 Well, thank you all very much for coming out, particularly on such a beautiful day when I know golf and other important pursuits represent some competing priorities there. I think it's uniquely appropriate that we discuss this important topic on a U.S. Navy base. That provides, I think, the right frame of mind here. Before I go further, I just want to make some acknowledgments and a disclaimer. I really give great credit to my co-editor, Professor Carnes-Lord, as well as other Naval War College colleagues who provided useful comments and help and Pell Boyer with the Naval War College Press who provided invaluable editing suggestions. We've endeavored to produce here and all, of course, in our personal capacity, no official policies or estimates of the U.S. Navy or any other institutions with which the contributors are affiliated. We've tried to produce what I think can be called one of the very few studies of its kind precisely because there are very few of them. We look at the complex and evolving U.S.-Asia-Pacific basing network both at the present, moving towards the future, but also bringing in an historical perspective to try to better inform the situation because there are certain historical dynamics and patterns that I think can enhance our understanding in this regard. Now, I said it was one of the relatively few studies at least focused in this area and we really thought this subject, when Carnes and I were discussing the potential topic, we thought this is really something that's been too neglected by scholars and analysts as well as wide swaths of the American general public. But what is noteworthy is, especially overseas, both allied populations and potential adversaries alike, devote great focus to U.S. military bases and facilities precisely because they are perceived to be essential and effective fundaments of American power projection around the world to support American objectives and also in particular the international system that we've worked so hard to develop, support and sustain in this post-war era. Unfortunately, but this, again, if you look back in history, is part of a continuity of realities to which American strategists and planners must respond, U.S. bases are increasingly vulnerable, particularly in the East Asian Latoral immediately, but also thanks to the increasing range of sophistication and number of Chinese as well as North Korean missiles are increasingly vulnerable further and further away from the East Asian land mass and increasingly, as well, the U.S. carrier strike groups and other surface vessels and other types of platforms that operate from them confront degrees of risk. So these are all things that must be understood, planned for, adjusted to, countermeasures are under development. This is all happening, but it's a work in progress that really merits a discussion, debate and careful thinking as well as, frankly, education to American and allied publics as to why these bases are important and necessary and what is required to continue to sustain the missions from them. And this at times can be politically complex to say the least. When we have bases in host nations or utilize bases, enjoy access to facilities in host nations. While the host nation derives a significant benefit, otherwise they would not grant that kind of access, sometimes locals have to bear certain burdens and challenges from these bases. What's more, these bases can sometimes be painted as part of a sweeping set of American hard power capabilities that can be mysterious, intimidating, even worrisome to members of populations abroad. And indeed, if you just see from the standard U.S. area of responsibility chart here, the entire world is literally divided into U.S. military areas of responsibility. A situation that is really unparalleled in the contemporary world and enables the U.S. to achieve what I believe to be its historic mission of sustaining a positive and peaceful international system as exemplified in the most recent U.S. maritime strategy. But nevertheless, this huge constellation of forces overseas is very noticeable and it can sometimes be a political lightning rod. There are not many other nations that have any semblance of this overseas presence, particularly after the Soviet collapse from which Russia has only very partially begun to try to recover some basing and influence in the near abroad, although with unfortunate recent events to include in Crimea, it's far too early to say that this is not an insignificant subset of international foreign basing and force projection issues. Beyond that, I would argue, it's really only Britain and France that regularly maintain military bases and forces overseas, this in large part to the historical legacy of their empires. And even in those cases, the claims and force postures are diminishing. As I said, this is a constant process of adjustment following the Cold War. The U.S. has shifted forces, closed bases, brought forces home, yet even as late as 2013, the numbers were still extremely impressive and I think they will stay in that general area for the foreseeable future. 695 overseas bases or facilities, 97 in overseas U.S. territories and the rest in 40 foreign countries. Now there are some patterns to this. The majority are only in three countries, Germany, Japan and the Republic of Korea, two locations of which we will soon visit here. But this does offer an interesting comparison to U.S. based facilities of which there were fully 4,364 in 2013 for a grand total of 5,059. This is truly the backbone of U.S. power and power projection in the military dimension. Shifting to the U.S. Pacific Command area of responsibility, which is the focus of the book and our discussion here today. We picked this focus for several reasons which were largely obvious to us but it's still necessary to make a case. This is by far geographically the largest and most sweeping area of responsibility. It imposes a certain tyranny of distance in projecting power in logistics, in making sure that things are where