 Well, good evening, and welcome to our first lecture of 2014. Hope everybody had a wonderful holiday season, and I'm sure that our students have returned, ready to refocus their attention on their rigorous studies. Tonight, we are very honored to have Dr. Kennedy with us. And before we get into some other introductions, I want to point out that both the grandsons of Chester Nimitz, Chet Lay Nimitz, and Richard, he goes by Dick, Lay Nimitz, are both here with us tonight. And I bring that up because not only we honor to have them here in the audience, but on February 24 of this year, our next evening lecture series will be the rollout of the Nimitz Gray Book. Now, the Nimitz Gray Book is Fleet Admiral Nimitz's notes to include some documents that were classified dating back to 1972, and that have not been seen by the general public in large form ever. And we're going to be rolling them out so that they're digitally available to the American public and all of our students, and we're going to have a rollout at a special ceremony that night. So we're very honored to have the Nimitz grandsons with us here tonight. Now, our lecture tonight is presented in memory of Admiral Raymond Spruance, a great naval hero of the Second World War and a past president of the Naval War College. It's sponsored by the Naval War College Foundation through the generosity of Mr. and Mrs. Harold Finn. We are indeed lucky to have one of the world's foremost historians with us tonight, Professor Paul M. Kennedy, the J. Richardson Dilworth Professor of History at Yale University. Dr. Kennedy was born in Northern England and educated at Newcastle University and earned his doctorate at the University of Oxford. He's the author or editor of 19 books, including his best known work, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, which has been translated into over 20 languages. He's currently working on a revised version of the seminal work. As an aside, after his speech, Dr. Kennedy has graciously offered to sign copies of his books for those in the audience who have brought them. He's received numerous honorary degrees and was made a commander of the Order of the British Empire. CBE in 2000 was elected a fellow of the British Academy in 2003. Now tonight, I'm very pleased to announce that Dr. Kennedy's list of honors are going to grow a little bit by announcing that he has been selected to receive the very prestigious Hattendorf Prize for Distinguished Original Research in Maritime History. The prize will be presented in a formal ceremony later this year on Pearl Harbor Day. So I want to say tonight, in front of this wonderful audience, congratulations to Dr. Kennedy. The Hattendorf Prize was established in 2011 to recognize the accomplishments of our very own Professor John Hattendorf, who is here with us tonight, who is himself a world renowned historian and author. Thank you, John, for all you have done for the college for nearly three decades. So tonight, without further ado, we'll turn the stage over to Dr. Kennedy for his presentation entitled The Three Great Naval Wars of Recent History and Their Implications for American Sea Power Today. Dr. Kennedy, the floor is yours, sir. Admiral Carter, sir. Dear members of the Naval War College Foundation, Professor Maurer, members of the faculty, ladies and gentlemen, it's a great honor for me to be here, back here with you tonight in particular on it, of course, for me to give the second Professor John Hattendorf annual lecture at the Naval War College. What a great idea to do so, a combination of this college study of naval history and strategy and a way of paying tribute to that remarkable student of American and international maritime history, John Hattendorf, who is here in the audience tonight. I see him down there. He's scrutinizing me with that slight mischievous look, which he's scrutinized at me since many, many years ago. I'm a bit disabled, as you can see, ladies and gentlemen, by managing to fall downstairs on leave in Cambridge, England last April, but just last November, Professor Hattendorf came over to address my new Navy ROTC, big lecture class at Yale. And he stood there for an hour without any notes whatsoever to talk about sea power in the modern world and sea power since 1945. And I thought, wow. How am I going to keep this guy down in the form? I mean, why doesn't he have a wheelchair, if you don't mind my saying so? And I would be so alert and humane and polished, but I can't keep up with him. I won't go into every aspect, not at all, of Professor Hattendorf's long career as your Ernest J. King professor here at Newport and the various ways in which he has encouraged as well as written and taught naval and maritime history over the years. And to repeat, I'm so honored to be able to give this second John Hattendorf lecture tonight. I was going to say I will forbear to mention, but of course I'm going to mention that he and I both earned a D. Phil at Oxford University, about a thousand years ago or something like that. Ladies and gentlemen, in this lecture tonight, I perform as a naval historian, but I also wish to offer brief reflections on the role of sea power in today's world and into the future. I venture to be so bold. This, after all, is the function of your renowned strategy and politics department here at the Naval War College. It's not simply a history department, not simply a politics department, a far from it, but it has many distinguished political scientists and historians teaching and mentoring within it. It also has to act as the United States Navy's college for teaching the future naval leadership of the country and to assist the US Navy itself in the consideration of contemporary and future maritime strategy based upon a serious reflection of the past. So I also wish to pay tribute to Professor John Mara and all his colleagues at the Strategy and Politics Department here at Newport. It has been a beacon to many of us in the academy. It's famous courses, which we took over, we stole the clothes of and turned into the year-long grand strategy course at Yale University. And large numbers of distinguished people, distinguished politicians and others come to attend our grand strategy course at Yale and they say, wow, this is brilliant. This is just what we need. Where did you guys get this Yale grand strategy course from and I say, well, if you give my colleagues another drink, I will tell you that we took it from a naval war college about 35 years ago. So home to home. The three great naval wars of modern time, we recollect as being that long war between 1793 and 1815, which we know of by reference as the French Revolutionary War with the brief break and then the Napoleonic War. It may seem very distant from us now, especially as the fledging US Navy really played no role in the major events there, the entry and exit in 1812 to 1814 being a brief exception. But there are nonetheless most interesting points to be made about and to consider on in that larger struggle for