Huds hudson senior institute. I am seth cropsey. I hope that you have the monograph thats a subject of our discussion today. And, if you do not, i believe that we still have copies in and out the front desk so by all means pick up a copy on your way out. We are fortunate to have with us today brian mcgraft, this man, my friend and coarthur, former Deputy Director of Hudson Center and managing director of the National Security defense consultant. Also a plane crash to welcome this man. Also, a retired naval officer and defense news best writer. I will offer some thoughts based on our monograph, brian will follow and then the three of us will discuss, well conclude with questions and probably some answers. To the untrained audience, modern Technology May seemed to have eliminated the thought of war that defined premodern battlefields. Victory and historic conflict relied on the coincidence of skills and luck. The great commander thought to place himself in a position to impose his will on a chaotic battlefield in a single moment of genius or a series moment of ye genius. Reaching that moment requires good fortune. Intelligence travels only as fast as a man could run or a horse could ride or pigeon could fly. Victory requires months or if not years of careful planning. Despite technological advancement, confusion still defines the titanic crashes of the 20th century wars. The u. S. Fleet at mid way but strike japans carriers as fast as it does and torpedo bombers would fly. The commanders decision to continue to search for japans Carrier Force and the American Strike groups arrival just as r wings were refueling and rearming played a large role in deciding the issue. Today, however, missiles and jets fly ats of Miles Per Hour or, in the case of hyper sonic weapon weapons, over 100 miles in two minutes. Satellites circle the globe. Advanced radars track dozens of targets in the case of the ageis combat system, hundreds. Lasers are accurate to within feet or sometimes inches. Its tempting to believe that conflict is not mechanical, that any enemy can be found and destroyed without much trouble, that the key to victory is simply building faster and longerrange munitions. Munitions, delivery systems, land based or otherwise, are the key to victory. Its a mistake to think that finding the enemy is any easier than before and to think that the modern u. S. Military can locate and destroy adversaries at will. Contemporary u. S. Surveillance targeting is underequipped for the demands of Great Power Competition, particularly in the western pacific. The u. S. Risks being outpaced in peace time and defeated in war. American sailors face the same difficulty as earnest hemingways aging fisherman. The sea is big and old. Pacific command is responsible for 36 square miles of open ocean in the western pacific alone. Several island chains break up this vastness while civilian ships and aircraft sail and fly between some of the worlds most p populous nations. Moreover, u. S. Forces alongside their regional allies, face the greatest threat to peace and order since the soviet union. Peoples republic of china has spent the past 40 years increasing its material wealth and the last 20 undermining the u. S. Backed Global Economic order. Trying to substitute its own. To one that can project our chinese have developed a military designed to counter american and allied capabilities t relies on Maritime Transport in a region defined by strategic choke points. Any largescale economic zrungss could spark protests and threaten the regimes survival. Thus, any conflict china fights must be short, intense, decisive. General secretary xi jinping worries about a prolonged confrontation with the u. S. And its allies. Thus the Peoples Liberation army possesses capabilities to destroy an adversarys military, while make the u. S. Choose risking carriers or taiwan to china. Deterring chinese ambitions requires a mix of american and allied capabilities. The u. S. Military needs longrange standoff weapons that can penetrate chinese defenses, strike aircraft carriers, range extenders to enable strikes while keeping carriers secure. Air superiority fighters to defend highvalue targets. Subsurface capabilities to 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. These are 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 tools and major fleet formations or longrange bombers to keep the latter out of harms way. Otherwise, the u. S. Must choose between deploying carriers within strike range of 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 is of equal importance before conflicts. Chinese geography gives strategic advantages politically in confrontation over taiwan. The u. S. Must rely on supply and communication lines spanning the Pacific Ocean and will only have immediate access to regional reinforcements, china can concentrate forces and reserves much more quickly. Nevertheless, china cannot strike from a standing start. It must concentrate air and Ground Forces across the taiwan strait, increase naval presence and prepare for a surge to disable taiwanese defenses while warding off a u. S. And allied response. With enough warning, the u. S. Can increase the quest of a chinese offensive. Even two submarines plus an 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 hopes to shape the pacific battlefield and execute its strategy of deterrence by denial. Specifically, it needs constant information on assets and possessions within 200 miles of the chinese coastline along with eyes on chinas air bases and ports in the eastern military district. Important to note that similar thinking applies to Chinese Forces in the south chinese state. The u. S. Requires constantly surveillance of pla navy south seas fleet ships and the Company Aircraft or amphibious units moving from ports in Southern China toward both the disputed islands and malaca and mamba straits. China itself has recognized the importance of isrt. Until a decade ago, Chinese Military remained largely backward, lal lacked funding, did not rigorously simulate combat operations. Most of its aircraft did not fly at night. Still, china has steadily developed its antisatellite capabilities since the 1980s, staging a series of public tests from 2007 to 2018 and incorporating its antisatellite capabilities, research into a space program. Satellite capabilities are critical. Not only do they provide they also serve as critical communication between communication notes, rather, between u. S. Forces and