Watch any of the past programs online at booktv. Org. Graduate of the u. S. Naval academy, he went onto earn masters degree and doctors, hes a distinguished graduate of the u. S. Naval war college. Hes the author of seven prior books, this is his eighth, over 100 articles of naval procedures, leadership and geopolitical issues. Even his wife is an author. Very same place that he got his doctorate. 15 prestigious civilian awards for his work and within the last year, within the last 11 amongst he has been considered for a Vice President ial pick by one Political Party and as secretary of state by another Political Party. I find that probably more [laughter] when james serve, people listen, they listen very, very careful. Im really glad to see so many people here tonight that have come to listen to him speak. All of this experience sea and shore have given him deep insight about the global state of affair that is we face today. We are very fortunate to have him here tonight with his newest book sea power which i cannot wait to read, ladies and gentlemen, james stavridis. [applause] thank you. Thank you. Well, normally when people hear that introduction, bob, thank you that was very kind, steve, thank you for having me here. Normally when people hear that introduction they have one overwhelming reaction when they meet me in person, boy, i thought you would be taller than you appear to be. We are going to take just a couple of minutes and talk about the oceans of the world today and, you know, so often as we look at a map of the world, we tend to think of the land, right, its logical, yet 70 , 70 percent of this planet are the oceans, by the way, 70 of your body is compiosed composed of water and here is another one 70 of the oxygen that you breath comes from photosnthesis. The british say the oceans are one. They connect everywhere,i invite you to think of 70 . The water world that we inhabit here today. What im going to do is very quickly take 20 minutes and walkthrough the oceans of the world and kind of tie it together with the challenges we face and then what we ought to do about it. So lets start with the pacific ocean. This is 1589 chart of the pacific by ortellas, bottom right you see the polynesians, 10,000 years ago to inhabit the pacific. As i got ready to get underway in san diego in my 500foot 10,000toni said to my 300man and women crew, the pacific is dangerous, we ought to really be on our toes. Can you imagine getting in on out rigor and sailing 5,000 miles. The polynesians did that. This is an ancient sea, its the largest of the ocean. The pacific is 170 million scare kilometers but i will give you a better way to think about the pacific. You can take all the land in the world and put it inside the pacific ocean. Its enormous and it is an ancient sea. It has been sailed, it has been sailed for cinch centuries. Here are two ships, bottom ship looks like a little toy, youll know that ship, thats the santa maria, like the nina, the pinta and the three ships that Christopher Columbus sail today sailed to america. The behemoth was from the same time period, 1450, flagship of the chinese admiral hi, it was 420 feet long, six decks, 500 harnesser on it. It dwarfs the ship Christopher Columbus sailed. We need to understand how china views the pacific as ancient sea, enormous sea and when you know they have sailed for centuries. In the American Mind when we think about the pacific, what do we think about typically . World war ii. Attack on pearl harbor, campaign to retake the pacific. This is a period of time the early 1940s when the United States navy has not hundreds of ships as we do today, we had hundreds of Aircraft Carriers, today we have 12 Aircraft Carriers, hundreds of Aircraft Carriers, we dominated the pacific. In america so few of the pacific tends to inculcate the dna. But another nation is rising at sea and its an ancient nation, ancient civilization and it is china. These are chinese Ballistic MissileNuclear Powered submarines. Highly capable, i put them here as examples as the rise to the chinese fleet that we have seen really over the last decade, chinese now have two Aircraft Carriers, again, we have 12, but they are building and they are on a constant increase in their maritime capability and its not just ships, on the left, tokyo, this is the Pacific Century building, among the largest in tokyo, largest commercial centers, built and owned by china. On the right, you see a chinese warship proudly pulling into a port visit, where, pearl harbor, hawaii, the United States of america. China is on the move. China has what they regard as historical claim to the South China Sea. It would be roughly as though the United States claimed to own the gulf of mexico. Chinas belief is that their ancient territorial right is the result of all of those voyages of admiral and as a result they own that water space, 80 of pacific trade passes through the South China Sea and to reinforce this claim, china is building artificial islands and reefs, many of them, thousands of acres and theyre militarizing, each one of those islands becomes a kind of Aircraft Carrier from