you need them to be at the right time and the right configuration. It imposes significant cost, the fuel alone to enable these long distance operations. But this is what makes the U.S. and Asia Pacific power and a key player in what is arguably one of the most, if not the most geopolitically dynamic arenas in the 21st century. If you look at both military development and economic dynamism, arguably two of the most important factors, I don't think you'll find that combination anywhere else. Therefore, it's incumbent on the U.S. not only to protect and safeguard the interests that come with having Hawaii and Guam and other Pacific islands, as well as the world's largest exclusive economic zone, much of which is connected with the Hawaiian islands and Guam, but also because of the unique mission of continued importance that the U.S. sees for itself in the world, it needs to have influence in this most dynamic area. It needs to provide a stabilizing capability so that other countries or sub-state actors do not attempt to disrupt what is a great area of prosperity in a region that remains very tragically haunted by history and not automatically stable in that respect. Now, here let me acknowledge two short comings in the book, and we're explicit about this in our introduction. In order to keep the number of chapters reasonable and to be able to really focus on the overseas areas, we had to not have chapters on Alaska and Hawaii. But as we begin our geographic journey from east to west across this region, these are obviously essential locations for the U.S. to project power from. They will remain so. They may even grow an importance particularly as Hawaii serves as a critical backbone and coordinating center of U.S. Asia Pacific presence, literally hosting the U.S. Pacific command, the U.S. Pacific fleet, and a variety of other critical, critical locations. In addition, Alaska really has arguably unparalleled strategic depth, and particularly as we move further into the era of long-range precision strike and increasingly advanced missiles, locations that are able to conceal and disperse facilities widely and even perhaps enable for some movement in critical times will be of greater and greater importance. And looking at Hawaii, here again, of course, Fort Island, which I've driven around so many times and thought about the history, stopped at the different places, this is really in many ways the epitome of the value and the vulnerability of basing. We, of course, work over time to disperse things from further, but there is an inherent efficiency and an operational synergy to concentrating facilities, to putting important things, very important things, fairly close together. And as the tragic events of December 1941 demonstrated all too clearly in this particular location, while that has benefits, it can also have costs. And this is something that planners have to weigh constantly, but there are not always easy solutions because of the tradeoff between that efficiency and concentration and the vulnerability. Yet as we move forward in this long-range precision strike era, this will be something for which creativity and deeper study I think will be necessary. Moving to the first chapter of our book, and I'll give you a series of quick vignettes centered on the maps with which we illustrate each of the chapters. I was in charge of producing the maps in conjunction with the services of a very competent cartographer that Naval Institute Press provided. And at the beginning I thought, oh, this is great, there should be some excellent U.S. government maps that will have everything in one place and it will be in a nice font and it's all perfect. And by the end I realized why that wasn't readily available. You have to combine different things, but I think in the end we managed to put in the vast majority of what was truly important. And even if you don't want to read all the little details which are more easily visible in the books that you can look at later, I think we can still look at the map in general and get a general geographic sense, a general geostrategic sense. There are some things that are logically done in a certain way, the way that of course the ports have to be and the harbor entrances have to be on the coast. You can put other things further in. But I want you to compare map by map and you will see some differences here. Guam, we think, is really a critical microcosm of where the U.S. is trying to go in terms of continually adjusting and improving its Asia-Pacific presence. It has tremendous promise. It played a critical role towards the end of World War II when we got it back by 1944, I believe. And then in the beginning of the post-war era, there was a tremendous ramp up in infrastructure that really helped make it the supermarket of the Pacific, the crossroads of the Pacific, all those critical logistical locations that have supported so much projection of American power into East Asia, into the Asia-Pacific. So there are many advantages here. Geography, existing infrastructure, an extremely patriotic population of American citizens who in local polling continuously give high support to sustaining an expansion of these facilities, which bring a lot to the local economy. I believe it's still true that Guam provides the highest percentage of military recruits per capita of any American jurisdiction. Moreover, in an era of fiscal austerity, infrastructure development money spent in Guam will go to local Americans. This not only is politically useful, it arguably is good when the nation can invest at home. However, Guam also exemplifies some of the challenges as we move forward with our basing portfolio. There are expenses in terms of developing the facilities, and they're often higher than expected, particularly in remote island locations such as Guam. There are extreme weather events. Guam, like Japan, South Korea, and some other locations, is extremely vulnerable to typhoons. There's periodic damage from that. That also factors into some of the building