 So to happier topics, we're here today for the Maritime Security Dialogue, which brings together the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Naval Institute, U.S. Naval Institute, two of the nation's most respected nonpartisan institutions, to highlight the particular challenges facing the Navy, the Marine Corps, and the Coast Guard, from national-level maritime policy to naval concept development and program design, and all the various issues facing our maritime forces. Given the budgetary challenge, the technological opportunities, and then the strategic adjustments that are happening in today's somewhat chaotic world, the nature and the employment of U.S. maritime forces is undergoing significant change now in over the next 10 to 15 years. And so with these trends in mind, CSIS and the Naval Institute set up this dialogue, this Maritime Security Dialogue, as a forum for public events, interviews, so we can bring out a wide range of leaders to talk about maritime issues in a forum where you can really dig in in depth and engage on these important issues. The series is made possible by the support of the Lockheed Martin Corporation, and we'd like to thank them for giving all of us the opportunity to have these discussions. So today, we have Vice Admiral Thomas Rowden, who is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy. He currently serves as commander of Naval Surface Force U.S. Pacific Fleet, and has, as I've just been hearing, good housing out in San Diego and obviously a good climate, a little drier or a little cooler than what we have here today. So we apologize for bringing you into this in the summer. He served just about everywhere that you can serve as a naval officer with distinction and commanded at every level. He served on the Joint Staff, the CNO staff, the Bureau of Naval Personnel, as the assignment officer for the Surface Warfare. He commanded the Surface Warfare Officer School Command in Newport, Rhode Island. I see you have some good assignments there, obviously a careful thought put into that career planning. We're so happy to have him here today and coming up in a little bit to help further the discussion will be Vice Admiral Pete Daley, CEO of the U.S. Naval Institute, who will help with the Q&A and the discussion portion of today's event. The Naval Institute has really been critical to this whole series. So without too much further ado, Emily? Thank you. Thank you, Andrew. I can see if I can balance that. I'll put that right down there. I sincerely appreciate the opportunity to spend a few minutes with you today talking about the Surface Force, Pete, and both CSIS Andrew, the collaboration here and the opportunity I think really is tremendous and I thank you both for the opportunity to spend some time. I left Washington, D.C. a year ago next week, I think, give or take, and I arrived out in San Diego and I relieved Tom Coatman on the 7th of August. So 11 months ago and in that 11 months, it has rained in San Diego a grand total of three times and so I've been following the weather patterns back here in Washington and I was really excited because I was going to hop on the plane, I was going to come back here and I was going to get rained on and this is what I got today, typical heat and humidity. So nonetheless, if I could bring some of that rain back to San Diego, I'm sure that everybody would appreciate it because it is a really drier neck out there. So as Andrew said, I'm the type commander for the Surface Warfare community, for the Pacific forces and the surface forces in the Pacific. And I know that while that sounds like an exalted title, really what I do is I organize training and equip, maintain the majority of the warships in our Navy, certainly the warships that are out in the Pacific region. Safe for the aircraft carriers and the submarines that belong to the other type commanders. Mike Conner, Vice Admiral Mike Conner, I understand was here in the May timeframe as part of this ongoing series. Surface ships occupy a critical position within our Navy's fleet architecture. We are a big part of carrying out what our recently released maritime strategy refers to as our core Navy functions of all domain access, naval presence, sea control and power projection. An important thing to remember about sea power is that one of its major aims is to promote a security environment where war doesn't happen. In some cases, this is a function of preventative deployments, warships deployed with combat power in a conventional deterrent role. In other cases, it's a function of reinforcing relationships with partners through continuous and routine operations and exercises. Should that deterrence fail, naval forces provide the nation the ability to protect its interests. Persistence, mobility and combat power. These are the three hallmarks of the U.S. Navy's surface force. And around these attributes are built our Navy's operational approach. Simply put, being there matters. Having the ability to be 600 miles from where you were yesterday matters. Being there with credible combat power matters. The slide behind me shows just a snapshot of where the surface Navy deployed around the world today is. We're in the South China Sea, the Red Sea, the Mediterranean Sea, and all the waters in between. We operate forward. We are mobile and persistent. The surface force is uniquely poised and distributed throughout the world. In today's world, the persistence, mobility and combat power of our fleet plays a large role in sustaining America's influence and protecting our globally arrayed interests. A good bit of this job falls to the surface force. And by this job, I mean sea control. And by sea control, I mean the ability to control areas of the sea when the nation calls. Sea control is not universal in either time or space. It is a condition that arises when our surface naval forces employ the tools of ballistic missile defense, air warfare, surface warfare, and undersea warfare in conjunction with other capabilities brought by our submarines, carriers, and other joint and combined forces to gain and maintain control of that chunk of the ocean required to enable operations, operations such as power projection. The tools we bring to this task are formidable. In our surface