80s. There were cross decks and there were gaps and holes to fill. But i think the numbers made up for it. And that was another i think key critical point made by bob work. Do you really do you need to be that much better and not exhaust yourself on the day to day forward forces and accept a slightly lower capacity . Or do you want to spend all your money on capacity and numbers of hulls and platforms . So its an excellent question. But all of that is at play here because i think what i took from both was that were not doing either one well enough right now. And this is an example. These incidents are an example. So, jerry, ill turn back to you with the same question. Is there something that you thought should have been in there that wasnt in there or a big takeaway in a you want to foot stomp that came through your read of the comprehensive report . Thanks, pete. First of all, id just like to commend kevin for his socks. [ laughter ] they are pretty classy. Im trying not to dont look right at them. Im not. Im looking back over here. The comprehensive review was, i think was a credible, sophisticate aid proech sophisticateed approach to trying to figure out whats going on, why are we at this juncture. Is it comprehensive enough . No, its not. It just cant be. And the secretary is doing this Strategic Review that getsa at some of the more fundamental issues i think that the comprehensive review just wasnt tasked to do, which is how do we get our officers to sea more so they get the experience they need so that the kind of stuff that the report cites as not anticipating the problems and being able to act in time to nip them in the bud becomes more of a Second Nature because you spent so much time at sea . You know, some people might argue that the navy the military has a whole has become overly bureaucratic. I certainly resemble that remark. I spent a lot of time in the pentagon. But its interesting to note that in 1941, president roosevelt told admiral king, i dont want any repeaters in d. C. What he meant by that was, i dont want my captains and flag officers doing more than one tour in d. C. Obviously, a lot has changed since then. But it gets to the point that in that interwar period that mr. Work was talking about, we spent, as a profession, we spent a lot of time at sea so that the kinds of stuff we are looking at with collisions and not being able to navigate safely in a seaway were not just not as big of a problem. And we didnt have yeah, we had 6,000 ships in 1945. But in 1941, we didnt have i would say we did not have an overmatch of capacity and capability. The other thing that in my discussions with sailors and cos in the last couple of years working engineering training, i found a lot of challenges with manning and training. Okay . The minimum manning just is not a good idea. It hardly works for maintaining the ship. It cant work for fighting a ship in an environment where you have to undertake significant damage control actions. It doesnt work. The other thing that i have seen a lot of frustration with is what well call is gadget overload. It comes out in the report when they talk about the integrated development of sophisticated Navigation Systems on the bridge. What im hearing from everybody from e 5s to o 6s is we get the stuff but its not supported. We cant get it fixed. We cant get training on it. Its too much. Its all happening too fast. The report i think gets to the point of we, the navy need the look at how to get that rationalized and fixed. And then i guess maybe my biggest concern not concern but, as i reflected on the report the Biggest Issue i see is it talks a lot about essentially saying if we just followed our own certification process wed be okay. And i just dont think thats true. I think the certification process gets you to a level of training that we have come to look at as a training ceiling. But its really a training floor and we need to get above that floor, into the mastery level if we are going to do the kind of stuff that kevin talks about, which is fight effectively from the getgo in a multithreat environment. A couple of people, some of whom are very senior, some of whom are relatively junior called me right after this report came out and they say, aha, the report said that these incidents were avoidable, and they go a long way towards pointing toward the Commanding Officer. So my next question is, are these the fault of flawed command leadership, and maybe Senior Leadership team on the ships . Or are these incidents the result of a flawed system that produced them . John . I think it is a little bit of both. I mean you look at the numbers and the cluster in one area at one time. But you have got to look back i did the i was the jag man for the you look back there and many of the same things that i saw in that report are what i saw in these. Maybe the way to do this is look at a ship that didnt have a collision and do the same depth of investigation and see if you find the same stuff. If you do, that might tell you there is a system problem. John, i think they are having trouble hearing you. You are on. Is that better . Yes. Okay. I wont repeat the whole thing. Basically you had power points in the same time and space and certainly it looks like a trend there. It could have been the Commanding Officers. Unfortunately, since we are going down it looks like possibly the road of discipline, we may not get what was inside their heads. That struck me as why . Why did the officer of the deck on the fitzgerald not call the capta captain . Those types of questions. Why did the captain of the john k. Mccain decide not the station the detail for the evolution rather than delay the evolution, right. Right. We might not know the answers to that. If we get to the why, we may get the answer to some of that. I did the pour investigation. Reading the comprehensive review, many of the exact same, down to the line item were what were in the porter investigation if you open it up and look. Looking into the aperture a little bit. And then really the other piece that kind of struck me is there is a part later on in the comprehensive review where it talks about sustainment and how do we figure out a way to learn the lessons and not repeat. It talks about picking around the edges. I think back to the porter. The only reason, i think, that there were no casualties in the porter was they hit a bigger ship. They hit a ship that was 300,000 tons instead of 50,000, and the bulbous bow went underneath the keel rather than into the berthing department. And i was part of that i was on the staff at that time. What did we not do then and how did our system not capture that and build in some things. It did a lot. There is a lot of good stuff. But i would probably have to say not enough, given the evidence. But you would come down on the side of its more than just the co . Its the system . And its more than just the seventh fleet . Yes, i would. Thats come up. I spent my time only and mainly in the atlantic side. I go to bahrain as part of my job. And i see some of the same challenges. The thing the co can do in norfolk, go across the pier and get hazmat and get a gauge count. But they cant do that in bahrain. The resources arent there. One big spry, buried in the back of the report, page 143 it talks about the number of gaps at sea. It says from march of 16 to 17 it wehad a 400 increase. Thats a big difference. So one of the secondary i guess not the harp on but there was a comment the common sort of narrative out there is that the large piece of the mccain collision was due to mechanical, either a steering loss or a misunderstanding of the way the system worked. If you read deeper in there they talk about the crew members who were fatigued and exhausted. And again, not to come back to the same theme again, but thats a systematic issue. I dont think its restricted to the seventh fleet. Right. So kevin, i think yours is working. Well see. Yes, it is, loud and clear. I just wanted to comment on this question about if its just seventh fleet. One of the things i found a little bit disturbing about the report is that it is couched as if this is 7th fleet. But anyone who understands anything about ships can read that, and these exact same things can be applied to a lesser or greater extent to every ship in every fleet in the world. And i think that it is important that people grasp that. Now, i have given this some thought. And one of the great things about us is that this abs lawsu absolute responsibility for what goes on. I cant think of other tis president clinton, doctors, priests, where the same thing holds true. It was specified these actions were avoidable. They both indicted both admirals of both ships and both said there were failures in judgment on the part of the cos. For those last two months where we lost lives . Yes. And i do not dispute this. Having said that, admiral davidson then goes on for the vast majority of the report indicting the system. And everything from doctrine, operations, training, manpower, personnel, facilities. Every element of the dot milpf spectrum, he indicts specifically. He then offers 13 causative, contributing factors. Some of these i view to be fluff. Thats my opinion. Seven of them are called fundamentals. Every one of these is the responsibility of someone else to provide to that co. So whose fault is it . I think that i im amazing that Commanding Officers still take commands of ships because there are 360 wild cards on your ship that could do something crazy every day, and you can be dragged out behind the chemical shed and have a bullet put in your head every day, and yet guys still do it. And they are responsible. But they play the hand that they are dealt. And if if they are not being dealt a fair hand, thats someone elses fault and not just theirs. Right. Well come back to that