multiple theaters. Chinese strike would disrupt u. S. Operations globally while undermining american isrt, specifically in the western specific. With the range and staying power needed to operate chinese movements. This impedes the u. S. To shape the battlefield, in the end to win a war. Open source analises cannot take over its counterparts. Still u. S. Marichltstime isrt has become so who will owed out that the lack of coordination is evident. U. S. Irt is comprised of aircraft, surface and sub surface sensors and landbased sensors equipped with radio frequency, 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 a new observation here, but a fleet without eyes cannot fight. Several policy steps should be taken to overhaul the u. S. s western isrt. For one, the navy should bound attempt to define the problem. Congress should provide funding for the navy to conduct a detailed, classified study of specific isrt capabilities and requirements. This would allow navy to develop targeted quickfix responses to capability gaps, as it would properly plan future acquisitions. Indeed i think every u. S. Armed services in every major theater should conduct a similar review. Certain stop gap measures can boost current capability shortfalls. The navys acquisition of mq 4c triet an, uavs will boost isrt capabilities 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 retask u. S. Air force and q9 reaper uavs from Central Command and deploy them to the pacific in a similar role to the mq 4c. Those who answer or might object that we should not impoverish one strategic theater to benefit another are right. Both cent com and indo pact com are essential. Mq 4 machine c fleet feasible proposition since the mq 4c program has only just reached initial Operational Capability. In the immediate term, the stingray should serve as an unmanned platform, converting the uclass, unmanned carrier launch and Strike Program to the c bars, the carrier based refueling Aerial Refueling system was an intelligent organizational choice. The navy has lacked a carrier air wing, organic range extender since the early 2000s. Since the retirement of the a6 and f14, carrier wing shrunk. Any strikes will require an aircraft that fills the mq 25s role. By expanding its Mission Profile to include isrt would both increase u. S. Navy capabilities and, i believe, avoid extreme costs. Designers could emphasize long range rather than stealth or speed thereby avoiding the difficulties that the uclass program encountered. And ironic characteristic of strategy, i will close my remarks here. Its cyclical nature. Thought to be obsolete are revived to the same deadly effect as before their initial decline. Think about the scout plane that fell out of practice with battleships. The navy should consider revival this concept, developing median altitude like the mq 4c or mq9 that can be deployed or recovered by u. S. Forces sbatants. This would increase u. S. Irt coverage while making use of Hypersonic Weapons more feasible. These spotter uavs could direct munitions 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. Must coordinate redundant and capabilities with its allies, particularly japan. The Japan Selfdefense forces are sophisticated. Theyre highly competent. But the ground force still receives most of the funding while 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 ill leave it at that for the time being. Ryan, the podium is yours. Thank you, sir. Good afternoon, mp. Its nice to see some 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 lauder with his hair combed, his beard trimmed and in a suit and tie. 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, a gentleman named Harrison Tran, who happens to be one of the most deeply insightful operations analysts that i know. He did all the math because seth and i dont do math. Why did we do this study . What caused it . Someone just asked me that the other day. Actually, somebody in the navy just asked me that the other day. A couple of things. Number one, there was a 2018 ndaa, National Defense authorization act that directed the navy to do Something Like this a study of its isr t sufficiency, specifically one of the things that they asked for was that the study include operations in a satellitedenied environment, which i thought was interesting. To me it seemed if the congress were asking the navy to do such a study, smart people in congress were worried that there wasnt work being done. And so we watched, seth and i. I remember communicating, when that language came out in the ndaa. We watched and we didnt see much coming out into the press. We didnt see much attention being given to it. So we decided we would give some attention to it. Another reason to do this study was the National Security strategy that came out in the early months i think it was january 2018 had a very big idea in it. And that very big idea was that the United States posture 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 attains some level of success in their objectives, and that the threat of being pounded into submission by the calvary 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 the geography of the region were looking 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 marshalled 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 it has to have more isr. And it has to have more networks that link all of 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 Service Force then vice admiral rodan, rear admirals wrote an article of where they put together this idea of distribute d fality. Under the section where they were suggesting things they needed to operationalize this concept, they write persistent, organic Intelligence Surveillance isr and data relay is something they need. Quote, an important aspect is the ability to confidently conduct dispersed operations apart from centralized command and control networks, local combat networks are essential to achieving local battle awareness. Those networks need to be more capable than those existing today, must be persistent in a satellite. Whether current vertical takeoff, Unmanned Aerial Systems have the persistence necessary to support dispersed offensive operations remains to be seen. By that, they meant shipboard helicopters. But the potential for them to augment networking should be examined. The ability of hunter killers action groups to launch and recover fixed wing or partially fixed wing uavs will be pivotal in advancing this role. It was evident from that article for almost five years ago that the three guys in charge of Surface Warfare in the navy believed there was an isr problem. They believed it enough to put it in proceedings and make sure everybody read it. As a young man, i did a lot of cruz missile certifications when i was on active duty. You would have a bunch of experts from organizations that would come on board and in two d days of very intense simulation determined the degree to which you were able to employ surfacetosurface weapons. We used to have a weapon called a tasm, antiship missile. It had a range of 200 miles. 