standards, thereby increasing expense all the more. Then there's the issue of communicating to the American people and Congress the importance of this investment. And there's been difficulty in Congress recently in terms of appropriating money to further Guam infrastructure development because there's a concern about how efficiently will that money be spent. Why exactly are we doing this? This is all the more reason why, while planning and decision making needs to occur within U.S. military circles and to include very private discussions and conversations, there's also a great need to educate the public, discuss these issues, explain why it's important, engage members of Congress. Why does it matter to them? Why does it matter to U.S. policy? So I think it will be important to watch Guam, watch the potential future infrastructure development, both in terms of military infrastructure, which has already moved forward to some extent, home porting of additional attack submarines. That's been very positive. But when you have all these people and all these military facilities in such a small area, this starts to severely tax the power grid, the waste management infrastructure. These are all things that over time will have to be addressed in Guam. And who will pay for it? How will this work? This is going to take some time. And again, getting back to the precision strike era, the fact is it is useful at places like Anderson Air Force Base to concentrate assets. It is not efficient to have them completely dispersed. But at certain times, it could potentially present a very lucrative target set. And planners have to think very carefully about how to work best they can within the parameters that they have. I should quickly say the Guam chapter, I didn't mention the author because I was the co-author. But also, Justin Michael, a Naval Academy graduate, spent a number of years serving in the U.S. submarine force, including aboard USS San Juan, now works in the private sector in strategic technology issues. So just wanted to acknowledge him, joy to work with him. Professor Toshi Yoshihara at the Naval War College, my colleague, has offered a very thought-provoking chapter on Japan. And he really brings the challenge of long range, or sometimes not so long range, potentially coming from China or North Korea, precision strike to the equation. He reviews a wide range of Chinese writings, some more demonstrably authoritative, others less clearly demonstrably authoritative, but nevertheless representing some sort of Chinese intellectual discussion about how to use Chinese military strengths, really the threat of their use for peace time deterrence. No one here is saying China wants a war here, but to pressure Japan and also to pressure the U.S. What I'll address a bit more in the conclusion, and I'd really be happy to go into, together with any other topics in the Q&A, is the issue of why China is developing this long-range precision strike, why it seeks to target ever more effectively U.S. regional bases and also U.S. platforms operating in the region. The short answer is that China has a number of outstanding island and maritime claims in what it calls the Near Seas, the Yellow Sea, the East China Sea, and the South China Sea. Many of these disputes are with U.S. allies. China wants to, now that its power is growing, further its position in those disputes, the prospect of U.S. military intervention, if necessary, is one of the biggest obstacles to China furthering its claims, as well as the confidence that American presence gives to its allies as well as to the region more generally. That is why China is developing, in part why China is developing new capabilities to try to hold these U.S. bases, U.S. facilities, U.S. platforms more at risk, thereby try to convince American decision makers and the American public that the risk isn't worth it and convince allied hosts that they cannot rely on this help when push comes to shove. So more on that later if you wish in a nutshell. That's my take on the situation. Professor Yoshihara goes into great depth. If you are at all interested in this, I do recommend looking at the specifics. It can be sometimes shocking if you're not familiar with some of the Chinese writings, how forceful they are about discussing how some missile strikes might be threatened under various contingencies. Again, they'd hope to just have the threat of this capability and win without fighting, so to speak, as the great strategist Sun Zhe says. But nevertheless, this is clearly a major issue for our facilities, for Japan's security, and for our alliance, our critical alliance with Japan. Fortunately, of course, a great deal of attention is being paid to this issue. Moving on to South Korea, another one of my Naval War colleagues, Professor Terry Rurig who runs the Asia-Pacific Studies Group here, contributes a very interesting chapter with a strong post-war historical perspective. Professor Rurig argues, and I agree, that the story of U.S. basing in South Korea has really been a story of the evolution of the alliance over the years to meet both changing strategic needs and also some changing domestic political realities on the Korean Peninsula. As again, I will touch on more in the Q&A, while U.S. allies clearly appreciate the value of the U.S. presence, in many cases, tremendous U.S. sacrifice, as exemplified, for example, by the Korean War. At the same time, I think, as Americans, it's possible to understand and accept how, even when dear friends who have sacrificed for you, you need their help, it can still be difficult to have foreign troops on your soil, some of the complications that come with that, and this can play in domestic politics in complex ways, and it's even possible sometimes that outside powers like China can try to manipulate this complex politics. In very recent years, we've seen some challenges in South Korean domestic politics. Fortunately, at the same time, South Korea's military continues to get increasingly capable, so this has set the stage for continuing a strong American presence, but adjusting it so that the South Koreans themselves are able to take more responsibility in critical areas, and the U.S.