because there are some cultural aspects here about how far do you play the hand you are dealt and when do you tell the dealer that he is dealing from the bottom. But to finish this line here, jer gerry, how about you . Do you think it is a flawed Commanding Officer or a system that didnt give them what they needed to succeed . Well, the tip of the iceberg is the Commanding Officer. Its clear that there were some problems with the cos on all four ships, essentially. Given that the co is responsible for a ship. But i really think it is a longer term systemic problem we have. Start at least 15 years ago when we shut down swa is basic. We got rid of swas mark for all constituents and purposes. We did. When i was a desron commander in 2002, 2003, 60 of my engineers reporting to their ships did not have el calls. The department was worried about getting qualified. The divisions had not been through swas basic. The only thing that we had going for us which was a strong suit from the chiefs. Those have now been replaced by the blue shirts, who were the product of reduced training in the schoolhouse. Case in point, just talking to oil king gsm1 a couple weeks ago. His gsma school was five days long. Right. So, you know, there are systemic issues here. I know we have taken a lot of measures to increase manning, to restore training, but it took us 15 years, at least, to get to this point. Its not going to happen overnight. And this is what admiral davidson put into the report, which is somebody has got to shepherd this through a long longer than a prd process. Right. So i think but i think the other problem is we have kind of seen this happening even in the golden years when you and i were younger. You know, wherever class of ship that i have been on, and now working with zum wallet and watching lcs, the Acquisition Community purchases and builds a platform, gives it to the operators and the operators say we cant operate this thing. We need more people. Right. Every ship in psa at least is getting more people on board since dd 963. That suggests a much deeper, broader, systemic problem than just the training and performance of cos in the 7th fleet destroyers. You talked about when we were younger. Everybody up here, myself included, lived in an era where we had more resources. You just take the training, the aegis training, there was an aegis Training Command that was separate and focused on the aegis ships. There was a recognition outright that they were more complex and difficult to operate. And by difficult to operate, i didnt mean that the systems werent integrated and werent well designed, but the complexity required you to get the most out of it, a hire level of training. So you know, i theres people up here who fired, you know, 20, 25 standard missiles or tomah k tomahawks and weve done things in the fleet like eliminate the proficiency missile firings. We shortened the schoolhouses. Five days for gsma school. As gerry just mentioned, we eliminated the Surface Warfare basic training. We eliminated the senior officer ship material readiness course. We truncated and eliminated a lot of the maintenance checks. We eliminated the people who tracked the maintenance checks. So we grew up in a different era. And so i just want to make sure from the viewpoint of our audience that people know that we are coming at this from our experience, and we are commenting on what weve seen happen in the last 15, 16 years, which includes all those things. So lets talk for a minute. Bill moran, admiral moran is coming in at the end here. And he is hes responsible for leading the evidence to actually make the change for the comprehensive review. So my next question is really about prioritization. Given that all of those things have happened and the point that was made by all of you that it takes some time to deal with it, do you think the prioritization and the urgency in the report is right . Because each one of those action items theres a whole annex there, appendix, appendix nine, i listed them . There is 58 action items. Is the urgency right to get at that . Are we doing the right things first to make sure we get a grip on this so that you can build our we can build our way back out of it . And i ask john to ponder that one. Is this on now . Yeah, you are on. Am i on . Okay. I always get to go first. Yeah. Well mix it up after this. Thank you, pete. Wow. So there is a lot of actions on there. Yes. I moon my first thought was back to that eggs discussion about sustainability i would add an action to reconvene the group once a year for the next five years and go down that list of action items and see how we did. Dont reconvene the action officers who have to come back and say i did the task. Reconvene the people because there is a lot of stuff that didnt make this report behind im sure we have seen these issues before. Everybody who left here who got one action item on the table has a notebook of what that thing should be and what it should look like. Maybe set a sustainment plan in place. Thats looking broad at the long term. The other thing is there is a lot of talk about Resource Management and resources in here. The brm training that we do ashore, the swas has a great program. To go back to one thought for a second pete. I know Everybody Knows this but a lot of those things that went away of a the bell ar report has come back, swas is back. The Training Pipeline is very robust. I am a nuke. Nuke power was up here but aegis was right behind it as far as the quality of the training and the robustness of the technical detail and the tactical side. Those things are coming back. But its generational. So those gaps that are out there that i mentioned, they didnt happen today, they happened five years ago when asessions were changed. Thats why i harp on the manning thing of maybe heres an idea, what if the we took a couple of billettes on ships, the 3 mc, the combat systems manager and the top snipe and we made them e 9 billettes and lets send the master chiefs who have all this experience at sea back to the ship and put them on the watch bill and have that wisdom sort of percolate down in the troops. Back to the fatigue issue. I have seen the fur as war brief on fatiguism. It is not about let your people sleep more and they dont do as much work. It is about a fundamental scientific piece that i have watched senior naval officers have the light come on. I woulded advise every commander in the navy to watch that brief. It is only an hour long and its life changing. Brm training outside of swas is also robust. But once per tour for the captain, and i think its not really timed i dont think to the ofrp. Maybe somebody can correct me on that. But in other words lets tie it into the generation process where the captain has to ride a watch bill today for the maintenance series and not thursday night four mondays underway. A locked in watch bill allows to you do that. So you build a team effort. The cno talked about small team leadership. On the nuclear side the watch team is a coherent unit. Its not that way on surface ships, but it could be. Take that team over to the brm once in the maintenance phase and once again before they deploy and do a refresher. That would go to the heat of the problem. But they are not manned for that. They dont have a fulltime presence overseas. They have to fly over there and jam in, as gerry said, for those four deployed ships. Heres my two week brm training window, well cram everybody through there. And you have a danger of going back to a check the block mentality. In the context of immediate and controlling actions you have listed a couple. The report itself says we are going to have teams go aboard the ships that are forward in the Forward Deployed naval forces and do a Readiness Assessment on those ships. Right. Secondly it says that well immediately stop and void out the Risk Assessment management plans that they have been using particularly in the 7th fleet because they had just become in the eyes of the report as mentioned that thats just a way to say we didnt do a certification. And it also talked about the immediate need to have pac fleet and pay com. Its very interesting to me that all over the world we have this Global Force Management plan and you have to do the rff process, the request for forces, but in pay comits one stop shop. The people in hawaii could control the ga skin zas and get zottas because they control everything from the west coast to the indian ocean. For now, they are basically telling them admiral green would say to feel free to do your job. Thats there. Those are the immediate ones that left out for me. But kevin, what else is there . What are the priority things that we have to get to . On the premise that another one of these could take out the navy completely. I thought it was very interesting how you talked about a little bit of the his tory of this. I think its important that we keep that in mind. In my mind we are crossing the rubicon again. After the report and much improvement has been made since then. In the report, it talks about how this process was slow, insidious, and overtime that and people may have been confused by the good results that they were getting. I found that to be too much of an excusing of people. And unfortunately, when the curtain was yanked aside by admiral davidson, there are a few people standing around, and the music stopped, and they went for a chair and they didnt get it. Admiral you a coin, who i dont know, i dont know if he is a Surface Warfare officer. Was he doing the and a half check rides on these ships . No. I think this goes back and all those people left and have gone to their villas on the amaope coast. Having said that, it appears this is all about resources and the problem is is that its difficult to get them. So the immediate actions appear to have