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, thinking about what would happen if we ever got tasm. The bottom line was, the weapons range greatly outstripped our ability to understand what we were targeting. And because once you it was a fire and forget weapon. The area of uncertainty of the target grew as this subsonic weapon moved down range. We got rid of tasm for many reasons. Some of it associated with arms control treaties, but i think one of the reasons that the navy didnt fight harder to keep it was it was very difficult to employ. We just didnt have the situational awareness, the isr t to match the range. Now im looking at a navy that has tomahawk block 4, maritime strike tomahawk with ranges at nearly 1,000 miles. Looking at the sm6 in a surfacetosurface mode with unclassified discussions of ranges over 200 miles. Weve 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 . And in my gut feeling was no. And i convinced seth that that was a no. Then we wanted to get after this. So we got Harrison Tran and started to think about it. Some of the things we thought abo about, im a former destroyer captain. I have lots of relationships with 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 a cost of doing business. That they believe all the time that some element of the Peoples Liberation army has them targeted. My supposition in starting this thing is why cant we create that same uncertainty in the chinese frigate captains. Why want we make them understand they are always targeted 24 7, 365 in peace time. There are enough weapons of sufficient capability and range in the theater to ensure every surface ship over 100 meters long has weapons associated with it. That was the operational imperative that we looked at. So far i know of no imperative that naval forces are operating under in the western pacific. Their ranges and sensitivity leads me to believe there is no way they can pull it off today. Theres a lot of discussion about National Technical means or overhead satellites. The minute you get into those discussions, you go to a level that greatly exceeds this room but the second thing is i want to go back to congressional guidance in the ndaa. Also will report in a satellite denied environment. So in order to pound our study, we decided we would not deal with National Technical means. We would just assume either that they were under the control of elements other than the threestar operational commanders in the navy, who would have the ability to task those systems or it would be gone or there would be other thing things. I want to make sure that was one of our bounding assumptions. Navy has a program to record to buy 70 triet ans, 60 operational models and two early models. Im not sure exactly what theyre calling them. Those 68 aircraft are purchased over the lifetime of this acquisition program. The operational requirement is for five orbits, the way we describe, 20 airplanes worldwide, 20 airplanes. Thats the navys isr platform to fill this targeting problem. Could they do could they pull off this 365day a year, 24 7 target i targeting problem for the island chaen . We assume no friendlier allied chiropractics to this. We will likely have some friends and allies helping us locate aggressor surface platforms. But for the purposes of our inquiry to support operational requirement that we think is useful. Posture for both the United States and china during peace time. Peace time. Remember that. We do that by putting more and more powerful forces forward that are supply ied, he or she under way that someone is watching. We believe it continues its commitme commitments elsewhere and Maritime Surveillance requirements in the north atlantic, mediterranean, indian ocean and arabian gulf region, were not concerned with weapons, with the performance of weap weapons in this analysis. I encourage you to take a good dive into the monograph we provided. Attempting to just do what harrison, our oa guy, referred to as mow the grass. That is, if you wish to take an inborn radar operate agent 50,000 feet that has about a 287mile area of concern. If you want to look at that area one time covering every one of those 1. 66 million square miles, you need five mq4s in the area at one time. Just to mow the grass. You may say hey thats somebody we want to stay on. Staying on requires persistence, which takes away from your ability to continue to mow the grass. We talk about 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. It was somewhere along the lines of 2,000 miles from the center of the south china sea. Thats 4,000 miles to get to the middle. Thats a lot of fuel, lot of onstation time. Bottom line here is if we are going to maintain a 365day, 24 7 target, the mq 4cs 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 the pilot math has a couple of assumptions in it, which is there are no false targets. Youre getting every bit of the Horizon Limited radar range. Theres no weather problems. This is the very best possible case for radar surveillance of these waters. Obviously there are other ways to surveil those waters. But radar surveillance helps in a very important way. Pilot math led us to believe that the mq 4c is incredibly insufficient. In fact, if we devoted all 20 airplane airplanes to the pacific theater, we would have a difficult time meeting the objective of covering the surface vessels. So 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 i would like to see the organization tasked to do this research be an ffrdc, fairly funded research and Development Corporation that has the clearance, the facility clearance necessary to really get at emerged isr environment that brings in the satellite, brings in brings in characteristics of the sensors that are in the region, that are on the airplanes to give a better view. I want someone other than the navy to do this. I would like the navy participating but i