-based footprint is consolidated over time, particularly out of, for example, valuable real estate in downtown Seoul that has very sensitive political connotations, because both Chinese and Japanese forces have occupied that central capital area in the past. Moving on to Australia, we have a very detailed historical account, but moving right up to the present, by Australian specialists Jack McCaffrey and Chris Rahman. The U.S.-Australian relationship has been extremely close. Everyone knows that we've been shoulder to shoulder in every major conflict since World War I. There's a great deal of goodwill there. I have many stories that I could share that show tremendous Australian hospitality and flexibility, even when there were some friendly collateral damage from port visit interactions among the U.S. seamen from both nations to use the short version. The two authors bring us through a succession of historical eras in which Australia has desired a very close relationship, but what's been even more fascinating is the sheer range of high-tech facilities that have been involved here, some of which various parts of the Australian government did not profess full knowledge of at all times. To the extent that there is a complex domestic political issue in Australia, this might be one of the few things at the edge, what's going on and what facility at Pine Gap or something like that. I think the authors document clearly that because of Australia's geopolitical position and the succession of challenges that Australia has faced and continues to face, as well as the strong shared culture and values with the U.S., this is a very robust relationship that is poised to even grow meaningfully in the future, as exemplified most recently by the American deployment of several hundred Marines to Darwin. Nevertheless, I think for those who are interested in military facilities and technology, it's probably hard to find a chapter that gives this many insights into the many things that have happened on Australian soil because of the great alliance and the unique geolocation that Australia enjoys. Singapore is another interesting geopolitical example, although of course very different from Australia. Here our contributor, this time Chris Rahman, I think makes a strong case that at least from a Western or American perspective, this may be one of the most underappreciated host nations in terms of contributing to the U.S. overseas basing presence. Singapore from its very founding has been in an extremely complex geopolitical position, an island city-state in a largely unstable region, a very complex ethnic and religious sensitivities, some of which are directly connected with Singapore and the history and its historical connection with the Malay Peninsula. Then the issues during the Vietnam War era of the fact that very different from today, the U.S. China actually sponsored communist insurgencies in different parts of Southeast Asia. This was a major concern, of course, of Singapore's leader, Lee Kuan Yew, founding leader. He went so far as to say that without robust U.S. presence in the region during the Vietnam War, Singapore might not have survived the Vietnam War. Singapore might not have survived in its present form. There are interesting historical nuggets along the way that at least I wasn't familiar with, others may be. The fact that there had continuously over the Cold War decades been a small but extremely competent New Zealand contingent that helped provide a measure of security and political reassurance. This is clearly, Singapore is clearly a state that has to balance its interests and relations extremely carefully. As part of that overall approach, Singapore has been an extremely useful and friendly partner to the U.S. Not a formal alliance because of the political sensitivity issues, but the U.S. Navy has been extremely welcome in Singaporean port facilities, which are top, absolutely top of the line. Most recently, and on the cover of our book here, we see the littoral combat ship now in Singapore in the carefully, politically contextualized status of rotational forward deployment. An approach that supports U.S. operations quite effectively while preserving the addressing the political needs of Singapore and how it needs to characterize that relationship. And in closing on Singapore, I should also mention that Rahman documents very clearly Singapore's great value as a logistics hub through Commander Logistics Western Pacific, among other roles. I myself have been in the huge, refrigerated buildings of subcontractors of ComLog Westpac with forklifts speeding around with huge crates of food that are going to be shipped to the U.S. and shipped out to Diego Garcia and other areas. Clearly, Singapore is another critical node in this overseas basing setup. Completing the maritime leg of our trip westward before concluding with two slightly different types of focus points to shake things up and think to the future. Diego Garcia has to be one of the most exceptional locations in the world. This small, wishbone shaped coral atoll, a British Indian Ocean territory, referred to by some as the footprint of freedom, a tiny footprint only four feet above sea level at its highest point, although the secretary of the Navy assures us that there should not be any global warming problems in that regard before late in this century and not pronounced apparently till the mid of next century. We'll see about that. This location clearly has some very significant limitations in terms of being very far from the Indian Ocean latoral, extremely small in terms of what sort of facilities it can support, offering essentially no wind cover or protection necessitating putting ships out to sea typically during a storm, facing the risk that parts of it could be over washed and where there are significant type of wave action as in a