been turn on ais, and use ais, get more sleep, and you will not write your own standing orders. Now, the review, i think, is very complete because it ties things together over the course of ones career individual, team, training. But there are other things this will take a while to implement, as it points out. In the immediate term, i think that we should not be shy about stealing a page from the submarine community. And that is several things. One, my observation is that we have a history of assigning our very best officer to our very best ship. The submarine community assigns its best officers to its worst boats. This has an effect for both of us. Two, we need to you can have us be generalists and do everything in the world or you can have your ships work. And we do not keep our people close to ships throughout their career. And indeed, to stay close to ships is not a positive contribution to your career. Why are you not in washington . There is value in this. Im not debating that. But we take our best talent and we immediately get them away from ships. And the third thing that i would steal from the submariners is their submarine squadrons are run very differently from ours. So if you are a submarine Squadron Commander first of all your Training Officer and your engineer they come directly from demand of the boats and they are some of your best guys. And these submarine squadrons they dont deploy. But if something goes wrong with the submarine overseas they are on the hook to go there, and they stay there until it is fixed. Now, we obviously do things differently. Right. But i think that we would benefit from a little bit more concentrated expert leadership at the water front in our community. Right. And just for the audience, you know the surface navy for many years had readiness squadrons and tactical squadrons as a separate entity. And you would grow up with the kind of nurturing and inspection that maybe you would associate more with todays submarine squadrons from your low number and high number squadrons would operate you forward. At some point in the late 90s we said we are just going to single up. And the dez ron, and the technical dez ron will do everything. There were some limitations there. The experience and manning of those dez rons was not increased. And thats one of the things that came up in the bell you a report and another immediate action that i failed to mention was that the navy has already taken action to set up a Surface Group in japan that would provide this Community Readiness guidance that was lacking. So gerry, what do you think . Do we need to bring back readiness squadrons . And is there Something Else that we should be doing so that people can sleep at night as we tackle this 58 list. I cant begin the comment on a prioritization of so many action items off the top of my head. So well just put that one on the table here. Okay. As i looked at these incidents and listened to my you know, the grumpy old gray beards and the guys that are currently serving on ships talking, Even High School classmates saying gerry whats going on with your navy, it struck me and we talked about this at dinner last night. Its like, okay, the solutions are obvious. Why are they so hard . Well, because in our day it was all good. Right . Thats how we remember it. We didnt run into things. Thats why we had command. So thats why you still have command. Still had command. You kept it to the end. No ash tray at my end of the table kind of thing. So clearly that initial reaction of mine is not appropriate, because something has changed. Something is different. Its not a simple issue. Why cant we get experienced guys like dez ron commander or post dez ron commander or a flag officer going out on these ships we grew up, you walk on a ship and in ten minutes you know the condition of the ship just by what you see when you get on the quarter deck, how you are greeted, who you talk to, you get a good sense of where that ship is at. Apparently, we dont have that ability anymore. Or is it something of a deeper cultural thing that says, you know, we really need to be in a kinder gentler world than we my son is a millennial. He was in the marines for four years. He doesnt have that supposed millennial problem. So theres Something Else there and i think the report gets at to go with kind of what bob works approach, it gets at the readiness side of it, the metrics, the objective measurable things, but i think it misses a lot of the preparedness side, the mental game that as to happen. So a ceo on the bridge going into of all things the separation scheme. I mean wheres the master helmsman . What are you thinking . Or a ship where the cic and bridge arent talking to each other . Those were basic things back in our day. And so i hesitate to criticize it because i dont know where theyre at today. Even spending time with them i dont understand the difference between what it was when i was an enson and what it is now. So something has changed. I dont know where the priorities lie. My gut reaction is let me go out and stand on the bridge with the ship underway and see how they do things and talk to the co afterwards and say you might want to think about this. Well, one thing that does kind of come through and i agree with you totally. I think these generalizations of the young people cant do it. I think thats totally false. I think its a matter of setting people up for success. Lest we recall too fondly the days of the past the fact is that we always had that tension between are you a ship that passes inspections or are you a ship that can go to war . And those might not have always been the same thing. It depended on what the inspection was. If the inspection was lets go out and shoot five standard missiles against a very robust profile and threat, maybe yes. But we remember that one of the reasons we did away with those readiness squadrons is because there was more emphasis on the Electrical Safety program and 3m than there was on war fighting. And that really gets to my next point which is i think that the report kind of equates the culture with can do. It went there because if youre going to criticize somebodys culture, criticize them for being can do. But i think it might be more than that and are we creating or have we in fact been living off a culture where the results were dependent on the co and the cos, there were cos out there in our day and i think you could say the same today getting it all done. Doing the training, the blocking and tackling and to the higher level war fighting piece but there are cos who dont. And what leeches through with with report, and ill start with you, kevin, because john doesnt want to be first anymore, is are we leaving too much to the individual cos and in fact maybe weve always been doing it that way but now its really showing itself with all the other stress . Well, i do think were leaving too much to the co, particularly now this was not an issue necessarily in those long gon halcyon days as you refer to them. My dad had a chief petty officer who had forgotten more than he would ever know about gunnery. We do not have that anymore. Just as we have generalists, we are generalist as Surface Warfare officers, we have somehow drank the koolaid we want the generalists also. I have my chief here who has forgotten more about guns. Those are gone. On it other hand he is coaching his kids soccer team and has an associates degree. Were taking away some of the tools and at the same time the complexity of a everything is going up. So to presume all the things being held static, its becoming more difficult to keep up with the march of technology and an example of this is the john s. Mccain. If you boil this down to exactly what happened, its hard to understand unless youre a ship guy but no one knew how the bridge console worked. That kind of came out. No one could figure it out. Right. Under stress. And you read more the training that was supposed to be applied to that console was cut. So no one ever received new training in the new system which is acknowledged to be more complex and difficult to use. And as always theres more to the story. Mccain, good ship with a good reputation, they crossed people from there on to the mccain who werent properly who werent familiar with the system anyway. Yeah. But its a very complex system and these guys play the hand theyre dealt. So if they have not being dealt the right people in the right numbers and you have to have this presumption the submarine community is also doing this back to world war ii look with the presumption that communications are going to be interrupted and so submarines will have to go out there and they will have to conduct Wartime Missions without depending on being micromanaged and i cannot see why ships should be any different. But if youre going out there, used to being micromanaged from above or hoping that youll get your full crew capacity or that someone is going to fix something for you, that is a mistake. Right. I agree. So im going to stop there, even though i havent let john and jerry tackle that last one. And i see how the time is progressing here. Id like to open it up to questions and encourage the audience to get to the mics. If you have a question, even if youre sidney bird. Sidney. Yes. For the whole panel the thing that maybe if we had a live no notice missile launch, we couldnt necessarily actually shoot it down. What are the implicit problems or problems with the much more complex war fighting skills that might be the next thing to look at it . I wasnt going to talk about this based on our phone conversation, but i will now. And also, secretary werth made it clear where he thinks our priorities should be. I would answer that question with another question, which is anybody in this room, when was the last time we had an unconstrained