 Good morning everyone and welcome it's nice to have everyone here. Let me say thanks to our sponsors at Rolls Royce for making our military strategy forum series possible and extend my sincere gratitude to Admiral Ruffhead for coming to talk with us this morning. Admiral Ruffhead has commanded about I was trying to count. I can't count that high. I don't have enough fingers and toes for all the things you've commanded and has I pardon the pun want a boatload of commendations medals and rec and commendations for all of the wonderful things he has done I get to know him when he was the Chief of Legislative Affairs for the Navy one of his other and numerous very prestigious shore assignments and for the last four years he has been leading the Navy and I think widely seen as having done an exceptional job in setting a course for the Navy and both sort of consolidating and clarifying their vision up till now and then setting forth a view for where they need to go in the future and that's only going to become more important as we get into a little bit tighter fiscal climbs which I'm sure will come up today so let me get out of the way but again thank you so much for coming and we're looking forward to your remarks. Video people be bothered if I work from the floor and move around okay I think that's what I'll do I tend to be a little bit more comfortable doing that and then when we get to the is this on by the way we're not no it is okay good when we get to the questions and answers I kind of prefer the the ability to get a little closer because my hearing is not where it used to be as some of my retired colleagues in the in the front know but I really do appreciate the opportunity to come and just spend some time and talk a bit about the Navy about the environment that that we are in and that we will likely to be in for the for the foreseeable future and I really appreciate more on the opportunity to do this last time was in October of 09 as my record show it was a little different environment back then I think that it's clear that the budget budgetary environment was not the same as it is we'll likely be in the future but I will also tell you that the the time has flown by and the Navy has been extraordinarily busy during that period of time and and I'm gonna just drop back a little bit to set the stage for how things are going and how I see that future as many of you know we issued a maritime strategy about three and a half years ago with the Coast Guard and with the Marine Corps and have held pretty true to that I believe I have found it extraordinarily useful as I've engaged internationally and as we have built this idea of the global maritime partnership data point there that I think is not insignificant every two years that we pull together the Navy's of the world at our war college in Newport in 2007 we had 67 countries that came to Newport in 2009 we had 102 countries come that is not an insignificant gathering but I think it shows that there is a need for the Navy's to come together for maritime forces to come together because we all have an interest in how things are moving on the planet the trade the resources and it really has allowed us to frame that that discussion about global maritime partnerships quite well I've also found it very helpful not just inside the world in which I live here in Washington but also as we engage with others on being able to talk about the capabilities that the Navy needs in the context of that strategy and basically it said that we would be a global force that we would be forward that we would be a force for deterrence and many folks would immediately think about our our leg of the nuclear triad our ballistic missile submarines important to be sure but I can argue that two carriers in the North Arabian Sea that's deterrence as well so forward global deterrent force but also to be able to exercise and and project power to be able to control the sea kind of the fundamental dimensions of what the Navy is and what Navy's are but then in the strategy we also added in two more maritime security because we saw a compelling need for the the the partnerships the structures the ability to share information to enhance the maritime security of the of the planet and then we also added humanitarian assistance disaster response disaster response really nothing new for Navy's we responded disasters and people have been doing that from the first time they ever went to sea but the humanitarian assistance is more proactive it really found its true genesis and the aftermath of the tsunami of 2004 when although we responded quite well and brought a lot of relief to a very very wide area of devastation we realize that if we had more proactive relationships if we work together if we had better partnerships with non-governmental organizations that we could even do the disaster response better so that's what the strategy called for a couple of months ago I happened to be with a group not unlike the one here today and and I was asked the question is the strategy still valid are you going to change it it was a the timing of it was pretty interesting because at that time I knew that we were going into Libya but it was not out in the public domain and so when I thought about that question and I just thought to myself is the strategy valid and what is it that we're doing today the deterrent force was out on patrol we were globally deployed as we are in any day about 40% of the Navy ship submarines and aircraft are deployed on any given day which is a pretty high number as you have to manage that rotation and we had the ships and submarines positioned off Libya ready to project power so there are three of the capabilities that that that we talked