which china seeks to operate and it reinforces their claims under international law. Fortunately we have allies in the region, we have japan, which is increasing its military spending and is more incline to operate along side us, we have south korea, booming economy, new president , our allies are the heart of our merit Time Strategy in the region and its good that we have them because we have an enormous tactual problem. China is a strategic challenge. The tactical problem is right here. Its north korea. This is similar kim jong un, kim jong un, untested, untribed, morbidly obese, addicted to opioids, really bad haircuts and building Ballistic Missile that can range great distances, over time his ambition to create nuclear weapons, mary them to these missiles and fly them over the pacific. We have a significant challenge here and that in a sense is a good thing because it provides interest between the United States and china in the pacific. Lets turn to the atlantic as we kind of skip around these oceans and this is how the book sea power is structured. Each chapter, history of the ocean and what its like to sail in the ocean as mariner. The atlantic is the ultimate transit zone in history in so many ways and it begins with these great mariners who all come from the iberian peninsula, pain and portugal, prince henry, everyone would recognize Christopher Columbus, upper left the greatest of navigators, magelen. Bortolomo, open it is route to africa in the and cane ocean, the mariners transit the atlantic and create a global economy. How do we think of it in the United States . We think of world war i and world war ii, are absolute determination to resupply the europeans in those two wars create transit zones, convoys, much warfare, two small hinges, these convoys are swinging big doors of the war. If we had not controlled the atlantic, we would not have succeeded in either of those wars. So thats the american view of the atlantic. Today we are challenged in the atlantic by vladimir putin, resurgence of the russian navy and our problem is that we keep looking for the strategic terrain in the atlantic on this map and its not there. The strategic terrain is right here. Its the mind of vladimir putin. He is rebuilding the russian navy. This is a brandnew russian freight in the next three years russia will add 100 ships to the region. We will be challenged on our coast, greenland, island, united kingdom, uk gap, we will see u resurge in russia in the atlantic as we see a resurgent china in the pacific. Lets turn to Third Largest ocean, that would be the indian ocean, pacific about 160 million square kilometers, atlantic around 100, indian ocean just a tad smaller but a big ocean. You could take the entire land mass mass of the United States times three and put nit the indian ocean, it began spice routes increasing hydrocarbons, the two geopolitical actors, india on the left and pakistan on the right, have their own kind of cold war manifesting and merit time confrontation in this indian ocean. We see piracy around the edges of it and across the coast of yemen, interplay of shiite, thats iran supporting sunni with the United States leading to saudi arabia. A great deal of action is playing out in the merit time theater and we ought to consider the number one challenge in the indian ocean is right here. Its iran. Thats the iranian flag, thats co2 missi. Iran sees itself as imperil power. They will seek to recreate the persian empire. Darias the great. Look at the water space around the persian empire. And all of it brings confrontation between upper right, iran, shiite nation, bottom left, sunni world led by saudi arabia, closest ally and friend israel in the middle of this mix. The United States very much involved. So maritime activity, not only to South China Sea, not only atlantic, this Persian Arabian Gulf and indian ocean. What else . The mediterranean. How many people have got gone on a cruise in the miditerranean sea. The mediterranean has seen the most combat, the most war. If i could snap my fingers and bring back to life all of the dead mariners drowned at sea and somehow miraculously bring them back, we would completely cover the surface of the Mediterranean Sea with those sailors. This is the battle of lapanto, epic battle time battles in history in which a Christian Coalition led by the austrianhungarian empire fought the otomon empire. A place where war at sea began. Today the challenge is in the Eastern Mediterranean, syria, this is the brutal dictator and war criminal assad, he has a coastline on the Eastern Mediterranean and here is what it looks like. Its confrontation between the United States and russia, thats the russian flag right above the u. S. And the other nations of this region are in conflict not only about the geopolitics but also about the hydrocarbons. This is an area in the world rich under the sea in oil and natural gas. These nations will compete for that. So [inaudible] it is, indeed. What does it all lead to . Waves of refugees that move and take a look at that refugee boat, picture yourself on that trying to cross those waters. So these are