Aboard this symbol of americas millery power, the uss macon island. What a pleasure it is to be among the men and women of our armed forces and the men and women of the First Responders of the San Francisco bay area. Fleet week for many years in San Francisco was a somewhat [inaudible] affair and it has been transformed into this great coming together by the military and the First Responders, the great coming together of our uniformed personnel and a great [speaker not understood] of San Francisco. This amazing transformation in the last few years was due primarily to the vision and the dedication of three people, george and Charlotte Schultz and mike myers. Id like to pause to thank all three of them for this work. applause and in april of 1996, my last year as secretary of defense, i met one morning intelligence briefing at 7 oclock along with general charlie. The previous day general hughes had briefed us that the Chinese Military were to begin extensive military maneuvers in the ta
Experience i had and i say that honestly, to get to know these two people. And he then became our secretary of defense. And many of us that have served thought that he was one of the best secretary of defenses weve ever had. Hes currently a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute and a freeman Foley Institute of international studies. He is the michael and barbara bavarian professor at Stanford University and serves as codirector of the Nuclear Risk Reduction initiative and preventive defense project. Please help me welcome our speaker this morning, former secretary of defense william perry. applause what a pleasure it is to be aboard this symbol of americas millery power, the uss macon island. What a pleasure it is to be among the men and women of our armed forces and the men and women of the First Responders of the San Francisco bay area. Fleet week for many years in San Francisco was a somewhat [inaudible] affair and it has been transformed into this great coming together by the milit
Group. While deployed in 2004, he spearheaded Maritime Patrol relief efforts toing the 2004 indian ocean tsunami, as well as numerous theater cooperation efforts throughout the pacific and in 2009 captain napolitano reported as Commanding Officer of the expeditionary training group. This is a fabulous panel and i know youre going to appreciate what they have to say. Rear admiral, i think youll start. First of all on behalf of the chilean navy i would like to thank so much to San Francisco fleet week, particularly to admiral Gary Roughhead for being invited to participate in this senior seminar. Its a privilege for me to be here and to share with you the experience that we had just during and after the earthquake that we had in chile in february 27, 2010. Most of the Lessons Learned that im going to show here to you is part of your concern and im very glad you are taking that in account so i think you are absolutely in the right path. Anyway, its a massive event that you always have to
Them into a confrontation with the United States desire to maintain free access. The best way of avoiding that military conflict is what we should see because the military conflict with china would be catastrophic for both nations, indeed for the whole region. So, we want to avoid that. I believe the best way of avoiding that is by maintaining a continuing to maintain a strong naval presence in the region, and by having an unambiguous commitment to doing that. I believe that our new National Security strategy is that unambiguous commitment, and i believe that the u. S. Navy is capable of maintaining that unambiguous military strength. As we sit here this morning aboard the uss macon island, in San Francisco bay, looking out to the pacific, it is easy to believe that the United States is, in fact, a Pacific Power and that to keep it that way we will maintain the best damn navy in the world. Thank you very much. applause speaker. Now im going to introduce our next speaker, Major General
[inaudible] affair and it has been transformed into this great coming together by the military and the first responders, the great coming together of our uniformed personnel and a great [speaker not understood] of San Francisco. This amazing transformation in the last few years was due primarily to the vision and the dedication of three people, george and Charlotte Schultz and mike myers. Id like to pause to thank all three of them for this work. applause and in april of 1996, my last year as secretary of defense, i met one morning intelligence briefing at 7 oclock along with general charlie. The previous day general hughes had briefed us that the Chinese Military were to begin extensive military maneuvers in the taiwan strait. This morning we were stunned to learn that they had fired two missiles that landed just 10 miles off the coast of taiwan. The taiwanese had a president ial election underway, and the chinese were using a not too subtle way of explaining to them what they wanted