about we were basically doing sea control in that area as we were monitoring that which was operating in the Gulf of Sirte and along the Libyan coastline so there's four if you moved a little farther to the east and south we with 14 other countries were doing counter piracy operations it's maritime security and at that same time we were a couple of days into the humanitarian assistance in Japan and so it was a pretty good spread of what the Navy does what we said we needed to be able to do and most importantly I think what the Navy continues to deliver on every day we do that with a force that today is 285 ships the smallest Navy that this nation has had since 1916 I think our global responsibilities weren't quite what they what they are today there are 328 sailors 328 thousand sailors in the Navy active sailors about 65,000 reserve about 160,000 Navy civilians on any given day about 65,000 of those sailors will be deployed and that's the pace that we keep working we continue to maintain about 12 or 13,000 sailors in Afghanistan as part of the forces there we have construction battalions explosive ordnance disposal of course our seals are there and continue to be a very high-end force that can do great work when called upon to do so and then we have changed how we deploy our people and what we call individual augmentees good people good sailors who go forward and are assigned in places in support of the ground forces where there might not be that resource in the ground force to accomplish that job and we've been doing that now for about nine years and that pace has has continued on I think as I look back over the the time that I've had the privilege of being able to do what I do it's been a been a pretty interesting four years and and there have been a lot of changes there have clearly been demands for the Navy and we have answered those demands at every turn but to talk a little bit about the future and not necessarily things such as current readiness one of the things that I get to do is to look into that future and try to design or divine the type of Navy that the nation will need in that future when I came into the position it was clear to me that those of you who follow the defense industry the defense budgets you know that it's a pretty nice sine curve that moves up and down and and my sense was that we had been following an inflated high or we'd been riding an inflated high for quite a while and that on my watch it would likely be the point where I would push that stick forward and we'd start to turn those over and so what we tried to do as we look to that future was to get as much stability in our programs as we possibly could and I think we've done a fairly good job in doing that if you look at our submarine force this year we moved to two Virginia class submarines a year we got the price down to where we said we would get it down to so that we could begin that two submarines a year we continue in cooperation with our UK allies to do design the next strategic deterrent the Ohio replacement and so the submarine programs are moving along if you look at the surface ships that the Navy will be building we before Christmas got the green light to go ahead and do a block by of 20 littoral combat ships it took about three years to get that program in a place where we had the confidence to be able to get that sort of agreement with Congress and so we have opted to go with both variants of that ship two ship yards will be producing and we'll end up with with 20 of those in that in that block by we've restarted the DDG 51 line because that's the the ship that is really going to be the workhorse for ballistic missile defense and integrated air and missile defense the DDG 1000 in my mind was not that ship and for that reason that's why we truncated it to restart the DDG 51 we are also building a joint high-speed vessel and in this past year the Army who also was in the joint high-speed vessel program transferred all of the ships to the Navy and we will operate it as one fleet which I think is a much more efficient way to do business we also are building something called a mobile logistics platform which is which adds to the sea base and the ability to move things from sea to shore in greater quantities and more effectively we continue to build amphibious ships both LHAs and then also the LPD 17 that I believe we now have gotten some of the initial quality problems sorted out and and and those ships are going to be extremely helpful and I know the Marines like them very much and and that means a lot to us but I think the area that probably is the most significant and where we're really renewing ourselves is in naval aviation if I was a young person coming into the Navy today going into aviation I'd be pretty excited if you look at what we're doing every single line is new whether it's the joint strike fighter where our Charlie variant is down at Patuxent River testing well or the the additional super Hornets that we purchased to fair in that that that gap that we have in strike fighters the addition of four more squadrons of electronic attack has been pushed to us those are going to be in production and played very well in the Libyan operation they were flying combat missions in Iraq we moved them we recovered from a combat mission in Iraq moved them to Aviano Italy and they launched on a combat mission into Libya within 47 hours that's agility flexibility and great capability that allows you to go in and break down those air defense systems if you want to be able to operate with impunity the P8 the replacement for the P3 is in tested Patuxent River two new helicopter lines the 60 Sierra the 60 Romeo are in production and deployed we have three unmanned vehicles