deeply, deeply conflicted waters with huge humanitarian challenges and great issues at play. Lets come a little close the other home here in florida. This is the caribbean. It is a sea that we know well here in florida and im a florida native by the way, i was born just north of west palm beach, the less expensive side of town. [laughter] the caribbean is an extraordinary body of water rich in tradition and history, today from a u. S. Perspective the beating heart of it is the panama capable. Twothirds of u. S. Maritime and been expanded recently yet there are challenges here in the mediterranean, maritime challenges, gangs upper right are going to sea, natural disasters plague the region. Bottom left we have refugee problems here, upper left we have the challenge of narcotics. On narcotics, let me show you a rather hopeful photograph, this is a drug bust. This is a hightech u. S. Navy vessel capturing a drug runner. Bad news the u. S. Navy vessel is the one on top. The one in the bottom batman submarine that was built in the jungle of colombia. When we caught this thing and truth in advertising theres a Navy Destroyer just outside the picture, when we caught this thing, it had 10 tons of cocaine in it. Street value miami, 150 million. Lets park the issue of should people use drugs or not. I think its a medical issue, personal choice. What i worry about is the money. Cost the cartel 5 million in, 5 million in and 5 million out. Thats what creates corruption driven by demand here in the United States. And so luckily we have partners who focus on this on the transit zone. We have to work on the supply side in places like in the indian ridge and work on the demand side in the United States and address medically the challenges here. Lets go north to the arctic. On the left is a doomed vessel, the uss janet, sailed and powered itself up into the high north in mid19th century, got caught in the ice, its crude, most of them lost, a handful escaped, it shows us that even as late as the late 19th century we had no idea what was in the high north. Today i will tell you as a fact that the ice is melting. We can have a big debate, im here as a mariner and i am telling you as a fact, the ice is melting, as a result, those sea lanes of communication are going to open, hydrocarbons will be available and significant competition in the high north. We have a chance, unfortunately of turning this into a real cold war, punt intended, over time and russia on one side of this arctic and five nato nations, u. S. , canada, denmark because of greenland, iceland, norway on the other side. This because of the ice melting will create real geopolitical challenge. There is something called the Arctic Council, nato kind of one side and russia on the other, lets hope we can find a way to use diplomacy to avoid further conflict in the high north. And we dont have enough ice breakers, anybody know how many ice breakers the United States has . One, you get it, you get the prize. Denmark a nation of 400 million people, they have 6. Russia has dozens, china has 12 and its building more. We need to step up our game if we are going to operate in the high north. Lastly having walked you through the oceans, let me turn to what i call sometimes the outlaw sea, the outlaw sea. The oceans are the largest crime scene in the world. Pollution, dumping, piracy itself, fishing, underreported, underregulated, catches of proteins down 60 over the last two decades and the oceans are warming, again, we can have a debate about why thats happening but its a fact and again, environmentally we face the longterm challenge because our oxygen comes from the oceans. With all respect to al gore who told us many times the amazon are the lungs of the earth, thats not right, the oceans are the lungs of the world, thats where our oxygen comes from. So right about now you ought to say, okay, admiral, im worried, you took us on a tenminute voyage and im worried. Well, what do you think . What are the opportunities to create better security and to harness the oceans responsibly, what would this 19th century old broken down admiral, offered strategy 150 years ago, what would he say about the world today . Whats the first thing we should do to make sure we can continue to be a sea power. Now you think the next picture is going to be like an Aircraft Carrier coming at you, no, the number one thick we should do is listen more, listen more, this gentleman is listening. This is actually from about 80 years ago. Its an early air defense system, hes listening for incoming aircraft but i put it here for us as metaphor, we should listen literally to the oceans. We need to study them and understand whats going on. We should listen to our allies, our partners, our friends in the world, we should listen to our opponents so we can find ways to avoid conflict, thats my number one prescription. What else can we do . This is the Naval War College in new port, rhode island, we can do exactly what youre doing tonight, we can stop, we can listen like students do at a college and we can learn and converse, agree, disagree in a responsible way, we can have a