fleet today exists more than 8,000 launchers, namely the individual cells of the numerous vertical launch systems, residents and our cruisers and destroyers. From the decks of surface ships fly literally hundreds of aircraft, from embarked helicopters optimized to localize and neutralize, to unmanned aerial vehicles, to fixed wing fighter bombers flying off our amphibious assault ships. In recent years, we have made an effort in time and money to modernize our ships with new sophisticated computer suites, improved weapons and sensors and for all warfare areas to improve capability and capacity. What I am describing to you are some of the components of the fleet architecture that enables our surface force to do its job, which boils down again to those four functions I spoke of earlier, all domain accents, naval presence, sea control and power projection. We do that from a force of nearly 90 cruisers and destroyers for more than 30 amphibious ships and from a growing number of small surface combatants, the LCS and its follow on the new frigate program. Many of you have heard about the LCS program, about how the LCS program has evolved into the frigate. That evolution is something that I am particularly proud of, not only because I think it was the right thing to do, but because the intellectual work that went into decisions on what upgraded capabilities the frigate would field led to an even greater conversation and ultimately to the concept of distributed lethality. That's what I'll expend the remainder of my time talking about today. But before I dive into definitions and plans and all that, I want to describe the background and intellectual process that occurred. As a consequence of then Secretary of Defense Hagel's direction to the Navy to make recommendations to him on how best to upgrade the lethality of LCS, we gathered in March of 2014 a talented group of operators and requirements people at the Naval War College in Newport for a series of war games. One of the excursions we pursued was how LCS, equipped with a medium-range surface-to-surface missile with a range on the order of about 120 miles or so, would change the behavior of both the adversary commander and the friendly commander. The results were notable. First, the friendly commander immediately began to employ the LCS differently in the scenarios, moving from a niche presence role to an offensive warfighting role. This added flexibility in the force makes sense when you think about it, but seeing it play out before you in the game was even more telling. The second thing this capability did was that it added stress and complexity to the Red Force commander, who had to spend precious ISR resources trying to find these upgun ships, ships that now represented a far more serious threat to his own fleet. Additionally, not only was he expending ISR resources, but also in attack planning, he had to distribute a limited number of weapons across a larger number of targets, then diminishing the number of weapons available for target planning against any one target, which includes of course aircraft carriers, amphibious assault ships and any of our other high-value ships. We took this nugget back to Washington, where I was then serving as N96, and we hashed it out among ourselves. As we did, the question occurred to us, why stop there? We had before us analytic evidence that suggested a series of important behavioral changes, both ours and theirs, that came from increasing the lethality of just one of our ships. So why not apply that same logic across the fleet? We know darn well that the threat is advancing in its ability to deny us freedom of maneuver. So why don't we go on the offensive, as it were, and begin to not only be more direct about the concept of offensive sea control, but also begin to create a series of operational problems that any adversary would have to consider? Why not change the calculus of our adversary? This discussion was the genesis of the distributed lethality concept, a simple notion that states that the surface fleet will, one, begin over time to opportunistically and economically increase the lethality of individual warships. Essentially, take what you have today and make it better. Two, operate those more lethal warships differently, while still providing for high-value warship defense in order to, three, provide a wider variety of mission tools to operational commanders, tools that help preserve the carrier's striking force for maximum warfighting effectiveness on high-end complex warfighting operations. Increased in the lethality of individual warships, something my friend and Relief in N96 Pete Fander refers to as, if it floats, it fights, will require us to look at all manner of ways to repurpose existing weapons in unique and innovative ways, even as we get them to ships faster. Our priorities will concentrate first on ships that traditionally should have greater punch. Our surface combatants such as cruisers, destroyers, and frigates, even as we consider lethality enhancements to our amphibious force ships. But while increasing warship lethality throughout the force is a good first step, it is suboptimal unless we operate that force differently. We need to begin making geography of virtue. We need to understand that the long lines of operation that we sometimes see as a disadvantage offer the opportunity to challenge adversaries from multiple axes. Put another way, a more powerful force distributed across a wider expanse of ocean creates complexity. If the threat represented by those other surface ships increases and we are able to spread the zone with those forces using the advantages of mobility conferred by the sea, we can not only hold a greater number of targets at risk in the sky, on the land, and on and under the sea, but we can also create an operational environment that potentially diminishes the risk to our high value warships. Some of you may be a bit more skeptical about this idea, and you may be asking yourselves a number of very, very important questions, questions that must be asked and answered if distributed lethality is to ultimately achieve its aims. The first question some of you may be asking is if this is such a good idea, why then isn't it a Navy-wide idea? The simple answer is