 I'd like to thank, first of all, my partners in crime for this year's event. The three arminals talk series is hosted and used to be hosted by the Centre for Ground Strategy and the Kings Japan Programme. But this year I am particularly delighted that the Royal Navy Centre for Strategic Studies and the C-Power Centre Australia join forces with us in order to make this event possible. And obviously when we started to think the concept about this three arminals talk, we did not know that it would become so fashionable that international politics would bend to our will. And so in September Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States came together and forged this new defence, range with this new defence pact with a first sort of project to be delivered around Australia's next generation summering capabilities. And we thought that why not? Let's take that as our cue for the gathering this year. I'm particularly pleased to be joined by in-person here today by Admiral Sir Philip Jones, who recently retired as the first sea lord here in the United Kingdom. And then online we have remotely connected Vice Admiral Tim Barrett, who retires well as Chief of Navy in Australia, and soon hopefully Admiral John Richardson, who also retires as Chief of Naval Operations with the United States Navy. One of the things about the conversations that we have around this format is that we always try to make it a point for the Admiral's joining us to know each other. And I was particularly pleased when they all accepted our invitation because as we were discussing with Admiral Jones earlier on, they've all known each other for a long time and that makes it a more convivial and hopefully more engaging conversation. I will not spend too much time in introducing each of them. They retired at the top of their respective organisation, but that in itself is a mark of distinction when it comes to the individuals. But what I'd like to sort of point out is three things. One of the things that makes this conversation particularly interesting and very much sort of one in which skills complement each other. We know that Admiral Jones trained first and foremost as a commanding officer on Royal Navy Frigates and then became Fleet Commander before becoming First Sea Lord. So it brings about a considerable wealth of experience and knowledge what happens on surface forces as it were, one of the dimensions of navies. Admiral Richardson is by trade, Sergeant Marina, who was director of nuclear reactor in the U.S. Navy before he became Chief of Naval Operations. So he has that sort of underwater element to it. And Admiral Barrett, even though his expertise and his love affair with the sea was a long way back, brings in, among his commanding officers, to, if you want, the third dimension, the air dimension of navies today, as well as elements related to border protection, the constabulary dimension of navies. So we have a very wide-ranging set of experiences that bring together the conversation. Last point before moving on to our guests is that some of the things that I particularly enjoyed in bringing this thing together with the Royal Navy Strategic Studies Centre and the Royal Australian Navy's Sea Power Centre was this idea that we are trying to have a conversation in which the naval dimension is part of a broader conversation about the maritime and national security. We will be talking about navies, but not just as a part of this approach to the matter of national defence, but trying to place the conversation about navies and maritime forces in a broader sense into what it means for seafaring nations, maritime nations in the 21st century, what does that element of defence mean in national security? And in some respect, I'd like to think that being today 2021, we are sort of in doing so trying to revitalise that long-standing link between London and Kings College in particular and the tradition and heritage of Julie. Who goes in history as the first person that tried very much to explain to political elites the distinction between talking about navies and naval strategy and maritime strategy and national security. And here at Kings, we will be celebrating Corbett 100 years legacy from starting already now, but down to 2022. And I'm very pleased to report that among our partners, we have also naval war college and again different counterparts, including the Sea Power Centre in Australia. So this is really interesting and important point in time. And AUKUS in a way provides us the broader umbrella under which we can take the opportunity to host and have this conversation. So I would probably start with Aminal Jones since he's next to me and then sort of go around the room. One of the things that I did not mention in Aminal Jones' biography is that I think you were the last first sea lord that experienced one of his first duties in Falklandsville. And today, of course, looking at places like the Indo-Pacific, which are part of this conversation around AUKUS, you always have a palpable sense of anxiety over those patients, some of which like the Chinese Navy, I have grown enormously over the last 30 years, and certainly have less of a chance to reach back to their own experience in terms of what does combat mean to a modern military organisation? And how does that shape the experience of those who serve in it? And so I wanted to start as the first question really about what does it mean? Would that experience has meant to you? And how has that experience sort of been formed in the way you evolved and you changed as a new professional? Thanks, Alessio. And can I say at the outset, it's great to be here as part of this conversation and to be connecting with my old friends, Admiral Richardson and Admiral Barrett. Admiral Richardson used the phrase to me the other day, it's like reforming the band, because we have the privilege of leading our navies at the same time. And we do know each other well. So notwithstanding the constraints of technology, I hope this feels to all of you participating like