aerial vehicles that are flying the fire scout our unmanned helicopter is deployed on a frigate operated in the east coast of Africa in support of our seals and is now moving into the Mediterranean we've also pushed some of those fire scouts to Afghanistan for the army to use we're flying our version of the Global Hawk that we call BAMS broad area maritime surveillance system and we have the production line going on that and then a couple of months ago we flew the carrier unmanned aircraft which is a flying wing which is technologically something quite significant as you bring a configuration like that over what is a little bit of a bubble behind an aircraft carrier and that airplane has flown extraordinarily well the control system is in a Hornet as a surrogate and also in a King Air and we're starting to do the tests around the aircraft carrier now and our focus on the UAVs was really to focus on those aircraft that operated from the sea early on we've been pulled into flying predators and things like that that's not our forte and so we made the decision that we were going after sea based UAVs I think one of the other areas that we moved fairly boldly in in the last couple of years was in the area that we're calling information dominance since the last time I was here we basically have reorganized ourselves where we combined the directorate for intelligence and the director for commanding commanding control into one director for information dominance we've moved all of our unmanned systems in there and we have moved all of our what we call information dominance to include cyber systems into this new structure and for the first time we've been able to look across the Navy without having to deal with the individual interests of what I call the tribes of surface aviation and submarines in order to make good decisions that are in the best interest of the Navy and fit best into the joint force and that really facilitated a lot of the work that we did with the Air Force in the air sea battle but we had already made that move before we got into air sea battle at the same time we reactivated the US 10th fleet that fleet was in it was active in the Second World War and it was the fleet that one of my predecessors used to go after the U-boat threat in the Atlantic so with the creation of the 10th fleet that now has global responsibilities for cyber operations we're able to deal in that environment on a global basis as opposed to the way things have normally been designed within the military to be more regionally focused and then the third component of information dominance is to take all of those individuals that either sense the information analyze the information move the information or fix that which it rides on we have put them into a core we manage them as a core and when we do it it's 45,000 people we cross detail or cross a sign individuals you know no longer is an intel officer only going to be available to command and operate at intelligence facilities they may command a cyber facility or they may command an operation center somewhere but we're managing it as a core and we can see the awareness of this world of information improve within the Navy as in all things I think that you know we can talk about the ships the airplanes the submarines and and you can really become captured by that but the fact of the matter is that it's all about the people they're the ones that make it all work and I would say that those are the areas that today we are the most challenged in because we face a retention problem in the Navy and when I say that to some of my predecessors they rubbed their chin and they say I had a retention problem to I know what you're going through I say no you don't because my retention problem is I have too many people in the Navy in fact this summer we are going to separate 3,000 young men and women before the time that they wanted to leave and we're going to be doing the same for some of our commanders and captains because we have too many people so we're gonna go through that process it's also been a time where we've I think made some fundamental changes that are very positive for the Navy and I'd say very positive for the country where we are in the process now of the first young women who will be going to submarine duty are now in submarine school they have been through the nuclear power training which is really nothing new because they've been going to our nuclear aircraft carriers for some time but they're on their way through submarine school and they'll report aboard their first submarines here in the fall and then of course one of the things that all of the services have been doing is we've been leading our way through the repeal of don't ask don't tell and the training for that has gone extraordinarily well we are at very high levels of completion there's nothing that has surprised and I think we're moving into that period where we're getting very close for me to be able to make my recommendation that will then follow the legislative process that will that will repeal don't ask don't tell the budgetary environment that we're in is clearly I won't say what we expected we expected it to come down I'm not sure that that we had the insight to be able to see just how pressurized this budgetary environment would be last year in the Navy we took a good look at how we could extract some efficiencies from our programs we initially set a target of about 24 billion dollars we ended up at the end of the day taking out 28 billion dollars and moving those efficiencies back into our programs and into our people we moved around 6800 sailors from shore activities and got them back into the operational forces a few years ago we had done something that