 Well, good morning, everyone, and thank you for coming out here to CSIS this morning. I'm Kathleen Hicks. I run the International Security Program, and I'm the Kissinger Chair here at CSIS. Let me first thank Lockheed Martin for its support that make possible this event here today and the coffee you're enjoying outside. And it's such my pleasure to be here to introduce Admiral Zeconft and, of course, my partner in crime from the U.S. Naval Institute, Pete Daley, CEO of the U.S. Naval Institute. As you probably know, CSIS and U.S. and I have partnered for this Maritime Dialogue Series to try to bring a forum together where we can discuss major issues in the Maritime. And it's wonderful to have as our second speaker, just after the CNO spoke, the Commandant of the Coast Guard, 25th Commandant of the Coast Guard, Admiral Zeconft. What we have here today really is the bridging of the worlds of Homeland Security and law enforcement with national security. And the Coast Guard lives every day in that space from his own personal experiences, serving as the Federal Unseen Coordinator for Deepwater Horizon, oil spill recovery efforts to working on issues in the Asia Pacific. The Admiral here, the Commandant, certainly personifies what the Coast Guard is all about. So without further ado, and with thanks in advance to Admiral Daley for moderating today's event, I'd like to introduce Admiral Zeconft. Like, Kat, thank you very much. And Admiral Daley, thank you for stepping up to moderate this. You always have a chance during the introduction to scan the audience. And as I scan it, I probably counted at least 10 of you that have written fitness reports on me when I was your subordinate. So it's a bit daunting to stand in front of you today, but it's important because I spoke at SNA yesterday. And there were a lot of people that didn't realize, you know, all of the great things that the Coast Guard does as a first and foremost, as a member of the Armed Services, as a law enforcement agency, as a humanitarian service, as a regulatory agency, as a member of the national intel community, and all the great things that we do for our country. So I want to thank you first for taking time to be with us today. And I certainly want to entertain your questions as well and leave ample time for us to be able to do so. When I stepped into this job about eight months ago, the first thing I did is I put my commonance direction. It was very straightforward. It was about service to nation, duty to people, and commitment to excellence, but really building upon the eight commonance that served before me while I'd been on active duty and take the best of their ideas and provide continuity of command rather than transition of command as I stepped into this position. But I also looked at how we've been executing our budgets since 1790. I'm sure when 10 revenue cutters were chartered under Alexander Hamilton, we probably wanted 15, but only yet 10. But we usually work with what's left over. And my first approach is, you know, we need to have a budget that is driven first and foremost by a strategy, by a strategy that is relevant, that resonates across a whole of government. And so we've been able to do exactly that. The first piece that we rolled out under my predecessor Admiral Papp is an Arctic strategy. I recently released a strategy for the Western Hemisphere. And I'll talk a little bit about that at length here shortly. In the next several weeks, we will release a strategy for cyber, and I'll talk a little bit about that as well. And I'm also very focused on what I call the energy renaissance. Every day a new tank barge is entering our waterways with a US certificate of inspection on it right now, because right now we export more oil than we import. We are a net producer. We're an OPEC nation. We produce more oil and gas than any other nation in the world right now, which is why gas is hovering oil around $46 per barrel. So let me talk a little bit about the Western Hemisphere. There was in the Smithsonian back in the late 70s, there was this vignette that plays out. You have basketball players, three in white shorts, three in black shorts, and you watch very closely as they pass a basketball among them. And if you pay very close attention, they pass that ball about 12 times. And about 65% of the people get it, but those 65%, what they don't see, is in the middle of that vignette. Someone dressed up in a gorilla suit does a moonwalk right between them, and no one saw it happen. No one saw it take place. I use this gorilla metaphor in the context of the Western Hemisphere. Today, eight out of ten of the most violent nations in the world are right here in our backyard in the Western Hemisphere to include violent crime, undermining rule of law, good governance, and how did that happen? Well, what's happened is that gorilla was actually organized crime, moving drugs, moving people, moving weapons into Central America, much of that destined for the United States. But that's why we now have eight of the ten most violent nations are right here in our backyard. We saw this play out this past summer with unaccompanied minor children. And some of us, if you look at that, the first thing you want to do is we're going to need bigger detention facilities. We need more beds. How do we place these children? And that's treating the symptom. What's the ultimate cause? The ultimate cause are the parents of Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, three of these most violent nations, Honduras being number one, are trying to get their children to a safe haven. To leave a country that currently has 40% unemployment, 50% poverty, but a young child being born in Honduras today, one in nine will be murdered before they reach the age 21. And so how did that happen? So I'm looking at the cause of that and how that is taking place here in our hemisphere. Besides the unaccompanied minors, we're looking at drug flow. And within the Western Hemisphere, I'm