the conversation we would wish it to be. That is a really good question to begin with, because you're right, the experience of being in the South Atlantic in 1982, was an extraordinarily formative one for me. I was a very young officer in the Navy still at the time, completing my fleet training in the amphibious assault ship Phyllis, which was the flagship, if you like, the lead platform for the landings in San Carlos in May, 1982. And not surprisingly, the period leading up to that and the subsequent three months was a very formative time in my career. And I'll touch a little bit on the key lessons of that later. But I think it's important also to stress that that's not the only way in which the Royal Navy has experienced combat operations in the last 40 or 50 years. That might have been the most intense. And it might have been the one in which we suffered loss and had to deal with the loss of ships, the loss of aircraft, the loss of people, as well as just being in a conflict zone. But I went on later in my career to see operational service in the Gulf as part of the Iran-Iraq war. I've been at action stations in a frigate in the Straits of Formos, with shots being fired around me. I commanded a frigate on embargo operations in the Adriatic during the wars in the former Yugoslavia. And then of course, in the generation after me, lots of people also experienced combat in the Iraq and Afghan campaigns, and also off the coast of Libya and in many other places too. But there was an intensity to those extraordinary three months in 1982. And I think the key takeaway for me, and interestingly, I've just written some of this in an anthology to a book that is being published to capture the thoughts and the record of experience of the ship's company of HMS fearless in 1982. The first thing is that very often combat is a come as you are party. You don't get the chance to prepare for it to train for it. Intelligence, strategic thinking doesn't always position you to be in the right place. And that was certainly what happened to the Royal Navy in 1982, which is not necessarily the same as preparing for the Royal War. We were in 1982 at the height of the Cold War. And although we had to gear up to a different threat and be prepared to fight in a totally different geographical part of the planet, I'm not saying being in Cold War preparations was the wrong war. We'd also instantly just started the armilla patrol, as it was then called our permanent presence in the Middle East to protect interest and crucially British shipping in that region as the Iran Iraq war began. And that was a key operational focus for the Royal Navy, which has extended right through to today. So it's not that we were doing the wrong things. We just had a new thing to do that was quite a different preparation for us. So how do you cope with that? Well, you cope with that by having the most available high readiness, best trained Navy that you can. And those were the real test of the Royal Navy in the South Atlantic in 1982. You suddenly realized, particularly if you've got to go into combat, at short notice, that you have to rely on the personnel and logistic sustainability that you've already got in place, because you probably won't have time to build it before you then have to go and execute combat operations. And it was extraordinary to see just how good our logistic and personnel readiness was in 1982. And the way the whole UK base was able to gear up behind getting that task group out and able to go south. The other thing was recognizing that you may not have the right kits to fight the war with. That was a brutal reminder for the Navy that the reliance we built up through the 70s on surface to air missiles, the new way of countering an air threat without layered defense that enabled close in and point defend weapon systems to supplement those long range surface to air missiles was in hindsight a mistake. And we lost ships as a result of it. And we're a better Navy as a result of it. And the third thing is the quality of operational sea training. We've long been very proud in the UK for having an operational sea training organization that is we believe second to none. We don't just rely on our own view of that a lot of our partner navies come and train with us and still do to this day. And it's the realism and the complexity and the full threat scenario that operational sea training throws at the ships company that gives you a chance of being able to fight and fight through damage to be able to win. So those were really priceless lessons that the Navy learned in 1982 and have been able to share with many of our partner navies. And I was really privileged as a young officer to see that and then see how the Navy responded to it over the next 40 years. Wonderful. There's so much you already touched upon there. You talked about logistics and how when crunch time comes about what you have it really what makes the difference. You talked about this this layer that the fans are full how the fleet sort of deploys operational sea training but also mentioned this is an important point as how the Falklands was was a high hand in terms of kinetic use of the Navy but then operational experience and deployments continue throughout the entire period. And this is where I'd like to bring Admiral Barrett in because of course Admiral you've got like number of decades under your belt you've seen it all in many respects. And I wonder the complexity and the fact that the Navy is first and foremost a tool of statecraft that works as part of a country's foreign policy. What does that mean to you in your in your experience at sea and as an naval officer? What does what does it mean to you to be a to be a sailor to be part of of an organization and most of the time operates away from public attention. And you know Gavirage versus doesn't get to see what is it's all about. What does that mean to you now that you're looking back at this long standing experience and engagement with the sea that you've had over 40 years. Thank