we called optimal manning we optimized too much and we were paying the price for that so we bought those people back and we're going to put those back out into the operational forces we also put a lot of money back into procurement not only in some of the traditional systems we've increased we bought five more ships we increased the number of aircraft that we purchased you know to fairly significant number and then a lot of the money that we took we put into information dominance focused largely on what many people call the anti-access area denial capabilities that we're going to need and invariably folks will say well you're talking about China but my view is that is the anti-access area denial is is you know there may be some geographic areas where it may be more pressing but in point of fact with the way that advanced systems proliferate around the world today you are going to be faced with anti-access capabilities in many many places where we may choose to operate and so that's where a lot of our investments went and I'm pleased with with how we've been able to pull a lot of things earlier in our program so that we can then employ those globally so what I'm going to do is I'm going to stop there I've burned up about 25 minutes and I'd really like to get to your questions more than anything else thank you very much yes sir sorry can you wait for the mic if we so we captured on video thank you hi Dave full Jim with aviation week there's a lot of talk that is part of the budget reorganization that they're going to ask you to take a look at roles and missions and I'm particularly interested in and what you think you may pick up and lose particularly in the aviation wing it looks like you've got standoff jamming pretty well locked up I want to see what else you again may want to keep and give up yeah you've pressed well the I think as you look at the types of capabilities that we bring in the point that I would make about our aviation and highly optimized to coming from the sea we have the advantage I believe of operating from sovereign airfields anywhere we want to we don't have to ask permission to to have that airfield where we need it to be and by the way they're called aircraft carriers and we avoid a lot of the overflight issues but as we looked at the aviation capabilities that that we needed and the lines that we have laid in and and by the way all of the things that I talked about and whether it's in the submarine area this the ship area or aviation you can touch today which is a good position to be in as opposed to trying to sell a PowerPoint slide and crossing the valley of death to get something started but if you look at what we're doing with the strike capability I think that we have a proven strike capability that comes from the carriers in the in the current form that we have you mentioned the electronic attack that that I believe will continue to be very important in any kind of an anti-access and and as we found most of our electronic attack has been employed recently in and counter excuse me radio controlled improvised explosive devices I mean so we've adapted that capability to to the fight that we're in the the importance of the P8 program is really to address the the submarine developments that are occurring globally submarines are still selling and they're getting quieter and the ability to be out over the water to to localize those submarines will continue to be important the helicopter the Romeo is really optimized also for anti-submarine warfare and then of course the Sierra is great for supporting our our special operations forces there I think in the case of the unmanned systems unmanned aerial vehicles that we have the fire scout is proving to be rather good in ISR and we are looking to arm that here shortly the initial reports from the SEALs is that they like that that capability quite a bit the BAMs allows us to do surveillance at for long periods of time in areas that that we want to be able to just have something up there you know I call UAVs are great for the dull and dangerous and so if you want to have somebody staring at something for 20 hours a UAV is probably the way to do that and then for me the the development of the of the UCAS really will allow us to begin to lay track for anti-access environments in the future and so I think in the aviation area we have some we've covered down on on the capabilities that we need that have proven to be valuable to not only the Navy but to the Joint Force so we'll see where the discussions take us yes ma'am we're taking a look at that will it be an EP8 will it be BAMs or will it be a hybrid of the two and that's what we're looking at thank you Admiral Sandra are one with National Defense you talked about having to let people go beginning this year because of affordability issues not affordability issues the the reason that we are letting people go is because they are not leaving the Navy on the projected rate that they normally do retention is extraordinarily high and people are in the Navy to fill specific jobs and so it's not as if I can just keep people because I want to keep people they're sized for the jobs and what has happened is that the normal retention trends are are extraordinarily higher than they have ever been in the predictions that we had for what the force would be like are not bearing up so I guess my question has to do with the affordability of the all volunteer force I mean there's there's a lot of talk now that it is becoming an affordable would you agree with that and if so would you support changes in the compensation programs to make the force more affordable in the future thank you I think that it is important to look at at the cost of manpower it is clearly