that the Navy operates distributed today and with the ability to aggregate as the mission dictates, increasing warship lethality and then distributing that lethality wider, I believe, is at the heart of both the aviation and submarine communities, about the addition of the Joint Strike Fighter or the Lorazin in aviation or the Virginia payload module in the submarine community. This concept is also alive and well in all of the discussions around the role of the joint forces, but the plain truth is that my job is to think about the surface forces, and that is where I spend a lot of my energy. Other tough and critical questions about distributed lethality include how our logistics force would support a more distributed posture, the degree to which our distributed forces rely upon and are vulnerable to disruptions in our satellite communication systems and networks, the effectiveness of distributed operations, whether independent, crisis-tonight, or surface action groups in varying adversary ISR environments, and the overall impact of a more lethal surface force may have on adversary's force posture and employment decisions. The short answer to these questions is that we are exploring the concept and the implications of the concept on the way we operate. I have suspicions and opinions, but those inklings don't represent hard analytical understanding. But another way, we are working to put some math behind what seems to be intuitively satisfying and have created a distributed lethality task force. The task force is made up of savvy warfighters and analysts from across the board and broad expansive experience, warfare community and expertise. We have partnered with the Naval War College to conduct a series of war games designed to get at some of the questions I posed earlier. We had one earlier this spring and we learned a little. We have one in two weeks and we'll learn some more and we'll get together again in October for a third game and we'll continue to use wargaming to understand and think about how we will accomplish the missions we've been assigned. At the same time, we open the aperture for operational analysts at the Naval Postgraduate School to examine some of the discrete operational questions that must be answered in order to justify the direction we believe we want to go. Specifically under consideration are the logistics issues associated with a more distributed force. Issues which more than any one factor, including resources, will limit the impact of a more lethal and distributed force. We aren't just studying the problem academically. We are moving out sparkly on experimentation with demonstration projects, opportunities to evaluate the impact of ideas we are generating. Last fall, we successfully demonstrated the launch of a medium-range surface-to-surface missile from an LCS off the coast of San Diego. Some questioned the utility of essentially bolting a launcher onto a ship without integrating it into the combat system. But what the demonstration proved is the speed at which we could add cost-effective off-the-shelf weapons to existing ships. Seven months later, we pulled it off. And for those of you familiar with the way things work, seven months is unheard of. We are working hard within the SWO community to demonstrate the capability to launch an anti-ship missile from one of our 8,000 VLS cells. We are determined to continue to investigate increasing target diversity across the entire standard missile family of weapons. Next, we are partnering with research and development organizations like O&R and DARPA to develop new ISR techniques and payloads to improve our ability to find and fix adversaries. A long-range missile is extra weight without the ability to develop a coherent picture of your surroundings and identified bad guys in a sea of shipping. New ISR techniques and payloads partnered with existing systems will allow the force to create accurate targeting in a dynamic environment. Executing strike missions in a dynamic environment is where the surface force is uniquely qualified. Surface ships are persistent in their readiness to service targets when targets are identified. Ships are able to rapidly execute these missions ready once the data is received, giving a more immediate response than time traditionally required for strike planning. New ISR capability, payloads, and techniques are our next great advantage in warfare. Our surface force is already trained on how to execute short-noticed strike tasking and it will be a natural shift to operators to add new types of targets. And while I won't camp out on the discussion of budget realities, the ability to modify existing weapons and technologies and deliver them quickly to the fleet removes years of research and development, testing, and money. We have many of the weapons and systems in place today to make a more distributed and lethal force achievable in the near term. The first part is distributed. And again, as you can see behind me, we are distributed, which is the first step. The surface force is built to accept change with modularity and launching systems and platforms like the LCS. With modest investments in weapons and ISR systems and sensors, the surface force is better poised to support the roles outlined in the new maritime strategy. Distributed lethality for the surface force is not a wholesale change. It's tweaking a smoothly running machine to add capability at minimal cost to us with big change to the adversary. Adding lethality does not translate to additional force structure. We have weapons, sensors, and systems in our inventory today that with modifications can make the lethal part of distributed lethality real. Pete Fanta, who I mentioned earlier, is the current director of surface warfare requirements. His staff and mine are joined at the hip, and his folks are scouring the development schedules of the programs they resource for opportunities to demonstrate or test elements of a more distributed surface architecture. We have to view these opportunities in new and innovative ways to not only absolutely accomplish the performance goals of a program manager but also to gain wisdom about distributed lethality. Keep in mind, nowhere in this discussion did I refer to distributed lethality as a strategy. It