hegemony in Europe and beyond the world by Napoleon and his coalition and the opposite coalition, which remember was not just that led by Great Britain as a naval leader, but the coalition of the other powers of Europe, the Habsburg Empire of Austria, the Russia, the German states, Spain in its revolution and also a imperial Russia, a massive epic contest going over 20 odd years and something which therefore should bring things out of it which we could ponder on today, large things of the past remain in the past. Many other things are to be picked upon and considered upon. So let me consider in each of the great world wars of the modern time some things which I at least think are worth bringing to your attention tonight if I may. This war of 1793 to 1815 had a global range. Its sea power was projected nearby in the North Sea and into the Baltic, but also far afield around Africa and to the East. It had to be fought in one of course in the English Channel to prevent the armies of Napoleon from crossing into Southern England. It had to be fought throughout in the Baltic to ensure the supply of naval stores from that sea to Britain and the Allies. It had to be fought and projected into the Mediterranean. Once the British had projected themselves into the Mediterranean as the US Navy was to project itself into the Mediterranean in 1943 as the US Navy was to come back and project itself and stay in the Mediterranean after 1945. You had a key maritime forward wedge. It was said when the British took Gibraltar 100 years before this Napoleonic war that by seizing that strategic point of Gibraltar what Great Britain did was to divide France from France and Spain from Spain. If you think about it ladies and gentlemen we would be hard put today even to think of a more strategical important position than Gibraltar and wanted to further a feel which were picked up in that great struggle for empire and for hegemony in Europe, the Cape, Freetown, Singapore, Alexandria and Falkland Islands. All to do with sea power and the sources of sea power and the manifestation of sea power. There's much as we send our navies out today as we have our fleets out today across the globe to reflect on where it all started and perhaps we could say in the modern times it started with this great struggle for navies and for essentially the world. The, this war of Napoleonic war and before the French Revolutionary War was also an amphibious war. We sometimes forget about that when we think of yes I know about the Napoleonic war was where Nelson won the great victory of Trafalgar of the west, southwest coast of Spain but more than that it was an amphibious war and it was carried out amphibiously in various theaters over the 23 years or so and it teaches us a lot of lessons. Amphibious operations occurred in that period sometimes disastrously when it ignored topography and epidemiology some of the worst setbacks of British naval amphibious landings occurred in the Caribbean. You may be able to beat the French and you'd be able to beat the Spanish but it was pretty hard to beat malaria. It was pretty hard to beat the Tetsi fly. It was pretty hard to go into places where human beings were not supposed to go if there's one great lesson in strategy. Perhaps it is that we should not go into places where geography and topography and disease suggest that we should not be. But it was widely successful when this amphibious campaigning was within the nation's capacities as it was in the projection of force to Alexandria and Egypt, to Malta, to Cape Town another great, another great strategic point which divides one ocean from another ocean and the projection further after 1803 into what we call the Eastern Seas. The struggle against Napoleon the struggle particularly by Great Britain and its navy was one which did be carried out on land but we should notice that the British army was not large. It was Wellington's army, whatever the victories had garnered under the Iron Duke was not a very, very large army at all to begin with as the old joke goes. It was not a particularly English army at all if it hadn't been for the Scotch and the Irish. We would have been nowhere or the Hanoverians or the German Legion. So it was nothing like at its largest the ground forces which we projected into Korea and again into Vietnam and nothing like as large as the military force which we projected first of all into the Mediterranean with torch across the Pacific and of course that massive projection of amphibious force in June 1944. This was one where sea power could by the application of amphibious warfare not need so large an army and some great struggles we do and other ones we do not. And above all we should reflect that the eventual victory of the Allies against Napoleon rested upon ladies and gentlemen a productive and growing industrial base. Sound finances and solid credit, solid credit. Do we think that Great Britain fought that war simply by paying out of its own resources? Of course it did not. It went to its European bankers. It went to Nathan Rothschild again and again and again. It was because it had great credit because it was recognized as a country which would pay back its loans and its bonds and its treasuries but it could not only generate its own native resources for the long struggle but borrow and then after the war pay back and then after the war reduce its national debt. There's something to think about in that ladies and gentlemen. Of all the great seven wars that the British fought against Napoleon and Spain from 1688 to 1815, the expenses were great and the turn to the credit markers were great but the desire to pay off and reduce the national debt as swiftly as possible after the war was also great. Going to the bankers, appealing to your creditors was something that you did when you got into war. It was not something you did one year after another by asking the Congress to increase the indebtedness of this nation in peacetime. It was not. Without this credit line, without this productivity, without this resourcefulness based upon the geopolitical position there could have been no defeat of Napoleon and after him, Hitler, who we have to recall at both Napoleon and Hitler helped so, so badly or we should say perhaps so, so well to defeat themselves. If you're ever in a great war, it occurs to me. It's really useful when the other side helps to defeat themselves so dramatically as Napoleon and then Hitler did. There was no real rival. There was no real rival at all. And therefore for the whole period after 1815 there could be a period in which the British could this hegemonic war over display themselves but display themselves carefully and here are some lessons at all to consider when we think about the US Navy to date. What are the lessons in essence of what we call the so-called Pax Britannica? It was not a lesson of arrogance nor should the Pax Americana be thought of bringing a lesson of arrogance. It was a lesson of balance, judicious balance. It was a lesson in which