the cost that inflates the most if I look at all of the portfolios whether it's procurement manpower operations manpower inflates at around four and a half to four point seven percent because of pay medical other benefits the others are right around the three percent range so I think we do have to look at it I think you've seen where we have advocated for changes to our health care system to be able to offset some of the costs that we absorb within our budget so I think we we should do that I've been doing some personal research on some of the how we got to where we are I think it's interesting when you look at things like the Gates report and this is not current secretary Gates this is the Gates report from the early 70s that really was the genesis of the all volunteer force it's interesting to see how they saw that future what they thought needed to be done some of which we did some of which we didn't and that which we didn't we're paying for today particularly in in in terms of retirement programs and in some of the thoughts that they had back then and I think it is important because I would be the first one to say that in the environments in which we operate today the types of things that we operate to think that we could go back to a conscript force where someone comes in and serves for a year or two years there are very few places where where I think we could afford to do that that said we have to live within our means and we have to look at how big that force is what the compensation is and I think that's where we have to go but I think it has to be done responsibly I believe it has to be done in a way that that that we can bring all of those who are interested in this together and have a have a reasonable discussion about it what tends to happen is the the the barrier start getting set early and you really don't have a lot of room to maneuver to be able to have the discussions that I think are important as we try to think into this future go in the back of it Daniel Lutman from a clutching newspapers has the government crackdown and Bahrain affected the fifth fleets like operations in any way and do you worry that the government's actions there put you guys in like a stitch sticky situation in which you worry about giving like legitimacy or what you what's your take on not affected our operations in any way none of the disorder was was targeted at at fifth fleet or at our people who live there and continue to live there and and I and I would say that that command that we have in Bahrain is is is very important to the region and how we not just for the US Navy but all of the coalition activity we have how important it is and I'm I'm I'm pleased that that the dialogue is ongoing but and no way did it affect our operations I'm going to start here I'm Katelyn Garmouth BAE systems I just wanted to get your opinion about the possibility of forming private navies to escort merchant ships I guess if the shippers want to pay for it they'll be up to them I mean I you know the the work that we're doing with the other countries and the employment of the best practices I think has has been very helpful many of you have heard me say before that until you resolve the issue of shore you can have private navies you can have professional navies you can have armed guards they will still be out there until you get to the criminal business that's taking place ashore and to be able to hold those accountable through a legal system that can get in and and and shut the businesses down I hold up southeast Asia as an example where that worked where where piracy essentially was was brought to a halt with a very effective maritime scheme but the advantage that they had there was that they had legitimate law enforcement in Indonesia and Malaysia of course Singapore and Thailand and they were able to work it from both both sides and that's what's going to solve the problem ashore I mean we could throw a lot more ships and folks and everything out there but you're patrolling an area four times the size of Texas you've got to get the problem ashore that's where pirates live that's where they move their money that's where they they they base from thank you sir auto-crisis power magazine you mentioned the joint high-speed vessel big change over from the fact that you're going to split that fleet with the army that they would be operating buying and operating some of them now you're going to be buying and operating all of them what does that do to your procurement budget and you know manpower and everything and cost to run those ships and how are you going to use well I'm I'm pleased with how the arrangement was made with the transfer and I'm a I'm a I'm a very generous man but I'm a practical man and I made sure that there was a the appropriate exchanges took places as we did that deal I believe that our model with which we operate high-speed vessels and the maritime sea-lift command is a is a very efficient one and I think others saw that and and really the demand for those is coming from the combatant commanders they are very good in providing fast lift in areas where we need it you know dispersed around the world and they're also very good in theater security cooperation activities because they are not very expensive operate they have shallow draft you can put a lot on them and you can get into places that some of the larger ships can't get into and so that's how we'll do it right the there when whenever we do something like that there are transfers that take place within the services and so I'm very pleased with how we've set this deal up that there was a transfer between us and the army on that yes sir thank you Admiral for your remarks today my name is David Sherrington