taking a very offensive approach and attacking organized crime where it's the most vulnerable. And that's when it's on the water. We realize that when drugs come ashore, they're not coming ashore in the United States. They come ashore well south of here. So when I look at where does our maritime border begin, it begins at the territorial sea of 41 countries with whom we have bilateral agreements to do counter drug operations. But once those drugs come ashore, very difficult to detect. So one of my imperatives under my commonance direction is we will have intelligence drive operations. We've been a member of the national intelligence community for over 12 years now, 13. And it's time that we vector ships to where we know the threats, where they are at. My last ship that I commanded, I left over 13 years ago, we would go out and I would pick a spot in the ocean and I say, they're gonna come right here. And more often than not, it was like forest gump before they caught all the shrimp. But more often than not, you went home and you were skunked. And that's not the case anymore. The Coast Guard Cutter Boutwell, it's a 45 year old high endurance cutter return just before Thanksgiving with over half a billion dollars worth of contraband on their flight deck. 13 interdictions in one deployment. And for those of you that have been in this line of business, one a year is staggering, but 13 in one deployment. But this is all intelligence driving operations. Our intelligence product is so good today that we have at least one layer of intelligence on about 80% of the flow in the Eastern Pacific and in the Western Caribbean and even some of the flow that's destined towards Europe as well, 80%. On the best of days, I have an airplane, I have a cutter or a frigate that I can vector to go after 20%. So I can, 60% get a free pass. And so why is this of concern to me? Obviously we've got this challenge with regional stability in Central America. But this is a $750 billion enterprise. I have a $10 billion slingshot in my budget. But if we use Intel appropriately, again where organized crime is the most vulnerable where I have the upper hand is at sea, complimented with the authorities that we have. And the authorities are one thing, but it's also the competencies of the people. And I am honored to lead what is by far the best Coast Guard in the world today. So much so that many countries are trying to replicate the United States Coast Guard. They've got the color scheme right, they've got the stripe right, they might wanna buy our ships instead of theirs. But what they can't replicate is our people. What they can't replicate our authorities, our governance, because we reach across every aspect, so any maritime stakeholder, they really have to look one place to the United States Coast Guard. But that's where we're really having a difference. And as I'm trying to wake others up to this challenge, this gorilla, if you will, there's another very troubling number, and that number is 450,000. And those are the number of American citizens since 9-11 who have died due to drug overdose, drug crime here in our United States of America. We now have more people dying to drug overdoses, drug violence each year than we do to highway fatalities. So I need to build up this, you know, click it or ticket, but at a much higher level as we look at how do we invest in the Coast Guard as we look at some of the challenges that we see in the 21st century. The next line of the Western Hemisphere besides going after combating networks is safeguarding commerce. 90% of our trade currently rides on the sea. Yesterday, this relates to our cyber strategy, we hosted a public meeting for the maritime industry. In 2002, the Maritime Transportation Security Act, probably one of the most wide-sweeping pieces of legislation to impact the Coast Guard, impacted a number of facilities that do international trade. And they balked it first when we said you're gonna have to build a higher fence, more cameras, credentials, security guards, and so forth. But now they're coming to us and say, well, we need to know what the international standards are for cyber. If you look to see what's playing out right now on the West Coast with the ILWU renewing its contract, we're starting to see gridlock in our ports and we live in a just-in-time inventory economy. And so there's no room for error if there's a disruption in any one of our ports, especially if you look at a port complex such as LA Long Beach, where over a billion dollars a day of commerce goes through that port complex. That just goes through there. What you don't see are warehouses in the heartland. That warehouse is on a container that then gets on a rail car, that then gets to the factory floor just in time that's keeping our economic engine running. I was down in Sabine River about six weeks ago and on the Sabine River, there's a facility called Cheneer that will be the largest LNG exporter in the world when all six of those liquefaction plants come online over the next four to five years. Just after that, I went down to the Panama Canal. I went into the expansion project. It's 180 feet wide. It can accommodate ships with graphs of over 50 feet. That should open on or about the April Fool's Day of 2016. So with that, there will be a flow of gas ships. There will be also a flow of container ships, some of them carrying upwards of 18,000 tainter equivalent units, 20 foot containers coming through the canal, which may have an impact on where we do trade here in the United States. But behind all of that, the Coast Guard is the enabler and we do not wanna be the inhibitor of allowing all this maritime commerce to take place. So that's a key element as we look Western Hemisphere and then how we enable commerce and keep that engine running as well. And then the third piece of our Western Hemisphere strategy is securing our borders. And this question comes up time and time again. In the maritime environment, our border is not our