isn't. Bureaucratically, a more distributed and lethal force acts as an organizing principle because it touches all aspects of the enterprise. Acquisition, modernization, training, manning, all of it. Operationally, a more distributed and lethal force creates a series of capability upgrades available to commanders to apply to their strategies. But while distributed lethality is not a standalone strategy, it is related to strategy in an important way, and then I'd like to conclude with. In the classic ends, ways, means formulation of strategy, when applied to my job of organizing, training, and equipping the surface force, a more lethal and distributed force is the end. How much more lethal? How much more distributed? That remains to be seen. But the process of answering those questions requires us to spend time considering the ways to achieve it, the systems, the weapons, the people, the platforms, and then thinking deeply about the priorities for aligning those needs which then drives resources or the means. What I just suggested is something those who study such things I believe are rare. And that is a direct and meaningful linkage between strategy and resources. That is what we are aiming for in the surface force today. I plan on coming back to Washington in the January 16 timeframe at the surface Navy symposium to share where we are and the progress we've made as we plan in the near and far term to align and prioritize our activities to achieve this more distributed lethal force. In the meantime, I know we have a lot of work to do. I'm satisfied with the realism and the value of what we are suggesting, the support of Navy leadership, and the team and process we have in place to validate these ideas. Again, to CSIS and the Naval Institute, thank you very much for the opportunity to spend some time with you today. I look forward to the conversation and I look forward to your questions. Thank you very much. Thanks, Tom. That was great. Well, we're very happy to have Admiral Rodin here and I appreciate you taking the time to fly all the way out from San Diego, weather or no weather. This is a great opportunity to have a discussion and I thought I'd kick off with a couple questions to break the ice and then open it up to the audience for questions. Admiral, recently in the past couple months you sent out a message where you encouraged strongly all your commanders to put rounds out the barrel every day. And you said, you know, conditions permitting, if you're at sea, I want rounds out the barrel. You've also taken some steps to encourage emphasis, re-emphasis on warfighting and tactics and that's been loudly cheered. So 11 months on, are you happy with the mindset of the force and can you talk about where they are and where you want them to be? Yeah. Thanks for that question, Pete. You know, when I was a young Lieutenant Commander, I was the combat system officer on the USS Bunker Hill working for a guy named Tom Marfiak who happens to be sitting right here. Right there. And we got underway every single day from Tokyo One and every time we got underway from Tokyo One whether we were right or left, we were probably being flown on very rapidly and we were probably tracking the submarine in the not-too-distant future. And what Tom Marfiak taught me and what Rod Rent before him and Phil Quass before him taught me was that when you got underway from Tokyo One, you got underway with a knife in your teeth. And you didn't know what was coming at you and you had to be ready for everything. And I think when the wall fell and the Soviet Union dissolved and we started to be more involved in different types of conflicts, the very real threat that Captain Tom Marfiak and I would see when we would get underway from Tokyo One wasn't in their face certainly like it was. And as I kind of take a step back and I took the temperature of the force and I would go and I would talk to the wardrooms and I would talk to the chiefs, I didn't get the same sense that they were getting underway with a knife in their teeth. And so I wanted to try to convey to them, hey, it's all about warfighting first. And I used to ask them what it's all about and when I would go in the wardrooms and sometimes I would get, you know, hey, it's all about warfighting first and other times I would get different answers. And I would have to take them all up to the folks and I'd point to the VLS and I'd point to the five inch and I'd say, I think it's all about warfighting first and so that and a series and then the subsequent messages and I touched on different things. That one happened to be put rounds out the barrel because I want everybody comfortable shooting whether it's five inch or 50 caliber or whatever it is in between. The first time they pull that trigger in anger, I want them to be comfortable with their ability to go do that and confident in their ability and confident in their machine's ability. And in subsequent warfighting cereals I've addressed different aspects all driving back to hey folks it's all about warfighting first. That's what we are about not only in the surface force but I think across the entire Navy and I'm just trying to do my part as the leader of the surface force in order to concentrate them on those things. Thanks. A different topic, you mentioned Pete Fanta recently he was up appearing before the C-Power and Projection Forces Subcommittee on the Hill with Mr. Forbes. And one of the things he said was that we need 40 ships that can deal simultaneously with the sophisticated ballistic missile threat and at the same time a cruise missile threat down lower on the surface and to be able to do those together. And if you look at what's going on with Aegis modernization, some of the delays that are in the offing perhaps on AMDR, it appears that we may not be getting there very quickly and I was going to ask you as the surface force leader how do you feel and what's your comfort level about dealing with the advanced IAMD threat? I think there's a number of ways that you have to look at addressing the threats that exist and the threats that are growing. Certainly one of the paths that you have to take to addressing that threat is do you have the right modernization and do you have the right modernization schedule