asw exercise . Where not in the ocean, but you go out with an unalerted sub, unalerted surface ship. Youre given a mission you can fire as many torpedos that you want to fire. You have to win. Right. We dont do that. Same thing goes for air defense exercise that is unconstrained and unalerted. We dont do that. Okay, there are lots of reasons we dont do that. Not the least of which its expensive. People can get hurt. All that kind of stuff. So the question becomes, lets take that and hold that thought and step back to the inner war period. How did we do what bob work said, how do we hit the deck plates running in 1942 after essentially with the exception of some convoy duty in world war i, essentially not fighting for 40some years, a couple generations of officers. You left out world war i, but i think you meant major fleet on fleet action. Yeah, so whats that . [ inaudible question ] right. Well, they were on ships, but they didnt go to sea a lot. So the question is, how did we do this in the inner war period, and the answer by my reading is the fleet didnt have a lot of operational requirements. When we did fleet problems every year, the 21 fleet problems, the fleet did the problems. The whole fleet basically except for the asiatic squadron and a couple ships here and there. The fleet played red, fleet played blue. Everybody went to the debrief, and you learned from it. Everybody went to the war college, 99 of our flag officers had gone to the war college. You had this common reference. You trained and exercised together. You had very frank, honest, and open deeper use. The lieutenant was contributing to the debrief of one of the fleet problems as a lieutenant. You had the fourstar fleet commander there as well. You had this kind of luxury of being able to do experimentation, trial and error, that we cant do today because of our operational commitments. But we could do it if we built the right kind of Network Capabilities and all this, we have all these trainers out there, myriad different types. But if we and the report touches on this a little bit. I just lost my mike. Give him the mike. We have a backup. I guess that means i talked too long. They cut you off, gerry. Im done. But if you had lets just hypothesize for a second, you had a capability of taking a trainer system that not only does Tactical Training but ties you to your own ships plant status so that you cant just wave away that generator has been out of commission for three months because youre waiting for parts. Thats real stuff. The force commander cant wave away the fact that his magazines just got emptied or this ship just got damaged and hes got to figure out how to get that ship back out of the danger area without significantly degrading his combat capability. And back to get repaired. So you could do everything from what we do now, like bridge trainers and combat systems training. You integrate that in a way that allows you to do the fleet problem process again, despite the fact that ships are overseas and committed. Gerry, let me jump in on that fleet battle problem, fleet process thing. I think thats a great spot to end on just this one question, because we want to get to others. But we know we need to do this, and i think both our first two speakers spoke to are we so busy being forward and doing forward presence ops that were not taking the time to do this and do it right . And to answer your question, again, sydney, i think there are plenty of c. O. S who can do the blocking and tackling and the tactical part, but the question is is the system serving on average the average person to get it right enough of the time, and recent events have revealed some of the weaknesses. Question over here. Good morning, gentlemen. James olson at the George Washington university. Morning. Im curious as to all of your thoughts on the current Training Pipeline. Is there a need or a necessity to move towards an aviation Training Pipeline with a standard across the fleet, or is there some other path forward to address some of these issues that were currently seeing . I think i know what i would say, but i want to hear what the panel has to say. I open it up to kevin and john. Lets see if this works. This is a painful subject to the Surface Warfare community because were in love with being generalists. And being able to do everything a mile wide, an inch deep perhaps. There are no other professional navies in the world which do not deploy without which dont use professional engineers. Or in complex ships, professional combat systems engineers. People dont like this. However, the evidence would suggest that if these shipped had or any ships had expert engineers, expert combat systems engineers, that things might have gone better. That things that a line could be held more effectively, so im a product of the old time swath stuff. And it worked for me. And i liked it. But on the other hand, im not sure that we should not be going to you, would you like to be a professional engineer and spend your career really being an expert at something . Right. Im going to let i think admiral dunn, i can tell by the look on his face, he has a similar question. Then well keep the discussion going. Admiral dunn. I did not put my predecessor up to that question. However, for those of you who dont know, im a naval aviator. I started out life as a Surface Warfare officer, but then i graduated. Some years ago, like in the 1950s, Naval Aviation had a mishap rate which was atrocious. 250, 300, 350 aircraft a year were demolished in accidents. The idea of going to a replacement squadron concept came up and was instituted. Thats where you take people right out of the Training Command, those who are coming from shore duty, put them through a period of intensive training in a type of aircraft theyre going to fly, learn all of the systems. Learn how to employ those systems. And after having instituted that, the mishap rate is down to where its less than 30 a year, maybe even less than that sometimes. Because everybody who goes to a fleet squadron goes through the rag, a colloquial expression, but through the replacement training first. Why doesnt the Surface Community do Something Like that . Why dont you send you have swos. And some, a couple of you have lamented the demise of swos, and that was good, but it goes beyond swos. It goes to sbev everybody who comes from washington duty or duty at pg school or somewhere like that in order to learn the systems of the ship theyre going to. I think that would do wonders towards reducing events like occurred in the seventh fleet recently. Thank you, sir. Somebody want to take that on . John . Thank you. No, i think certainly theres some logistical challenges with that with the squadrons and the way we train the officers. One point that a friend of mine made is the ship is a great classroom as well. We spend a lot of time building simulators when we have a ship at the pier we could probably learn on. Maybe there is a way, you know, maybe they come in the maintenance phase. Would they be better off given to another ship, perhaps, for the Training Like you talked about, admiral, to get to a certain standard before they go back to their parent ship to go back to sea when that ship is ready . But again, that adds a huge logistical challenge. And if im a c. O. , i might want to cherry pick the one that did a good job and keep him, and you shot the whole system down. One observation on that, though, is that i have never seen a surface navy so tightened up on tight model series as we are right now. I mean, we used to have all these different classes of ships, and now, you know, if you just look at its singled up on the tykos that remain. And we are really down to about three classes on the amphibious side. We sent the Surface Force, the Service Force off to, you know, msc. So i dont know. I think theres an opportunity there. Kevin, did you have something on that . This speaks to something you alluded to before. Part of the problem with our community is this cursed cando attitude where we refuse to say no to anything. Including this, you take my point. Yeah. And it seems that we would rather suffer the consequences than say no to anything. To our own peril. Yeah. Can i jump into that for a second . Sure. I was asked not long ago whats the difference between your 05 command and your 06 command . I answered him, i said i learned how to say no. And the difference was, youre an 05, thats your first time out there. Theres a degree of competitiveness. Were all typea personalities. And it can lead you to make some bad decisions. As oscar, i still recall one of the times i hurt sailors pretty bad i was during the middle of a boarding, during an exercise that went into the evening, started to rain, it got dark. Hadnt been fed. But i had to check this block. Somebody said if this is your last event today, and if you dont finish, you dont certify. So i kept the boarding team aboard the ship. I sent food over there. Got into the evening, then got activated as the assistant air defense commander, because the cruiser went down. Which i went to ten years later as the co, but i had to activate. I was asked can you do both . I said, well, yeah. And when i did, i lost a bubble. I started to maneuver the ship for the air picture. I flipped a rib in the water, i put six sailors in the water, and i think that was driven thats that cando attitude. Thats personal. I take over san jacinto. I get a call saying on monday, your ship hasnt towed anyone. That certificate expired long ago. Youre going to get under way. Weve arranged for another cruiser and youre going to do a tow exercise. I have never set foot on a cruiser until friday. I didnt know the crew. I had been on a Nuclear Plant for two years. And so i said no. And he goes, what do you mean . I said, im not going to do it. He said, well