you. And again I'd like to just reinforce our thanks for having the opportunity to be part of this. It's it's great for the Sea Power Centre here in Australia but personally to catch up with the rest of the band members and to talk to you all is a is a great privilege. My first confession I was actually born in the UK to a father who was in the Navy. I spent all my growing life up on naval bases before we moved to Australia. I joined the Navy over here when my father signed the papers when I was a young 16 year old. One of the first roles I had in my training was to actually have an exchange posting with the Royal Navy in 1982. So while so Philip was down in the South Atlantic, I was actually in the North Sea in a fishery protection vessel conducting operations because Australians were not allowed to join any ship that went south because that was a political decision. But I would have to say that first of all everything that Philip has said around the learnings that came out of that experience, it was readily shed to the Royal Australian Navy, particularly in areas around damage control and being prepared to fight the fight that you have today, not tomorrow's fight. So all of those things I have to acknowledge and reinforce. The second point for me was around actually all the other aspects of what is required of someone who is in the Navy to do, even when half the fleet, if not three quarters of the fleet are away on combat operations down south as it was at the time. The constability role that was being done by other ships around the nation continued. And the point that you make that very often, a nation population does not fully understand or appreciate the sorts of actions that do need to continue both in conflict but also in the routine and the regular operations that are conducted by navies as well. I quickly learned that in my time early on. I learned a lot from my experience in the UK in 82. I learned the strength and the commitment and the will of a nation to mobilize in such short notice. And ironically my ship that I was serving in was actually in Portsmouth at the time. We were just down there doing operations and I watched an entire Navy reassemble and get ships to see in the space of 48 hours that I had never seen before or had never seen before. And quite frankly I wonder whether I would see it again in some of the ways that I saw the commitment. It was a national commitment. It wasn't just that the Navy. So I learned a lot at that point but it did reinforce issues with for me in my time later as the Chief of Navy about actually educating the population about why navies exist. The fabric of the nation that surrounds the Navy and why it's it is used. We have a national anthem in Australia and the fourth line talks about being good by sea but if you have asked the average Australian they they don't look beyond the breakers of Bondi Beach and do not really know what happens outside of that regime. And so a role when you are in a seeking to be a serious Navy and you're seeking to gain support from a government for the serious actions that the Falklands demonstrated that you need to prepare for and constantly be aware of you need to bring the the population with you and so you need to be able to educate them. So I found many lessons myself in the Falklands beyond the operational side. It led me to write a book about what it means to be in the Navy and what the nation needs to know about its Navy and what the Navy needs to tell its nation because if you're going to spend national treasure if you that includes the sons and daughters of Australians not just the the taxpayers funds but if you're going to to do all that you need to be able to express a real sense of purpose of why the Navy exists. So it's a sort of an ephemeral answer but so Philip gave a great indication of what navies have to do in a combat area. I agree with all of that. What I'm trying to highlight here is the the broad sense of what also has to be expressed to the nation that supports raises the name and then a government that commits the Navy into conflict. If I may stay with you for a second. I wanted to ask you something about you mentioned the book that you wrote about the Navy and Australia and the nation which if I remember correctly was published on the back of the the defence of the Navy in 2016 and so back in 2016 the overall security landscape around Australia looked differently and certainly the tones of the defence white paper and the strategic direction of travel as it were seemed rather different from the one that the Morrison government has captured this year with you know with as is the background of two orcas taking place and the negotiations taking place and to what extent you think that at the time the debate was in the right place or perhaps not anticipating changing that was happening in the region particularly as far as Chinese behaviour is concerned and if you were to come back what would you change today in your book that perhaps you did not sort of include or tackle the first time around when the general narrative around the the the security landscape was different. Look I'll answer the last second question first and that is nothing in terms of the commitment to actually demonstrate the the reason why you would wish to raise and a Navy and what it means to be able to be successful in in acting as a Navy on behalf of the government as an instrument of policy but the circumstances in the white paper in 2016 were different there was a growing well there was an acknowledgement of the growing rise of China in the region and there had been a subtle change over a number of years that had moved from what traditionally had been a sort of continental view of of a strategy of what was have been foremost in previous white papers the issue around a maritime century was was well and truly in place but there was a broader issue about actually trying to build our own industrial stocks to create a sovereign capability which in doing so takes time and so the concept that was