 Hello, good afternoon. It is a tremendous pleasure to be here at the 27th Annual Surface Navy Association Symposium For more than a quarter of a decade. You all know better than I. SNA has been promoting discussion Debate dialogue and camaraderie within the surface Navy community To frame that just a bit SNA held its first board meeting in January of 1987 right after the movie Top Gun and And the herd everywhere heard all the time Kenny Loggins hit danger zone Was out in 1986 The surface community decided to go on the offensive then of course This was also about the same time we were bringing game changers online in earnest like Aegis and Distributing offensive capability across the surface force like the Tomahawk weapon system Converting frigate armed spruince class destroyers to the ABL and VLS backbone for long-range strike and putting rigor in our harpoon tactics as Well as adding widely to the reach and situational awareness of our surface ships by extending flight decks and Distributing the SH 60 B across our destroyers and guided missile frigates The surface line community was pretty savvy then as it is now I'm grateful for surface were warriors like Barry McCullough the president of SNA Admiral Dave Hart and Bill Erickson who I met on the way in today and the many chapter presidents across the planet for working to Sustain this important association Continuing the dialogue and debate and ensuring the camaraderie so important to a professional organization a community Thank you all of you for putting this tremendous event together. It's great to be here In Keeping with our theme this week job one for me was to go on the offensive as well I proceeded directly over to the membership table Where I had to correct my deficient status Now that said I paid for an additional membership for a junior officer as well So if there's a young surface warfare Officer a lieutenant or lieutenant commander or even someone listed out there on the fence Or just shy the funds for a membership this year for the next three years actually Be the first to the table. You can hook my extra check. It's sitting there blank Actually, I take that back. It says 50 bucks on it with my name And I'll take credit for distributing these fires as well So there better be a lieutenant lieutenant commander that gets up and runs out of this room because if you're gonna sit here for 30 minutes And listen to this it's probably a better deal up there So All right as you look around the exhibits the sponsors and the overall attendance by civilian military and industry leaders of all ages You can't help but be impressed by the opportunity that this symposium provides Last week at the air Lant change of command I can say that in the hanger of George HW Bush Also, I can say that I reflected on the teamwork and effort that it took to put together such a tremendous warship And symbol of American pride and know-how and seeing the exhibit booths here today The next set of war fighting innovations in America I am reminded that I have been the benefactor of an incredibly talented industry civilian military team That has assembled tested Conceived and delivered together the great ships and weapon systems in our fleet In my history I say that since the beginning of my service Thank you all of you for what you do to help us sail over the horizon into harm's way and defense of this great nation Never think we don't appreciate it those of us in uniform Now as we kick off 2015 There will be no shortage of challenging issues needing deliberation analysis and action Reaching back to just my own experience as a six-fleet commander just a several weeks ago I am struck by the many and varying challenges that unfolded in 2014 the neutralization of Syrian chemical weapons stockpiles at sea the rise of ISIS and Syria and Iraq The recapture and repatriation of the motor vessel morning glory to Libya the Russian invasion and seizure of the Crimea and the subsequent activity in eastern Ukraine as Well as the outbreak of Ebola in Western Africa These just highlight the breadth and depth of security issues. There are part of the global scenery these days You will not be surprised to hear that the Navy and almost always your surface Navy Played a significant role in many of these events responding to the nation's call in September alone the USS Philippine Sea and the USS Arleigh Burke Demonstrated their readiness for action launching 47 Tomahawks against terror targets in Iraq and Syria I'd like to underscore their combat performance against ISIS and Kobane extremists as well as that of George HW Bush and carrier Air Wing 8 to say that we are all warriors first I think Abba Rodin hit that point hard earlier today. I am with him every step of the way I Frequently remind my commanders and my commanding officers that our first order of business for a forward force is to be ready To keep our ships prepared for action and our officers and crews willingly disposed To fight and win in combat. We can never forget that Of course, that's the right hand edge of the spectrum Somewhere to the left is the myriad of missions. We also execute as a result of our forward posture We don't just deliver effects in terms of warheads downrange The surface Navy delivers effects across all domains as well, including the diplomatic Hell even the scientific Task Force 64 led by another slow captain Richard Drummerhauser also demonstrated the versatility and depth of surface warfare Excuse me surface warfare officers Leading the tactical organization that conducted the hydrolysis of Syrian chemical weapon precursor agents last year Rich led the team of sailors civilian mariners and US Army Corps of Engineer chemical engineers Excuse me not Army Corps of Engineers US Army chemical