this power which had won the great war could expand and exude itself across the globe but carefully it was a place where you, some places you went to and some places you did not go to. It was a period of long-term peace punctuated by wars from time to time. As small as possible. It was a one in which, yes, it seemed as if you were on your own but really even in the middle of the 19th century the British had allies in different strategic parts of the globe. It was a long period in which again rising industrial and productive output and good credit worthiness. Well, at the fore, it was a place where as the age of sale, as the age of gunpowder coming from the barrels of Nelson's fleet were to turn into industrial power, the age of wireless, the age of dreadnought, the age of rail, it was where then you had the advantage of your forward and advanced technology. Navies move over time and move again and again. That's why industrial technological advance and sophistication is so, so significant. It was an era in which you could go into certain seas and come out of certain seas. Sometimes you stayed because you did have allies but most of the time the great advantage of seapower, ladies and gentlemen, as a bacon, the great observer of Queen Elizabeth I's navy and policy, the great advantage of seapower, said Bacon, is that we may take as much of a war as we will and as little. Now years later, many people criticized Bacon for saying that there are actually some wars in which you cannot walk away. There are some places in which you have to stay supported by your seapower. What I want to stress today in recalling the aphorism of Bacon was that seapower surely should give us flexibility. It should give us that extra element which those pinned down by land do not have. It should give us that capacity, that surge power to come again across the oceans. It is amazing to me as I try to teach Admiral Carter about navies and naval power in my new Navy ROTC classes at Yale because the ROTC, Navy and Air Force ROTC have come back to Yale two years ago after 40 years of their absence. To teach these brilliant students is how little they know of the sea, how little they know of warships, how little they know of geography. We rest upon the sea, 95% of our commas today moves on the sea. We hardly see it. We fly everywhere. Heck, my Yale students know more about the four terminals at Heathrow Airport than they know about an American frigate. But there it is. We have to teach and instruct them. Many of whom just like the rising ranks of the officers here, many of whom are going on to Congress and elsewhere and to understand what the sea is, how significant it is, where we can use it and where we cannot use it. This is the importance of history. This is the importance of grand strategy. So that long period after 1815 is indeed useful for our consideration as we think about the United States and its navy in the long period after 1945 and especially going on into the future about which in a few minutes I will turn. But you can see what I'm now doing. I'm trying to bring certain aspects from each of these periods of history and saying which of these might we put in our bag? Which of these might we bring forward with us? You may then think it odd that I'm going to spend a little bit of time now upon lessons which might be drawn on aspects of the First World War in the evolution of sea power and in the place of the United States Navy in it. It was very little, it seemed to me and it seems to many that there are lessons then to be drawn from the First World War because the United States Navy was not in the war for the first full three years of that conflict. It did not enter the global conflict which we call the First World War until its third year in 1917 provoked by unrestricted German U-boat warfare. It was perhaps even more aloof from Europe in those three years of 1914 to 1917 and it was, I will argue, between 1939 and 1941 notwithstanding which they remain interesting facets to Americans' naval experience during which what was merely the final 16 months of a conflict. The U.S. Navy was actually in far better shape and size in 1917 than the Army when the Congress declared war ever since the Civil War and with a brief hiccup in 1898 war against Spain. The Army was a minuscule Indian hunting and garrison force with neither the weaponry the logistics and the men for massive fighting in Europe when the large American divisions the double-sized American divisions reached France from 1917 onwards they had to borrow from the British and the French the wear with all the machine guns the communications equipment the artillery especially the French artillery we had none of our own. Our men were swiftly drafted en masse here in 1917 but they had no training so even when the First Divisions got to France they were heavily reliant upon British and French armies and army instructors as well as trucks artillery signals equipment. It was only in 1918, mid 1918 that the strength of U.S. land performance became real very significantly near the end of a fighting, the end of a war when the Germans saw more and more of those massive divisions moving towards the frontier and towards Berlin they knew the game was up but for a long period of the war it had been more on naval power not our land power and more Great Britain's naval power that was an evidence. The contrast then with the U.S. Navy has to be made the Navy had benefited from the overall navalism of the turn of a century by the aura of the great white fleet by Roosevelt's unshaken support by the pretty hefty naval industrial complex even then. It had also benefited the Navy had from being a nifty propaganda campaign to a suspicious and inward looking Congress. The more powerful a Navy which was of course completely in American hands the more secure were America's own shores under less and less likely a hostile invasion even overseas possessions like Cuba, Puerto Rico or Hawaii were all right. They were all right because they gave early warning of foreign activity. When America was brought into the war then the reason for it reinforced this propaganda had the war not been caused by callous German attacks upon American civilians and American shipping had it not been caused by that not paying attention to international law that being the case only a strong American Navy standing there working with other navies could ensure the freedom of the seas. When American troops then were sent in those large numbers to France they acquired naval protection from the U-boats across the seas. In practical terms the First World War also did two great things for the U.S. Navy a full squadron of American battleships was sent to join the Grand Fleet at Scapa Flow and thus strengthen the, to join the Grand Fleet and thus strengthen the Royal Navy and the Allied Navies and at their experience up to date command and control techniques gunnery and participated in large fleet maneuvers the same U.S. Naval Squadron under Vice Admiral Sims was thus