from Battelle I'd be interested to hear your comments on on where you think unmanned undersea systems will work for the Navy and the near term long term thanks thanks for the question someone asked me a couple of weeks ago if I was interested in unmanned underwater vehicles and I said no I'm not I'm obsessed with them and that's a fact I really do believe that that is an area where we stand to have some of our greatest operational breakthroughs and unmanned underwater vehicles last Friday I was up at Woods Hole looking at some of the work that they're doing there for the last couple of years we've been engaging with with academia with with private industry to go after what is the critical piece in UUVs and that's power we need high density shipboard safe long endurance power and that's that's where we go I thought when we started down this path that we could get into with that we could just tap into the scientific community or the oil exploration industry and that's not the case because they don't stay out very long and if the weather is bad they don't go and so it really has been kind of a niche for us to drive I've been very pleased with the response that we have gotten from industry not just the you know the the usual suspects but there have been some small enterprises that have come forward with some very interesting ideas and the applications now are starting to be put in place as far as a sensing system goes because I think there's huge potential to be able to take these vehicles netted together as we have proven we can do and send them into an area again to go into the dull and dangerous where they can sense the area and if they see something that we have told them we are interested in they can let us know about it and then we can take the steps that we need to do whatever it is that we want to do the beauty of them also is that you can put them into an area and you can tell them to go to sleep and wake up when you hear something or wake up when you're stimulated in some way or wake up when we tell you to wake up and and so that's where we're headed those are some of the initiatives that we have underway I would say on both the unmanned air and the unmanned underwater little soap boxing here if I could the area that really has has struck me recently is if it is not a system that is currently being procured there's greater version to going forth boldly to bring some of these new systems in we are encumbered by an extraordinary bureaucratic process that is intolerable of failure and and and as a result we do things and we take steps so that we prolong the process we increase the cost accordingly and I think we're losing some opportunities the I think it's a sad statement that it is best to not have something become a program of record if you want it to move quickly I would also say that I was really quite surprised when we challenged ourselves to have a squadron of unmanned carrier aircraft deployed by 2018 and the the reaction was too fast and and my view and I've thrown this back was I can just imagine when Kennedy said that by the end of the decade we'll put a man on the moon and return him safe to earth somebody said you got to get it through the J-sits process first you know I really do think that we're kind of losing that sense of of ambition of adventure and reach that really characterized a lot of the great things that we did in the country and and I see that in some of these newer technologies that we want to put out there but I think we'll really make a difference and I'm hopeful and I'm a great advocate of trying to move to where we can be a little bit more bold in our thinking the application of technology some things are gonna fail they're gonna fail but if you fail early you learn and you move on and I think that's been a characteristic that we have had for a long time that quite frankly I see slipping away I'm gonna go in the back here thank you Admiral Timothy Walton with deluxe consulting studies and analysis I'd love to hear more on your thoughts and Navy strategy first in terms of orientation and then resourcing on orientation people say CS 21 has been remarkably successful however we may need to shift from a system-centric approach to a more thread-oriented one and then on resourcing for the last several decades we've had a 331 approach in the department as the Navy looks to the future and as the nation looks to the future do you think that might change well I think as we on the latter question I think as you get into the environment in which we're headed we have to look at what is it that you want the various components of the military to be able to do and and then how are they resourced according to the value that you place on we never have been able to do that at least in my time but I think that as you get into this environment that we're going to be in that has to be a discussion that takes place simply because we're we're going to be pressed in a lot of areas and we have to put the money where there's the the best return on on investment I think as a you know the comment about the strategy and whether it's threat based or not I'm very comfortable with how we have looked at it because as you as you look globally and you see the changes that are taking place the I think we've accounted for that in the context of what we believe the nation the Navy should be able to do for the nation while we're mindful of the things that we're going to encounter but yes sir on the back I left you there Mike baby from Aviation Week I like to follow up in your comments made regarding the DG 51 and DG 1000 what led you to believe that the 51 be a better ship for BMD than a 1000 and isn't there some concern right now about some requirements creep 40 