territorial sea. Our border begins at the port of debarkation for any nation that does trade with the United States. Our maritime security regime, we have teams that go out and we audit all of the ports, all the facilities that do trade with the United States. And if they're in compliance with the international port security codes, they get a clean bill of health. If they're not any ship that calls on that facility within five times before it arrives here in the United States is going to have a welcoming committee, a very stringent inspection to make sure that their security standards have not been compromised as they go through these ports. So what that does to a shipper is either they don't do commerce at that port or that facility says, well, we better come into compliance. So it's a very indirect way, if you will, to correct compliance on an international scale. At that point, as that ship leaves a foreign port, the Coast Guard and Customs and Border Protection at the National Targeting Center here in Reston, Virginia. We look at the cargo manifest, we look at every crew member, the consec needs of that product. And then we look for any anomalies. Is there a person of interest? Is there perhaps something with that manifest that may cause great concern? Obviously the worst case being a weapon of mass destruction. And so we screen all of that well in advance of those ships coming into our territorial sea, way out in the high seas. We have 12 bilateral agreements with flag states of convenience that allow us to go on those ships if we think that there is a weapon of mass destruction on those ships. We don't have to ask for permission. But you don't wanna board that ship as it's coming under the Golden Gate Bridge. That's why we have Flight Deck-Equipped Cutters. That's why we have a Tier 2 team, a maritime security response team that does fast rope, uses the exact same tactics, techniques, procedures as our special operations forces to go on board. And if it is a worst case, to take positive control on that ship and buy us that trade space, that time we need of what do we do with the final disposition of this ship that was destined for the United States and perhaps torching off a very worst case scenario. And then the other aspect of our borders is the flow of illegal migration. And it's not just here in the United States. This is playing out on a global scale. It's playing out in Australia with migrant flow going to that country. We're certainly seeing that in the European Union just in the last several weeks with very large numbers. And the Coast Guard has been dealing with phenomena now since, really the Mariel boat lift of 1980. Last month, we had a 200% increase in migrant flow leaving Cuba. There was a perception that our feet dry policy was going to change and what we saw were as rudimentary as these vessels are, these were really makeshift chugs, rusticas trying to get to the United States. As I was dealing with that threat and moving ships around, we have a 50 year old fleet of 210 foot cutters. They do have a flight deck on them. And so if you're holding 100, 150 migrants, it takes several days to go through a screening process before you repatriate these individuals. Well, four of these 210 foot cutters we had to send off to emergency dry dock. We've been doing a great job and all the crews that came before that to maintain these ships, but they're 20 years beyond their service life. But we're still operating them for 50 years. So what's the consequence? We have these great brand new fast response cutters that are about 154 feet long, a crew of 22. But that crew of 22 is now holding over 100 migrants for a period of five days. And as these migrants get anxious, some of them will self mutilate to be medically evacuated and then they become feet dry to enter the United States. But those fast response cutters were not designed to hold migrants for days on end as we look at the final disposition of these individuals. In this phenomenon, I don't think it's gonna change in the 21st century. When I look at the abyss between have and have not nations, when I look at political instability in the region, when you don't have to look beyond the country of Haiti, whose economic engine just doesn't seem to get started, but there are a lot of other leading indicators throughout the region where the United States is gonna become a very attractive target to emigrate to. Much like what we saw back in the early 1900s with the European phenomenon. But they will do so illegally and we wanna screen out who is a person of interest that may cause harm to the United States and who is a bona fide economic migrant looking to better their way of life. But that will be a challenge for us as well. I'll shift gears real quick to another area that I'm looking at and that's the Arctic. Yeah, when I say Arctic, it's also Antarctica. When people ask me, what do I lose sleep over? It's the Coast Guard cutter polar star that is grooming the channel as I speak. And things are going a little slower than expected. A little bit more work than they anticipated. We have great imagery, but they said, no, the ice is thicker, it's more dense. There's some fast ice in here as well. But what happens if they have a major engineering casualty while they're breaking in? There used to be a point in time where I could send another heavy icebreaker to the rescue. But right now they are going it alone and every time I would swim and water over my head, it was always good to have a buddy. But the United States doesn't have a buddy system right now as we're operating at the very far extremes of the world. And we have equities well beyond scientific research in Antarctica. And then as I shift to the Arctic, for the next two years, the United States will chair the Arctic Council. The head of that delegation will be my predecessor, Admiral Papp. How do we view the Arctic in the 21st century? What I see as the most looming challenges are gonna be safety of