dialogue and build intellectual capital to understand our oceans. What else . We can hold onto our values, our values and our values come to us, up or left from the ancient greeks, aresto, and buddha, the young voltere on the right. Normally an old man like me, through the Founding Fathers to people like angela merkel, i would argue the most responsible valuedriven leader in the world today. Responsibility for future generations as well as geopolitical concerns today. What else can we do . Im at a wonderful bookstore, i iiconic bookstores in america, we can read more, we can read magazines like the economists, unbiased central centrist magazine with no bylines, people ask me sometimes in this era of fake news, where do i turn, try the economists. I spent four years reading the president s intelligence brief. You read the economist cover to cover once a week, you will get 80 plus percent of what the president is seeing. You can read biographies of great officers, potter and one of my mentors, you want to read a novel, life at sea and war and impact on people but above all the oceans, rules of the game about the battle or reach back into history and reread, ethans confronting sparta, how does that turn out, here is a picture of the Aircraft Carrier. We need a strong and capable navy. Our fleet today is 275 ships. Under president reagan we had almost 600. In world war ii we had thousands. We are not in an open war, we are not in cold war, we dont need 600. We need more than 275. We need 325 to 350 ships. Thats not me kind of winging it, that is serious analysis, how do we get there, we have to build some more, we have to extend the life of some but we need a capable fleet but its not just about your navy, its also your coast guard, your marine corps, the joint partners that work together, its about our allies and friends, look at this photograph. These are pirates being captured, somali pirates out of captain phillips. U. S. French marines who have landed in an Italian Military helicopter, they refuel at danish, based on satellite imagery provided by the United States, its a coalition, folks, we dont want to be the worlds policeman, thats not our job, we want to work with allies, friends and partners to take on advantages together so in addition to our navy and our joint partners, we need our allies, our friends, when we go to face china as we must in the South China Sea in the artificial islands we are relying not only on our ships but japan and south korea and South Raleigh to help australia. We need more of this. When i was commander of u. S. Southern command in doral for three years, colonel jorge saveedra was my team lead for many, many things. We filled these hospital ships with doctors and nurses private sector, interagency, allied doctors, we had dutch and French Military doctors and civilian volunteers, we had everybody operating on this. It was the ultimate team sport in many years of admiral i ordered the deployment of many Aircraft Carriers into combat. The most important deployments i made were the hospital ships, im firmly convinced of that. We need privatepublic corporation. This is private vessel receiving fuel after being freed from pirates by u. S. Navy fueler. And i will conclude the background of this book, its not only the geopolitics which i talked about, trade and the economy, 95 of the worlds trades move at sea but i try to communicate in the book what its like to be a mariner, what its like to sail into the arctic, what its like to sail through the strait of gibraltar. Its choppy, its challenging, i spent 11 years of my life day for day on the deep ocean. I spent 16 years assigned ships, 11 day for day on that ocean. Sometimes things go wrong. [laughter] more often and this is where i want to close, this is the ocean i know, its the ultimate room with a view, an office with a view. It was a privilege to serve my nation. I tried to pour that experience into this book to pull history along side it, geopolitics with it but above all, this is a sailors book, thank you very much for being with me today. Thank you, thank you. [applause] thank you. Thank you. Very kind. Thank you very much. I would love to take some questions about the issues in the world today, the book, anything youd like to ask at all. Yes, sir. Admiral, the graph picture that you had, japan, south korea yeah. Yeah, i should put new zealand and philippines and thailand. You are correctly pointing out in addition to those three who are treaty allies, new zealand, thailand and philippines are treaty allies and have close relationship with singapore. Not quite a treaty ally but close. So i put those three because they have the most capable navy, most likely to operate with us in that particular scenario, thanks. Yes, sir. I want to ask about as your commander you have experience of latin america, growing unrest in venezuela and instability and what kind of challenges in the United States in terms of refugees or piracy i think you hit the darkend of the spectrum, a complete collapse of order in the nation which conceivable could lead to waves of refugees, its more likely that they would move