 It's now my great distinct pleasure and honor to introduce to you the 55th President of the United States Naval War College, Rear Admiral Philip Gardner, HAL 3rd. A native of Jacksonville, Florida, he was graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy and commissioned in 1984. A Naval Special Warfare Officer, or SEAL, he has served in a full range of operational and staff billets in the Naval Special Warfare and Joint Special Operations Communities, most recently in command of Special Operations Command Pacific, or SOCPAC, in Hawaii. He has completed multiple deployments around the world and participated in operations earnest will, provide comfort, enduring freedom, and Iraqi freedom. The Admiral graduated from the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School in 1995 with a degree in National Security Affairs and from the National War College in 2002 with a Master of Arts in National Security Affairs. As you can see, Admiral HAL brings a wealth of operational and leadership experience to his current role as President of the Naval War College, a position he assumed in July of this year. We're fortunate to have him here at the college and I'm very pleased to morning to introduce you to the 55th President of the War College, Admiral Gardner HAL. Tom, thanks very much. To this very impressive collection of global maritime leadership, good morning. And it is my pleasure to welcome you, once again, as we did last night, first to the United States, second to this great state of Rhode Island, to the beautiful city of Newport with beautiful weather this morning, to the Naval War College and the 21st International Sea Power Symposium. I hope you'll agree with me. I think the symposium got off to a great start last night at the Mansion Rose Cliff. Aaron and I enjoyed getting to meet so many of you and look forward to continued discussions over the course of the week. The Naval War College is truly honored to provide the setting for this very important gathering. And we hope that we will be able to provide you the time to think and to discuss common maritime challenges and perhaps more importantly, continue to build the relationships that will help lead to common solutions. There's always been a bond, a special bond between mariners forged from both the shared excitement and the challenges of life on the sea. Mariners across the ages have felt a very special kindred spirit amongst each other. When serving as the United States Navy's 15th Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Arlie Burke was reflecting upon this special bond. And he commented, in the Navy, when an old sailor looks back, he finds the majority of his friends are naval officers from his own country and from other countries, people he relies upon, people he likes and has fun with, whom he knows and respects and admires, and above all, men he can trust. The International Sea Power Symposium is a product of this sentiment, recognizing the incredible potential to build upon this special relationship among men of the sea and then directing their collective efforts at common problems, Admiral Richard C. Colbert, then serving as the president of the War College, hosted the very first International Sea Power Symposium in 1969. In that first symposium, there were 80 high-ranking Navy officials from 37 different countries, and they included 20 chiefs or deputy chiefs of navies. And in the 45 years since then, the symposium has served as an effective forum to bring together the global network of maritime leadership to help move relationships to partnerships and to seek cooperative solutions to our common problems and challenges. And it's in this tradition that we gather here today. Today, you represent a much larger and a much more extensive global network. The 37 nations are now 112. Those original 20 chiefs are now 72 chiefs of Navy, alongside 21 heads of Coast Guard. Also with us are 14 heads of naval war colleges across the navies, and an additional 75 flag-level military and civilian leaders from across the international community. You are clearly an impressive group and one with significant potential. We admire all of you, and we are especially proud of the over 60 delegates here today that are graduates of the Naval War College International Program. To those alumni, welcome back to Newport. Congratulations on your successes. It's certainly my hope that the education you received here has made some element of difference in your country and in your naval service, and that it will continue to do so. And so building on the sentiment expressed so poignantly by Admiral Burt, and in keeping with the spirit of Admiral Colbert's first symposium, let's press on with the business of the week, strengthening our maritime partnerships and addressing our common challenges. Again, it is my deep pleasure and honor to welcome such a distinguished group of maritime leaders to the Naval War College. Welcome aboard. So I have the pleasure of introducing our guest speakers this morning, the first of which is the Deputy Secretary of Defense, Robert Work. Now, emergent requirements have kept him from physically being present with us today, but he hasn't recorded remarks. Mr. Work was a retired, is a retired Marine Corps artillery officer, serving faithfully for 27 years, retiring as a colonel. And along the way, he held a wide variety of command, leadership, and management positions. A noted scholar, a published author, and a true naval strategist, he's worked at a number of think tanks in Washington, including the Center for Strategy and Budgetary Assessments and the Center for a New American Security, where he recently served as the Chief Executive Officer. You may know him from his