life at sea and then protecting the environment itself. So we will stand up on Arctic Coast Guard Forum and we will host all eight members of the Arctic Council. This includes Russia. In March, as we look at a governance structure for the Arctic going forward. First and foremost, safety of life at sea and also bandwidth. How do you communicate up in this region? To deal with a very complex contingency. A major oil spill up in the Arctic may only be several thousand barrels, not on the magnitude of a deep water horizon event. We need to be sensitive to the indigenous nations that have been living up there for several millennia as well. And take time as we work. Those partnerships as well. And we are doing that on a daily basis. But yeah, we have an opportunity over the next couple of years to really make our presence felt in the Arctic. But it's hard to do so in a very persistent manner. When our nation, these are national assets, our heavy ice breakers is one. And our medium ice breaker, our fleet again is one. So I'm keenly interested in recapitalizing our capability as we go forward. So there's a number of directives that I've teed up as I look at this world around us. And one of the first areas I look at is our human resource competencies. We operate in a much more complex environment than we did even back when I was in Ensign. We have boats and mates that are pursuing boats 140 miles offshore using warning shots up to including deadly force and doing the arrest as an E-5. We have a cyber command. We have intel specialists. We have an acquisition program that has not only matured but received five federal government awards in the past year. Our ships are much more complex. The systems on there to leverage them to the full capability. You cannot send apprentices to sea. We get to the journeyman approach. They leave and then we bring in the next wave of apprentices. So we're gonna have to overhaul our human resource competencies to be proficient in the 21st century. And that also includes our prevention world of work. We regulate an industry that is now turning to alternative fuels. There are offshore supply vessels using LNG as a fuel source. And I don't wanna find ourselves learning from the industry that we're trying to regulate. We should be the ones imposing the standards and not learning from industry. But we've never had closed loop communities other than the aviation community within the Coast Guard. And we need to tighten those circles a little bit more than we have in the past. Whether it's sea going, doing response, doing prevention, doing intelligence, doing acquisition, all of our support missions. Every one of them are valuable. I need it all. But I need to make sure that I've got competent individuals and I have an assignment process that grows those subject matter experts because we can no longer be that Swiss army knife. That jack of all trades, masters of none as we're doing brain surgery out here in the 21st century. So we're gonna overhaul that as well. I'm also directing as we look at the flow of oil within our inland waterway system. In two years ago, about two million barrels of oil went down river. Last year it was 50 million. It went up by a factor of 25. As I mentioned, more barges are being built when they come down on high river conditions. They're shifting silt. And there's a lot of exposure and something can go bad, but I need to make sure that that maritime transportation system, the waterway, is reliable. While we're maintaining that with 60 year old inland buoy tender. So if you thought those 50 year old ships were old, well, I've got something even older yet. And so I need to take a long hard look at that and how do we recapitalize that? There's a lot of talk saying, well, hey, we have GPS and we have electronic navigation. You won't need that anymore. Well, what happens if that GPS signal goes dark? Then what do we do? And I'm very focused on that aspect as well, of what some of those, well, we never thought of that, but that keeps me awake a little bit at night as well. Not just in our navigation systems, but also this is our timing system. Our financial market relies on GPS. There is no backup right now. So that's another key focus area of mine as I look into the 21st century. And then I also look at climate change. Not what's causing it, but I know that the sea level is rising. We've measured the ocean temperatures. Those are rising. And there were two phenomena that I observed in the last year. In 2013, it was super typhoon Haifan. That came ashore in the Philippines with winds of 196 knots, highest ever recorded in history. Well, we topped that this last year. It just didn't come ashore, but that was super typhoon Vong Phong. And as they were digging out eight feet of snow up in the Northeast, what happened was it was so powerful and dragged the jet stream south and then across the United States. But if you can imagine one of these beasts coming ashore in the United States. Katrina was a category three. Sandy was a category one. This is a category five plus plus. And do we have the resiliency within the Coast Guard to respond to an incident of that magnitude at a point in time where my active reserve, my active in reserve combined are less than 50,000 people as we look at how do we respond to some of these contingencies. So we're staying very focused on that as well. I'll close by saying there's no point in time where we have not had a better relationship with the United States Navy. I meet with Admiral Greenert on a regular basis. Very soon we will sign out the cooperative strategy for the 21st century. And when I look at the challenges that he is facing, gone are the days where you have six months to lead up to a contingency. When you have unpredictable leadership on the Korean Peninsula, threatening our country with ICBM missiles, clearly the Navy does have to reposition. And as they reposition, what do you pull from? And so in many cases, the Navy has had to pull from