would like some outside organization to report on this. We talk about two particular kinds of Medium Altitude long endurance uavs. The navy had an idea that was called tern, tern. It was a tailsitter aircraft that had long onstation time, a variety of that would dramatically increase the isr capability of dispersed surface forces. The marine corps currently is working on a program called mucks. I believe it means marine corps unmanned expeditionary capability. We provide the links in the report. You look at what the marine corps is asking for for mucs. They have a lot of different ways to get to their requirement. Shape based ones could be the answer. Landbased ones could be the answer. Theyre looking into which would work best for them. But theyre putting real money against trying to fulfill requirements to support marine corps operations and the xho commandants new version. We need to spend some money on taking some of these mq9 reapers, and there is a maritime version of the mq9 reaper. We need to turn some of those into navy assets. Should the air force or navy operate them, someone asked. I dont care i really dont care. We need to get more asset noots theater that can help. Before i step off and turn this over to david, i recognize what im talking about is the first several steps of a kill chain i havent really spent time on the weapons or on the networking. Those are important. And if you want to get into them, we can talk about that a little. But that ends my presentation. Hope you enjoy the report and i look forward to davids question questions. A very interesting report. A couple of questions right off the bat. First of all one of the assets you left out of the report were the p8 fleet. Im wondering what version you see the p8s in the pacific. One of the constraints we put on ourselves was that we would deal with unmanned assets. If we were in a time of increasing tension or in a time where we were really serious about isr of undersea assets, Chinese Submarine fleet, our understanding would be that the p8 fleet would be very, very busy with the submarine threat and would be less of a factor in looking for surface contacts. Theres also the issue of cost of p8 and what issues it causes running around in that area, the cost of a reduced uav. By the way, if somebody is brave enough and doesnt understand the acronyms were using here, i would be obliged if you raise your hand and well say what it is. In any case, theres a cost issue there and a numbers issue there. And the p8 would have difficulty especially with chinese surface to air capabilities as they are now and are projected to be in the future. So, you discussed some of the threats theyre facing. I believe the global hawk that was shot down by iran was about 180 million. And i hate to be the guy that brings up cost but there was discussion in Foreign Policy that that really freaked out dod, that they lost their 180 Million Drone to an iranian missile, a missile that was built in iran. And they were some discussion of canceling the whole program. I dont know if thats going to happen. I dont think thats going to happen. But 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, and those are listed in our report. Yeah, its a lot of money to lose in a drone but fortunately its not the only uav with those capabilities. It does have extended range and so forth but its not the only game in town. I think theres sort of two big ideas bound up in this question. One is again it gets us back to conventional deterrence. If your review or your desire is to maintain a conventional posture, your aim is to keep that first shot from happening. Youll spend money on more exquisite technology to provide you that confidence. If the other guy then is not det deterred, which everybody calls it a failure of deterrence, but deterrence is always matched to a certain level of will or desire on the other side and if the other sides will or desire exceeds your conventional posture, theyre going to shoot. Then we start to talk about the shooting war and the things that are important in the shooting war. Once we get into a general war or hot environment, the discussion of cheap and mini and fast and swarming, and all of those concepts that are important war concepts are less important than 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 believed they could take a shot at an mq4 and they would probably get away with it. Lo and behold, they got away with it. Because we did not consider the loss of an mq4. A war inducing. The question is, is everybody just going to start to believe that the unmanned vehicles of everyone else are fair game . And thats just kind of a restive piece. Its the cost of doing business. I dont know but we have to think about that. Dod, were talking about dod had good reason to be freaked out, but i think the better reason to be freaked out was not that the drone had been lost, but that there was no response afterwards, because bryan was talking about deterrence. If you want to deter that from happening again, then you have to make it clear that theres a cost for doing it, and that cost is not necessarily mean going to war. Weve used force 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 peace time that enable each other to know where the others are all the time, then the destruction of an isr asset 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 a potential for i refer to this in a meeting once as a conventional balance of terror and isr in a region where isr helps provide stability, some sort of conventional stability to a region. You know, one of the things that you could get into, if you were, say, a requirements person in the pentagon would be if they can see my global hawk or triton, maybe we should go further to a low observable isr asset which, of course, will drive costs. And what youre talking about is a volume business when youre talking about the pacific. How do you sort of guard against very dodlike 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. I mean, we need volume and then we need some lowsignature, more exquisite stuff to do the really serious missions where you may not want the other guy to know that youre doing it. So, i found one of the 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 you are sending it against a relatively capable Surface Combatant theres nothing from them shooting down the helicopter and, of course, youre risking the pilots lives. The unmanned isrt asset from a Surface Combatant then seems to solve