engineers in motor vessel Cape Ray to conduct the first ever neutralization of chemical weapon agents ever attempted at sea in Addition to leading the ships. Yes, the submarines the aircraft the security and other expeditionary elements from 11 nations At the tactical level rich helped identify solutions in chemical agent processing challenges at sea These were challenges that had never before presented themselves in a landward environment in an ashore operation In all this was a major sustained operation with numerous equities at the strategic operational and tactical levels in the interagency at the United Nations with a multitude of allies and foreign organizations and With commercial industry It had numerous tactical challenges as well and those are just the equities I can think of off the top of my head as With all missions, there was only one acceptable outcome to this task mission success I Put a swoe in charge to ensure that outcome These are just two of the examples of a excuse me two examples of the benefits of a forward deployed force as It was in the 80s in 1987 when SNA was conceived and as it is now I am a big believer in a Navy that is forward as a CNO says Presence is our mandate and we will deliver Whether we highlight these examples Our operations today like the Carl Vincent and carrier air wing 17 deployed today Conducting operation inherent resolve in Syria and Iraq and with USS Samson and USS Fort Worth supporting the response to the Air Asia flight mishap and The 98 ships deployed around the world today the US Navy is forward Deterring aggression Reassuring allies responding to crisis and yes Conducting combat operations day in and day out While there was much more to my 2014 is calm six fleet now I am at US fleet forces command and it is clear to me what the business of fleet forces command is War fighting and readiness. I will say it again War fighting and readiness Why do I say that it stems from the words that define the mission of the Navy? codified in law if you didn't know that the mission of the Navy is to be able to conduct prompt sustained combat operations at sea and We do so always in defense of this nation and its interests That clearly gives me my fleet forces command agenda after all Combat operations at sea is war fighting and putting the prompt in sustained in that war fighting is about readiness. I Am not a commander troubled by a ready for what equivocation Based on what I just said The examples I just discussed in six fleet alone. It is clear to me that my job The job of fleet forces command is to make the fleet ready to fight and win Both today and tomorrow The only acceptable metric is the one I mentioned earlier mission success and For fleet forces command that means a fleet that will succeed in combat I'm pretty comforted by the performance of the fleet to date Certainly my experience of six fleet that I just articulated is an indicator that we are preparing the fleet in a way that delivers mission success In other words fleet forces command has been effective under a number of commanders to date But I will tell you unabashedly. I am fortunate to follow shortening He has given the fleet the organizing principles like OFRP Like the concept of the warfare development centers as well as the analytical underpinning that is the readiness kill chain and He involved excuse me He evolved the fleet headquarter processes and our partnership with the Pacific fleet to enable us to be ready for tomorrow's fight So as fleet forces commands first order of business, I intend to see these initiatives through As we go forward It is up to the fleet forces command to build on this foundation and our work is cut out for us Today's fight is evolving rapidly Some nation states America's competitors and potential adversaries flexing their muscles abroad are matching vastly improved technologies in the air on and under the sea Space and cyberspace and yes in the information domain With the ambiguous methods the false narratives and the brutality of the worst non-state actors like terrorists At the same time Events like last week's terror attacks in Paris The recent atrocities committed by Boko Haram and the cyber hacking of DOD websites just yesterday Serve as notice of the brutality and persistence of the worst of the non-state actors And that they aspire to match their methods with high technology both on the web in the cyber domain and With the proliferation of more traditional military technologies whether stolen bought seized proliferated or hijacked This new hybrid way of warfare is out there it is our here and now and Requires us to prepare the fleet to fight and win in this evolved battle space to employ the force to employ the force in denied or contested environments of all kinds on Under and above the sea in space and cyberspace indeed Even in the information domain and to be able to deliver the capabilities the nation demands old and new alike wherever and whenever needed So I take this as my next order of business to ready the force for employment in this battle space The very fights the Navy will see in its immediate future What does this mean? In our recent history the Gulf Wars in the Adriatic in the North Arabian Sea in action against Libya and in numerous Contingencies we operated in a fashion that leveraged significant technical capabilities our precision weaponry our Situational awareness and our superior command and control systems amongst other technologies With the confidence that should we be challenged we would defeat that challenge with the push of a button There's a t-shirt on sailor Bob says stay calm and roll fizz green Right, that's the technology. We've been relying on Well given all we've observed in the Western Pacific in the