across the border into colombia than take to sea but number probably would take to sea. I dont think its a maritime problem per say but an enormous potential humanitarian crisis. Already within venezuela, do we have any venezuelans here tonight, normally we would in miami audience, im shocked we dont, it is becoming increasingly difficult to find the basic necessities of life and see real violence on the street, let us hope that maduro does the right thing which is not to create a new kind of lump parliament and jam a new constitution through. Let us hope that he allows the current rule of law to follow, what the United States ought to do is support the efforts of the oas organization of american states to put pressure on maduro to do the right thing and follow the legalities within the venezuelan constitution. We should feel very positive that we are seeing both colombia and brazil who are helping with that and putting immediate pressure on. In terms of hydrocarbons and impact on the u. S. Economy, not significant at this point. The United States has become a net exporter of hydrocarbons, we dont have time for a long discussion about the energy piece of this, but its much more humanitarian crisis, the United States should not take the front line in this because it would allow maduro to create a target in the United States. We ought to use our allies and friends in the region not try to be the worlds policemen, let others take the lea, its a huge, huge challenge in the hemisphere, yes, maam and then up here. My question is about the north and the changing patterns and the trade that could happen in the north and russias long standing desire for a warm water port, so can you give us sort of a 20year outlook on that . I can, assuming that Global Warming continues which is a pretty good bet, we will see within 20 years, we will see sea lanes of communication, the shipping lanes open all year round. That means we have to create systems of booies to mark them and search and rescue and we have to ensure that mariners can operate safely in those waters particularly huge crudecarrying tankers, l g tankers, we have to create a regime to do that we need a cooperative relationship with russia, the problem is we have an extreme geopolitical confrontation with russia over syria where they support assad over their invasion of ukraine and intrusion of election using cyber. How do we get out of this . My belief with we use the Arctic Council which i highlighted for you and we try to take a pragmatic approach with russia that says we will confront where we must on the crucial issues i mentioned but lets find some zones of cooperation with russian federation. I think the arctic could be one of those zones, so i am cautiously optimistic that we will be able to preserve this extremely fragile environment, one which has never known war and over time find a cooperative relationship with russia there because it is in their interest as well as ours. Yes, sir. It has to do with china, possible confrontation in South China Sea which ive heard in other areas. Seems to me that britain had similar issue with the caribbean, the United States felt the caribbean was our sea and we were going to grab it and britain had a choice, they could confront the United States or they could let the United States take control of the caribbean because they had more desperate threats, seems to me that looking at the South China Sea, china has reason to believe that its their sea. Do they really pose such a threat to us that we cannot give them more room to maneuver in the South China Sea and avoid the confrontation and see to their control of that area just like most of the world exceeds our control of the caribbean . First of all, i would say that mexico, cuba, jamaica, trinidad and tobago, et cetera, do not in any way exceed to u. S. Control of the caribbean. What china is attempting to do to follow your analogy would be to actually take territorial control, to make that a territorial sea. So i think the analogy breaks down a bit because of the expansiveness of the chinese desire here. I think its fair to say and i would agree with you that it is reasonable for us to believe that china ought to have significant influence in asia. That makes sense, but we should not exceed to simply territorial control over an enormous body of water. That would be an enormously bad precedent. I think historical analogy thats more apt that that you kind of pulled at was the confrontation between Great Britain and germany about 100 years ago. Here you have an established power facing a rising power. An established power is challenged by a rising power. My friend Graham Allison professor at harvard has done analysis over the 16 times in the last several thousand years that that situation has entailed, in 12 of those situations the two nations go to war. In four of them, they do not. What we need to do is understand china, listen to them, exceed where we can, cooperate where we can, but confront where they really push beyond the borders of what makes sense. If we do that, your point, i think, we can avoid open confrontation. Others, how