in order to get the capability into the ships? And I think that's what we have a tendency to concentrate on. I think there are other ways also that we have to spend equal time thinking about in order to be able to address those threats as the ebb and flow of the budget realities drive your modernization schedule either more rapidly or not as rapidly as obviously like to drive it. And that is quite obviously or that is I think at the heart of that is having an organization that can develop the techniques and procedures that in order to be able to start to balance out those budget realities with respect to the modernization. And so on the 9th of June we stood up the surface of mine warfighting development command headed by Rear Abel Jim Kilby out there in San Diego. And while certainly I mean I'd like to snap my fingers and say hey everything's fully modernized the reality of it is you're going to move through it. So are there other things that you can do as you work on the modernization of the force to counter the adversaries actions in order to be able to continue to project power, see execute, see control and all those things. And I put that squarely in the lap of the surface of mine warfighting development command granted in its infancy. But certainly the acceleration that I've seen from Abel Kilby and his gang out there leads me to believe that while we still have to obviously concentrate on the modernization side we can still address it in other ways with respect to the tactics, techniques and procedures that we're using in our force. Thanks shifting one more time and then last one I'll ask and open it up. For ASW you know we've emerged from this fairly permissive period since 9-1-1 where we faced regional adversaries with kind of a medium to low capability. But in the future we can see it on the horizon regional adversaries that have a near peer capability at least that they could concentrate in their neighborhood. So if you look at ASW and you know we went through this whole phase where you know we had P-3s flying over land we went you know several years there we didn't fly up didn't deploy a P-3 squadron above C-4. We had surface ships that had taken sonar men and used them for the mission at hand in the Gulf which sometimes was you know security ops and boardings. So you're having to regain track a little bit. Could you tell us where your comfort level is in that mission area? So my most recent warfare serial warfighting serial the unclassified title of it was warfighting serial number six. Initially it was titled ASW and as I was reviewing the context of that warfighting serial I changed it from ASW to warfighting serial number six hunting and killing enemy submarines. I haven't talked about and I haven't sent a warfighting serial out on anti-surface warfare certainly one is coming one's coming on integrated air and missile defense but in with respect to addressing the warfare areas the first area that I wanted to address was anti-submarine warfare because I see exactly what you described. Our peer and your peer competitors are coming forward with a significant capability in the undersea domain and we in surface warfare need to ensure that we can execute our part and so there's and I saw in that warfighting serial a I gave the the commanding officers out there and ASW officers some things to think about and some direction associated with the concentration and the effort that I expect of them in this particular warfare area beyond that again back to Jim Kilby and his outfit and prior to that Bill Mears and the Naval mine and I said anti-submarine warfare command out in San Diego their development of the warfare tactics instructors that have specific levels of expertise in anti submarine warfare we put a significant number of those folks out in the fleet and the feedback that I get universally with respect to the performance of the ships that have this expertise on it is that their anti-submarine warfare their ability to execute this particular very difficult warfare area is rising significantly so certainly a lot of work to do I think on the ASW side of the house for hunting and killing enemy submarines and but certainly we are focused on that not only again tactics warfare tactics techniques and procedures side of the house but also on the side with respect to the modernization with respect to the installation of QQ 89 AB 15 great I think now would be a good time to open it up and ask to take questions how about in the back there thank you for the presentation it was excellent my name is Khan Nugent I'm a consultant of the Gordon Foundation in Toronto and Canadians look north very often for their security and anxieties and I'm wondering if you're planning on surface distribution contemplates the retreat of the ice pack and the increase of Russian military activity submarine surface and air in the in the area is that a is that a five year out concern of on your watch I think that certainly has to be part of the calculus I mean it's undeniable what's happening in the Arctic and and certainly in the conversations that I've had with our leadership there is significant concentration on what's happening and the trade routes that are being opened up in the north and so the short answer is it has to be part of the calculus I think sir they're bringing it over Peter Pettington Royal Navy retired thank you Admiral because of my age if you turn me upside down you'll find engraved on my bottom get the bear what I'm gonna probably clear that but I'll take your word for it always hack the bear what if there are potential naval officers coming through from potential enemies that will have engraved on their bottoms get the tanker get the oiler get the tanker or the oiler in other words I'm talking about your distributive forces but your lines of supply of the vulnerability absolutely I think front and center and as we look at distributing the force and distributing the lethality of the force it not only creates complexities for our potential adversaries but it also creates complexities for us specifically associated with logistics and and which is why as I as I gathered the the specific topics this year to be studied at the Naval postgraduate school by the ops analysts folks that we have up there I