service in 2009 to 2013 as the Undersecretary of the Navy, so the second raking position in that department. He is an old friend of the Naval War College, and we're honored to have him share his thoughts with us this morning. Please roll the video. Good morning, everyone. On behalf of Secretary Chuck Hagel, I'd like to welcome you all to the 21st International Sea Power Symposium. As I understand it, there are 77 Chiefs of Naval Operations in the audience, and another 30 Vice Chiefs are senior naval representatives. The maritime knowledge and experience you collectively embody is truly astonishing. So I'd like to thank you all for traveling for both near and far to help us seek global solutions to common maritime challenges. Now, I'm truly jealous of you all. While there may be a more scenic and fitting location than the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island to hold such an important dialogue, I am absolutely certain that the Pentagon is not one of them. I am therefore very sorry I cannot be there with you today and tomorrow as you build on existing relationships, establish new relationships, share ideas, and learn how our navies can deepen their cooperation. I say this because before becoming Deputy Secretary of Defense, I served as the Undersecretary of the United States Navy for four years. And before that, I served as a US Marine Officer for another 27. So I appreciate and understand perfectly well both the global value of the maritime commons and the vital importance our naval partnerships play in making sure they remain safe and secure. And symposia like this one helped to achieve these very ends. If anything, now is the time to strengthen and expand our partnerships. I believe we are truly at a historic inflection point. The world is changing at an incredibly rapid pace. New threat seems to be appearing on almost a daily basis. We therefore need to work harder and more collaboratively and more collectively to respond to emerging challenges, to enhance maritime security, and to promote a free and open maritime commons, which is absolutely central to global prosperity. By working to enhance international cooperation on issues such as piracy, smuggling, natural disasters, and other threats, we can improve the security not only of each of your nations, but of all of our nations. I think we can all agree that this is as challenging a maritime environment as any we have seen since the end of the Cold War. No one can be absolutely certain where it's headed or what course to steer. What the future will hold is always a mystery to be revealed to all of us. But one thing is certain. To help us navigate towards an uncertain future, we will need great leaders to emerge. Leaders who can think creatively and strategically. Leaders who recognize the need for changes in the ways we operate. Leaders who foresee the opportunities in new technologies. Leaders who can create a climate where new ideas and concepts can be debated, evaluated, and adopted. And finally, leaders who accept that no Navy, however powerful, will be able to solve all maritime challenges on their own. Adapting to change is never easy, but adapt we must. And if history is any guided all, naval officers will be up to the challenge. Our national leaders and our people expect all of us to be out in coastal waters are over the horizon every single day where we share a commitment to protect unique and shared maritime interests. Let's exploit our common commitment to change for the better of all global citizens. Posted in the gangways of US Navy ships are the 10 Commandments of Damage Control. Commandment number 10 says, keep cool. Don't give up the ship. So let me leave with a concluding thought. Remember, no matter what the world throws at us, keep cool and don't give up the ship. Together we can work together to accomplish astonishing things. In closing, on behalf of Secretary Hagel and the American people, I want to thank all of you for your service, your professionalism, your dedication, and your partnership. I'd like to wish all of you fair wins and following seas. Thank you very much. Have a great symposium. So thanks to Mr. Secretary. And I'd just like to note that that's not the limit of this participation here at the symposium. At the conclusion, we'll be sending a wrap up message with key findings and recommendations from the discussions that take place this week. So I'm now honored to introduce and to welcome back to Newport our second distinguished kickoff speaker, the 75th Secretary of the Navy, Secretary Ray Mabus. Secretary Mabus has been a long, has been long in public service. He has served as the governor of Mississippi, the ambassador to the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. In 2009, he was sworn in as the 75th Secretary of the Navy with responsibility for the Navy and the Marine Corps team. As secretary, he has made energy reform, acquisition, excellence, and unmanned system development key issues of focus for the Navy and for the Marine Corps. He's a graduate of the University of Mississippi. He holds a master's degree from John Hopkins University and a law degree from Harvard Law School. And as a member of that special bond on the sea that we talked about, he served in the Navy as a surface warfare officer aboard the cruiser USS Little Rock. Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in extending a warm welcome to the 75th Secretary of the Navy, Secretary Mabus. I'm over there. Good morning. Thank you so much, Mr. President, for that warm and wonderful introduction. Since I have the honor, privilege of leading the United States Navy and Marine Corps, it's not surprising that I want to talk about global security from a maritime perspective. But with this audience, I want to focus on something that I've been thinking about a lot lately and that's a relationship between maritime security and political stability and economic progress. In our world today, rapid change is more than just the new normal. The pace of that change increases seemingly daily, partly in response to both the pace and the change itself. Our world is also filled with increasing uncertainty. Amazing technological advances are expanding opportunities, linking our lifespans and bringing us closer together. But the shrinking and flattening of our world, in some cases, has led to increased friction, social disorder, political upheaval, and increased risk from asymmetric threats. The importance of the maritime domain and international trade and global affairs is, as Deputy Secretary of Defense, work said, never been greater. You know all the statistics. 80% of the world's population lives within 60 kilometers of the sea. 90% of all global trade goes by sea. In this internet connected world, 95% of all voice and data go under the ocean by cables. And this isn't just the phone calls and the emails, this is all the data that keeps the world's financial system going. So even if you live in a landlocked country, in this 21st century, you're dependent, almost absolutely, on the world's oceans. Now we as you all are keenly aware to live in an age of globalization and worldwide trade. The shelves of stores in the United States, like Target, are the Lulu hypermarkets of the Middle East, our Sabu department stores in Japan, are stocked through just-in-time delivery with products that come from all over the world. Our commercial and economic success across the globe is still tied to the sea. The economic success I'm talking about is jobs and prices and the availability of goods and services. Millions of people, millions of people around the world have jobs directly tied to seaborne international trade. In the United States alone, it's more than 40 million jobs. And it isn't just people who work in ports and on ships, farming in fashion, energy and electronics, manufacturing of all kinds, are dependent on imports and exports around the world. We at Navy analyze the impact of a major maritime choke point was closed, restricting trade. Within about six weeks, after such an event, the price of gasoline would quadruple and a liter of milk would triple. Most of the nations represented here today. Set aside the world's maritime transit routes and straits, but all of us understand just how vital these sea lanes are. Leading economists to some of our universities have linked the stability and smooth function of our globalized economy to the presence of our navies and the collective work in keeping those sea lanes open for legitimate, peaceful commerce for the past 70 years. And I want to repeat one phrase, the presence of our navies. Uniquely, presence is what navies around the world provide, ready for any challenge that may come over the horizon. Unlike garrison forces, which are called out only in times of need, a navy's tempo is not that different in times of peace compared to times of conflict. As a result, naval forces can get where they need to be very quickly, and a lot of times they're already there. Because our presence is so constant, we don't escalate tensions, we ease them. We bring everything we need with us to accomplish the mission, any mission that's given from deterring an adversary or defeating one to providing humanitarian assistance and disaster relief. And we can stay a long time. It's the job of navies to be where it matters, when it matters. In the United States Navy Marine Corps, I focused on how we support our people, build the right platforms, power those platforms, and develop and strengthen international partnerships. Those four priorities, people, platforms, power and partnerships are central to our successful execution of our mission and our ability to maintain a global presence. But in the 21st century, again, as the deputy secretary of defense work said, no single nation has the capacity to protect and defend the global system alone, to keep the sea lanes open, to protect peaceful commerce, all nations, and all people that seek freedom and movement and trade, and also security, have to carry their own share of the responsibility. A collective effort will ensure that our navies provide that necessary presence, whether in blue water or brown, we can help assure stability and security, creating and strengthening global relationships, providing humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, deterring adversaries when possible, and meeting and defeating threats when necessary. We have to remember that collective security is just that, collective. It isn't just the economic benefits in our individual countries that matter. We also benefit from the ways that it shared economic success, helps us limit conflict and war. Marine maritime instability can cause and contribute to unrest and violence, stoking the fires of conflict, by helping secure the world's oceans and respond to crises early to limit escalation. Our navy, our navies, our marine corps play a vital role in the world. Our maritime tradition is as old as human history, from harbors near the Arctic Circle, around the Mediterranean, through the littorals of Asia and shores of Africa, the Americas and Australia. Human civilizations have launched one great fleet after another toward the horizon. In this country, those who founded America recognize the importance of the navy. In fact, our constitution mandates that Congress shall establish and maintain a navy. Again and again, naval forces have proven themselves the most immediate, the most capable, the