coming out of the white paper at the time was both delivery of capability but also delivery of a sovereign ability to create future capability what then transpired over a period of time very rapidly and was was detailed in the defence strategic update in 2020 was that time was not available to Australia to the government and the view there was and I guess it comes back to a point made earlier you need to fight with what you've got and the reality is you need to be able to have a process that brings your capability into service as soon as you can you need to maximise the current capability that you have you need to maximise the services and the arrangements around it the workforce the training and all those elements and so a fine balance has been put in place now to continue and to accelerate the process of delivery of capability but still with a view that Australia in our region will still need to be able to generate its own sovereign capability to bring the next the future future submarine the future future frigate into service thank you very much under all that I'm not just we're talking about the perspective we took about how things have changed for Australia how much things have changed in the last sort of four five years we went from January 2018 when HMS Sutherland was the first frigate to go down in the region after hiatus of about five years because the last time was in 2013 and then we've had assets going down at times of overlapping deployments but constantly being deployed there this year culminating with CSG you were there when the big when these things were happening at the beginning what kind of challenges if you're setting as a first-sealer you're looking at about you you're looking at how things are widely what sort of challenges and opportunities this presents and to the Royal Navy because of course the Royal Navy never withdrew from east of sewers but the meaning of of what east of sewers means to the Royal Navy has changed certainly quite considerably so then with the Indo-Pacific tilt coming out in the Indica the review as a key concept in the widening of the horizons of the country's sort of national security landscape what did it mean at a time to be there and see all this unfolding well it meant it meant a huge amount and you know and Tim will sympathise with us we discuss this quite a bit when we're serving as chiefs that getting the political direction as the head of the Navy in the UK to tilt towards the Indo-Pacific is mostly an opportunity but of course it's a challenge too and I was very keen that the Royal Navy was in a place to exploit that opportunity and the first way you can exploit it is by the very flexibility and agility of naval forces you can move them not at the speed of air forces of course but with much of their own inbuilt logistics sustainability relatively quickly and it's just a question of making sure if the political direction comes to tilt one way your political masters understand that that is going to have to have some kind of reverse tilt because you can't be in two places at the same time so as we started to gear up our scheduling and our sustainability the Royal Navy more with an Indo-Pacific tilt in 2018 we also have to think about well this is going to be probably less presence of our ships in the standing NATO maritime groups and the standing NATO mine countermeasures groups in the Euro-Atlantic theatre but what was still an appropriate level of response there absolutely as Tim pointed out about the presence we kept for constabulary duties in UK waters in 1982 we had to sustain that and we also had to make sure we kept a credible anti-submarine warfare capability in the Euro-Atlantic theatre because at the same time that we were asked to tilt to the Indo-Pacific we were being challenged by the Russian naval submarine force reasserting itself into the North Atlantic in a very powerful way those two things came at the same time so we had to balance the disposition carefully but we chose to do so in a way that would take capability into the region that would make a difference and would be noticed so as you say the first ship out there was an anti-submarine warfare frigate HMS Southern with 2087 total race sonor on a Merlin helicopter deliberately designed to make the point about this is a capability we think alongside our counterpart navies in the region like the Royal Australian Navy is becoming an increasingly important part of the ask there but I learned a great true as a Merlion in my career that I had to keep coming back to again and again as First Sea Lord which is don't overpromise and underdeliver and that's where you've got to keep the challenge balanced against the opportunity to suddenly go to my political master said yeah we can do this we can provide a continuous 1.0 presence of Royal Navy destroyers and frigates in the Indo-Pacific region from here on in well in 2018 we couldn't quite do that but I felt confident to do what we did do with the promise of more to come because we were at that stage planning for the carrier strike group 21 deployment we didn't know exactly what form it would take we didn't even know exactly what construct it would have and I'm delighted to have seen after I've retired the precise form and construct it's taken where that strike group has gone on what it's done and also the infusion of integrated Allied capability it's had at the heart of it the US Marine Corps F-35 B squadron a US Navy destroyer a Dutch Navy destroyer integrated elements of other navies coming into the strike group at various stages all that was in the planning process so we knew we would be able to as it were culminate with that offer as part of the tilt three years three years down the pipe the other thing it did and this is not just a nod to Admiral Barra being present now but a genuine sense of reaffirmation of a very old and well-found link with our partners in the region as a young officer I joined my first ship as a midshipman in Sydney in Australia as part of a five ship Royal Navy group deploying