able to be in attendance and in full conflict readiness when the German High Seas Fleet after the Armistice steamed across the North Sea and surrendered to the Allies of Ross Scythe practically to the Grand Fleet and to all of the other Allies here was the surrendering German High Seas Fleet I often wonder ladies and gentlemen what a young American who was on one of the warships on one of the USS Connecticut there in November 1918 when he looked out and said look somebody called look and there is the the German High Seas Fleet surrendering and when he went back home on the farm and they said hey Billy boy what did you see what was the most interesting thing you saw in your two years in a Navy and over in Europe was it the surrender of the German High Seas Fleet because of Allied and Western seapower I think it must have been I think it must have been a memorable day not the only one in the 20th century for seapower Sims evidence for enthusiasm and enthusiastic commitment to the British was not shared by all of the U.S. Navy we know there were anglophonic elements in it which would continue their jealousy and paranoia of the larger Navy until the 1930s when the Japanese Navy took over to be the boogeyman and when the whole of this great place was adorned with the warm up of war plan orange as we see it just a few minutes away from here since the Versailles Settlement a rapid return to U.S. isolationism took place the cooperation of scarper flow and into history but the U.S. Navy learned a great deal in anti-submarine warfare operating out of the Irish ports in the last two years of the war in 1917 and 1918 it would have to be learned all again of course in 1941 in the 1920s and 1930s Admiral Carter I move on American seapower was dormant in respect of laggard although its defenders would argue that it was also latent something of a sleeping force needing to be aroused when real challengers emerge since the U.S. economy had by then become the greatest in the world even greater than Britain's American navalists wanted of course to have this country have the largest battlefield but the public and the Congress wanted not to see that battlefield in action wanted to see it in home base the compromises that the Washington treaties helped that it allowed a long period of naval holiday a long period of naval peace in the middle of this peace it seemed as if the U.S. Navy though was large had very little to do perhaps the only thing it had to do was here at Newport devising war games and the first instance I say to some amusement of mine devising war games in the 1920s and early 1930s against my beloved Royal Navy the only other game in town the only other large and efficient navy at all because as I say the Japanese Navy is not yet on the shore I have to give an anecdote here Admiral in October during the Yale break my wife said we've had enough of hanging around New Haven you are going to get in a car with me we're going up to Marblehead we're going to have a few days then that that lovely old shipping port that lovely old whaling port we're going to be then we're going to wander around and you're alone behold ladies and gentlemen what it professor Kennedy see but a little shop called marine memorabilia a naval warfare shop and I went in and I nosed around and the ancient man who owned it came up to me he actually had been in one of our carriers in the Korean War and he said what do you think that's down there then and I said I don't know it was a sort of a taché box it looked as if it unfolded look as if it was a large you know some place something you took to Las Vegas and you took all the chips out and you played on it or or a chess game or something so we set it out and we opened it all the dust came off it and you know what it was ladies and gentlemen in there were dozens and dozens of miniature balsa wood copies of the battleships the cruisers and destroyers of her majesties navy sir circa nineteen twenty eight and the notice inside the box said property of the u.s. naval artillery division necessary necessary for spotting practice against royal naval warships in the event of conflict i said oh my god oh my god i must have this and there it is in my office in new haven if you want to come along to professor kennedy's office in new haven you can if you're careful take out this little balsa wood model and to the astonishment of the old boy he brought one out and it was uh... it was two-and-a-half inches long three funnels two turrets for two after two guns probably about eight inch and i said that's a county class cruiser probably hms dosage and he turned around and we looked underneath and there was hms dosage i've never had a fine moment in my long careers and they were professor then to identify it my god let's get out of here kennedy my wife said before we buy the whole store and then let us go to the greatest naval naval encounter of all times that of the of the second world war and see what we draw from that very briefly the points but they are again major points because we are the inheritors of the naval war of the second world war we have therefore to briefly think of what was important about it at the end of the day it was important because certain things where the circumstance of it the second world war was again a truly global war atlantic mediterranean western europe across the pacific for the first time in such significant numbers just look by nineteen forty three said the disposition of our warships of our of our u.s. air force squadrons of our in increasingly mobilized army this was a global war no doubt about it a world war it was again lest we forget and alliance war it was so useful to us once again to have those three years of breeding space and learning space there were lots which we had to learn it was so useful to have that large british empire not large royal navy which in nineteen twenty eight were intent upon sinking that large royal navy out there on the oceans for three years fighting experiencing things and then alongside with us we should not forget that we inherited a global strategic position which is so favorable to us before because we came in at the end of three years and a global learning position not surprising that a lover congress believed to earn a period of isolation the u.s. navy and newport could tell you uh... a very great difference the busiest office i would guess of the u.s. navy sir between nineteen thirty nine and nineteen forty one was that of the u.s. naval attaché in in london because there was so many things being learned for when we would come in britain as a strategic shield for us but also as the learning the laboratory for us britain as a forward indestructible base for when we went back into europe just as on the other side of hitler's grand empire there was building up the u.s. s also would be again a grand strategical alliances church will put it over on the east great wasting bloody mall overall weakening helping to weaken the access powers until they were brought down great