that problem but you also run into the problem now of saying to your friends in naval aviation, so we need a drone that puts you out of business, to a certain extent. Not completely out of business. But im wondering, this distributed conops thats coming together, it seems that its going to need some teams working together. And im wondering if you believe the navy is set up to create the kind of isr coverage youre looking for and the organic from surface ships. Youll have to go through aviation for that. It was a long preamble. Im sorry. Im a consultant. I consult to the navy. You have to all take that, put it away, because what im going to tell you now are my opinions. Not what i get paid to do. My opinion here is that this is a very thorny, bureaucratic problem. We elude to that in the report. In the first draft of that i did a hell of a lot more than elude to it. I came on pretty strongly and then backed the language out. Surface people like dave and me believe we need more organic isr. We need something that takes off from my ship, is under my control, completes my fire control loop. You havent shown us your requirement. Part of this is a function of the missiles moving out in capability faster than the isr could catch up to it. It 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 mucs idea. I dont know whether its a program of record. I dont know exactly whether it is or not. I know there was a lot of talk about it. There are bureaucratic problems here between the surface people and the aviators and then the isr people. Aviators buy trucks. And two and six in the pentagon buys isr and two and six also buys the isr from the satellites and so there is a question of what they consider to be sufficient. And these organizations have to come together to determine whether cropsey and mcgrath are out to lunch or whether they got it. And i think Congress Concern about this indicates that the Congress Wants to know whether they got it or not. One of the problems that stands in the way of the kind of bureaucratic reordering that the report recommends and that we support, one of the obstacles is its very difficult to relate such reordering to a particular strategy. What is the navys role if theres a conflict in the western pacific . What is the navys objective . And then this goes back to and the difficulty here goes back to the idea as its currently construed in the Defense Department of joint warfare and its discouragement of individual Services Taking the lead or presenting their ideas, or doing anything about it that doesnt mean that everybody is involved in the game. But that wasnt my Central Point. The Central Point is it would be easier to reorder the bureaucracy, specifically toward this end. If it were clearer, that reordering the bureaucracy serves as strategic purpose that has been explained and understood. You cant get cropsey, mcgrath in a room at somebody taking a pot shot at jointness in 30 minutes. Absolutely. So, yeah, i wanted to move on to a couple of other issues while i have both of you up here. 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 a plan to get us there by 2030. And if you look at that situation in comparison to what cno said recently, that 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 to execute that with. Im wondering how do you make the case for what would be spending on a lot of extra isr, what you would say would be essential isr capabilities and balancing against a political promises and the things that the navy wants to do. What it said it needs to do and what its required to do under its mandates to fulfill our National Security obligations. Well. Its been agreed to by congress the past few years are going to turn around two years from now. Were going to start seeing decrease decreases with 1. 8 . In 30 plus years, it will be more difficult with the budget on the decline. I just had a very simple one. And that is 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 materializing in the future not to spend the money. Theres a lot of meat here. Number one, they work in comp e comparing their gross size to other navys of the world gross size and they work in comparison to previous u. S. Navys. There must be a better way of quantify i quantifying a navys power i just dont know what it is. Made it very clear of what he wants of these uniforms. That is how do we get to 355 in ten years . The adviser made it clear, as david said, thats an administration goal. If we continue to count ships the way we do today, 292 ship tas, i believe 355 ships is almost 22 large r to maintain navy of that size above you cant just buy the ships. You have to maintain them, put people in them, send food to them, give them fuel, grease, parts, training. All of those things. I would not want to be one of those uniform four stars in the navy or three stars who has to try to figure out how to send the acting secretary a ship building plan that gets you to 355 if we count the same way we do today. We ignore smaller ships, mq4s. Mq 4s are important, p8s are important in this network naval force. We dont plan to count large, unmanned surface vessels. These plan to have 32 missiles on them a piece, we didnt count Coastal Patrol boats. Secretary mavis tried in his time to increase the naval ship count and he got pounded by the hill on it. Osd and the Navy Uniforms together, go out to some Conference Center for a weekend and throw 75 pizzas in a room and say come out with a new way that you all sign up, sign up with. Because if we, if the goal is to get to 355, as we currently count, its a pipe dream. Because there aint 40 billion additional dollars a year for the navy unless, number one, a giant defense increase that funds all the services larger happen, which is the way we generally do it. Or number two, a serious strategic choice is made to privilege sea power over other elements of military power. I dont see that happening. Well, that goes back to goldwater nichols. Well, im, you know, the United States in the past has made Strategic Decisions to underfund, to defund one service, the army, and to upfund, raise fund force another service, Strategic Rocket forces, during the eisenhower administration, because eisenhower said, hey, this is cheaper, and whats more, its needed to compete. So it is not as though, its not as though that has never been done, but in the current political climate, its extremely difficult. And i agree with brian, that simple ship numbers are not a foolproof expression of