to that region that was an extraordinary opportunity but also a demonstration of continuing determination then in a much bigger Navy albeit to have ships in that region notwithstanding the withdrawal from east of Suez I was trained as a frigate navigator doing my own operational sea training in the mid 80s by a particularly tough Australian specialist navigator Portland who drilled into me how to navigate your ship in combat and I will always be grateful to him for that I think I was trained as a principal warfare officer at our school of maritime operations by an Australian course officer but those links had to a degree dissipated a little bit as we bought different maritime capability and focused on different key areas to reassert that link and find that all that we held dear in the Royal Australian Navy and recognised was still there and I think as we brought that back to bear in the last couple of years under the auspices of Orcus which is very new as you say and we're still exploring our way into that but also through the fact we're both buying the same next generation high-end anti-submarine warfare frigate the Type 26 in UK that's a class frigate in Australia it's a great reaffirmation of that bond between us and you're making a very important point here about Orcus is not coming out of nowhere and yes there are a lot of questions still out there in terms of the details but I think there is this long-standing bond and any of the Kings were seen it with students coming from the different navies who you know have spent time other Australians in the UK Royal Naval Officers spent time in Australia so that sort of bond it's there it's been there for a long time and as you say the interesting thing is that the political opportunity now is coming back to reinvigorate and expand it I very much enjoyed a number of points that you were both touching upon before we open the question to the floor a couple of things that sort of came back to me that I found were really interesting we all find ourselves in a situation where resources are always very tight and capabilities available are essential but at heart it seems to me that one theme that is emerging is this question of having the right time capabilities is not just about always having the coolest shiny piece available it's also the one that is the right one for the particular activity that you have in time you have in mind a particular point in time so the element of being relevant and timely as well and the point you were making about the free going down there as opposed in 2018 as opposed to one of the newer destroyers it really makes this point very important it was about relevance timeless and again this other point that is emerging that you both mentioned about partnerships and alliances and how that practical level of persistency in the cooperation and interaction is essential to elevate the quality the nature the depth of the relationship so we've got along the plate and so far I'm not asking any one of the hard questions because I'm supposed to be a nice one in this gig but we have a very large crowd here in the room and a very large crowd on teams and so from this point onwards I would invite everyone to raise their hands we have someone manning the chat so we will collect questions as we're moving on and we'll start taking the first question from the floor here as people gather their thoughts on on teams as well and we'll try to get through all of them ah Amil Richardson there you are yeah good morning good morning sir how are you good I'm sorry I had some technical difficulties but I'm happy to join the team wonderful and well I mean we were about we were about to to go to the broader sort of opening the floor to the room but before we do so perhaps and it will be nice to to have you joining in the conversation we've been talking about partnerships we've been talking about the importance of renewing ties and I understand that's that's that's you've all been sort of personally involved the three of you in making that possible and making that a reality during your time as Chiefs of the of the Navy's and we were talking about also about the Indo-Pacific in the centrality of the Indo-Pacific to how Australia and Britain's national security is changing so what's wondering whether whether perhaps you could join us today and give us a few thoughts about these and more so that we can set the stage for the the broader conversation with with the questions coming from the floor afterwards certainly Alessio and thank you for bringing us all together some certainly partners as we were Chiefs of our respective Navy but also very good friends and I just to sort of put an exclamation point on the point that that the the topic you just mentioned I think that you know I came from the submarine community and it's a community where you've got a very very strong culture I suppose right and you've got a culture that is one that is founded on making a meaningful contribution to the Navy's contribution to national security it's found in a the culture is found in on a sort of a harsh recognition of the unforgiving nature of operating at sea and I would say that that culture is also shared more broadly by a nation's respective Navies and I make that point only to say that these cultural these cultural commonalities between Navies of the world I've found to be a tremendous starting point or if not a starting point a way to strengthen ties between maritime nations and the Indo-Pacific I think we would all agree is very largely maritime theater and so I see just tremendous opportunity for a relationship building you talked about the importance of the Indo-Pacific Theater you know as you know the United States like Australia is a Pacific nation you know our West Coast and us and Alaska have vast coastlines that are on the Pacific we've been engaged in the Pacific at least since the middle of the 20th century if you know if not before and it's a it's a theater right now that undergoing tremendous change and I think that you know