the Western Hemisphere. And as they do that, first and foremost, I applaud the great support, the teamwork that we have had with our Navy, with law enforcement detachments on those ships. It's been a game changer. I painted a rather bleak story for the Western Hemisphere, but it would be even more bleak had it not been for the presence in this great relationship that we've had with our Navy. But as the Navy repositions to the Pacific, I'm repositioning to the Western Hemisphere. Our presence right now is up by nearly 40%. And obviously I did not grow a fleet of 40% overnight. Again, we're using intelligence. We're doing what I call risk-based decision-making, but what are my highest priority threats on a global scale? And right now, they're right here in our backyard to go after that guerrilla. It's a great time to lead this organization. When I spoke to the Corps of Cadets at the Coast Guard Academy, I said your biggest challenge is when you lead this institution, you're going to lead an enlisted workforce that is more experienced, more mature because they're 24, 25 years old, and in many cases, better educated than you are. Now, if that is your biggest problem, then bring it on. But the strength of our human resource capital, I've never seen where it is today. And so when I step back and look at our United States Coast Guard, I could not be more optimistic. I could not be more thankful to the 88,000 active duty, our reserve, our civilian, and our exhilarate because to a person, every one of them are collectively punching well above their weight class. So I look forward to hearing your questions. Thank you for hearing my view of the world from a Coast Guard perspective. And so, Peter, I'll turn it over to you for some moderated discussion. Thanks, sir. My intent here is just to ask a couple of questions and open it up quickly to the audience. And I will thank you for your remarks. We had a forum last month where a speaker who really looks at this closely looked at the Coast Guard's acquisition, construction and investment accounts and noted the fact that historically, that had been at 1.5 to 2 billion and then has now 14 out centered on more of a 1 billion, 1.1 billion. You mentioned earlier your remarks about the hindrance cut or about well over 40 years old. What does this do to your ability to recapitalize that force? Yeah, my primary responsibility is come out of the Coast Guard as I've told our workforces. I spent most of my career as an operator and now I'm in marketing and sales. And I need to market our United States Coast Guard. We've done our due diligence. For two years running now, we have a clean financial audit opinion. We were the first military service to do so and then the Marine Corps followed suit last year. Well, we did it again. When you look at the fact that we can maintain a ship for 50 years, it was designed at a point in time where that ship was designed to maybe go out for two weeks and do search and rescue before the Magnuson Act was even signed dealing with fisheries and how we've been able to modify that cutter, train our people to remain relevant in the 21st century. I think we've been a pretty darn good steward of the resources, the platforms that the taxpayers have provided the United States Coast Guard. But over the last several years, our acquisition budget has gone from 1.5 to just south of $1 billion. And I cannot run our Coast Guard on a budget like that. We need the fast response cutters. The national security cutter has been a game changer for us. Gone are the days where you go out for a two month patrol. They deploy. They provide persistent presence and they're providing tremendous return on that investment. Let me just, yeah, a quick sea story. Coast Guard cutter, Washi, our second national security cutter just completed Rim of the Pacific, the largest Rim of the Pacific this last year. As she was doing her workups down in San Diego, we diverted her twice and she did two drug interdictions. Then she streams with a battle group and she's the SAG commander for the first time the PLA ever participated in Rim of the Pacific. When that was all said and done, they then went out and enforced our EEZ against fisheries. All in one deployment. And so this is a very capable asset. What I'm lacking right now is that middleware. And that is our offshore patrol cutter. We are down to three competitors. I've gone back to my staff and scrub every specification that's on there with a view towards affordability. And we view this as though I am personally paying for out of my checking account. One, that it's affordable, but two, that this is going to meet the requirements that I foresee in the 21st century. But I can't do it on a budget south of $1 billion. Well, shifting gears, just a minute. You've been commandant now for about seven and a half months. And in some sense, you've spent most of your life preparing for the job and there's probably no surprises. But I always feel like it's worth asking now that you're the man, you're the number one guy, is there any aspect now that you're in the job that has surprised you or is least unexpected? Yeah, I'd say there are two surprises. The first surprise is in the last month, I was on five continents. I've met with every geographic component commander and to a person, they've all said, we want more United States Coast Guard as an instrument of national security in their area of responsibility because many of the threats that they see are Coast Guard-like. Criminal activity, law enforcement authorities are requisite. So that's been the first surprise of how far and wide can I spread this peanut butter across the globe? And so we've tried to do that in years past, but now I'm stacking peanut butter and I'm stacking some of that in the Western Hemisphere. So that's the first surprise. The other, it actually comes as no surprise, is I've called ourselves the silent service because we don't overstate. In fact, we often understate our value to the nation