tsunami. At the same time, it has some truly unique attributes. First of all, there's nothing else nearby that works similarly well. With the addition of Marines in Darwin, you can argue that the U.S. has basing access in a second location in the Indian Ocean latoral, but that might have to be qualified a little bit. It's not an extreme case of having too much capacity or too much access at this point, shall we say. So it's not an extreme case of having too much capacity or too much access at this point, shall we say. In addition, there are no local, there is no local political opposition. Now, there are some, there's a complex history that we detail in our chapter and I say we because this Diego Garcia chapter was coauthored by myself, Justin Michael, whom I mentioned, as well as Walter Ladwig, a former colleague of ours at Princeton University, who is now a professor at Kings College London and did incredible work in the British Foreign Office archives. I think he was able to bring together some documents for our study that haven't typically been published on and putting together this Diego Garcia history. So while there is some complexity to the history there and a question of some of the people who have been living in the Chagos Archipelago of which Diego Garcia is a part, what is the future of that look like for now? The access to the base looks solid, the relationship with the U.K. is strong and this base plays a critical role, however distant it may be from critical areas of operation in the Persian Gulf and elsewhere. Again, getting to the constant problem of balancing strengths and weaknesses. If you're very close to the area of operations you want to operate in, that has benefits for how quickly you can respond. It means you are within range, however, of more missiles, more other so-called anti-access area denial systems. Again, like all other bases Diego Garcia plays in this complex context. Now for something not quite completely different, but to give a broader perspective, we brought in Professor Alexander Cooley, head of the Department of Political Science at Barnard College, Columbia University. He has conducted what I believe to be unmatched research on the politics behind, the local politics and the government to government politics behind basing and this really came to the fore just after, in the years after the end of the Cold War and the ramp up of the war on terror, particularly post 9-11. Suddenly the U.S. needed enhanced access to Afghanistan and Central Asian bases were seen as being extremely useful and important in that regard. So the U.S. was able to gain this access, but the story as Alex documents becomes quite complex and it's a story that has to do with Russian geopolitical pressure, with changing regimes in some of these small Central Asian states, with type of political regime, corruption. To make a long story short, what looked like a sustainable basing relationship with a country like Uzbekistan soured and eventually ended when the authoritarian leader of Uzbekistan determined that he would do better to cast his lot with China and Russia who would continue to support him even as he severely oppressed his own people and may have authorized a massacre that in which his forces killed as many as several hundred, even as high as seven or eight hundred civilian protestors. Something that the U.S. could not just let stand by and that relationship expired. And of course Russia and China were very eager to be there and use this to their ends. In the case of other states such as Kyrgyzstan, there's sometimes been a situation of a corrupt leader whose son is in charge of the company that collects the payments from the air base, all these kinds of things. Then this type of leader sometimes will demand higher payments from the U.S. to try to solve his own political problems and that doesn't work well. And then ultimately these types of leaders may not be working in the best interests of their own people so they don't survive in office. Then another leader comes in who opposed this leader rides in on a populist platform but goes back to the battle with old ways, installs his own son as head of the airport revenue collection monopoly, getting $7,000, a $7,000 fee for every single takeoff per typical international civil aviation procedure. Anyway, there are a lot of details in Cooley's chapter but suffice it to say he raises some very important words of caution about how we really have to consider, if we're considering basing in an area, what government are we working with? What will they expect? Even if there are not local popular complaints, what will that government try to do? How sustainable will it be? This is one of our challenges looking forward. As we come to a close here and I'm happy to take your questions, let me address the last chapter by Sam Tengredi on sea basing. This offered a wonderful compliment to the many land focused components of our entire exercise here because one of the questions becomes if it's highly unlikely for the U.S. to get access to major new land based locations. No, maybe at the margins we can have some more but there are not huge uncharted areas into which we would likely be able to go. If the long range precision strike revolution continues to complicate the fixed basing picture in a GPS world of precision strike missiles where our land bases can't move, a lot of the stuff on them can't move, you don't even need the world's most sophisticated reconnaissance strike complex to dial in the coordinates on that and have them preloaded. So Sam Tengredi says, look, sea basing has not always been a popular concept. It never seems to quite come to the fore. It's related to the complex inter-service politics of the U.S. which basically boils down to who's going to pay for it. But maybe some version of this, some version of basing more assets at sea in different conglomerations, they might even shift and evolve, don't we at least have to think about that possibility. If some of the land stuff looks difficult enough, maybe