Persian Gulf in the eastern Mediterranean and along the periphery of the Black Sea It is clear that technology cannot be solely relied upon to provide our tactical advantage Simply put technology cannot be our only tactic in the battle space Now The theme of the conference lethality Lethality lethality isn't just about speed range and explosive weight Our discussions about lethality must include culture and approach Distributing our lethality isn't just a catchphrase in which to set this agenda This is the requirement in the evolved battle space Here's how I see it Distributed lethality means three things It's going to require us to distribute our sensors and fires To distribute our maneuver in multiple domains And to distribute our costs Let's talk about these First we must distribute our sensors and fires to extend our vision And our punching reach and i'm not just talking about power projection fires like tomahawk We need distributed kinetic and non-kinetic fires that can bring about offensive effects to control the sea At a time and place of our choosing The first part of this isn't necessarily new We understand the need for distributed sensors In fact, tr strike group completes workups next month and deploys as the first nifca capable strike group in march By netting the strike groups distributed airborne and surface sensors together Nifca enables all platforms to contribute to a precise common fire control network It also means that not every platform has to possess the most exquisite sensor or the longest ranged most capable missile Indeed every platform in the network benefits from the diversity and capability of the whole And enables delivery of offensive effects beyond those of our adversaries We do need to close the asu w gap in our surface forces By providing our surface combatants with the next over-the-horizon surface-to-surface missile Rail gun and directed energy weapons are our next order of business as well All of these will greatly improve our ability to control the sea And deliver the requisite effects in the battle space In the contested or denied battle space But we have to include the sensors too. It's not just the fires We cannot forget about the airborne extensions of our surface weapon systems like the ma 60 Like the fire scout charlie and the e2d And we need to continue to push for other advanced airborne sensors like the aiisa radar These provide robust tactical awareness to our surface platforms Next Next we have to be able to distribute our maneuver We need to go on the offense in terms of adapting our tactical mindset I'm not questioning what's been done previously. We've simply been operating within the context of the technological advances Excuse me advantages And the environments we've enjoyed over the past two decades Now we need to take a page out of the 80s playbook and distribute our maneuver Maneuvering with operational and tactical purpose both physically And or in cyberspace to shape the battle space in a way that denies our adversary The situational awareness and targeting he requires So that we retain the advantage in a contested or denied environment In terms of the kill chain I like to talk about things way left to launch Before our adversary can get to a decision to attack As I observed in the Mediterranean We need to get further left in the adversary's kill chain And their kill networks to introduce ambiguity And disrupt the adversary's understanding about the distribution And formation and posture and position of our force The proper tactics of our surface force must combine physical and cyber maneuver Enabled by exquisite tactical understanding of the local geography The environmental factors in play And the ambient players in the battle space This is hard work at the operational level of war As well as the tactical and we need to refresh the team on how to do this business And I'll come back to that in a minute Lastly in addition to a distributed sensors and fires and distributed maneuver We must distribute our cost This requires a mix of high and low surface combatants Modernizing our existing major surface combatants and fielding new platforms like DDG 1000 LCS and the modified LCS All these platforms will be needed to be able to contribute with advanced netted sensors The needed fires and the delivery of the right effects in the battle space And we need to think carefully What distributed cost means in terms of per round cost as well The laser weapon system deployed in panse is already capable of producing per shot costs of less than a buck And railguns should realize significant savings in terms of cost as well Of course, these assets are moving the fuel and the kinetic power from the round To the power supply where it can be reused Weapon diversity just like spectrum diversity will remain important And provide flexibility in terms of selecting a missile A traditional projectile Directed energy or a cyber effect to deliver the right effect in the right domain and at the right phase of the fight We got to get that right in terms of cost In the end though The emphasis is not just on the systems and the technology which continued to advance Excuse me In the end though the emphasis is not just on the systems and the technology which continue to advance Both our own and our adversaries as well, but on our tactical genius And the manner in which we must operate our surface forces In a manner to be able to challenge potential foes across the battle space in all domains To increase their physical technical and information challenges and risk While lowering our own to give our surface warriors the tools to think tactically Advanced sensors and systems can do only so much Our tactical development must be founded on an understanding of the