and horrendous casualties it was a war the second world war which manifested again the industrial and economic and financial unfolding with this nation with the capacity by the end of the war our gross domestic product was twice as large as it had been in nineteen forty three rare to fight a large large expensive war and come out twice as rich unequaled in history perhaps apart from some of the british wars of the eighteenth century did it pay for all of this of course the u.s. did not pay for all of the expenses of the navy the air force and the army between nineteen forty one and nineteen forty five but it had it had a lesson again from great britain it's credit worthiness was large we with our strong credit worthiness could raise monies could float treasury bonds could float five year and ten year bonds and go out and it could be subscribed to us as it was subscribed to britain and earlier conflicts i often think and i perhaps it did not occur to you until later in that wonderful movie sons of our fathers the that two-point movie which is about but he would jima that when the young american men are brought home to be displayed across the country in nineteen forty five that task to sell bonds those young and nervous americans who had been at you a jima not quite sure who was there who had planted the flag were hastily brought home uh... rather cynically i think but they were brought home because the american people had to understand they had to dip evermore into their pockets to buy more war bonds to pay for the victory of the conflict and that all manifested itself that victory manifested itself not just in the dramatic battles of midway and the carolinas not just in critical convoy protection not just in the epic defeat of the u-boats we often forget that the longest battle of the second world war was a battle against the u-boats and against the japanese submarines it began on the first day it ended on the last day it was a war on which projected amphibious land is occurred in numbers we could hardly conceive of it was a war on which an amphibious landing was being prepared which had it happened had not Hiroshima uh... naga sake occurred would have been the largest amphibious landing of all against the homeland of japan and therefore does meet i think that the war ended in tokyo bay with the sun going down of a mount fiji and in therefore in the bay itself the dozens hundreds of american and allied ships and the surrender being signed the deck of the great battleship uss missouri it is symbolic fitting very much let me briefly say something to the fourth what for you might be the most intriguing and most important part of my remarks c power today since nineteen forty five into the future they will hold me and say professor kennedy you must also cover the period in detail from forty five to the present before you go into the future you must say a lot about the ronald reagan age of c power before you dare turn to the present and the future but my reply will be is though if one keeps to the high ground a strategic analysis as i'm trying to do today when you will understand that this part of my story from the second world war to the present and turning into the future can be seen as one historic era uh... historic era in which we as historians and strategists can attempt once again to to pull out three four five or six features which were all of this period since the second world war which are all today in which i think will be off tomorrow to do so i mean that a full understanding of the past is not going to inform everything that will happen in the future we're not tied down to the past the past informs us it does not control us that does not tell us the complete truth it certainly does not tell us in a narrow sense what to do we engage with historical a study here at Yale and at Newport to broaden our awareness to sensitize us to make us ask questions we have no fixed blueprint but we know what blueprints are so we have to pay attention to everything we have to pull back though in knowing everything about the smaller parts of war in knowing where the different parts fit in and being aware of what i've recently called the engineers of victory the problem solvers who turn the tide in past wars and i think will turn the tide in future wars we have to stand on the top of the hill and see how the caravan of history has unwound over time since nineteen forty five how it is as it reaches a point exactly opposite us and is winding further as caravans do into the future it winds into the future not as a single predeterminate straight highways if going across the arizona desert it winds into the future forward inexorably as a river going into a distant sea and therefore the position the attributes we should be looking for are not dissimilar to some of those which we have looked at in the past three examples this is the point of this whole lecture in going forward we can be sensitized in going forward we can be assisted by the story of the trafalgar war of the great wars of a royal navy we can be assisted by the long pax britannica we can be assisted by the first and second world wars and their main attributes very very clearly even though we have a navy which is so different from that of the second world war especially the first world war of of nelson's time think about the as we stand on our tail and look around we have had the naval predominance that came out of the second world war from 1942 43 onwards the challenge of the red navy as it was developed in the late 50s and till the 80s was just that a challenge and despite some legitimate worries about the submarine fleet of the soviets and soviet naval war capacities it did not come close it did not come close to ours just as in the various naval warscares of the victorian era the challenger did not come close to britain's naval predominance since 1945 we know there has been this totally different experience the experience the fact which is with us today the fact of Hiroshima the fact of nuclear weapons of course it is there in admitting to the unique existence and power of nuclear weapons we may still nonetheless i would argue inquired to the shape of international sea power and of the america's role the american navy's role in it the united states since 45 went forward with a series of alliances most of which still it has today it has vast forward positions after 1945 and europe the mediterranean and pacific which it still has today the contours of american naval strategy from 1945 are still remarkably similar as today this powerfully shapes then or should powerfully shape u.s naval strategy for the years to come we have a presence over there i really mean over there we have established if you like out of this american domestic base two forward bases of american strategic power one is in western europe and the mediterranean one is in the western pacific the american island continent on the one hand and the two projections of the american homeland and europe and the western pacific are