we need to look more to the sea. And I think this subject is very much a work in progress and I think Sam deserves great credit for really bringing it up and it's the note that we wanted to end on because these are precisely the types of things that have to be addressed in the future. So I've alluded to the growing difficulties of the geostrategic picture. I've referred to some of the domestic political complexities that the U.S. needs to be smart about and sensitive to. And there's a lot more I'd love to talk about but the bottom line is the details are in the book and we have some minutes for Q&A and I would love to hear your insights and take your questions. Thank you very much. Yes, sir. What's happened to Taiwan and Okinawa and secondly, what's the status of China as far as atomic power? Well, those are great questions, sir. And I think we should probably write a whole other book on that. In terms of the situation with Taiwan, obviously as the politics have evolved over the years, in terms of U.S. basing, that's been a dramatic shift. Previously a very important U.S. basing location. Now a U.S. friend and security partner but not a location for U.S. forces because of the way that that all evolved with the formal recognition of the People's Republic of China. There's a lot more nuance there but that's the big dynamic. In terms of Okinawa, this, let's see if I can bring back the Japan map. So you refer to Okinawa down here. Extremely geostrategically important location. It's probably no coincidence that this Okinawa saw some of the heaviest fighting of the Pacific War, the Pacific Campaign in World War II. Part of the challenge here is a domestic political issue. Although Okinawa is 1% of Japan's total landmass, it hosts I think more than 3 quarters of all of the U.S. military facilities in Japan. This is a disproportionate burden on a very small, very environmentally sensitive set of tiny islands populated by people whose families typically have very painful memories of the battles that occurred there in World War II. They often have a feeling that they were left to take the brunt. There's a complex political history because, again, geography has some constants or patterns over time. Throughout history, this was a crossroads of Pacific civilizations. There were Chinese, Japanese, other Asian groups coming through here. It's a diverse complex culture that has differences from the mainland of Japan. The people there enjoy tremendous economic benefits from the bases, but whenever there's an unfortunate accident or incident, that can get sensitive very quickly. As a result of all this, Japan has worked with the U.S. to reduce the number of U.S. Marines in particular that will be stationed in Okinawa. Many of them are moving to Guam. With regard to nuclear power, that's a whole other story, but I think for our purposes here today, while China is, the nuclear that matters the most for the area we're talking about is nuclear missiles. China has a very strong nuclear deterrent force that they want to use to show that if something's really important, they can't be pushed around. They're working to develop nuclear-powered submarines, which are what you need to project long-distance submarine power effectively. That seems to be more of a work in progress and a gradual thing. Happy to talk more later about the details on that. Yes, sir. Dr. Irkin, interesting that the Philippines have invited us back. Can you address that a little bit? What's the dynamic with the U.S. forces going back into the Philippines? Can you give some more details? I don't know all the specifics on this. I either read that it was in discussion that the Philippine government had invited us back into the Pacific Bay because of the Chinese incursion at some of the Philippine islands. I was under the impression that it was undergoing. Maybe I'm mistaken. Maybe I am because you look puzzled. Well, certainly I think it's a strong treaty alliance and over time and as Philippine domestic politics and leadership decisions permit, I think the U.S. has been able to make more of a military contribution to a partnership with the Philippines. There have been a lot of, I think, very productive counter-terrorism training, including on the Philippines' own soil. And I think certainly at the margins, access has been greater. In terms of Subic Bay per se, my understanding was that that's been turned into more of a commercial hub. I don't know of any specific plans in that regard. But this is all a useful reminder of the complicated politics of host nation basing. Mount Pinatubo really did Clark Air Force base in in many respects. But at the end of the day, it was Philippine domestic politics that closed Subic Bay for our purposes at the end of the Cold War. I think the Philippines really values the partnership with the U.S. but sometimes there are strands of domestic politics that have a perception of a colonial history that can be sensitive and complex. And then on top of that, this actually has an analog to the Central Asia problems that I was talking about. Under Marcos, we had some good cooperation with the Philippines, but the monetary price that it came at was higher and higher. The Marcos regime was demanding more and more and more money in terms of various basing fees, and it got to be quite a substantial amount of money. So these are all things that we'll have to deal with moving forward. I do think the partnership with the Philippines will continue to solidify and deepen in critical ways. I'm not well informed as to what geographic specifics there might or might not be to that. Well, I think just following up on that, I think what he's referred to was the Chinese South China Sea, where they challenged a few Philippine fishing vessels. And I think there's nothing had been decided, but I think the Philippines did ask that maybe we consider reopening parts of the bay. I suggested that. I don't say they would ask. They suggested that might be possible. Well, it's certainly a huge concern for the Philippines. I think it's been quite unfortunate the way that China's used particularly its civil maritime forces. China's developing and consolidating a tremendous set of coast guard forces that it can use to try to push its small neighbors around without actually making it a naval conflict that the U.S. would feel obligated to enter. And with the Philippines, this has occurred most prominently at Scarborough Shoal, where China really pushed the Philippines. And I think an issue that will have to be dealt with in U.S.