I see uh and we'll Philip Jones next to you I think he would agree that it's an important enough part of the world that we are all Pacific nations to some degree right the the prosperity and the fortune of the United Kingdom is also very much dependent upon stability and the free movement of trade and security in the Indo-Pacific region I think that nobody's probably opined on this more us thoughtfully than Admiral Barrett Tim very very good to see you again and so again just you know Navy's as a foundation to start or strengthen partnerships between maritime nations and the fact that this Indo-Pacific region brings us you know together as it becomes that much more of a central focus for the world really I think I probably repeated a number of things that have been said to date but by means of joining the conversation those are my initial thoughts so much for saying that because actually you are doing something else that we hadn't had the time to touch upon and that is really how the Indo-Pacific is becoming important not just to nations within the region however broadly one's defines them but it is a space of interest for all nations that rely on on trade transport connectivity and access and as an underlying element to do their national prosperity so this is not a question that is limited to a particular group of countries and it is a question that one way or another we all have to engage with and then other points that you made that I think is very important to underline is this question of the inherent matter nature of the Indo-Pacific as a manoeuvres phase as a geopolitical space and of course as a geoeconomic space because again maritime connectivity whether physical or digital rests on sea lanes of communication and underwater sea cables so in that sense and this is a very important point because as I was saying at the beginning and this isn't just a conversation about navies it's a conversation about how navies contribute to address a fundamental element that links security and prosperity in more than national security debates so we've got a lot of uplifts and what I'll try to do as my colleagues collect the questions coming from teams I'll just look around the room and start seeing the first hands yes sir would you mind just as a general rule if you could just sort of say who you are in your affiliation and again the same on teams and please bear in mind that the answers are not for attribution but for the purpose of the conversation today yes sir wonderful that's an excellent question and just perhaps before Amidal Richardson tells us something about it I might actually start with Amidal Jones because we have had just the carrier that is still on its way back from that part of the world how do we respond to this it's a very common and legitimate question about the changing balance between land and sea in geo-strategic terms weapons land-based weaponry it's expanding its radius and what kind of problem that presents for carrier strike groups and what kind of limitations of rethink the mental arts in terms of the importance and centrality for carrier strike groups and all three balances yeah it's a very good question and it's one that you won't be surprised to hear that the UK has grappled with in a very significant way over the last few years as we've contemplated a return to big-deck strike carrier operations back to the earlier question we were looking at it's all about a balance of challenge and opportunity so the opportunity that ships like that give you is to do what the carrier strike group 2021 deployment has just been achieving it is a very significant physical and totemic presence that a nation can put into a region to say exactly as Admiral Richardson was saying you know we care about this region because significant trade flows through this region the ability to have free access to the sea and open trade routes is important to all nations concerned about global trade in the world not just those who are physically in that particular region and the presence of aircraft carriers gives you the opportunity to have strike power available plus a whole range of other powers as well you know the great thing about a big-deck and rotary wind capability or tilt rotor capability is you can pivot into humanitarian operations you could pivot into more amphibious centered operations you know whatever it is that the call of the political requirement of that day is and there's something unique about the nations that have chosen to have that capability either retained over a long period as it has been in the United States Navy or to pivot back into it as the Royal Navy has done as the Indian Navy is doing at the moment and others that it's a demonstration of you know this high-end global deployable flexible toolkits that a camera striker brings now the threat of course is part of the challenge of that there are places in the world where you've got to be really careful about putting such a high priced high-end significant national asset as an aircraft carrier and yes you can lay a defensive and yes you can integrate into a partner nations sophisticated layer defense but there are some threats that will test even that so it's a constant dialogue about where do you want it to be what do you want it to achieve and where is it dangerous to put it but as a kind of land versus sea debate and you know we sailors always say this no matter how vulnerable it might be you can move it it's not a fixed target you've got to find it it can go silent electronically it can move at great speed and it's not as vulnerable as a fixed target to these kind of threats that might be posed against it so now that's not me saying it can go with impunity anywhere and defend itself that's a constant balance of capability versus threat but it does give you choices wonderful I'm Richard would you like to jump in and see something specific about the US Navy yeah no absolutely and it's a debate that is been as vigorous in the United States as it has been in the United Kingdom and I would just