most adaptable option when a crisis develops. Whether we're exercising together in the Baltic or the Pacific, operating against pirates in the Gulf of Aden, cooperating in Asia to provide disaster relief, as we did in the aftermath of super-tafun Haiyan, the strong cooperation between America and all the nations represented here today makes a difference all over the globe because our presence matters. Let me give you just a few examples of our operations with many of you over the summer. I travel a lot in this job, one to visit our men and women in uniform around the world, but also, and very importantly, to work with you and your government leaders. In my five years as secretary, I've been to 120 different countries and traveled over 900,000 air miles. This past summer, I had the honor of visiting a lot of people in this room on two trips around the world. In Hawaii and the Central Pacific aboard our new littoral combat ship, had a chance to see and to observe parts of RIMPAC and see our navies working together at sea. The navies of 22 countries participate in the largest maritime exercise in the world, including friends and allies from Asia, but also nations from much further away like the Norwegian Navy who sent a warship all the way from the Baltic Sea. During this exercise, these forces worked together on everything from search and rescue and humanitarian missions to counter piracy tactics and special ops training. On that same trip, we stopped in Singapore and I was there for the start of the 20th annual cooperation of float readiness and training, our carrot with the Royal Singaporean Navy with the Republic of Singaporean Navy. The connections between the nations of the Pacific and the Indian oceans will be critical to maintaining security in that area and stability in the future. Exercises like these help build positive and trusting relationships. While I was in Singapore, seeing the start of that exercise reminded me of two things. First, while there may be a lot of talk about our rebalance to the Pacific, in reality, the American Navy has always been there. Ever since our frigate USS Essex sailed for Southeast Asia in 1800, our Navy Marine Corps have worked with partners and friends in the region. And second, it demonstrates the vital importance of cooperation in the Pacific, in the Latorals, all through Asia, through the Pacific and the Indian oceans. Developing a code of conduct and building trusting methods of communications between the navies of the region is vital to future stability. As we cross the world, I also stopped to meet with partners in Eastern Europe. While I was in the region, our Marine Corps Black Sea Rotational Force was involved in Platinum Line, a series of exercises on the shores of the Black Sea. Working with many of our NATO allies and partners from Europe, Central Asia, these exercises help us build stability on the Eastern frontiers of Europe and encourage security in a region that has been in turmoil for several months. Our Marine Corps Black Sea Rotational Force regularly moves between countries, training with partners, modern security developments there, and building our ability to operate together for future contingencies. Our destroyers, two of which are now based out of road of Spain and two more will come next year, have also been conducting patrols in the Eastern Mediterranean and operating in the Black Sea, providing that ever critical presence. The annual multinational exercise, Sea Breeze, has just finished there, helping us all build security and stability. Earlier in the summer, I also visited the exercise ball tops and had discussions with navies and with leaders in that region. Our continued involvement in the Baltic demonstrates how important the waters of Europe remain to international security and show how the strength of NATO matters in the 21st century, just as it did in the past. I've also had the opportunity this summer to visit with a number of our partners in Africa. The world's attention has been drawn to Africa, not the least of which is the challenges of maritime security along the Horn of Africa and in the Gulf of Guinea. Africa has more than 16,000 miles of coastline on two oceans, one sea. It has four major maritime choke points, vital trade routes, and fertile ocean resources. The growth and development taking place in Africa today will have and has had significant impact on the maritime world. On that trip, I went to see our special purpose Marine Air Ground Task Force at their bases in Morone, Spain and Sigonella, Italy, and see firsthand how they're engaging with Africa and responding to crisis as they did recently by supporting our embassy personnel in Libya. And just yesterday, here, a lot of West African CNOs met for a dialogue about security in and around the Gulf of Guinea and developed forward-looking plans to work together in that region. Last month, I visited the USS America in South America and she made her way through Chilean waters through the Straits of Magellan. And earlier this year, I visited Australia, New Zealand, and some of the islands in the Southern Pacific to see how these nations and many more are working together on the concerns we all share. Maintaining that naval presence for all of us is even more challenging today because of the fiscal environment in which we live and operate. This is true for virtually everybody. Like just about every country, we're taking a much closer and a lot more stringent look at our budget, but a tighter defense budget doesn't and shouldn't mean a weaker defense or a reduced commitment to security. In fact, even with fewer dollars, our Navy is building more ships because we've changed the way we do business. We've used some of