power. But im searching for a better one, and i will also agree, without any question, that simply counting the legacy ships that we have right now as ones that will be included in whatever numbers are decided on has limitations and faults and that we should be looking at, you know, if were going to, if we make as much of a move towards unmanned vehicles, on surface, as well as that, that is absolutely counted at the same time. Were going to build, were going to build extra large diameter unmanned surface vessels. Those are diesel submarines. Theyre diesel submarines without people in them. Were not going to count them . Why would he would not count those . It just doesnt make sense to me. So i think we have to, the acting secretary needs to help, needs to maybe change the frame of reference, as he pursues, but sues the numbers. I have one more question before i turn it over to the audience. And because im hopeless, a hopeless nerd about war gaming and things like that. Im interested, you mentioned in your report about the chinese, the chinese essentially, you know, 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 obviously it is unclassified, but whats your sense on that . What is the extent and information, is that a safe assumption that they know . Because that also kind of limits, it is also limiting, if they really could see everything we were doing, and everywhere we were, and so im wondering what your sense is on unclassified about the chinese. I think the technical term for the perception that the chinese enjoy targeting ubiquity within the first island chain and the second turn, its crap. Things like sun spots, things like weather patterns, things like maintenance on facilities, things like attrition, 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 theres like this pizza wedge that goes out from china, out to a thousand miles, and its sea floor to 100,000 feet, that if youre in there, theyre going to find you, thats just not the way it is. It is hard to do. Its really hard to do. Now, there are tools that are going to make things easier, but the concept that they have at all in 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. Its hard. Weather gets in the way. Sea state gets in the way. Temperature. Again, sun spot activity. All of these things get in the way. The other thing is we have to understand, if were going to operate in that environment all the time, would , we have to understand from day to day, from hour to hour, where are the weak spots in that isr complex . And operate near those weak spots. And project power from those weak spots. But that is a technical challenge that i think the navy is working on. I want to return to something you said before, bryan, and that is the perception among our ceos of their vulnerability, and im reminded of an old sawhorse in the navy, the question is, how many mines does it take to create a minefield . And the answer . Zero. If the ships captain thinks theres a mine there, he is going to act accordingly. And i can tell you from participating in tabletop exercises, several years ago, beginning several years ago, that the perception of, at least the naval officers playing the game was, they can see us, and they can target us, so i agree with bryans technical term, but when you see people actually doing things, at least in attempts to simulate the real world, its a different story. We intended to have time for questions and so well open the floor to questions, and would you please identify yourself and your organization if there is one, and would you also tell us to whom your question is directed, and also, last, would you ask your question in the form of a question . Well start here and well move back. And please wait until you get the mike before im peter, an Intelligence Analyst and a former diplomat. I can pretty much promise you that the perform rc has agents in every single port, in the western pacific, just like in pearl harbor, and they know ever single u. S. Ship coming in and out, so at least that, they can affix. Also, im wondering, is it okay to include the coast guard vessels, and thats the other question is, did you look at wide area Surveillance Drones at all . I think parking one of those in the stratosphere over history avan island will take care a lot of our problems. Did you take a look at georgen stair in any way . Lets start with the coast guard. I do not believe the United States coast card has a role in the south china sea. Period. End of story. Thats my view. Its not widely shared, but the coast guard doesnt have enough to the Naval Missions it has right now and when we assign them Naval Missions, we tell ourselves a false narrative that were making it better. Were not. Were taking away from some other thing that the coast guard is uniquely constituted to do. Secondly, there are some interesting concepts about, you know, air ships, for surveillance, some of the things that youre talking about, we didnt, we didnt think about those, we didnt cover them specifically in our inquiry. In my view, mostly because theyre, theyre not either programs of record, or ideas that are seriously under consideration by the navy right now. At least at the level that we understand of classification. Other questions . Lets see. All right, theres one over here. Thank you. My name is gina, did south vietnamese afters. I would like to come back to your traffic in sur surveillance, in the era of Great Power Competition and you had made it clear that the number of ships does not reflect the capability of our naval surveillance. And you made it clear that we dont have adequate money to fund the required 40 billion. My question is, in the view of using whole government that recently put out, why dont we use the whole government ideas, and if you look at the budget, the d. O. D. Require 750 billions, that the state department, Financial Affairs is, this enough for the billions . One year of making 20 of the ships, the amount that youre talking about . And if we are talking about this, the south china sea, why not talk about the distance between the vesuvik bay, vietnam, okinawa, taiwan, to china . Is there a different calculus that we should look to, and increase the capability of our navy in surveillance, and not only that, to deter china . I am afraid, when i heard the recent news that our assistant secretary randal shivel just resigned, because he is the top pentagon asia hand, and he resigned because what he proposed had not been approved, not go