emphasize a lot of the points that Admiral Jones made one is that one of my favorite plays is Henry V right and you had this great battle of Agincourt which was all about precision strike of its time and so Henry V was just able to outreach with precision his enemy at the time and so it's been back and forth you know this is just the way that the way that warfare has developed now I would say that there's you know a shift in it an exponential shift perhaps which I think rides that technology curve that exponential technology curve where we've democratized in many regards the ability to strike at distance with precision the ubiquitous sensing network out there that can be leveraged and then you know just technology becoming that much more cheaper and then of course when we're talking about some threats particularly in the Pacific there's you know significant investment that's been made to do this at a very high end but similarly there's been investment made in technologies on the defense I think that in particular advances in directed energy if you just make Admiral Jones's discussion to one more step all of the steps in the chain that have to culminate and to have a successful strike on a moving target each one of those steps can be deconstructed and frustrated by a well informed and technologically equipped carry a strike group and so you know if you think about the initial location the passing of that information of the location to some kind of a battle network that battle network converting that to you know targeting information passing that to a weapon that weapon has to lodge a great deal of time in the meantime you know as as Admiral Jones said the target is on the move and so there's going to have to be an update to that target you know all of those steps can be deconstructed and interrupted I think in fact I wouldn't be surprised Alessio if once more the pendulum swings to the defense and it becomes much much harder to hit something that's on the move than it is to defend yourself right and so this is just kind of the back and forth and of course there'll be a response to that right so I think that to isolate in on this as something brand new in the history of warfare is a bit narrow and so the ability for a carrier strike group somebody said it's an aircraft carrier Admiral Jones and I were talking yesterday it's not so much a carrier as it is a launcher and recovery a coverer aircraft right that's how it has its impact and its ability to dwell on station and use its aircraft to really impose its will on a vast area for a long a sustained period of time you know that's a remarkable capability and so you know I'm bullish on these going forward Admiral thank you so much I think you first touch upon two very important points you're always to keep in mind first of all of course it's a moving target but also a moving target that can be quite hard to detect it looks very big when you see it in port or anchored somewhere but it's still in the middle of the ocean and from an electronic point of view there are now ways to to counter it's visibility as it were and Admiral Richardson's you're making a very important point about the fact that sort of offence defense and then the relationship to different type of capabilities it's also a moving target it changes constantly and so and again it's a mistake to just look it as oh this is a really large floating target waiting to be hit from from from somewhere and I wanted to bring Admiral Barrett in here because there's a couple of questions in the chat which I think are are quite important and I've heard being asked quite often since August was announced one from from Tokyo and one from Oxford and which is an odd combination if you wanted but still bringing together a similar point one how orcas or how are other partners Australia the UK the US in the region should look at orcas is orcas potentially an opportunity for them and perhaps I'd love to hear your thoughts about the fact that orcas is not just about the submarines but it's a broader umbrella agreement over technology and defense and perhaps if you had any thought about this I would be particularly grateful for it and on the back of this perhaps also I emphasise in what ways orcas this is the question from orcas from Oxford cast a slightly different light on the meaning of cooperation and relationship today is orcas part of this growing and expanding ways in which alliances are morphing into and the Indo-Pacific is one of the places look at the quads look at the triliterals look at how the hub and spokes alliance system is changing so these two elements and I'd like to start with you one how should our departments look at orcas as a potential opportunity and two is orcas also telling us something about how multilateralism is evolving in that part of the world look the first point would be orcas itself whilst some of the outcomes on it came as a little surprise to all of us I freely admit I got up early on a morning midweek to hear an announcement by the prime minister and the announcement was at seven o'clock and at six fifty nine we were a non-nuclear nation and at seven o'clock we were a nuclear nation so it was quite a surprising announcement but the the underpinning part was you've got three three nations that are already already readily aligned under five eyes and under a number of other organizations certainly with the UK and the fdpa in the region there's no surprise that we would come together where our common attributes can be shared the issue here is the trust that's needed when one of the outcomes of this particular engagement was to share a nuclear capability for a submarine propulsion for Australia in particular not that orcas is only about that as you said but that was the one of the crowning parts of it there's a level of trust that didn't arise just overnight before that announcement was made it's an enduring trust and I think we've established that already by saying the level of cooperation engagement that the these three navies have had some