about the young man over here . Hello. Okay. As an admiral, whats the primary differences land attack versus a land battle . Great question. So the ocean, the biggest thing, of course, is terrain, the oceans here is a news flash, the oceans are flat, there are no terrain borders between them, you know how fast you can cross them, you have many more known elements in a sea battle on the surface. On the land, you have enormous obstacles, you have to get over. The challenge back over here for the admiral is whats happening below the sea in todays world. I sometimes envy admirals like lord nelson who could see all of the challenge in front of him. An admiral today has to worry about undersea battle thats very 3 dimensional. I would say in really simple terms, an admiral has to deal with the surface of the oceans but his challenge is whats happening underneath and, of course, theres air battle overhead but thats the same in both components, flattens on the sea but danger on the sea. The general has many more challenges in terms of obstacles in physical zone but he or she can map those and doesnt have to deal with that hidden dimension under the water. So two different kinds of battle mind sets are necessary between admirals and general. How about somebody over here . How would you describe [inaudible] Christopher Columbus, i like the 1500 how do you describe the skills of the mariners in 15, 16th century. I will expand. Today being a mariner is a lot easier, you have satellites overhead that pinpoint your position, you have distant Surveillance System under sea and in the air, you have many more tools. The mariners that i showed you had to rely on wind and current on pilot orders, the last time i took the voyage, the prevailing winds were from the northeast and that means that i was getting its very intuitive kind of sailing. Early mariners developed navigation as they went along, navigational systems including the use of but that is before, so people like Christopher Columbus sailed by direct reckoning. They take their ships, they take a log to see how far they have gone in a given hour or day, they plot it on a chart, estimate how much the current and the winds have pushed them off, it was a very intuitive, the difference i would say between art and science today. [laughter] how about someone over here . How about back in the corner . I heard some expert say that Aircraft Carriers are a thing of the past and the focus that the u. S. Has on them is a mistake, im not sure i agree but i was curious on your take on that. Aircraft carriers remain the center piece of the u. S. Fleet and they are enormous machines of war just to give you an idea of the scale of the ships, you could take the Empire State Building and lay it on its side, thats how long an Aircraft Carrier is, its 100,000 tons, its flight deck is 8 acres of sovereign u. S. Territory, it has 80 combat aircraft on it. More to the point, it is defended, it doesnt sail by itself, its defended by cruisers, destroyers, frigets, Surveillance System, they are well protected. They are not invulnerable. They could potentially be hit by rues missile. We should rely on carriers but we should not make them indispensable, we need to distribute combat power with tomahawk missiles with other large ships, we have that capability. We need a balanced fleet, 12 carriers, cruisers and frigets, we need a distributed fleet. I will close by saying, our opponents focus constantly on the carriers. How about back over here in the hawaiian shirt . What unintended consequences, if any, would have occurred at the end of the cold war if the United States gradually got out of south korea trying to make it just a local dispute between the north and the south because it appears to me that its all an attention call to the United States that we are there and if we had just left the north and south have a local dispute, india and pakistan, it might be a little bit better. I think what you would have today its always a fascinating game to sort of think about what, what if we had done this, what if we hadnt gotten into vietnam, my guess would be the entire korean reanyone sulla would be unified and subject to china. It would be a chinese vessel state, essentially. And recall that the reason the United States went into korea was because it was invaded and so one could make the argument that if we had just given up at that point and left, north korea what is today the north korean state would have dominated, a hard line stalinist communist state. Go on google and google Korean Peninsula at night. Theres a single point alike. Everything is black, to the south a fully illuminated world, if we would not have stayed the bottom half would not have been fully illuminated, thats my view. Its 8 00 oclock. I would love to sign books for you. Thank you very much. [applause] [inaudible] thank you for coming. [inaudible conversations] book tv is on facebook, liketous get publishing news and scheduling updates and behind the scenes pictures and videos, author information and to talk with authors during live programs. Facebook. Com booktv. We want to introduce you to