through. I know there are direct consultation, ideas to the current administration. Would you give some consultation to, the budget, to the state department, to the allies, and to our Human Resources in the Defense Department, in the state departments, especially as it has been stressed that in the indopacific strategy, asean is at the heart of it and our recent eas, the u. S. Have no presence. Would that somehow understand mine your work . Thank you. Whole government approaches have been to the question of china, for example, have been discussed at high levels of government, for example, Vice President pence advocated that from his platform last year. As sort of a gap between the, the distance between saying this is something that we need to do, and naturally, having it happen. But its important to begin by saying this is needed. Id like to Say Something about your point about the bases that we have in the western pacific and from which we operate. The proximity question that you point out is correct. Theres no arguing with that geographically. But still, those bases have to be supplied. And still, those bases have to be defended. So, and that supply and that defense is something that we rely on allies for, but for example, with guam, thats us, i mean thats ours to supply, and its ours to defend. So there are, there are still limitations, very sizable limitations on our ability, on the logistics ability from the bases in japan, from which we operate, to guam, the whole region. Thaw fnk you for your questi because it is a very smart one and i dont want you to think that because youre sitting in a room with guys whose pasts were in the department of defense, that we dont either value or prize what it is the state department and the rest of the government does. We do. Our alliances in that region, as far as im concerned, are among the most important we have. Those alliances 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 were involved, were engaged, we care, and that we have your back. Secretary shriver, i think thats his name, the man youre, i dont know him. I understand from people i respect that he is one of the best. I want you to know that there is, there are a lot of very good, very smart people continuing to work, continuing the work he was doing, or others who are ready to come back into government to help. Theyre there. They are there. And i think, i dont think youre going to see some 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 of government thing is absolutely essential. It isnt just the navy. It isnt just the military that is going to keep the peace in the western pacific. It is going to be making sure that our network of alliances, that i would not trade our friends for chinas friends. Specifically, id like to be much more friendly with vietnam. I wouldnt trade that, and i share your fear of that network diminishing. I dont know that i have much of a fear that it is going to happen. I think well be able to keep, well be able to keep our friends. [ inaudible question ] youre looking at the wrong guy to defend the personnel decisions of this administration. [ inaudible question ] understood i think thats fair. The question toward the back of the room. Good afternoon, brian mcderm not, retired marine aviator and a strategic bread team analyst for the defense agency. And thank you for the presentation. You kind of answered one of my question, because i saw your recommendation made in the aviation focused, didnt know if you had thought about using peteds or balloons which are persistent Tactical Systems used over our bases in iraq for Early Warning and tethering those to sea Service Vessels . Ill defer to your expertise on Naval Service vessel knowledge. And my other question is keeping all of the assumptions in place, where your recommendations are, increasing the program, im going to make the assumption that the navy is not going to increase man power and i would like to hear from both of you gentlemen, and with no increase in people power but youre asking for an increase in mq 4 procurement and mq 25s and i also think that means more technician, more drone pilots, et cetera. What would you recommend to the navy to reduce or cut . Thank you for your time. To cut for what . To cut, if youre making the assumption of increasing Program Record for mq 4s which will mean more drone pilots, more maintainers, same thing for your mq 25s, altering that, what would you recommend to the navy to reduce or cut, if theres no increase in overall people strength. Okay, im going to let seth answer that question specifically and im going to answer it the way i want to. I am not in the business of advising the navy or anyone else on how the navy should make do with less money. Im here to tell you that they dont get enough. They need more. They need to make a better case. And explain to the American People why it is that sea power is different and why these programs should be funded. Secondly, the uavs, air ships, and those things, i mean the unmanned surface vessels and air ships, those are good ideas, i was trying to stay, i think we were trying in our analysis to stay more in programs of record, and other things that have some institutional momentum that we are aware of, that there may be others that are classified that we dont know. You want to take the yes, sure. The last time i counted, the civilians who work for central agencies, under the secretary, in nosd, in the office of secretary defense, a number almost equal to the marine corps, and i think that if we ought to bound that problem, and by looking at the number of people, their functions, and the necessity to necessity for keeping such a large force, i think that would produce some significant safrgings that could be applied elsewhere, where theyre needed and more applicable to combat itself and certainly to deterrents. Were in either great paw competition or not and were if were going to try to fund the Great Power Competition with post cold war, post cold war mentality, were never going to get. There we are not going to compete. American people need to make the case for this. And we need to get serious about it. We have a larger bureaucratic work force today than we did during the cold war. Maybe we should. But i think it ought to be looked at. And thats what i was saying. Other questions . Sir . The mike is on its way. Hi, my name is ari brown. A question regarding the use of national, since we dont have access to ntm at this level, how could uavs