and how few people understand what the Coast Guard delivers to our nation day in and day out. We have daily contact with American citizens, with bad guys and we're great instruments of diplomacy overseas, but very few people understand that. And the epitome of that is when we do our Coast Guard Foundation Awards and we had a rescue swimmer in the last year save 13 lives on multiple rescue missions. And this wasn't just out in the open water. This is in that surf zone against the cliff as people are being scraped across barnacles and all 13 of them in all likelihood should have perished. He saved all 13 of their lives and as he steps up to the podium, receives his award, I said, would you like to say a few words? He goes, well, I'm a rescue swimmer. This is what I'm trained to do. And I had duty that day and he walks off. That's great. It is mind numbing, but that is, we have 88,000 people just like that. I mean, we train them, we empower them, they do great things, but the value they provide to the nation often is underappreciated. Got it. You talked about West Ham and the fact that the Navy is focusing more on the Asia Pacific, the other side of the Asia Pacific. This opening with Cuba, and today represents a bit of a threshold because some of the requirements eased up just today on travel restrictions and the amount of money that could be spent, use of credit cards, things like that. What does this opening to Cuba mean to the Coast Guard? Yeah, first I'll say what it means to the Coast Guard and also mention what it means to the Department of Homeland Security as well. We've had this unique policy with the government of Cuba now for a number of years, this feet-dry policy, and it's been very challenging for those of us on the front line and having been there as the lights of Key West appear on the horizon. A lot of times people looking to better their lives will go to desperate efforts to try to make landfall here in the United States because once they do, they're home free. It's the only policy like that. So it would make our world of work a little bit easier. What I don't know would the government of Cuba try to prevent people from leaving because there's been a policy change and then if they do, there might be a reverse effect. You might have Cuban nationals leaving the United States destined for Cuba and trying to embark them and then bring them back the other way. So it can play out one of two ways. So I look at it from a couple of different aspects there. From a Department of Homeland Security aspect, we're unique in that we're 22 components, but we're not weaved together like the Department of Defense is under the Golden Water Nichols Act. Under Secretary Jay Johnson, he released a memo shortly after I became common on to talk about unity of effort within the Department of Homeland Security. And then how do we make best use of the resources and then apply it to what are the most relevant threats as viewed at the departmental level? So we've created three task forces. A Joint Task Force East, which is led by Vice Admiral Dean Lee. He'll be double-hatted as the area commander focused on DHS equities maritime. His deputy will be a member from Customs and Border Protection. There'll be a Joint Task Force West. That will be led by from the Border Patrol, Commander Robert Harris. His deputy will be a Coast Guard individual and then we'll have another Joint Task Force for Investigations, which is really getting into the criminal networks led by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. His deputy will also be Coast Guard. So we're starting to turn DHS a little bit more purple by the creation of these task forces. As we look at emerging threats and then how do we apply resources will always be scarce, but how do we optimally apply resources across DHS to deal with those threats? Do you foresee that you'll be able to deploy or at least employ Coast Guard forces further south in the hemisphere and maybe operate from other countries or have more access to launch activities from? These are not stage questions, by the way. It's a great question. You may know that the White House, when we released our Western Hemisphere strategy, if you release a strategy, you wanna make sure you have connective tissue. And so our first connective tissue is to our department that has a Southern Border and Approaches campaign. But the next piece is to the White House that has a strategy for Central America. President Obama has met with the presidents of Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador. He has heard their concerns. A lot of that violent crime is collateral damage for the flow of contraband destined for the United States. So there is a responsibility for the United States to step up to the plate. So as we look at, I have six patrol boats in Bahrain as I speak today and they've been there for 12 years, but that very same concept could apply in Central America. A dedicated squadron of patrol boats operating in this region to, first of all, help build up their Coast Guards. But at the same time, if there's actionable intelligence, I can divert them to either do unilateral or combined operations with these countries. And as they look at their Navy model in this region, the countries of this region, it's very much a Coast Guard model. So it's a very good fit for us. I think it's a very good fit for our nation as well. Well, thanks. I just, as a guy who operated out there in the Persian Gulf with those WPBs, I just want to say that they were fantastic in their contribution and to the mission, also super impressed with the junior structure, obviously, in those small WPBs and what those officers and crew accomplished out there was impressive. And as promised, I wanted to open it up more quickly to audience questions and gentlemen, right in the back there, sir. Admiral, good to see you again, sir. As always, your initiatives are incredibly aggressive. They're exciting to hear. We hear of the added, almost