The asia pacific region. Secondly, that we would maintain freedom of access throughout that region. In particular, we would maintain the sea lanes in that area, whatever the challenge might be. Even as we reduce our defense budget, therefore we must maintain and would maintain a powerful navy, and that that navy would be charged with maintaining the freedom of those sea lanes. We had, of course, to be concerned as to whether there would be a challenge for that. We observed that the rise and shine has more energy needs for more energy than they can produce themselves, and to maintain the Economic Growth which they believe is essential. We observed that the South China Sea is a potential source of Energy Supplies for china and that there is a contention among the nations in that region as to where the ownership and rights of access are to the South China Sea. And this is conceivable that china might seek to reestablish its claim there by military coercion and that could lead them into a
Program of exercise we conducted. The exercises were not only conducted on military scenarios, but we had an extensive set of exercises involved in humanitarian response. During the time i was secretary, we had a Disaster Response very similar to the one theyre doing here in San Francisco today. We bought naval forces from the United States, from russia and japan all to honolulu where we had simulated a tsunami disaster. And these three great nations brought their fleets to honolulu exercising how to respond and alleviate that disaster. Well, that was then. How about now . Last year the United States released a new Security Strategy. Most of you probably have not even heard of that, but i have to tell you this was a big deal. It was one of the fifth American Security strategies that we have issued since the civil war. Among the highlights of that Security Strategy was a strong statement that the United States had the highest economic and security interests in the asia pacific region. N
Our midst who already have the training and the experience to take care of the world . How did we put our veterans best to use in taking care of us in a future disaster . The third thing i want to ask of you is to help us think about lessons around recovery. In the wake of new orleans, our City Government started looking at how we prepare our self. And one thing we discovered was, as you all know, the relationships that exist on the ground between civilians and between our First Responders, really will help to dictate our success in tackling not just our response, but our recovery. And this is why last year in my district, in the heart of north beach which i hope many of you will have a chance to visit, we set up a coordinating council, and this is a council made up of local residents, neighborhood associations, merchant groups, churches, nonprofit organizations, city officials, and First Responders. The task of this local coordinating council was to figure out how do we deal with that
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
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