then call the chief of staff. I dont have the authority to do that. And i did. And to his credit, the chief of staff said, okay, when do you think youll be ready . I said i need to get on there once. Learn the crew, learn the ship, and then ill go do it. But i would not have done that as a 05. Thats been an important learning point. The difference. Thats why youre an 06, not an 05. The difference. Gray beard. We have only got a minute left, and im not going to have any more questions, im sorry. But 30 seconds, kevin. Last observation. If theres one. Yes. We need to ensure that Risk Management does not turn into risk avoidance. Because everyone is scared right now, understandably so. Everyone is concerned. Were in the business of fighting our nations battles at sea. And were not in the business of avoiding every possible risk just so i dont get in trouble. Totally agree. Gerry, last 30second observation . Yeah, ill play off what kevin just said. When you read the report, it comes out almost with the emphasis on safety and Risk Management, its almost a risk avoidance kind of message. I know and i applaud the efforts up at swos to get the pco pxo course to get the folks going out, xo in command to think tactically and think about, get their head in the game, the prepare part about what is it going to mean to go into combat. What does that mean . How do i get my crew prepared for that . Thats going great. At the same time, i hear c. O. S tell me they get chided for coming in after midnight because of the way their schedules are driven because that stresses the crew and et cetera, et cetera. And so to me, theres a bit of a mismatch in messages here. I agree with kevin. My recommendation to the active community, be very, very careful about the safety and Risk Management side of things. And at the same time, we have to be able to go to war in a way thats effective, whether its safe or not is part of the equation but not the equation. Thank you. John, do you have a final thought . Were going to flip the stage. To admiral moran. I guess both of those secretaries talked about innovation and change. And i guess, again, i use the circadian thing as an example. Heres an idea that was grounded in science, was researched extensively, and yet it took seven to ten years to go from a good idea to fruition. And why . Because of maybe we have always done it this way, dont understand the Science Behind it, but whats the next thing . Is it in cyber . Is it in Weapons Technology or ship building . And is seven years fast enough . Looking at the title on the screen, and so what can we do . Innovation has always been our strong suit, but weve got to find a way, you know, i have written a lot of proceedings articles and it seems like every one i write i get a note from somebody on active duty saying wow, thanks for saying that. I wish i could say that. You know, say it. I guess is what i would say. Dont say it. [ laughter ] i say, say it. I knew we were going to disagree at some point. I thank each of our panelists for this great discussion. Thank you very much. [ applause ] given our discussion so far today, i think its appropriate to have admiral bill moran, who is the vice chief of Naval Operations and who is in charge of the followup to the comprehensive review and also has a view on our conference theme. Are we ready . Hes been very outspoken on the topic of readiness, predating the incidents at sea. And also now is charged with the correction loop. Hes a career navy pilot whos commanded at all levels in the patrols reconnaissance community. Hes served in positions of responsibility such as commander patrol and reconnaissance group, Commander Air warfare, and as chief of naval personnel. Another area that will come into play in all aspects of these questions about readiness, ready to fight at the high end, and the comprehensive review. Since 31 may 2016, he served as the 39th vice chief of Naval Operations, and in this position, as i mentioned, he testified very forthrightly on readiness. Hes a member of the Naval Institute and served previously as a navy adviser to our board. Lets give a warm welcome to vice chief Naval Operations bill moran. [ applause ] good morning. I wish i had been here all morning because i understand the conversation has been terrific. And just listening to the wrapup of the panel, im a little concerned im just going to cover old ground, but ill do my best. You know, the theme here is about what it takes to win, and the comments at the very end of that panel were incredibly important. And ill foot stomp. We have got to bring in, train, deliver experience for our sailors and in particular our Commanding Officers, to wake up every morning, assess the risk, and decide how to move forward. At the end of the day, though, we gotta win. And when you think about a fight in the South China Sea or anywhere else around the globe, thats going to require an awful lot of risk taking. Question for all of us as we work our way through this discussion is, how do we train people to assess risk and take the appropriate action given the circumstances that they face day in and day out . So this is a perfect venue for me to come talk about a lot of different things. And i hope no one asks me what my prediction is for whether were going to have a budget on friday or not. I really have no idea. But we all need to pray that we do have one. So look. As the vice chief, im focused practically every single day i get up on what it takes to win. But a good deal of my time is spent on strategy, risk, and resources to help answer the important question thats on the board this morning. And that all the panelists appear to have addressed in one form or another. But my answer to your question is quite simply, we need more money. But we need money that we can count on more than anything else. Money has got to be in the right accounts. Its got to be at the right time, its got to be predictable. So that we can make efficient use of taxpayer dollars. I think the secretary spoke to it a little earlier today, that when he addressed continuing resolutions. They are painful. When youre trying to operate a business as big as the United States navy. And they cost us significant amount of resources and waste an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out how to move faster in a world thats moving faster every single year. The secretary talked about the navy estimate that since 20112012, we have lost because of continuing resolutions, on the order of 4 billion that we could have spent. We could have done a lot with, could have addressed a lot of problems. More often than not, in the process of losing that money, we continue to ask our people to do an awful lot. And they are, i think you would agree, pretty incredible. And they have been incredible for the last 16 years at responding to important demands by our Combatant Commanders and in National Security staff. But we have an obligation to resource our people properly for what we ask them to do on a day in and day out basis. More delays in budgets, more delays in continuing resolutions, are not what we need. Staying ahead of peer or near peer competitors in russia and china, and continuing the fight against violent extremist organizations takes money we can count on. For the navy, this is money to pay for more ships, aircraft, and munitions. More capable aircraft, ships, and munitions. And professionally trained and disciplined sailors to operate in a far more contested environment. The truth is, the truth is we have the Smallest Navy weve had in a century. I can remember as a junior officer coming into this wonderful organization in the early 80s, when we had one existential threat. We knew a lot about that threat. We knew how we were going to fight that threat. And we had 600 ships or thereabouts. And a whole lot more airplanes than we have today. And on any given day as a junior officer with that sized navy, we had 90 to 100 ships deployed around the globe. So our bench back in the early 80s against one threat was really deep. When you think about the numbers alone. Today, a much different story. Except on any given day, weve got 90 to 100 ships deployed around the globe. We have four, potentially five adversaries instead of one. We have half the number of ships and airplanes that we did in the 80s. So without growth, we cant do what were being asked to do at the level were being asked to do it. And we cant make the deficit up simply by capacity simply by capability alone. That is important, but its not everything. The absence of money that we can count on means we risk lives. Our effectiveness as a naval force, and perhaps even the survival of our Maritime Standing in the world. To repeat a favorite quote that we use, our nation can afford survival. It must. Last year at sna and last year testifying in front of congress, i overstated the obvious by saying that the fastest way to grow both capacity and capability is to make whole what we already have. That story has not changed. For the past several years, too many ships, submarines and aircraft have been parked, not ready to operate due to maintenance delays and capacity. Were without resource to make whole what we already owned. We were not given to our war fighters the time and the tools to build capability through their own experiences. We were making tough choices, often bad choices between Operations Readiness and growing the force. As the comprehensive review of the recent Surface Force mishaps in seventh fleet and elsewhere, these issues and others contributed to the collisions because we took our eye off the ball. And to continue the analogy, we were executing a fullcourt press when we didnt have a sufficient bench to play the entire game. A slow erosion of readiness emerged in parts of our navy. Losing ground on operational safety, teamwork, radical