centered them on this particular aspect because you just can't you just can't go to the fairy dust locker and say hey we're gonna be able to just dump some fairy dust on that in order to be able to deliver the the beans bullets and it to the ships in a more distributed fashion we're gonna have to figure out how to go do that and that absolutely is is is front and center in our minds with respect to how we how we have to defend that logistics train as we operate distributed and continue to operate globally Robbie see you Robbie you know see you know spoke recently and said that cyber warfare or the one was and is one of his top priorities very very close to the top priority I gotta tell you what when I think of distributed warfare I think of things kinetic things that go boom so I guess the question to you is how does cyber how does offensive cyber factor into your thinking about distributed lethality as that applies to the surface Navy how does offensive cyber or cyber defense offensive cyber that really in the near term from my perspective I would say that's and within the bailiwick of probably Jan Tyga 10th Fleet and maybe and maybe my crotch is from the offensive side certainly from the defensive perspective and defending our networks and defending our systems front and center in my mind and how I need to work with not only Matt Kohler the ID for but also with Jan and also with with twig branching the two on the two six side of the house to ensure that as he brings his programs along and there's and it's not it's not two six resources and warfighter and and and nine resources and and we have in the in the in the year since we when I was the resource sponsor and beyond one of the things that I've been very happy with is that communication the increasing communication between the two six resource organization and the end nine organization to understand that the vulnerabilities that are that we are understand are probably being addressed and resource to the maximum extent that they can norm norman did you have a question norman polmar question what is the give some words on the day-to-day relationship that your headquarters has with mine and ASW command in San Diego how close are you how much do you input to them do they input to you that's a great question and I guess the the short answer is very close and growing a heck of a lot closer very very fast and I'll tell you why when we stood up the surface mine and warfighter development command we we took over the responsibility for the mine piece that was resident in the not only in the in the tactics techniques of procedure but also an operational role associated with that and I have talked extensively with Mike Connor who is who is is is the the type commander who is now in underneath him is the undersea warfare development command and so we have the surface of my warfighter development command the air warfighter development command in the undersea piece and what I have now that I didn't really have before was and and killed everyone killed me in his outfit worked directly for me as the type commander and so as as I work my way through the wargaming piece and where we're going in the future and I see vulnerabilities I haven't I have an individual that I can go directly to and then he can cross with whether it's rear Admiral Khan or the or the or the new commander of the industry warfare development command in order to be especially on the ASW side of the house in order to be able to work the cross community pieces that we really haven't had in the past and so I see from my perspective the institution of the surface of my warfighter development command is really a big step forward in getting tactics front and center in the surface warfare community not only on the ASW and on the mine side of the house but also on the on the integrated air missile defense side of the house and on the ASUW side of the house as well so I see it and I see it a much greater synergy associated with that spreading it around over here question yeah hi my name is Laura I'm a reporter from inside defense so there's been a lot of talk recently about a carrier gap in potentially the Persian Gulf and there's been talk about potentially extending the Roosevelt's deployment in order to mitigate that gap so from your perspective what are the concerns that you have about the domino effect that might have on maintenance and future deployments of aircraft carriers yeah to be quite I haven't I haven't I haven't really considered that can we redirect though to obviously it's the carrier and the carrier strike group maybe just to draft off that question and focus on your portfolio are you seeing some of the same knock-on effects that have been talked about for the carriers where you're getting in a non-virtuous cycle of having to cut maintenance short and not be able to do critical modernization given tight schedules yeah we I mean we are continuously in a wrestling match between what is required in order to maintain the material condition on the ship and the draw on our forces and I would and I would submit to you that whether it's aircraft carriers surface ships or submarines the thing that I constantly hear is we we don't have enough of what it is the combatant combatant commanders certainly want to have want us to be able to deliver and so and so kind of what's front and center my in my plate from that from the surf for the surf pack commanders perspective is the balance between how much maintenance can we get the can we get under the keel of the ship and and raise the material condition to the appropriate level in order to allow the war fighters assigned to the ship to concentrate the the vast vast majority of their efforts on building their warfighting capability so that when we do send and pass in my case out past point loma they're concentrating on the right things which is the warfighting first aspect as opposed to trying to to maintain the material condition of the ship and certainly and from on the non nuclear surface for side of the house it's a very close partnership between us and our private yards and and the dialogue is very robust and in order to ensure that we can get the ships in on time to the maximum extent that we can and get them out on time but certainly there