flight 3 DG G's to handle the MDR as it comes online you could remove the play 3 DG G and just leave the requirements creep there and it would apply to everything that we deal with I view that as one of the things that I do is is is to make sure that I police the requirements as they come forward I think that's one of the areas that we were fairly successful in with regard to the total combat ship when we knew we had to get the price down when we knew that we wanted to get it out and operating sitting on requirements creep was a high priority and if you look at the differences that have taken place between the the subsequent ships that are being built today the amount of change that's taking place in those ships is really pretty remarkably low with regard to the DG 1000 and the BMD capability we knew we had a winner we believed and still believe that we can get more out of the radar that exists on the 51 and then we also have the advantage of not having to have a completely separate missile inventory for a DG 1000 if we made the significant investments to even take that ship to a BMD ship thank you thank you Admiral Dan Taylor inside the Navy the in the House Appropriations Defense subcommittee they have their bill out and and there's a lot of language in there about ship building oversight and they raised a lot of concerns across a number of ship classes and I know this is something that's coming with LPD 17 before and I know it's something you're looking at could you talk about how concerned you are with this question of oversight and and you know what you believe needs to be done I think that that there were some steps taken where we backed away from what I would call the basics of engineering and and and oversight the there was a time for example that all of our ship classes had a had an engineering-based lifecycle management system we walked away from that and I think that's when you look at some of the readiness issues that that we encountered and I'm pleased to say we've started to make a turn on those now we had walked away from that we just weren't taking taking care of these fairly significant capital investments that we had we also backed away from the organizations and the and the and the Navy oversight that we had in the building yards when when I think we quite frankly we assumed too much on the part of the contractor for quality assurance systems and we we pulled our folks out of the yard and and we paid for it and so as part of the the efficiencies that we went through we have reinstituted the engineered life cycle we have reinvigorated and remanned the cadre the Navy cadre that's on scene in our shipyards to provide that oversight to provide the the insight into the practices and the quality and and I would also say that it serves to enable the contractor to get a faster response out of the Navy as they're building these great things they're moving along they hit a snag they now have a more robust organization to say you know we need to be able to do this or we need to make this change and and I think it can it can be a good two-way street and I and I say that we upped it and it's not an adversarial you know my approach to this is not adversarial it really is you know having the eyes on there having that interaction with the builder so that we can build the best possible ships for the nation well I think I've seen very good progress in the engineered life cycle I've seen good progress in our trends and what we call our in in in service inspections and so that's positive and and and and we're seeing the the quality change but I think the contractors have also taken what we call a round turn on that and you know this is a team effort it's a team sport there's no question about it so we're moving in the right direction needles are starting to move need to move a little bit more but we'll get there I'm gonna go back here Edward off at a Sam Felman maybe times excellent I have a question about commanding officer and senior officer reliefs right so far this year we've had 12 and a lot of those are for personal misconduct what's going on behind this trend and what is the Navy doing about it yeah thanks I think that one you've got it right most of them are for what I would call character or or ethical shortcomings we have increased the attention that we pay particularly when individuals are coming through the command training pipeline there are some other things that we are looking at putting in place that give us better insight into the screening process as individuals enter that that process I know the fleet commanders and subordinate commanders are heavily focused on this but I would submit that the one thing that we're not going to change is the standard that we live to and and we have relieved several commanding officers because they didn't meet the standard and that's not going to change that's you know standards are standards because they are and so we're going to continue to enforce that it is an area that you know I've talked to some of your colleagues in the press on this before and you know we live in a very different environment today than in the past no longer do we enjoy the divide between our personal and our professional lives that we used to even 10 years ago you know everyone in this room I would say or at least most people in the room is a photojournalist pull the device out of your pocket and you can record and transmit instantaneously anything that you want to and I think that's part of it the other area that I personally have been drawn to is in the way that we tend to live our lives as driven by demands such as you know financial demands school demands today people are getting you know perhaps they're a little bit upside