the basics of sound business and are building more ships for less money. But the reality of cooperative security and maintaining this global system that we all rely on is that everybody has a critical and important role to play. The world is safer, more secure, more successful when we stand together. A recent study by our Naval History and Heritage Command entitled, You Cannot Surge Trust, Reinforce That Fact. Naval operations are fundamentally human endeavors. Success or failures based on the professional relationships and human decision making as much as it is defined by technology or hardware. People and partnerships matter just as much as platforms. Many of those partnerships have been forged here over 40 years, the International Sea Power Symposium hosted at the Naval War College. As the president of the War College said, so many of the people in this room have also been here in other capacities, studying, learning, meeting each other, growing up together in our sea services. Engagement between our officers, engagement between our Navy's engagement between the leaders of the world's naval forces is a central component of building those critical human connections. Meeting between our senior leaders and bilateral and multilateral exercises are what build this international relationship, the interoperability and the trust central to our globalized world. And sailors have a lot in common with sailors. Doesn't matter where you're from. One of the heads of our partner, Navy's in Asia, who's here today, once offered me his view which I've quoted many times of the difference between soldiers and sailors. Soldiers, he said, by necessity focus on boundaries and obstacles, man-made or natural. They're constantly looking down at the ground. Sailors, on the other hand, look out. They look to the open sea. They see no boundaries. They see no obstacles. They look out and see nothing but possibilities. All of you here today are sailors and Marines. You're focused on that horizon, on possibilities, on future opportunities. All of us in this room face very similar tasks, have almost the same job. One of the jobs that we have is explaining to our governments and to our citizens why navies matter. Because when we're doing our jobs, usually we're a long way from home. And we're certainly out of sight of the people that we are protecting and defending. We have to make sure that they understand how important the maritime world is to our success economically and to our security. We have to encourage them to look outward across the sea to that horizon. So working together, sharing our security responsibilities and maintaining our presence around the world to assure the continuation of growth in our international economy, I have no doubt that together we'll meet every challenge that comes over that horizon in the 21st century. And we have to remain in the motto of the United States Navy, simple for us, forever courageous. And as the United States Marine Corps motto proclaims, simple for Delos, forever faithful. Thank you very much. And for my third and final introduction this morning, it's my honor to introduce our host for the International Sea Power Symposium, the 30th Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Jonathan Greenert. A native of Butler, Pennsylvania, Admiral Greenert has served at every level of command to include command of USS Honolulu, 7th Fleet, US Fleet Forces Command and serving as our Chief of Naval Operations since 2011. So ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Jonathan Greenert. Thank you and good morning. It was absolutely tremendous to see all of you last night, if not all of you, most of you and your better half, for many of you, your spouses. It was wonderful to see them as well. Gardner, thanks for the introduction and Tom Angle, thank you so much. Your collective staffs have done a wonderful job putting this together, our hosts. I'd like to thank actually again, Secretary Mabus, who is a great partner, a great boss and a man of great interest in what we are here to do, what we're about today, as well as the Deputy Secretary Work who sent us that good video. I'd like to welcome and acknowledge Admiral's Ferguson, Gortney, Harrison Howard, my guys, if you will, your partners out there around the world, my Navy component commanders and my Vice Chief of Naval Operations. They'll be here through the week and I encourage you to engage with them. We're pretty close, they tell me what they need. They have no problem with that. So if there are needs, please share with them as well as the conversations that you and I will have. I'm really in awe and an appreciation to see so many heads of Navy here today and delegates, heads of Coast Guard and people representing their Navy and their country. Meeting you last night and just going through bios and the time I've had in my tenure to work with you makes it humble to me and I'm very pleased to work with you. We have Secretary Mavis mentioned, Deputy Secretary Work mentioned. We have a lot of work to do, but there's no better group of people out there leading around the world and I'm honored to be with you. I'd like to welcome for the first time attendees, the head of the Republic of China Navy as well as People's Republic of China Navy, excuse me, as well as the head of the Madagascar Navy who are joining us for the first time. It's very good to have you aboard, join the collective group here and I wanna thank you again, all of you who brought your spouses. It was clear to me, Darlene didn't say this particularly, but I know what she thought because she knows what she thinks about me. I married up and I'm lucky to be there. Well so are a lot of you, it's very clear. Not saying that's