is some there is a constant dialogue that's going on between me and the third in my case the third fleet commander the operational commander to get the ships ready to go so I can hand him what I refer to as the product the man trained in the quip ship so that he can then take him to the next level and they can deploy confident Megan I have Megan next time with us and I news going back to distributed lethality you mentioned during last year's war game that you notice some behavior changes in your commanders when they had up gun ships I wonder how you go about trying to measure that behavioral change and kind of how that may be incorporated into education or training in tactics how you deal with that yeah I think what what really what has to happen I think is more gaming and then take and then taking it into the pulling the analytical the simulation and analysis into in order to be able to provide a a more rigorous mathematical underpinning is to the it to say hey was this unique in this behavior change that we saw or in fact as a drive would it drive change 99 times out of 100 or whatever the case may be and so part of the drive has to be your war game something you kind of see how the people react and then you go ahead and execute the analysis the rigorous analysis to ensure that hey with the behavior changes that you are seeing are supported by supported by the by the analytical side of the house so Tom Marfiak going to his cruiser CO mode and steal the mic so my I guess the next question is Tom Marfiak sir we get to have that development all our sensors right because we get their time constructing it we know what it is how it changes from then so that's part of our persistence that we get from being here to take that space awareness and then you put it with something called hostile attack in some of the environments we operate in like the South China Sea or the Black Sea environment or even off in the Arabian Gulf can be in a state of becoming we don't know how that's going to work that brings me to the thing which I hope your wargaming is going to look at with respect to distributed locality and that's the role of rules of engagement because they determine how we can respond to what degree it's key and essential we have that in mind because we're frequently in a position where actions could escalate so is that the question that are we including the ROI and in the analysis I think the short answer is yes absolutely the rules of engagement and I think that you also have to look at the at the application of the organizing principle across the phases of the operation clearly the rules of engagement that we execute in phase zero is something different than the rules of engagement that we might execute in the latter phases of the operation so certainly that I think that is a significant aspect of it as you kind of start to deconstruct it okay in the back there Admiral hey Rob it's good to see you up there you know with the FCC making such an effort to continue to buy up the frequency spectrum that spy operates in are you concerned in your training hat with the impact that may have on the fleet as we prepare to as our philosophies are to train like we fight I think absolutely the anytime you lose spectrum especially I think on the spy side of the house it's got to be a concern and and it and it has a tendency then to go pushes into places that then costs more time people you know time specifically time and money in order to be able to get to those areas where you can operate and be able to train like you fight and then that kind of takes you also away from the assets that you're going to utilize on the beach in order to be able to do that and so I think it's gonna it's gonna continuously be a kind of an ebb and flow and I think it's important from the military perspective to ensure that we properly and appropriately articulate the negative impacts associated with with any impact to this to this to the sale of the spectrum that occurs question here in that war throw my name is Hampton Dellum the notion of distributed lethality and distributing the force kind of brings me back to you know the the comments and writings of folks like screw it's and Fletcher and some Walt and so forth and you brought up the idea about you know having to be there well it really gets down to numbers you know hall numbers mean can you be there obviously being there puts a stress on maintenance and the things that drive your your daily calendar what about the notion and I read a couple articles that were surfaced by some junior officers but I didn't see any comments coming back various publications what about the idea of integrating permanently integrating foreign navies into our battle groups I mean they've seen the idea of putting marines on foreign ships and common on Marine Corps recently thought about deploying Marine Corps assets on foreign ships it's part of a normal deployment because we just have a we have some gaps and it's not going to be filled for a while it puts stress on maintenance would there would be there are some advantages generally speaking in the aggregate of having permanent not just in and out with an exercise but in the you know the Ike battle group they would have to you know a bread and Australian ship or permanent part of the battle group lowering the numbers of our hulls you know for a certain period of time that would give you some breathing room in terms of modernization and you know allowing our force numbers to our hull numbers to grow is that idea come up I mean we go in and out of pack room exercises but this would be more of a permanent integration you know it's a political issue but in terms of numbers and relief from a fiscal perspective and operating tempo with that would they give you some breathing room I think I mean it's very difficult to deal in hypotheticals I would say and putting the political piece aside I don't see any I don't see any barriers to certainly some of the some of the closer allies that we have the the ships that are in the Japanese force the ships that are in the Korean force the ships that are in the in the Australian force certainly I think the ability to integrate them into the strike group is not something that's insurmountable by any stretch of the