candor, and professionalism. We got sloppy. Complacency set in in places. And we got complacent with our own standards of how we operate at sea. And i think it was just briefly talked about before i walked in, that cando culture, which we all love to be part of in our business, which is a great strength, could and at times does become a weakness in some respects. Much of this is why size of the fleet and the quality of the force matter as we try to move forward into the future. Anytime an organization has fatalities like we experienced this summer, it is a shock to the system. A wakeup call for action. And we are fully committed to make this right. Just this past tuesday, we brought together for the first time an Oversight Board in the pentagon at s1, chaired by me, supported by admiral davidson and admiral swift and a host of other important players. And because the corrective actions go beyond the surface navy to scscoms, to how we man, organize, and operate, they have asked me to oversee the board and the implementation of over 50 recommendations from admiral davidsons very good work in that report. As well as other recommendations from the gao and our own ig. And the good ideas that are going to come from our fleet c. O. S around the globe. The oversights board, just to be clear, is simply to remove barriers to anyone with a responsibility to implement actions. Were going to help prioritize those actions and remain focused on addressing root causes with necessary resources to make them whole. To get after this will take a lot of time, and it will take money. And its on Senior Leadership to set the tone and get it right. The fleet, the public, the media, and congress have the right to shed a bright light on what were doing. But make no mistake about it, folks. We are in this to win. So back to the question of the day here. What will it take to win . Step one was taken, frankly, in fiscal year 17. With the much needed injection of readiness dollars, its helped us buy down some of the maintenance backlogs were experiencing, and begin to invest more in spare parts. Step two is working to fill in the holes in fiscal year 18. And the tragic incidents over the summer accelerated our focus on wholeness of the fleet. Step three will be a daybyday effort to create a whole navy by fundamentally getting after the basics. The blocking and tackling, because if we fall short of todays training and experience, we will fall short in the same areas in the future. You cannot buy that back. Several years ago, i ran into one in need of repair, but it took a back seat to procurement accounts. And we sought to grow the force and improve capabilities. There was simply not enough money to maintain the balance between them, especially as the demands to operate the force were high and increasingly growing year after year. As they reminded us earlier, every year for the past ten years we didnt even start the year with a budget. So we didnt have the money that we needed, the amount of money we needed to count on. With any luck, and i mean we might need some luck here, and a budget emerges for 18, well be able to sustain our readiness objectives we started in 17. Well be able to implement fully the recommendations of the comprehensive review and other important wholeness issues that identified in the process to lay the foundation to create an even better fleet for tomorrow. With readiness and wholeness stabilized in our budget, and a comprehensive review fully addressed, we will be able to fund and build towards a larger, more capable force in fiscal year 19 and beyond. Much closer, i believe, to the navy the nation needs, and certainly not the Smallest Navy we have had in a century. We also have to take a look at our game plans in the fleet. What is the right model for our forces overseas . How do we fight with those forces that are Forward Deployed . We all know the game plans shift as adversaries change. In some places, mantoman basketball defense is necessary, and in others, a zone works just fine. But the trend over the past decade is were spending a lot more times in zones than we are in man to man. When you become a one dimensional team, youre at risk of losing. The navy has always been equipped, trained, and manned to fight at the high end of warfare. A plug and play force in the joint environment. A lethal war fighting team that moves seamlessly between cocompounds around the globe. The new Defense Strategy and supporting military strategy would likely still value very highly a maneuverable, flexible, and resilient force. And i believe it will also still value forces that are in the neighborhood when tensions arise. Forces that we can employ that have a wicked jab to thwart an adversarys intentions. To do this around the globe again we need money, and money that we can count on so we can buy more ships and more capacity into the future. And maintain the readiness and wholeness investments we have made over the last two years. Todays 278 ships or even the 305 already planned wont get this done. Theres a number of studies out there that speak to a navy in the mid300s. Pick your number, doesnt matter. All we know right now is we need to Start Building towards a larger number. And while were looking hard at ships, were also looking very hard at capability. To raise the bar on naval power by making our existing ships more lethal well into the future. Winning in the future will take developing technologies that will continue to set us apart from adversaries and in some of these areas, just catching up. Directed energy, artificial intelligence, survivable comes and networks. Digital, cyber, advanced payloads, all will require Stable Funding and a commitment across the government, and a commitment from our industry partners. Our approach is less about driving to a specific number of ships and more about what we can achieve by combining lethality, networks, and advanced technologies. A fleet where everything, platforms, isr, data, war fighters, can talk to each other at machine speed. Where information is passed seamlessly to every asset and every operator, and when the environment degrades, we recover faster than our adversaries. Counting ships tells us less about how to win than measuring the right capabilities enabled by the right advanced technologies. But i like our odds in this contest. And make no mistake, it will be a contest. Because the technology around the globe today knows no boundaries. But to win here, we need money we can count on to get ahead of our adversaries. Let me close by talking about our folks. If you have heard me speak before, you wont be surprised to hear this. The most important factor in this entire discussion is the Human Element of our people. Another hard lesson out of the comprehensive review was a reminder that more ships, better ships, smarter ships, are merely dangerous objects in an otherwise unforgiving sea unless we have sailors who with the right competence, composure and character to deploy and execute safely every day. We will win. We will win at the end of the day because of our people. We owe them the training that moves at the pace of technology, that acknowledges that Young Americans today learn differently than we did. Training that is timely, local, and available at point of need must be our future path. This, too, is going to cost money. But it cannot be traded in the ocean of tough choices or we risk losing. To win, we need money we can count on. We need the support of congress, and i think we have seen that. Now it needs to show up in a signed budget. So i appreciate pete and the organization here, the opportunity to come and speak to this group. I have a feeling i have covered a lot of the same ground. I also have a feeling im going to get different kinds of questions. So im going to ask pete to come up and join me. I look forward to your questions. Thank you very much. [ applause ] have a seat. All right. Well, just to recap, because you spoke at another event this morning, to the Information Warfare conference thats going on in another part of town, secretary came on strong for the issue of increased resources and the disruption element that you brought up on the continuing resolutions. He also talked about the need to be tough and lethal. Secretary work really said, if you can come if it comes down to a choice, capability, he would take capability over capacity, making what we have whole and useful. He basically said it was a nobrainer. He also made some comments about the congress that you cant say. But he basically said if they have a job to do and they dont do it, then theyre not cutting it. And then in our comprehensive review panel, we really just went back and forth on the what are the important elements of the review, how can we get at it, and the prioritization of it, something youre very close to as the leader of the comprehensive review followup. Just to start off, i mean, the dilemma appears to be that we see the need for correction and we dont ever seem to quite get there. Example, you mentioned, so did secretary spencer, 2017, 2018, were going to fix readiness. In 2019, the plane is going to come off the ground on capacity. But here we are, you know, ive just got on friday they had gunston hall was used as an example, using gunston hall as an example, this is a testimony in front of the hask. He said the dock landing ship had its last maintenance availability deferred three years due to continuing resolutions. Each year the navy had to make zegz decisions about how to show spending. When gunston hall had to miss its planned start date, it kept losing its place in line, ultimately, the availability took place, increased cost from 44 million to 111 million, and the time of maintenance went from 207 days to 696 days. Thats a ship example. An aircraft example, we recently had the