fill a niche role that doesnt unnecessarily duplicate the efforts. Merely operating under the assumption that you have a satellite overhead, it is looking down, and also, are these uavs doing active or passive isr . Both active and passive. And the way that they fill the niche is that youre able to, youre able to do the focused search, perhaps the overhead asset gives you a general area of interest, then it can continue to do that sort of sucking up all the data job, and the maneuverable, more programmable nq 4, or mq 9 or mal, uav, does the focus search and stays on target and provides that data through whatever network you have or networks that do that. Is that not [ inaudible question ] im not sure what youre talking about. The no false positive rule was just as a way of trying to say that what we are doing in this study is presenting the very best case. What were saying is because were not dealing with false positives, because were dealing with perfect radar days, that were giving you the very best ranges and numbers. Sir . Time for one more question. Yes . Hello, my name is roland evans, channel, and my questions quite simple, really, weve seen back in the 1990s, there was a hyper graphic surveillance missile in the china sea, the hylan island, hong kong, and my question is very simple. Seeing the land grab that weve had in the south china sea, with china and the buildup, that was going on back then. And my question is, why doesnt the u. S. Toll an island again, jack uprig, it would cause an absolutely chaos from the psychological point of view, and just operate 30 marines off it, and the helicopter, and to me, it would tie up the matelands and the fortune of them, and the jet of watching this little outpost in the south china sea. Thats not a bad idea. There are, theres a whole range of things that the United States could do but is not doing right now. That one could certainly be considered. I dont see why not. But to give you, to just expand a little bit on that, the defense of taiwan is an area where this administration has improved over the record of its predecessor, but its come this far, but that leaves between here and the other side of the room. Were not doing that. There are all sorts of things that the administration could do if Vice President pence, Vice President pences suggestion about a whole government approach to our, not just china, but to our alliances, and to Security Architecture that we have in the west pacific, were made possible, the administration has done some of it, but theres a lot left to be done. So i applaud the progress that has taken place so far, and hope that this administration, or whatever ones succeeded now, or in the future, take the same view of our security interest, in that part of the world, and act accordingly. Hello, gentlemen, tim tran, also a former navy Service Warfare officer. You talked about Aerial Assets to target surface vessels but im curious to hear about your isrt in the realm of undersea warfare as well. As we all know, Chinas Nuclear attack submarines have stealth and endurance and attack capability that could really threaten our sea lines of communication, in order to keep outposts like guam or Carrier Strike groups well supplyed so im curious to see what your recommendations would be for improving the navys undersea warfare isrt. One of the areas where im actually really satisfied where things are, and i know its dangerous for somebody like me to see theyre satisfied, the p8 buy is enormous, were buying a lot of them. The ansqr 889, victor 15, asw system, that were putting on our ships, turn those ships into significant longrange active and passive asw platforms. I havent even gotten to the worlds best submarine force yet. There is, there is no military skill, where the difference between the number one nation and the number two nation is larger than subSurface Warfare. Our submarine force is just that good. I put those things together with unmanned surface, unmanned undersea vessels, glide, unmanned surface vessels that are essentially gliders that then carry acoustic platforms beneath them. Were doing quite a bit to ensure that we maintain that undersea mastery over china versus their submarines. Now i think one of the things that we have to worry about is the kind of arrogance that i just displayed, and that is, asw, or undersea warfare dominance is not a birth right. Chinas got a lot of engineers that are working really hard to try to figure out how to make the sea less opaque. I know our own submarine force tends to talk as if that will never happen, and that well just keep getting better, faster than they can understand the environment. I think, though, that thats not a Winning Strategy for the long haul. And that we have to begin to take their asw capabilities a little more seriously. Weve got to go. Its, i saw the proverbial hook coming. We got the hook. From the back of the room. So were, so i would like to thank you for joining us this afternoon. Excellent participation from the audience. And hope youll be here the next time we have another one of these discussions. Thank you. [ applause ] and thank our panelists. Everyone else, please. The house and senate are back this week. The house has yet to decide on the impeachment managers, and sending the two articles of impeachment over to the senate. Eventually, the senate will sit as a jury to hear the case against President Trump. We also expect the senate to take up the u. S. Mexico canada trade agreement which the house approved in december. And congress will hear President Trump deliver the state of the Union Address on february 4th. Watch the house, live, on cspan. And the senate live on cspan 2. Campaign 2020. 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You have until january 20th, to create a five to six minute documentary that explores an issue you want the president ial candidates to address during the campaign 2020. Were giving away 100,000 with a grand prize of 5,000. For more information go to our web site student cam. Org. Journalists share their experiences on covering the u. S. mexico border. Talked about what life is like there during todays political climate. Now, it is my great pleasure to introduce our moderator for tonights discussion. Simone romero is a National Correspondent for the new york times, based in albuquerque, new mexico. He was previously the Brazil Bureau chief for the times covering brazil and other parts of south america. He has written extensively on a