tasks that are being put on you by our country and our global partners, but it still seems like we're still using Admiral Lloyd's analogy, the dull knife. Is the administration and the Department of Homeland Security ready to go to Congress and work with them on their offer to get the Coast Guard the funding needed to get you not to be the dull knife, but the sharp tip of the spear? Yeah, my responsibility, and I'm very optimistic in that regard, especially when I go to my boss, Secretary Johnson, and his first concern is counter-terrorism, obviously. I mean, look what just played out in Belgium. Look what played out in Paris before that and we're operating under a continuing resolution right now. That has a direct impact on new starts, major acquisitions if that continuing resolution were to continue. He's been very vocal, one, in lifting that continuing resolution and have a fully funded department as he looks at counter-terrorism. His number two concern is recapitalizing the Coast Guard. I'm happy being number two. We haven't always even been in the top five, but to be number two at a point, an inflection point where we need to invest in our Coast Guard to be relevant in the 21st century, I'm very thankful for the leadership that I have in the Department of Homeland Security right now. Okay, we have a question right here, sir. Good morning, Admiral. Good to see you again. Will Watson, Maritime Security Council. Can you speak a little bit to the Coast Guard's role in safeguarding American or U.S. flagged owned and crewed shipping in high-risk areas like the Gulf of Guinea and Aden, the Malacca and Singapore Straits, et cetera? Yeah. Ironically, there's only one U.S. flagged, bonafide cruise ship, and it's out in Hawaii. But obviously, it's primarily a foreign flag fleet. We just released a notice of proposed rulemaking in the last day or two. As we look at violent crime, as we look at safety standards on cruise ships, and very early on in my assignment, I think it was in week two, I met with all of the CEOs of the cruise shipping industry. And I said, from this point on, we are going to have a relationship. But what we are not going to have is a partnership. It is in our mutual best interest as a regulator that we provide enough maneuvering space between the two of you. And we do periodic inspections on these ships to make sure they're in compliance with international code. But now we're doing spot checks. We show up unannounced just to keep them honest. And it's in their best interest to say, hey, we've got a Coast Guard seal of approval and we've been spot checked. And so it provides us better credibility, but it's certainly good for their business product line as well. But the next piece of rulemaking is still out on the street right now. It's an important one. This is, this ranks in my top five right now in regulatory packages that I would like to see to get through over the next year. That lady in the back row there. Left hand colonel Sylwia Szawowska from the Polish Embassy. I would like to ask you a question concerning your Arctic capabilities, especially in terms of budgetary cuts and what are your immediate plans to increase your polar icebreaker fleet? Thank you. First, you need to start with, what are the requirements for the 21st century? And if you're gonna be operating in the Arctic domain, you wanna make sure that you meet or exceed the environmental standards that are in the Arctic. That's everything from gray water, the type of fuel you burn, the emissions. And right now, none of our icebreakers meet today's modern day standards. And those are gonna be updated even more so with the release of the polar code. I say that because we're also looking at what would it take to bring the Coast Guard Cutter Polar Sea back to life. It's been laid up now for over six years. Some of those parts were used to put the polar star together so it could run for notionally about 10 years. And so we're still doing an assessment of what would it take to bring a 40 year old ship back to life and then hopefully keep it on life support for another 10 years. But it's like that old car that you just don't wanna let go of. And at some point, you throw good money after bad, but this is taxpayer money. And I wanna make sure that we make a sound investment. But if I'm sinking so much money into that to the point where I could have recapitalized that ship outright, and I don't wanna find out four or five years later, that that's exactly what I should have done because it's gonna take several years for our shipyards to be able to produce a heavy icebreaker. Just the technology that goes into building a hull with a hull skin of several inches thick, which is what we have on our polar icebreakers. Clearly this needs to be a new line item in our budget. I can't do it with the acquisition budget that I have right now. But clearly an icebreaker is not, the Coast Guard operates and maintains it. But it really answers a lot of mission needs for a number of agencies within our federal government and also internationally as well. So we're looking across all of government to find the resources to put into a recapitalization of our art of capability. Other, this lady down here. Thank you, Marisa Lino with Northrop Grumman. Thank you for your comments. You covered such a broad scope. It's hard to decide what to ask. But I am curious, you mentioned being in Panama for the, to look at the canal. Do you have, what are your thoughts on the Chinese building a canal in, I think it's Honduras? Nicaragua. Nicaragua. Thank you. Not a new concept. Yes. Well, my term is four years. And it won't happen on my watch. But yeah, just from the outside looking in. You know, Lake Nicaragua, fresh water source as we look at invasive species. I mean, there's an environmental component. It will take much longer if this were ever completed to transit that canal than it would the Panama Canal. What does it take to operate and maintain that? And so does it provide