our three sheet anchors of global strategy if you get that right you see the position of the u.s navy within it it is not a case between being back in isolation in the homeland or being strewn all over the globe ladies and gentlemen is a position of recognizing that we have this home domestic base and we are two massive forward projections that is what has happened after the second world war that is within near the navy operates and the other armed services operate it is this we have to convey to the congress this is a sort of halford mckindaway of looking at the american navy and naval sea power it is not all over the place nor is it in home bases alone from this perspective we put into some ordering the american interventions in parts of the globe which didn't go well and we pull them back we put from this perspective the american interventions away which we had to pull back from we did not want to be there all the time and pulling back however from korea from vietnam we did not pull back to this great continent island we knew when to pull back and where if we have to go forward again it imposes upon us the duty to think of where we can go forward where we should go forward this is the lessons of sea power this is the lessons of sea power in the past and in today in the large argument of whether united states is in decline an argument which i seem to have got myself into year after year after year so is hardly a time in which i can open a paper without a new book these days ladies and gentlemen with the title of something like the myth of american decline it is hardly hardly a weak emerges with ladies and gentlemen without some nasty young Yale students of mine coming along and saying professor kennedy have you seen this have you seen this new article in the nation magazine called grand flattery and i say well what is this what is this new article called grand flattery about and the answer is in the subtitle the Yale grand strategy program the title is grand strategy the Yale grand strategy program grand flattery it is not grand flattery is a study of where we can go and where we should not go and the navy is going to play a powerful determinant in that we're not going forward all over the globe we cannot win we cannot control the great wastelands of Siberia not even a million us marines could take over the amazon basin what would we do we cannot now i think take south east asia we have no no place in afghanistan please we have no place in afghanistan where the local brutal tribes have been there for millions of years presumably where they are very good at fighting where when the marines went in they said thank you you know we have a slogan for you and when you ask what the slogan was when my Yale marines asked what is the slogan about afghanistan it was you americans have the watches we have the time there are places in the world which an intelligent american leadership above all political leadership but then the leadership of the navy the air force and the army should not be going there are other places where we can be it is figuring that out and figuring out where the positions of our armed services should and can be that is the duty of us teaching thinking therefore the sweep of naval history going back to napoleon and nelson coming forward through the pax britannica coming through the first world war and the period of appeasement and isolationism coming through that epic second world war that has points for us to ponder on especially if we know how to sift the points that are important and turn them around and let them condition us let them be with us let us understand them let us not say we know all about the past we can take it easily into the future we do not but there's things about the past which carefully examined thoughtfully examined we can we have to admiral carter take into the future that is the function of this naval war college that is the function of the faculty of the officers of the of the cadets of the mid-level officers here that is why we are here at the naval war college and has been my honor admiral and ladies and gentlemen to try to remind us of why the three great naval wars of modern times and what we do teaching them here is so important for the united states now and for the decades into the future thank you so much ladies and gentlemen thank you all for being such a good audience and for being such good host now admiral what is my fate i like sharing the blame be happy sir thank you sir hey sir i'm a major chris kennedy i'm your namesake um i'm sorry so sorry straight ahead 12 o'clock sir right here you don't understand when you're please when you're addressing questions to me the admiral should have told you i am look like i look like i'm well i feel like i'm grouse so grouch a march on on the stages there's lights coming at me from all directions so when you say please i have a question i'm i'm named kennedy as well please wave your hands so i can see like where you are that would be great hello out there focus portions of your lecture touched on economics and and mentioned the congress and at the same time grand strategy it's something that we all think about because we ultimately worry about the power of our nation the future and how we may have mortgaged that for a while so given kind of the deadlock in congress over over what each party wants to protect and fund how do we ever really get to a point where our our economic strength returns to where it needs to be for what we want to accomplish in the future thank you sir that's um that's a large importance it's perhaps the most important a question of all and i think it's hardly anybody nobody in this in this room tonight doesn't know that is the largest question the the general of philip the second of spain said in back in the 16th century what do you need to win wars and the answer was money money and yet more money and what do we need to be consistent and strong at present and into the future we need productive economic creations of strength creations are the of the sinews of war not that we want to use them but we understand that without the balanced at least a reasonably balanced economy without a nation and a treasury that is in credit the credit which will allow us to go forward if i hope not we are in some future large war we have to turn not only upon the resources that we have but the resources that we can then go and raise to assist what we have we have to have good credit we are not taught that we are afraid have not taught it to our political leadership there were times in the story of united states after 1945 when we had that credit there were times when we were in such surpluses that perhaps we neglected it a lesson has to be driven home again and again and i'm afraid to say has to be driven home to our congressman and to to our senators they are the keepers of the public purse by definition just as the english parliament was the keeper of the purse is still but for 400 years they have to ensure the strength of the nation the