air boss say up to two thirds of his aircraft, the ones that are outside the maintenance loop, arent ready. Arent operationally available like they should be. So are we stuck in this pit . Are we going to get what give us confidence, vice chief . Because this has been tough. What gives us confidence to break this cr business and get beyond the hole were in. Sorry for the long question, but i was trying to summarize from the morning that you werent able to attend. Like i said, im sorry i missed it. Probably would have been useful for me to ask some of those folks a question or two. Yeah, i mean, theres no question that when you look at the backlog for maintenance, just on the surface side, and frankly on the ssm side, our nuclear yards, we got a big hole to dig out of. Injection of cash in 17 helped a lot. Right. It helped avoid deferring more maintenance periods into the fiscal year 18, which carries a bigger price tag to it down the road. So we got started on that in 17. We took no reductions in readiness in 18, purposefully decided at the corporate level that we were going to maintain and sustain that readiness so we could continue to buy down the backlog and get onto a predictable turnaround cycle for our ships. Aircraft, same scenario. We have issues there with through put capacity on our depots, issues there with parts support supply. All of those accounts came under enormous pressure over the last five to eight years. It started really even before sequestration, but it was magnified by it. And i was director of warfare during the very beginnings of sequestration, and to sit around the table and look at the choices of continuing to fly and operate in places where the nation said we need our air wings against how much do i continue to fund at what levels to enable our accounts to put engineers on the flight line, parts in the lockers and all those things. Those are, you know, false choices. You dont want to make them, but you have to make them. So we have made those decisions. And now theyre coming home to roost. In just the amount of time it takes to turn around a ship in maintenance or get airplanes through maintenance. So the vectors are in the right direction. Our job now is to make sure that we stay committed to that. And the hard choices, again, will be made if we dont see the higher top lines that were talking about here in 18 and 19. Well come down to a choice of between operating the force, maintaining the readiness of the force, and buying a bigger force. And when i mean bigger, im not just taking about physical platforms. Im talking about the capabilities that make those platforms more advanced and more lethal. So those choices will come before us again, but at the end of the day, right now, our focus is on making sure what we have is ready to fight. And that includes the operating of the force for experience, and it includes the wholeness of the force to make sure when it does go to sea, it has what it needs. So in the interest of getting to audience questions, ill just ask one more question and ill open it up. But for the comprehensive review, you know, we have all seen large efforts like this get under way. Usually at the beginning, people remember why theyre there. And then you go in for the really hard things. Because the fact is that if it were easy, it would have been solved. So give us give our audience today the impression of urgency and commitment. You mentioned commitment in your remarks. When you got that group around the table, do you think they are ready to seize the day, and are they in it for the long haul . Because it seems like when you really get down to the second or third level of detail in the report, its across the whole spectrum. Are we really did you see that right look, the right energy, and do you feel you have the top cover to get her done. I dont need a whole lot of top cover as a four star. Im going to apply top cover from my level because i think as the vice chief, i spend, like i said, a lot of time on resourcing decisions. I think some of the resource sponsors in the room know if were not following the objective of getting the force back to an acceptable level of wholeness and readiness, that im going to make sure that we are resourcing the changes we think are necessary. But i think we also have to be really careful here. I often think back to those that were in my shoes or in our shoes years ago in Naval Aviation when we were crashing airplanes right and left, and we had a horrible Safety Record in the 70s, 60s, 70s, and 80s, early 80. Admiral dunn mentioned that earlier. So we learned a lot from that. I wonder what those people thought about how committed they were to reducing the mishap rate. And you know, i was the benefactor as a young jo for a lot of the programs that were put in place and a lot of this, by the way, didnt cost a lot of money. Its policy, its standards. Its behaviors that can often change it. And Naval Aviation took a while. It took arguably a decade, a decade and a half to set new standards of how you operate to drive the safety and the mishap rates down. I think about the submarine community in the mid2000s. Went through a similar point in time. They looked internally at their own community, made some changes that were important. Procedural changes, funding challenges, all of the things that argue it took a decade for them to pull that out, and today operate the most effective, safest submarine force in the world. So now, is it the Service Communitys turn . I guess so, but were all going to learn. Every community is going to learn from the comprehensive review. A lot of those things that are brought up are behavioral in nature, are about setting and maintaining standards. Not a floor, but raising the floor. Right. And continuing to do that. So is there a commitment, is there a sense of urgency . Absolutely. Was there a commitment and a sense of urgency, postbilal report . Absolutely. None of this is worth the paper its written on unless we follow through. So the Oversight Board is going to be there for as long as it takes. Im committed to it. And i would hope anybody that comes in behind me down the road would say the same thing because its too important to our navy, too important to our people at the end of the day. Thank you. And with that, im going to open it up, and i think i see robby harris out there at the mike. Congratulations to you. Good morning, sir. How are you . Congratulations to you and to the Naval Institute. Its been a superb morning of speakers who have been spot on and honest. I appreciate that and i thank you for that. As i think back over the three sets of speakers, including the vice chief, all have touched on fundamentals, if you will. If you go back to the secretarys introductory comments, and he got the question about the fat leonard situation. And he agreed that its not just a seventh fleet problem, and bob agreed that the fat leonard thing is not just a seventh fleet problem. It actually called into question, i think, and unfortunately, the moral fiber, the ethical fiber of the u. S. Navy. Particularly the navy officer corps. And i wonder what the Naval Academy and rotc and ocs for that matter are doing about that. Thats the first fundamental, the moral fiber, ethical fiber of the u. S. Navy has been called into question. And then go on to bob work this morning, and bobs discussion about how we have bias in favor of presence rather than capability. The fundamental question, why did we do that . And then, the most recent panel this morning, Gerry Roncolato and others, apparently some of our sailors dont know how to operate ship control console. Their officers at the deck dont understand the rules of the road. There are c. O. S who dont enforce their night orders. Its pretty fundamental. I think it calls into question how did we get into this situation in which the very fundamentals of our navy are called into question. I would love to hear an answer. Well, robby, i tried to address that in my remarks. So ill submit those for the record. If you will. So its a combination. There are systemic issues that are at play here. I think we would all agree, i would call those contributing factors. The causal factors for the mishap mishaps, are much more local. Theyre leadership issues. And Naval Aviation, when we go look at a classa mishap where we lose an airplane or loss of life, causal factors are usually the result of several steps at any point of the way, any single action, single decision, single question, somebody mentioned that earlier, just the courage to ask the question, would have put off the mishap. Not necessarily changed the systemic pressure on the environment. So we have to look at both of these things. The root cause of each one and then the root causes that undergird the environment and the pressure that were asking our sailors to operate in. It goes to training. It goes to leadership. It goes to manning. Theres so many aspects of this that are out there. I dont you know, theres so many times when i just want to stand up. I guess ill do it right here. I am so proud of our navy. The men and women we have at sea are no different than the men and women you served with. They want to do a great job. Nobody wakes up in the morning and tries to do a bad job, right . They try to make the right decisions. We are constantly faced with different pressures out there that are frankly no different than others who have gone before them. So the moral fiber, the ethical fiber, the backbone of our people and our navy is strong. But our people arent perfect. And people expect perfection. The world we live in expects perfection. Any time you fall short of perfection, you get criticized and go under the microscope, more so today than at any other time i think is maybe the major difference. So ill stand up very strongly for our men and women