competition? But I think there's gonna be many, many challenges in seeing that to fruition. And certainly what shippers want as we look at shipping going through the Northern Sea Route, the Northwest Passage, especially in the container fleet. They wanna meet schedule. No surprises, no time for disruptions, which is why you don't see container ships going up the Northern Sea Route. What they typically need is other infrastructure, another container terminal, railways, because they may as they transit, may need to shift some of that cargo because it's been diverted to another direction. So it's not just a canal, it's all the infrastructure that would need to go up around that in order that to be a viable waterway. Much like we have with the Suez Canal, a very mature Panama Canal as well. So it will take decades for that to really realize its full potential, even if that canal was completed. I'd like to just go back to the DHS, the competition for resources for a moment. You talked about the fact that, yes, we have this recapitalization challenge. We talked about that. Now you're a higher priority within DHS. But at the risk of getting to a sensitive subject, DHS itself has a target on its back politically because of the association with the very highly charged immigration issue. How do you see that plan out? I mean, everybody else has a full year budget. You don't. What type of proselytizing needs to be done to protect the Coast Guard in this environment? Well, Peter, that goes, again, back to the marketing and sales aspect of this job. So with 114th Congress, my responsibility is to engage the many overseers, the appropriators, the authorizers that that impact the Coast Guard budget. And also at the same time, indicate that we are a part of the third largest federal agency in our government is the Department of Homeland Security. Number one is DOD. Number two is Veteran Affairs. Number three is the Department of Homeland Security. So just on that note, sometimes I'm asked, does the Coast Guard fit well in the Department of Homeland Security? And my answer to that is you bet. And when you look at the QHSR, much of that resonates, the Quadrennial Homeland Security Review resonates with the Coast Guard. What I am doing is I'm gonna take that a step further and the Coast Guard will have a QDR, if you will, a five year strategic intent for the Coast Guard. And I've had some of my predecessors when asked, well, how big does the Coast Guard need to be? I need to be able to provide at least a floor. But right now I am below that floor right now when I look at the mission requirements that I have at hand. But what I owe my boss and what I owe our nation is a strategic intent that takes into account the external environment, some of those challenges, opportunities that I laid out before you, but put that into a coherent strategic document and not a fist pounding saying I need more, but to be able to articulate that in a strategic manner that resonates with our national strategic objectives. Thank you. I thought I'd open up to more. Sir, the front here. Thank you. An independent consultant and former army, foreign air officer from the Western Hemisphere. I've had the privilege of working with your attachés throughout the region, and in particular the one in Haiti and then some observers for the UN. So we've done a fabulous job. In that vein, do you have something akin to what the army has in the record in the rapid equipping force office that allows some of us that have some ideas that we'd like to share with you, the possibility of optimizing on the spending that you have for special mission sets? Yeah. One of my collateral duties is the interdiction coordinator, a chairman within the office of the National Drug Control Policy. And within that interdiction committee is Ambassador Brownfield from INL. So as we look at opportunities, that may be beyond my resource base. And right now we're putting teams downrange using state department support to be able to do so, but we're doing it with a whole of government approach. Just before the Thanksgiving holiday, I took the entire leadership team from the interdiction committee and first we went to Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico has seen a 300% increase in flow. And at the same time, they've seen a violent tremendous spike in violent crime there as well. But I haven't seen a 300% increase in flow leaving Puerto Rico, at least not by sea. So I met with the governor, I met with the regional commissioner. You know, there's an internal issue here as well. It's not, we're protecting that front door, but what's leaving the back door? From there we met with the president, presidents of Panama, Honduras and Columbia. So they could see firsthand what the challenges are downrange. Met with the country teams as well. And the demand signal for US capabilities, whether it's capacity building or whether it's basing resources in those countries is as loud as I've ever heard. But you really need to get down and see firsthand. And it's important that you bring other members of this leadership team whole of government down to see for yourself. So I don't see, and then I'm trying to tell the person next to me. And as that communication goes down the line, the message gets scrambled and it's not understood. So we're all seeing the problem set from different aspects, but with whole of government and what needs to be done down there. And I'm very optimistic for the opportunities that have presented themselves. Well, we seem to be at the end of our lot of time. And I just want to one more time thank Admiral Zucun for coming out and making himself available. Excellent remarks and the Q and A was wonderful. And also like to thank our sponsor, Lockheed Martin, one more time. And our partner CSIS, we think this is a wonderful partnership between us, Naval Institute and CSIS. But thank you very much, sir. And let's give him a comment on that. Thank you very much. Thank you so much.