how you got your job. I'm not gonna say that, but I like you all and so I thought I'd give you a little tip. Now some of you have found this little pamphlet in your welcome packet and it's from the Navy Exchange and I'm not hawking for the Navy Exchange. They make plenty of money. They don't necessarily need your business but I've chatted with some of you last night and I said, so did you get out and around? Are you gonna do any shopping? And some of you like a lot of us said, oh well I'll be too busy or I just don't know what to do it and some of you don't have your spouses here and you're gonna go home with nothing. I don't know, I guess things are different in other nations but I would do that at my own risk. So I happen to just notice in here that what they have on CO are, well women's watches, women's glasses, women's handbags, women's jewelry all 20 to 30 to 50% out. Oh wait, there's women's perfume. Buy one, get 50% off. Now we're just trying to help you out here guys, all right? So I'll leave that to you a little bit of a tip and you all take it from there. Another kind of, on Friday, Darlene and I have asked our spouses to join us for the particular lecture then by Dr. Dave Titley on the impact of the global change. I think it's a topic that interests all of us and will certainly interest our partners as well so we're gonna have them here Friday morning. I encourage you to visit the ships we have there. We have different types of ships for whatever catches your interest and they'll be here through the end of the week. As Gardner mentioned, the first international sea power symposium was in 1969, 45 years ago and many of those delegates were veterans of World War II. Think about that when this thing all started. The world was pretty darn different then, right? We were in a cold war, the famous cold war but our predecessors recognized the value of international dialogue and Gardner quoted Arlie Burke who we feel really got us into this idea of international engagement and partnership and the value that it would bring to us and the need is more critical than ever before. Secretary Work mentioned it, Secretary Mavis mentioned it, you all understand it but I want to underline, if you will, as I talk about what I think we can do together a little bit today, that the international sea power symposium here is not a standalone, this is part of a continuum that many of us attend. I see many of you at other sea power symposia and they're very important too. I'd like to, I suggest we build on the progress from these other forums that we have. The Inter-America Naval Conference, the Western Pacific Naval Symposium, the International Maritime Sea Power Symposium, Regional Sea Power Symposium, Indian Ocean Sea Power Symposium, you get my point, MDEX, DEMDEX, all of these have great value and we should learn from each and bring these things forward, bring the lessons learned forward as we move. It's about networking folks, it's about finding partners in and out of uniform that we know we can trust and we have confidence in working with and building that trust and confidence and learning to take risk with each other, sharing ideas and perspectives and disregarding the size of the Navy. Every single person in here, regardless of who they represent, the size of the location, has value that we need as a collective group because many of you, all of you, have fairly unique and different challenges from the other person. Everyone here is a leader and everyone here can learn from the other. So let me touch on just a few things here then we'll take a break and we'll start rolling into really the meat of this sea power symposium. So a little bit about what we have in common, what I think we can work on. First of all, we do represent the collective group here today, 113 different nations, 112 plus your host here the United States, but there are different languages clearly, that's what the placards show us, different cultures for sure, different histories, different governments, different politics and that brings you different policies that we in the uniform work under and work for. But that said, we have a lot in common. It's been said before, but I mean the common environment is the sea. The common interests, stability and economic growth. The common responsibility that I share and that you share with your nation and that is the security of your homeland and the security of the seas. And we have common challenges, they are numerous but they're common, those out there. The environment, the physical environment is the sea and while we here call her the cruel mistress. The one you can't be sure of, the one you really can't count on all the time. There's no politics with the sea, agnostic to religion. There's no history there with us and the sea. I mean they don't, sea doesn't care what your history with her is. And we all marvel at the power and the beauty of the sea but the fact remains and the fact is out there, we have collectively, our countries have lost more ships at sea due to storms than to any battles. It's the international medium and we'll frequently interact, our navies because it is the international medium where we'll travel. It's an ungoverned space, it's the global commons. It's unique as the secretary said among this business that we do, naval officers that go to sea, it has no borders. We have common interests as I mentioned. All of us raised our hand or in some manner took an oath to your country to protect your homeland and to protect the sea and the security of the sea lanes. We all want prosperity. We want the global economy to grow. We all benefit from that, from that open global training system. Secretary said 90% by volume of our trade goes by