credit worthiness of the nation they have to ensure the size of the armed forces being what is needed and they have to see that the strength of the nation is not just in the projection of an aircraft carrier task group impressive though that is the strength is in the financial sinews and the productive sinews and it is upon it rests upon us and the rest i think i would say this admiral carter rest more upon us who are the civilians of professors the teachers the civilians in this country to say it to our political leaders that this has to be put in order it has to be put in shape it's very difficult and in fact it's probably unconstitutional sir for the the armed services of united states to say we need this sense we need this sensitivity we need you to understand how important it is to have good credit and to have good impressive modern armed forces it is the civilian part of this country which have to tell our civilian leadership to do it and there of course therein lies the rub we are so far away from getting that in order if we can and it's not too difficult i do not come along as some of the people who say our grand strategy is about flannery and flattery are all upon the idea that grand strategy is just about decline that that is what we have that is all that we have we have like geo politicians in the past to see where our strengths are and where our weaknesses are we have to teach that as well as pointing to the weaknesses we have to go back to building upon our strengths ensuring our strengths are developed protected we have when one looks at this country from other parts of the globe so such an enormous list of strengths strengths that we do not even articulate we do not even teach about when we bring those strengths to bear then even the large challenge of our structural financial deficits and our trade deficits comes somewhat into balance the lecture upon the great strengths of the united states and i'm not talking about in particular the constitution we have a democratic constitution so have another 120 countries we can't look there really so much for our uniqueness we can't look at the rhetoric of our politicians and say there we have such a grand array of politicians we cannot we cannot be looking at the superficial aspects of our strengths the strength lies in a continent which stretches 3000 miles from sea to sea which has no hostile force over there in 6000 miles of ocean and on the other side 3000 miles of ocean which has a benign large candidate to the north and the benign of somewhat turbulent mexico to the south what is a great power there said bismarck is a great power i could be a great power said bismarck if i had a benign candidate to the north and a benign mexico to the 2000 if i had 3000 6000 miles of separated ocean that's all you need on those bases then and on that vast productive agrarian planes on that vast amount of raw materials you base your credit you base and project outwards you don't have to forget that what we are talking about is a policy which forgets the geopolitics of the size of the nation ask yourself what other powers would like to be in our geopolitical position before you start moaning the list of things which have gone wrong the list of our problems before you start thinking about the rise of china think a little bit more geographically but alas as i say my students at yale do not think geographically they look at china say wow look at that it's growth rates professor kennedy in the political science department i told that china's growing twice as fast as we are what's going to happen there's a projection in the connoisseur china will be twice as great as we are twice the grand gps us in 19 in 2050 2040 2025 i say yeah yeah it might be uh by the way have you recently have you recently young jim young sally have you recently uh recalled how many uh borders of nations some of them pretty hostile uh china has you say no i say well shall we like spend the next five minutes listing china's neighbors all 13 of them or mr putin's russia all 14 of them we would think uh rather differently would we not ladies and gentlemen if we as a united states had 14 rather silent uh growling small but nasty neighbors around us think of that we should think of particular countries which are running out of water supplies i am not referring here with a joke to uh california i have i should say admiral i have i have uh three of my students at yale um all amazingly female all amazingly blonde all amazingly from uh from los angeles come back to yale shivering and shivering every january and say wow what are we doing here and i say well well just i forget about this all amazingly called rachel how many rachel's kind of professor at yale have rachel as you shiver here and as you see all of that water congealing into ice you you growing up near the mojave desert with only the colorado river coming down to feed your nice lawns you should think about what having a lot of water is for a grand power into the future we have along with brazil the largest amount of fresh water supplies in the world and we'll have it through the 21st century now just go off and project the fresh water supplies of china for the next even 15 or 25 years and see if there's anything left with which to put into the scotch which members of the chinese pilot bureau like so much to turn it into a scotch and water it will have to be straight scotch i think or even russia with its great great rivers but all heading north through the arctic all of the great rivers of russia heading in the wrong direction unfortunately we have water we have great agrarian planes we have vast resources we have we have a growing our demographics are so incredibly favorable again if you do the demographic comparative and you look at the shape of our demographics and the projections of our demography and you look at those as only one or two or other three or four nations in the world which have the most benign demographics that we have brazil i've mentioned already canada australia great britain unusually in its balance in its demographic growth in its in the shape of its population size in its in its female fertility levels most of the countries in the world either have too many people per thousand or far too few people per thousand too many young growing people or too few we have just the right balance our our fertility rates our balance our structured population is a massive strength for us in the future i ask those who get themselves so worried about the immigration debate to step backwards and ask would you like to have a population such as that a southern yemen which is doubling every 11 or 12 years or would you like to have the population problem of mr putin whose russia loses 750 000 population every year would you like to have the population problem of far too many mars or far too few just count your blessings as my irish grandmother used to say so i say in a long-winded remark an answer to you sir it's tip everyone knows that my wife knows it it's it's