environment Again, the physical geography and the cyber domain our adversary and ourselves And employ that knowledge to seize the day tomorrow s and a will benefit from Professor david scags who's going to present a naval heritage program on the battle of lake champlain If you don't know this fight and understand what thomas mcdonough faced Up off platzberg You won't really understand what i'm talking about here Lieutenant thomas mcdonough was on leave and in canada kit We received orders from the secretary of the navy to proceed to whitehall to york to build a fleet Man train and equip it Take take it to the north of the lake and defeat the british If you know the details of the fleet the soldiers that he converted to sailors in a few weeks time And his own capabilities you will understand that he was outmanned outclassed Outtrained outgunned out shipped in every sense of the world But he went north understood the geography the prevailing wind conditions And exercised his own really exquisite seamanship skills to put himself in position to win that fight In what was a horribly bloody uh kinetic fight to say the least to use today's terms Tomorrow you will understand what i'm talking about when we say tactics come from in here And is not here rolling fizz green And we're going to have to get smarter in the battle space in order to do that Please if you have the time tomorrow take the opportunity to listen to professor scag's Presentation and understand what he's telling us It's this that I believe we need to cultivate our tactical and operational thinking through rigorous feedback Through understanding of historical examples like that and by correcting our own training regimen In a way that's informative to the fleet Okay, all that drags me back to fleet forces commands priorities How will I know if i'm getting this kind of tactical ingenuity and development? To many this will be geeky fleet insiders speak even fleet headquarters insiders speak But as any operational commander knows We can get to this level of understanding if our assessments processes work effectively In fleet forces commands case That means in a way that helps to both improve upon And synchronize the relationship between the processes of generating the force That is to say getting the fleet ready to be forward And developing the force which is to say manning training and equipping it to be ready for what's coming in the future That's the third part of my agenda at fleet forces command and that the that's the part that will benefit most In our war fighting practices If we do these three things we can indeed say that the fleet is ready then to fight and win Okay, I talked a lot Talked about a lot of things today The importance of discussion and collaboration in all professional fora industry Our naval surface warfare centers the beltway our classrooms CICs on the waterfront and underway The blogosphere and of course the surface navy association the development of the between the ears matter that I'd referenced a moment ago I talked to you about some of the successes that we had Kind of across all domains in my time at six fleet As well as the significant contributions and successes of your surface force around the globe I also talked about my goals at fleet forces command to continue our current track See amal gortney's initiative through To develop our force to fight and win tomorrow And to do this by closing the force generation development employment loops Through a rigorous assessment based process And I also talked about my thoughts on advantaging the force with distributed lethality By distributing our sensors and fires By distributing our maneuver across all domains And by distributing our costs The challenges are significant But I am greatly encouraged by the opportunity Given the considerable intellectual capital evident here and in our ships In our industry partners and technical community in the training organization And most importantly in the mission success. I see time and again across the surface force Know this the surface community is moving out together with these ideas Okay, that's all I have to say today. Thank you again Thank you again surface navy association for inviting me here today And thank you all all of you industry civilians and military here in this for today for what you do in service to this great nation Thank you very much You're gonna say there I'll moderate Okay Okay, I'm willing to take some questions for a while Admiral sir. I can't see you. Hi Sir max cooper pms 339 surface training systems the last couple talks we've heard have to talk about Distributed lethality and which really represents quite a shift from an acquisition perspective and how we develop and field systems My question is can you please share with us from an operational perspective your thoughts on how quickly The acquisition community has been able to get new capability to the fleet And whether or not you think we'll be able to improve upon that in order to meet the distributed lethality idea That's been put out today. Thank you, sir. I'll comment on that if you give me your the Why this is new this concept is new to the acquisition community. Give me your context Oh, sir from my perspective, it seems that we've been more focused on the high end Capability that's focused on a series of individual platforms versus the more distributed Concept that we've discussed today. For example focusing more on the development of high end long-range anti-ship missiles versus a Capability upgrade to an existing harpoon missile In the past we canceled harpoon block three in favor of developing a longer range missile Which still hasn't been deployed yet, sir. So from my perspective that seems like a change Going back to a lower and