 I know what a world without nuclear weapons looks like. It's not a very nice world, because a world without nuclear weapons is the world before 1945. And if you just think about the six years prior to August of 1945, when the first nuclear weapon was employed, we've been in the nuclear age ever since. But if you look at the world the six years prior to August of 1945, in those six years, somewhere between 60 and 80 million people were killed in that six-year period. If you do the math, that's somewhere over 30,000 people a day were being killed during the six years of World War II. That's a world I don't want to live in. Nuclear weapons have helped keep that major power conflict down. It has helped eliminate that major power catastrophe that was World War II. That's what nuclear weapons provide. That strategic deterrent to prevent major power conflict. It doesn't eliminate conflict. Conflict will always exist. Sometimes it will get to be violent, but it has kept down the major power conflict all the way through. Modernization is critical to the future of our deterrent capability. Sadly, we've delayed the modernization of those programs really too long. But we've put a process in place that is very bureaucratic and very slow and very deliberate. It prevents big mistakes, but it also puts huge schedule into programs. And when you have adversaries that are going fast, you don't have the time to take to go through that very deliberate process. Because if it takes you 25 years to build a capability, which is what it's going to take us to build a number of space capabilities and a number of missile capabilities, it takes you 25 years and the adversary can do it in 10 years. In 50 years, you've had two cycles and they've had five. There are three cycles ahead of you. We cannot be behind our adversaries anymore. We have to move quickly. We have to understand the risk. We have to take appropriate risk, not crazy risk, but appropriate risk, and give the authority and responsibility to the people that can move fast. And then American industry will move fast, just like we've always done. One of my favorite stories is General Shriever at the beginning of the space program as he's building the corona satellite program, the first spy satellite. It didn't work until the 13th attempt. 12 failures in a row and then it finally works the 13th time. You had things blow up. Sometimes when the satellite made it to space, it didn't make it back to Earth. It flashed in the ocean multiple times. Things broke all over the place, but each time he did that, they learned and they didn't make the same mistakes again. They learned from the mistakes they made, and because of that they were able to turn it fast and they were able to test on a very rapid sequence. In today's day and age, you can imagine the headlines of the paper if you had any program that failed 12 times in a row. It would just be a death knell. The program wouldn't be allowed to succeed, but that's actually how you go fast. You go fast in this business, which is a very difficult business, by pushing the envelope, learning, instrumenting the test so you understand what happens and what goes wrong, and then go fast. So the three priorities for this commander, I think pretty simple and straightforward. We already won. Above all else, we will provide a strategic deterrent. Priority two, if deterrence fails, we will provide a decisive response. And priority three, we'll do it with a combat-ready force. Whenever I say those priorities, what people hear when I say that is they think about our nuclear capabilities. That's probably where your head went. That's where most people head go when I say we will provide a strategic deterrence. If deterrence fails, we'll provide a decisive response. We'll do it with a combat-ready force. Everybody goes to the nuclear capabilities. But it actually applies to every element of this command. Nuclear, space, cyber, missile defense, global strike, electronic warfare, intelligence, targeting analysis. All of those capabilities we bring to bear on the fight today. We need to, in the future, and that's the vision for this command, we need to move where all of those capabilities are integrated to provide a single deterrent effect, a single decisive response if we're threatened. All those capabilities together will be much more powerful than each of them separately. And that applies to the nuclear capabilities as well. From an assurance perspective, assurance is one of the most important things we do for our allies. When you look at our allies, like the Republic of Korea or Japan, we have capabilities here that provide an extended deterrent for those two allies and a number of other allies around the world. It's important that we always assure them that we will be there with the capabilities that we have when we're attacked with the nuclear capabilities. That's what extended deterrents mean. And so we have the responsibility to assure our allies through demonstrations, through partnerships, through exercises that we will always be there if there's a challenge that they face. And there is a challenge right now with North Korea. And it's very important for the Republic of Korea and for Japan that they know that we will be there and we will be. The greatest gift a commander is given is the sons and daughters of our nation. And they come to work every day. So if you go on board a nuclear submarine, whether it's the Tennessee or the Alabama, whatever element of our force, and you go underway on that submarine, you'll have some number over 100 sailors that are underwater for months at a time. Under the water. Silent service. Always ready, always capable. And they are so bright, so energized, so motivated. They understand exactly what they're supposed to do every day when they come to work. They are ready. If you go to the missile fields of Montana, North Dakota, Colorado, anywhere you go, you go into a launch control center. You'll find two young Air Force officers sitting alert 24 hours ready at a moment's notice to respond. And they are highly motivated. They understand that they're doing the job that their country has to give. And they're doing that, and they're ready. It's just, it is the greatest feeling in the world. It is the best part about being a commander, without a doubt. The best part of being a commander is actually seeing the young men and women who do this mission every day, the soldiers, sailors, and airmen and marines who sign up to do some of the most difficult jobs that our country has. The young men, they do it. They love it and they're good at it.