professor kennedy's second lecture you see it's a way we have we professors have of of saying that's that's a good that's an important question and you then you put it around into another lecture so where is my third lecture tonight sir dick diamond former naval person during that long protracted period of peace between the napoleonic wars and world war one the british government very successfully we refuse to invest vast treasure in its navy even though it realized the power of seapower and more or less tended to maintain the navy while they built up the credit built up the empire and built up their prosperity with the idea being that when a threat comes on the horizon they would have the resources to surge the navy once again looking forward how do you think that model would work for the u.s and the u.s navy as we raise the future well the comparison immediately sir is not is not too favorable to the united states of course it is not we we have not understood that the credit of the nation as the great victorian british prime minister said lord william gladston gladston said the the strength of the nation the innate strength of the nation is the great reserve power we have in our credit credit which we keep dry powder which we keep dry we do not spend so much right now because if we unfortunately have the politicians who get us into a war said gladston we have to turn around to our resources behind us our benign resources our vast resources we do not spend it all we should have great powder kegs our reserve forces in credit and productivity and in balance here again and i won't give a lecture to that as long as the second lecture which i just recently gave here again it seems to me it's obvious it's not a rocket science it's not a rocket science to anybody who's trying to balance a budget in their own household for god's sake if you have too if you've borrowed too much if your credit worthiness is too low then you are in trouble a point is not to return down to narrowness entirely but to balance your credit and your strength with what needs to be done we can see that we have to teach that we have to teach that it is in the vast resources and the credit worthiness of this country that the future lies the armed services or but the outward manifest manifestation the insurance policy you have to think of the armed services of this country of the navy as the insurance policy of this country and therefore when you are asked about the costs of the navy and you turn to ask yourself well what percentage of the cost of your house do you give out each year to the insurance company as fire insurance and flood and hazard insurance and you begin to figure that's about you know two or three or four percent that is the insurance of your house against disaster the armed services are the insurance against disaster of the nation put in that context put in that way of thinking we have to we see it that way but our credit worthiness has to be good so we can go to the insurance companies of global geopolitics we can go to the bankers of the world and have that credit that's the way you look at it in the largest form upon the two or three legs of this nation there is the leg of credit the leg of intelligent statecraft and politics and the leg of the armed services and productivity of the nation on that triangle we can be strong given one of those legs festering and becoming weak we are not strong i hope i cannot say that enough but some in the audience will say i may have said it a little bit too much in which case i beg your pardon and well sir would you like me to take one more question and then we wrap up is there any person who would like to be so so courageous and bold please come addressing the need to protect our credit worthiness you and addressing what you said earlier during your speech about our projection into europe and the far east it raises the question to me about forward basing of our troops of both land troops sea troops and air troops all three we derive great benefit from that forward basing in power projection our ability to respond more quickly but one of the ways we could in fact continue to develop our capacity our military capacity while still finding economies would be to do away with that basing do you think we could find a way to make it a worthwhile bargain to sacrifice the advantages of forward basing but still maintain some of the benefits the question of forward basing a very very critical question very another large question i show you i will not be as lengthy as i was in the first answer we believe in forward basing because we think at times in the future where we may be called to project ourselves forward there we do not have army bases and air force bases and navy bases out there because we like it we have it out there because we suspect they may be needed if we have too many of them that's an overbalance if we have too few of them we will learn that that was a mistake the balance of the basis forward the projections forward a part of where we aren't who we are we might do it more effectively in the future we might find a way of moving resources there faster so there's less of us and our shield forward in the future we have we inherit this posture of a previous great world power which is what my lecture was on tonight what my remarks are to on tonight because think about this as we as we leave for the evening ladies and gentlemen in in the first two great world wars of this century the united states was the last to come to the fight it came from behind to move to the outward limits of the fight of the struggle our strategic posture was in the rear but since 1945 as professor sam hunting down at harvard taught us some years ago since 1945 our strategic posture has been to be the first out there and we're thinking about that and working out what that means has been the biggest challenge of all to us to pull back entirely is no good to be over committed to far is no good this is why perhaps perhaps our global strategic juggling actors even greater than the global strategic juggling act of great britain that's why we need to think historically and strategically that's why we need in posturing ourselves forward and projecting forward to make sure we have the strength at home and make sure we have the political leadership at home which recognizes a relationship between economics and military power relations between being out there and being here that is it if we can get it together there is no need for alarm in the long term if we can get our political leaders to see what it will take to reduce our deficits to reduce our weaknesses to understand our strengths but to perceive that we have weaknesses that need attended that is what the job here is that is what the job of intellectuals and professors in this country is we trying to do it a little bit this afternoon i have worried you ladies and gentlemen i thank you for your patience i thank you admiral for inviting me and i thank the foundation for inviting me thank you so much