sea. And those shipping lanes are critical for the world economy infrastructure. You disrupt it in any other part, disrupt it in Asia, it affects Africa, disrupt it in Europe, it affects South America, vice versa. We are hyper connected, we're not just regional and we can't survive alone in just one given region. Again, we have common responsibilities to ourselves and to our nations. We all organize, train and equip and we send to sea capable ships and crews. We are responsible to recruit those people, retain those people and to train and to exercise so that they can go to sea and operate safely. It's our job to instill confidence in our sailors to make them proficient as good sailors at sea. But most important, we all promote good order at sea. We all abide by international law and we are collectively the face of our nations. So how we react and act at sea is gonna be a reflection on our nation and we shouldn't interact in a predictable and a professional manner. When our folks pass each other a sea, a small boat, it doesn't matter, a merchant or whatever, I don't think they look for the company per se, they look for the flag on that. We become the face of our nation. So we have common challenges as I mentioned. Maritime terrorism, transnational criminal organizations, piracy, trafficking, that's narcotics, that's people, that's weapons, natural disasters, a lot of natural disasters recently and that's whole safety of life at sea. Awareness of the maritime environment, that's what we all really opine for, that's what we want and protecting those sea lines of communication. None of us can address it alone, we just can't do it. We don't have enough resources. So we need the resources collectively, the capabilities, the skills and the awareness that each of us has, as I said before, in some way uniquely in our area of responsibility and we need a coordinated effort. The common challenges bring us common opportunities though. So let's look during these series of sea power symposiums, these meetings, to find and unite those common causes. Those opportunities we have to strengthen our individual and our collective skills in the behavior of the profession of being a sailor. Many of us had unique ideas to, as I said, to organize, train, equip, to recruit and to retain, to perform humanitarian assistance, disaster relief, some are better than others. Let's bring it in here and share it. Search and rescue, maritime security, counter-piracy. Some do this incredibly well, others stumble. And information sharing, working together when a crisis hits. As we're finding, we're all finding, time is of the essence in these crises. You wait two or three or four or five days to get organized, this is casualties at sea and this is loss of information. So to seize these common opportunities, we need a global network, a global network, the power of collaboration, to pull together the capabilities and the resources for the common good, to be a flexible and an adaptable framework out there at sea. The minimal requirements to participate, there's not much, you gotta be willing to collaborate. No special equipment, no formal agreements, although formal agreements can be made if desired. And anyone can plug and play if we stick together and talk about this. We already are, in essence, a global network. I have my guys go out and say, just take me a snapshot at sea. How many ships do we have out there? Maybe greater than about 700 tons. How many ships do we have out there at any given time that we know about are involved in some sort of operation where nations are getting together? And that number's about 800. 800 ships. Remember the old thing about 1,000 ship, Navy, and somebody said, wow, that's just a number. We're almost at that number. About 800 ships on any given day are out there. And the linkages are pretty strong. They're out there in places that are still growing and coming together. As the secretary mentioned, after super typhoon Haiyan, the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, Maritime Task Force, Coalition Task Force 150, 151, 152 out in the fifth fleet. The operation to search for the Malaysian airline 370, the operation for the prevention of chemical weapons, it goes on and on and on. Those operations go around the world. A variety of regional networks are out there. And they're formed to deal with local, sometimes regional or sometimes global challenges. And they're under no one single particular command and control or power. So let me ask you this week, we're gonna have lectures, we're gonna have panels, we're gonna have briefs, we're gonna have regional breakouts, we're gonna have sidebars, we're gonna have tours, heck, we're gonna eat, drink and dance. And let's take that opportunity to look at the fundamental issues. The future trends in maritime security, enhancing coalition operations, and the maritime implications of climate change. Let's look for the regional solutions and the initiatives, and let's find out what you all have that we can apply elsewhere or that we can apply everywhere. Let's discuss and collaborate, spending time together and getting to know each other, building on those personal relationships, sharing the insights and listening and learning. If you assume that each of you who is a chief has about 30 years of experience, we've got about 2,500 years of maritime experience here in the room and where we'll be for this week. So let's chart the course, get the priorities and goals, put some things down and get that continuity going as we move on. On behalf of my Navy and my nation and the War College, I look forward to the upcoming dialogue. Thank you very much for coming and let's have a great symposium. Enjoy yourselves. Thank you.