-China relations over time is that apparently, as reported in the Financial Times and elsewhere, the U.S. brokered an agreement with China to, there was a confrontation between Chinese and Philippine forces. And this did not look like it was going to end well. So the U.S. reportedly stepped in, brokered a deal with China to let the Philippine forces leave safely and return to status quo ante. And that was seen as a good approach, but apparently the Chinese completely reneged on their promise to the U.S. on that. If true, that's a big deal and it's a sign of some of the challenges that we may face in the South China Sea there. The same time, it's a difficult and complex situation. It's hard for us to want security more than one of our partners does. And while the Philippines has made some valiant efforts to enhance its security, it has extremely limited naval and coast guard capacity. Fortunately, the U.S. and Japan, both together and separately, are working to help increase that Philippine coast guard capacity, to be aware of what's going on and to help patrol their own claimed areas. But you're right, this is a huge issue and we'll continue to see it manifest itself, I think. When Hillary was, is it his turn? Let me let this gentleman go first and then we can come back to you. I was wondering what the status of the native population at Guam is and has there been discussion about statehood with Guam? I don't know of that sort of discussion. My understanding is it's a relatively positive local politics situation. I think national military facilities are seen as a vital part of Guam's economy. I certainly have talked with people who have spent a lot of time on Guam. I've had privilege to talk with people involved with Guam's government. I think there are many people prominent in the governance of Guam who are proud of their Chamorran heritage, also very proud to be Americans. And if you look at it, the congresswoman from Guam, Congresswoman Bordalo is constantly working in Washington to increase awareness of the relevance and contribution of military facilities on Guam and to try to get congressional funding to build the infrastructure and build the facilities. So I understand a very positive situation. In any situation you will get a few people who might be unhappy with something. We have that all across the U.S. in very small quantities. What I think makes this country great is we let that happen and it doesn't have to be a big deal. I just came back from Washington in the early hours of this morning. I'm always struck by Lafayette Park right across from the White House. There's everyone in that park from someone who's been camping out to protest nuclear weapons for the last 30 years to someone who is railing about something but it's really not clear what, even to them maybe, to someone who just really wants to challenge you to a game of chess. I see nothing connected with Guam that really raises above that kind of a level. Of course historical sensitivities need to be acknowledged. I think that's very important. I think the U.S. government has done a reasonably good and increasingly good job of that. I think when people have shared interests and share in the prosperity of what the basing brings, that's how you get acceptance. If you look on the internet you can see some groups, some sort of protest groups that try to make a big deal of things and now they can connect on the internet and there's even a transnational aspect. But I see those as being very fringe elements in this regard. It was much more significant in South Korea's effort to develop a naval base on Jeju Island. I think that's where the local protest matters a lot more. In Okinawa there are some strong strands of local protests. I do not, to my knowledge, see that as being a real problem in Guam. In fact in my years of talking about Guam with various people I was told when President Clinton came to speak there the line for which he received the most applause was the first line of his entire speech My fellow Americans. So I think that tells us a lot about what we need to know. Yes sir. When Hillary Clinton was the Secretary of State she was negotiating with the Russians to get them part of the Aleutian Islands. What's the status of that? I don't believe that could be true sir. I don't see how that would happen. I was at one of the lectures at the War College and one of your constituents was sitting next to me and I asked him and he said well that's true but he said I don't know the details. Well I will say I have heard nothing of this and I think given recent events it's certainly not going to happen now. Good. Yes sir. Just going back to the Taiwan issue since basically World War II was going through periods of embrace and then neglect 1979 diplomatic recognition changed but over those 35 years we've developed an economic relationship with them but the relationship has grown increasingly antagonistic whether it be vetoes in the UN against what our policy objectives are or incidents of reconnaissance planes being aggressively intercepted in the UNC. Isn't it time to re-examine our relationship with Taiwan and start imposing a cost on Chinese aggression? Well US-China relations I think are one of the most difficult parts of US foreign and defense policy at this point and I think this will continue to be the case moving forward. I don't see any lead up in both the importance or the difficulty. I was just in Washington speaking with some very experienced specialists some of whom had served