imagination but I think that before really you can start to drive down that road you kind of have to get back to political peace get by the political peace and I would say specifically the national outcome piece because I mean clearly as I deployed is there as I prepare for deployment of the as a strike group commander there was no doubt in my mind ever that was in that strike group they were 100% all in and and so I think that political piece is just one that you have to kind of get back okay I think we have time for maybe one or two more go ahead right here in the middle so hey Mike hi everyone good to see you for distributed lethality there was talk about putting railgun for example on board join high-speed vessel any consideration to putting a the missile that you're talking about on ships either like join high-speed vessel or perhaps other MSc kind of ships to again spread things out even further and if so then how do you deal with the the civilian mani yeah certainly I think that that's something that you have to that you have to I mean quite obviously it has to be addressed and I'm not talking about I in the day-to-day phase zero operation in the execution of operations obviously I think it's the crisis level ratchets up do you want to have in your kit bag the option or the opportunity in order to be able to start continuing to further spread the field and then obviously that is one of the key things that has to be that key questions that has to be answered or addressed is if you decide to go in that direction then how are you going to address this piece with respect to the the the who's manning the ship we and we do have examples for example there are weapons installed on Mount Whitney and there's a there's a synergy between the MSc crew which basically operates the ship and then and then the Navy captain who fights it and so that's I mean that not that that's necessarily a model but that's one that we would obviously I think have to leverage I think as we as we address that question spread over here sir thank you Marvin out Johns Hopkins University formerly National War College in the South China Sea you're looking at a growing Chinese presence in the form of low out low elevation construction creating artificial islands military positions and so on can you give this audience some sense of given everything you said about distributed lethality and sort of rapidity of the adjustments you're making how that competition is going from a professionals standpoint do you feel confident you can cope with what you see the Chinese doing in the South China Sea competition standpoint that's an interesting characterization I think of what we're seeing in the South China Sea clearly you can pick I think pick up any of the number of publications on a daily basis and kind of track the progress that of what's being executed in the South China Sea today I think clearly the strategic importance of the South China Sea given the trade routes and given the amount of energy and other goods that flow through there that strategic importance of that particular body of water I think what we have to work our way through is in the in the whole presence piece we have to understand and clearly it's about I think about preventing conflict and continuing to ensure that the flow of goods that feed the world continue to flow through that body of water the intentions I mean I've read the intentions I mean of what the Chinese intend with respect to those islands that they're building I'm not sure I characterize it as much as as much of a competition as it is just trying to understand how people see the future of that body of water visa v the strategic importance of all those things that move through okay maybe one final one over here it's good it's always good to get a lieutenant raises hand good afternoon sir lieutenant Babcock you know what your next assignment is I'll take care of this question I'm kidding currently we operate with a very rigid carrier-centric command structure with the sea combatant commander on the carrier when you're implementing distributed legality how does that change the game for command and control they'll have a lot less situational awareness when ships are further away from them yeah I think certainly one of the things we have to look for look look at as we continue to develop this concept is to understand what different and I'll just refer to it as adapted force packaging we can put together and what kind of situ we need to have on those on those force packages current I mean clearly I think the the the command and control structure that we have in our carrier strike groups is tried and true and it's proven and I think it's I think it's effective but if we were to employ put different groups of ships together and employ them differently then obviously there has to be a command and control structure associated with them so I could I could envision a time when if we if we decided that we were going to simply when it going to deploy a smaller package we would have to then either go take an existing command and control package a for example a destroyer squadron common or that was that could could command and control that particular group of ships or some other or amphibious squadron or whatever the case may be in order to be able to provide that command and control if you're going to look at deploying different adaptive force packages I think you have to then absolutely address that particular question which is how you execute the proper C2 of them before we signed off with Admiral Rodin I want to again thank our partner CSIS for helping us do jointly this maritime security dialogue series we thank our sponsor overall Lockheed Martin I'd like to point out for the audience that we're going to do two of these next month in August on the 5th of August we're going to have Vice Admiral Joe a coin and rear Admiral Matt winter come in together and talk about innovation and on the 12th of August we're going to have Lieutenant General Doug Davis US Marine Corps and Vice Admiral Troy Schumacher talk about the naval aviation version of what we've heard here today but most importantly we want to thank Admiral Rodin for coming out giving us his fine presentation and making himself available thank you very much