time the relationships that have been developed between the the work forces within those navies the thought processes and what we have learned from each other are all relevant in why this should not be a surprise there was a common theme this is an organized outcome to be able to solve that and that's that's the message that is being expressed to our other partners in the region this is not a a reiteration of a colonial view this is three serious navies with serious business that have a shared common interest and a shared capability in some cases commercial as as Admiral Jones said earlier in terms of the future frigate programs that are being shared by both the UK and by Australia so there's a real reason and purpose behind it that said there is a need for this to be sold within our region for demonstrating that they are the real purposes behind it Australia as a nation and various governments up to this point have spent a lot of time in the Asian region building a level of trust and cooperation among our partners and you only need to look at the various collective multilateral organizations that do exist everything from at a political level from ASEAN which started as a as a group of 10 and then went to ASEAN plus three then it went to ASEAN plus six depending on the the need economically or militarily for people to share those sorts of things it is quite possible that these things build and grow and move the quad is another example of that so I I am not concerned that this will become a difficult thing for the region to accept but I do think it needs to be explained in its full sense of why it is being developed and the benefits that will accrue if in combination these three navies can assist in stability and as as Mahan Mukman Corbett and many others have said maritime stability equals prosperity and so it is very important that we demonstrate that there is a purpose and a reason behind why this is being done it's not a response to a competitive drive per se thank you so much I'm an original John goes to jump into this and sort of what is the meaning of all this to our departments in the region is this something that can be opened up as time comes as it sort of expands depending on the areas and the directions of travel it takes yeah lessy I'll just say that I think panel Barrett summed it up very nicely it's just such a dynamic region right now and you see these arrangements agreements coming and forming and as he said it is going to be very important to sort of put this in the context of the greater dynamism of the region right and so I would say that just as AUKUS is much more than just about a nuclear submarine deal right I would say that it's also much more than just about these three nations that kicked this off and that eventually it will have tentacles and inclusions of all the other nations and I mean it really has to doesn't it Alessio it's just in order to be successful it's going to have to be you know made part of the fiber out there I like it too because it's another multinational arrangement right and so sitting from my chair I always get a little bit I guess concern might be too strong a word but I take note when the discussion collapses too quickly to some kind of a bilateral construct you know and so this is going to be a regional matter it's going to have a regional solution I think that AUKUS is going to be a part of that regional solution and so I look forward to you know in a participant the United States Navy participating in any way that it came No James Yeah I've got nothing to add to that I think that's been very eloquently described I think that's exactly how I see it I think it's exactly the opportunity the UK sees it you know it's important to recognize as Admiral Barratt said it doesn't subvert any of the existing multilateral arrangements in the region the Quad the Five Eyes ASEAN it is a powerful to me a powerful geopolitical statement by three nations about their intent in the region it has obviously the kind of hard maritime capability edge to it of a nuclear submarine capability for Australia but it'll become much more than that and I think he you know we need to see it working out over time and who else comes and maybe participates in it too and this is a wonderful note upon which we probably have to draw this to an end it's always lovely to have a feeling that there's more that one would want from a conversation and definitely have this feeling so so it means that we've done our job right we planted the seeds for a conversation that I think will continue and I very much like to sort of draw on the the point that Admiral Barrett was making that explaining what Orcus is about allows us an opportunity to sort of develop and articulate its meaning in a way that it becomes not exclusive but inclusive it attracts others and it creates an opportunity to keep that point that Admiral Richardson was making a region that is so diverse and wide multilateral and try to find a multilateral dimension to solution to security challenges that we're facing and certainly not one that excludes other mechanisms but joins them with a particular sort of trust and with a particular sense of why nations do come together and today we looked at some of the aspects of it heritage culture capabilities and a shared understanding of what maritime connectivity means national security today so it's been an absolute delight and pleasure to see so many of you joining us today I can see there are still many questions in the in the chat and we won't be able to answer them or but perhaps that gives me an opportunity to think about creating other opportunities in the near future to continue this conversation for now I just want to thank everybody for joining us today and wish you all a very lovely day end of the day for Admiral Barrett and then the lovely day for you Admiral Richardson back in on the east coast thank you so much everyone for joining us today thank you Admiral Jones you bye now from Kings thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you