more of a lower end capability versus more of a higher end capability Or excuse me less of a higher end capability Um, you know, we are a learning organization along the way if the observations that we're seeing the western pacific And the eastern med and the black sea are evolving You know the equation in which we need to approach this problem We need to as surface warfare leaders inject change You know into that acquisition strategy to make sure that we're getting what we need to win the fights of tomorrow I mean, that's essentially the point I'm not going to debate the kpp's of whether you know block three or a new missile Is the requirement going forward, you know, we're on a journey to figure that out now So do I think that the acquisition community can produce such a thing in a short timeline? Yes, I think some of the decisions made in the past Um for modularity Going back as far as vls gives us the options to You know find such a missile and employ them on the forces Thank you, sir. Okay other questions amela hank giffin retired retired You told us about your goals And I know you're Relatively new in the job, but what what are your challenges? I mean, what's what are the hard spots? What's where you're going to spend your time? In focus other than just getting the you know the daily reports and doing all the day-to-day stuff you have to do Well, you know the day-to-day stuff in the headquarters is important stuff I mean you get to strategic understanding of what's going on with the resource flows and where you're making corrections along the way to get that done so, you know, there's You know when I talk about Priority number one, you know, there's a number of initiatives that we got to get across the line You know ofrp is is not even really begun yet We're enjoying some of the benefits Of that analytics that went to describing what ofrp has to be already and manning certainly I think admiral rodin talked to you about that earlier if he's not if he had any will Um, we're seeing that already Maintenance is a big challenge So maintenance is a challenge on the public side and on the private side We've got to get the inputs right or we don't get the product out on time that we need The schedule doesn't follow if we can't do that So there is a lot of work that needs to happen at the headquarters level to understand these things at the strategic Level it's more about, you know, uss this and uss that going out the door Secondly is getting people to understand that, you know, the fights that I described in the future This you know the ability to operate in a contested or denied environment If you wanted me to say what I thought the challenge was in in the most concise fashion, that's it You know, that is the fight we need to focus on We've been operating forward in a relatively benign environment for 20 years Okay, we've got a generation of warriors not just surface warfare Not just surface warfare officers that have pretty much been at liberty to drive to any point on the ocean and deliver power projection fires forward without Worrying much about defense that is closing quickly And we need to get that fault and I need to get that inculcated into both the advanced training process and then I need to get A closed loop training warfare development process in place so that we affect basic training and advanced training overall So that's you know, that's kind of the next thing Okay, and then the third thing is we've got to have force generation and force development talking to each other a little better So we have some independent force generation models now Ramping up, you know one example is fire scout, you know, we keep fire scout forward There's no rotational aft we train the force just in time and they're all forward all the time There's nobody back here on the east coast You know that's flying a fire scout today To get ready to go on a mission It it's happening just in time to send that forth. There are other sensors and systems We don't need a rotational force behind it's going to be forward all of all the time We have to close on the concepts for that You know how we do the fleet tactical development to make sure that we're getting the information here back to the fleet So operational level of war commanders know those things and make that happen So when I talk about force generation and force development Synchronizing those processes better. That's what I'm talking to those are some examples. Does that answer your question? Admiral yeah, okay other questions Please I can't see you Good afternoon. Admiral Dave Hart on the symposium committee. Hello, Admiral I'm curious if you can harken back since you just left very recently duty as the commander of the sixth fleet Talk about some of the challenges in the relatively condensed time. You were there yet a time of lots of activity Some of the highlights that you had to put up with and provided you some real great challenges The eastern med challenge is a significant An anti-axis aerodial challenges any we have in the world The black sea as well That problem evolved rapidly in time and required quite a bit of tactical thought I can't get into it too much here Because I go to a classified level that I'm not willing to discuss But there's a lot to be had there and really it's the it's the foundation of what I've talked about here And in refining force employment and being ready to operate in these contested or denied environments Have a mission to do to do ballistic missile defense The risks are going up to conduct that mission tactics need to help me Mitigate those risks so that I can affect both the defense of allies and partners allies in the region and Defend those ships so that they're can continue that defense. Does that make sense?