in positions of responsibility in the US government and had some interesting perspectives. One of the things that I took away from that was that to characterize US-China relations it varies a lot depending on what subject area you're talking about. So when it comes to certain international financial and economic issues there actually are some shared interests between the US and China and they do do some things that our government considers helpful. They sometimes provide some substantial assistance through international organizations that can be useful. Of course recently it's certainly not the case that all economic issues are working well particularly with market access. We see tremendous discrimination against American firms Microsoft's offices being raided just like that. Starbucks being told by China's official media your coffee is too expensive. We could go on and on about all the problems. Suffice it to say they're worst and most intractable in the military arena. Now what to do about this? I think it's essential to start by trying to understand where do the greatest problems lie within that military arena. To put it very simply I think the biggest problems lie close to China in those three so-called near seas that I mentioned the Yellow Sea, the East China Sea, the South China Sea and their immediate approaches. Where China is determined to increase its control over various island and maritime zones that it believes belong to it. What the US has to do and I think and work with its allies and partners to do is make it clear that there's a bottom line. China will not be allowed to use force or even the threat of force to change the status quo in a way that destroys the peace of this very vital but vulnerable region. I think that's what we really need to focus on from the perspective of American policy. The opposite of that is the area far away from China out in the Gulf of Aden, places like that. China is making some welcome contributions now in its 18th anti-piracy task force since December 26, 2008. Now do they run these anti-piracy task forces exactly the way that the US would see as most productive? No, they don't integrate with the combined task force 151 they operate in parallel. Are they doing this for solely altruistic purposes? Nobody does. Of course they're also trying to get some naval experience. Are they going to have a chance to lead 151 the way that a Japanese admiral will soon be doing? I understand? No. But here's the thing, compared to the significant and growing military challenges that China is posing in this immediate area I think most of the other stuff that it does overseas pales in comparison. So we need to focus very closely on that. Now I know we're, how much time do we have? We're up. All right, well so let me end on this point because it's an important point. There are three major schools of thought I would argue on how to deal with Chinese anti-access area denial, prostitution, strike capabilities. One school of thought says the US has to show that it can strike key infrastructure nodes and areas in China so strongly that China would never dare to engage in some sort of military activity. I think the problem with over-relying on that type of a threat for deterrence is the Chinese will not necessarily believe it's credible that US president would ever select that option because they think these contested areas and claims in Taiwan and other places are more important to them than they are to the US. A second school of thought says prepare to be able to cut off China's energy supplies with a distant blockade. I think, I know there probably have been talks about this in book lectures so I'm humbled to go into this area. However, I think if you look at the logistic you have to ask yourself how would this actually work in practice? There'd be risks that such an approach would not work operationally, could easily be fooled by false flags, false bills of lading, would end up disrupting the global economy and would risk cutting off oil to our key allies, Japan and South Korea as well as our key partner Taiwan, all of whom rely on it acutely. So if arguably the first two approaches have their pitfalls or at least relying them on them unduly could be problematic, what do we have left? What I've testified before the House Armed Services Committee and it's my argument and we can talk about it and rip it apart later is look at the basics. What are the advantages and disadvantages the U.S. and its allies and friends have here? Most fundamentally the disadvantages China's developing all these capable missiles cares deeply about the issues at stake. The disadvantages China has and the advantage that the U.S. and its allies have is that the U.S. wants to preserve the peaceful status quo and the functioning global system a critical part of which goes through this region. To achieve any of its island or maritime claim objectives China would have to fundamentally disrupt that it would have to be the aggressor. That not only has political and strategic advantages for the U.S. it also has operational advantages because it is much easier to maintain capabilities to disrupt, deny, dislodge or destroy if necessary any Chinese forces that tried to seize disputed islands than it is to control the whole area. In other words the very same types of anti-access area denial capabilities that China has built up so effectively in the late 1990s are precisely the same page in the playbook than in a targeted way can be turned back against China in a worst case scenario. And I'm convinced if we remain committed to maintaining strong undersea warfare capabilities especially maintaining a build rate of two Virginia class submarines per year at a minimum keep developing and equipping with the Virginia payload module missile capabilities with that sort of thing we're going to be able to keep the region peaceful and keep this valuable system going which I think ultimately is what this huge network of U.S. bases around the world is all about. Thank you all very much.