out there that are doing on any given day incredible work. There are many, many examples of excellence in our navy over the last year at the same time we have had these other tragedies occur. For all of you that are retired navy and active duty reserves, weve got to Start Talking about the good things, the great things that our navy is doing. And recognizing that it is our responsibility to learn from the things we got wrong and be willing to admit when we got them wrong and go after them. Thats the only way you grow as an individual, a professional and a force. So thats why im going to stay focussed on this. The Oversight Board we all agree, at the center of the universe, if you will, the lens in which we view all of the recommendations in the cr, the challenges that have been posed to us by congress, and other organizations. The center of the universe is the co on the bridge of that ship. The c. O. Of the squatter, the submarine. Everything we do we need to be making the job of that person easier to manage, less strenuous in terms of having to fight resourcing challenges, manning challenges, all of those things. And not adding into the ruck sack that already is pretty heavy right now. My concern is we dont pile on a response to actions simultaneously and overwhelm the fleet with all of these things were trying to do, but prioritize them in terms of the safety safe and effective operation of our fleet, first and foremost, and then we start looking at other systemic issues that need to be addressed. But do it in a measured way, instead of just going like we are all prone to do, naval officers, is to just go solve the problem. And the sooner we solve it, the better. There has to be a pace here that the fleet can tolerate. And i think thats an important aspect of how we go forward. Thank you very much. Thanks. Bill, we had a question earlier about including younger voices, and getting their feedback. And i was just going to ask you and it may be premature, because youve just started this process. But do you envision this having a feedback loop . What you just said kind of reminded me, where you would get at maybe a Department Head up to Commanding Officers in the fleet, feedback either on what youre changing or what youre contemplating changing, as to kind of get at what you just said. We dont want to crush them while saving them. Yeah, something that the Service Community started a couple years ago that is starting to really bear fruit is similar to what other communities have done with their what i call their weapons tactics and instructions. Theyre experts, theyre pros from dover. The wtis. And i think we go to them early and often in this process and get their direct feedback. What have they seen . Because they were out in much closer contact with the fleet. They care a lot, because they were chosen to reach that patchwearing status above their peers for a reason. But i also think, and we talked about this at the first Oversight Board last week, is we have to constantly pulse our c. O. S to make sure what were addressing meets their most urgent needs now. And then get insights from them about the pace and direction we want to take the other fixes. Thats great that thats contemplated in your process. Sydney, are you at the microphone . Yes. Launch away. Wishful thinking on your part, admiral. You looked busy there. Yes. Admiral well, i was taking notes of what you were saying. Admiral, the you mentioned the 4 billion figure. I did a little quick math in terms of what the crs have cost us. Thats actually in terms of the whole of your budget, less than half a percent over the years. But what where does that come from, and what is the litany of other impacts we were looking at from this cr . Do you have figures on if there is another two weeks, will that delay an availability, will that, you know maybe we cant overhaul certain aircraft or other things that will be forbidden as new starts or not allowed to go because they require an increase. Yeah, sydney, so if you want to stroke a check for 4 billion right now, ive got a lot i can do with that, even though its half a percent. But if you look at where we were at the end of in the final 12 budget that was proposed and where we are today, were 100 billion short of where we thought we needed in terms of money, reliable money we could count on to build the navy we needed to fulfill the national Defense Strategy in 2012. If anything, the world has gotten more complex. Harder to fight in. And were 100 billion short of the trajectory 12 put us on. So crs are painful. Sequestration and the immediate cut to 2012 was really significant. All that said, you know, when for the last ten years, and arguably, twothirds of the last four decades, we started every year under a cr, weve gotten pretty good at only playing three quarters of the game. Weve given points up to the opposing Team Every Time we have done that. So the fleet commanders have their list, and its based on when that money in terms of a budget shows up. So everything from maintenance to Aircraft Maintenance operations, those sorts of things, are all well understood in terms of the level of budgeting that we get. So lets pray we dont have to go there again. We had to do that last year, right until around the may time frame, when the budget came in. And then the new administration added a significant amount of cash into our readiness accounts that allowed us to catch up to the deferred maintenance that had already begun. So we understand very, very well whats going to happen if we dont get a budget at the end of this quarter. Okay. Jim, were you at the microphone, or were you just kind of hanging there . Im at the microphone with just a quick followup. Go ahead, please. Captain jim raimondo, you use the term radical feedback in your comments. Radical candor. So i wanted to pull the string a little bit on that of i would contend we have done a fairly poor job over the years of actually being honest with ourselves and knowing our strengths and weaknesses and our you know, our system that we have now doesnt do a very good job of that. Nor do we do a good job of that. So i was just wondering your thoughts on that, sir. Yeah, jim. As you know, over at the Naval Academy, with e see this a lot young mitts dying to get feedback on how theyre doing. Those both in leadership position but also as subordinates. And i think much can be said at the same kind of behavior occurs in the fleet. If you look at the collisions, the lack of a questioning attitude really hurt us. And that that can be driven by how young Junior Officers are raised, but i think its largely the atmosphere that is established by the triad, and in particular the Commanding Officer. So weve got to focus more on our Commanding Officers to get them to understand, and learn the lessons from these two tragedies that they dont want to be that Commanding Officer. And the way you dont be that Commanding Officer is by having forceful backups. Forceful backups come from Junior Officers and crew members across the spectrum, who when they dont feel right, doesnt look right, its not standard procedure, commands arent exactly standard, that they question it. And just that question alone can often avert a disaster. So thats what i mean by kind of this radical candor. Its a strong term that i use just to get people to think about how candid are you going to be . Thats all. Nothing more than that. Well, thanks, chief. You have a lot on your plate. Any day for the vice chief, you have a lot on your plate. But today, particularly so. And we want to support you, if theres anything that we can do in this effort, let us know. Whether its a survey, whether its some type of pulsing to get information from our constituents, our members. But we want to thank you for taking the time here today out of your busy day to come and talk to us, and its good to hear that you feel like the comprehensive review has seized the team for action and commitment. So we thank you. And we appreciate. Lets give the vice [ applause ] thank you. Heres whats coming up later today on cspan3. Next, the Senate Armed Services committee looks at the defense departments acquisition practices. And then the Senate Judiciary Committee Reviews legislation to tighten gun background checks, including banning devices that increase the fire rate for some weapons. And prime time programming begins at 8 00 eastern with programs from the cspan cities tour, and the first of three tonight is on charlottesville, virginia. Tonight, on after words, federal appellate judge john newman looks back at his 38year judicial career and his book benched, interviewed by richard blumenthal. As a judge of 35 years, having gone from that active life of making decisions and going to court and advocating a case to judging, was that a difficult transition for you, and did you ever miss the life of advocacy, so to speak . It wasnt difficult. It has been for some, who ive known. In fact, ive known people who became judges and so disliked the decisionmaking process that they left the bench. I was an advocate. I was glad to be an advocate. I found the decisionmaking process, while it was different, enormously challenging, enormously satisfying. There is while i liked being a u. S. Attorney, ive got to say, i loved being a judge. Because the opportunity to resolve disputes, large and small, they all matter to somebody, but some of them have large public significance. And thats a very satisfying role. Watch after words tonight at 9 00 eastern on book tv on cspan 2. Up next, army, navy and air force senior officials testify on defense acquisition and management, including efforts to improve military readiness and capability through weapon and technology modernization, and streamlining acquisition systems. The Senate Armed Services Committee Held this hearing last month