down on a mortgage so when the Navy says I need you to go to San Diego and maybe you're living in Washington oftentimes that causes the family to be apart for two or three years sometimes that's done in multiple tours and I think we're beginning to see a little bit of that come into it but we're continuing to look at it we're holding our people accountable and we're looking at gaining better insight into folks as they as they come along because it's always very interesting rarely do you encounter a situation like this where someone didn't have some inkling that maybe there was something going on you know the commanding officer that maybe gets a DUI and then somebody says yeah they you know he really did like the wine didn't he you know and my point is when you when you have that sense that's the time to intervene that's the time to come alongside your friend and say hey I think I think we need to talk about something here and so we're working that piece as well yes sir John Harper with the Asahi Shimun recently several senators on the Armed Services Committee have said that US basing plans for East Asia and the Western Pacific are unworkable and need to be reexamined what is your reaction to that and are you concerned that for cost cutting or other reasons the US basing alignment might be altered to the detriment of regional security and national security thanks and I've been privy to that process since about 1994 now I think and say watching it come along I I think that it you know really is a matter between the United States and Japan I think we have a good dialogue going and and as we look at four structure writ large which I think we will do you know we're gonna have to look at what the lay down is of that four structure but right now the plan that we have with the Japanese is the plan that we're going forward with you already had one I'm gonna take one back here okay and then I'm gonna have to cut you off I'm sorry not good I could do this all day Admiral Bill Burns from Institute for Defense Analysis you mentioned first of all the strategy being global and forward presence and you also mentioned the fact that the Navy is at its smallest since 1916 the last ship building plan I saw was from last year I don't know if there's one out this year but it showed the number of ships going up here for the next few years but then in the late 20s a nose dive particularly for attack submarines and large surface combatants where how do you maintain a strategy without the ships I guess as a question do you have a view on how to fix the numbers problem yeah thanks for the question it was the perfect final question I might add the you know I often say that one of the biggest challenges that we face is the decade of the 20s it really is because as you pointed out that's when we see the aging out of of the ships that were built in the 80s where we were building five and six of a particular class so that really has inflated but they all come to the to the cliff at about the same time so we have to deal with that we are also at that point beginning to recapitalize the strategic deterrent which I would argue is the most survivable of the three legs of the deterrent and I think that that is a great national import so we're doing that we are also in the process of refueling the Nimitz class carriers not an insignificant cost but you have to do that to get the 50 years of life out of the ships and then in the 20s for the first time we begin the process of decommissioning the Nimitz class aircraft carriers so I look around at some former naval officers here and that's just a sign of our age that these babies are going away but that really puts a burden on and and and even though we tend to focus in Washington on you know what will be happening in the next couple of months I think nationally we have to look at what type of a Navy do we want where do we want it to be what areas of the world are of greatest interest to us what's the type of fleet we have and we have to do that eyes wide open about what's going to happen in the 20s and so you know we have laid in as you said we've laid in some good lines that will give us what we believe the types of ships that we need to perform that range of missions that I talked about but there are some that will age out that we will have to have to come to grips with what's the replacement what are what's the technology that will be up against at that point in time in the case of for example submarines I think that you can you can if you if you make the right decisions on unmanned underwater systems that can be hugely beneficial and can perhaps absorb a smaller force structure but we have to be willing to be bold in how we how we move into that into that realm in the case of the the replacement for the guided missile destroyers which tend to be the workhorse that we use and you know people will argue why do you why do you use a guided missile destroyer to you know rescue Captain Phillips of the Marysk, Alabama I think that's a pretty good stretch of the capability quite frankly and and we also have to keep in mind that as a maritime nation with two great oceans to cross you can't do it in a rowboat so there has to be some size and some robustness to the types of ships that we build and in the next year or two is when we will we'll have to really dig in and start thinking about what that element is going to be but I think most of the other lines are good to carry us through the 20s and that's just a question of how the nation wants to resource it. Admiral thank you so much for coming and spending time with us this morning thanks to all of you for coming and making the time as well and we look forward to having you back in the future take care.