 Good evening. Thank you all for coming and agreeing to sit here in a auditorium on one of the first really nice days comparatively speaking. We've seen in a while We have an exciting program for you today as I was telling somebody just a few minutes ago My entire war college education was devoid of any talk of zombies And so you are in for something none of us have seen before so I Hope you'll find this exciting yet We're gonna look at not just zombies but what's out there in the Pacific right now the history of so many things which is Central to so much that we do here in the war college The topic for today is sea power and the Pacific Ocean area Not a simple Issue But if it were simple it wouldn't be something that we work with and struggle with Here at the war college day in and day out like the other lectures that we've had previously we have Time for a lecture and about 15 minutes for question and answer Upon completion of the lecture so feel free to Share the information you've gotten here Spread the word about how good these lectures are. I haven't heard anybody say anything bad about them But please keep in mind that the opinions being expressed Are those of the people expressing them and are not a reflection of the views of the war college The US Navy the Department of Defense Would that disclaimer out of the way? I'd like to introduce myself. I am Tony Fox. I'm a professor at the College of maritime operational warfare I work with Dave Pilotti who is usually the person who greets you for these things He could not be here today because he has naval reserve duty at the Pentagon So he asked me to try and fill his shoes I'm lucky enough however to be able to introduce to you Professor Jim Holmes Who is one of the most published experts on the topic you're about to hear about here at the war college? Jim holds the JC Wiley chair of maritime strategy here at the Naval War College and currently teaches in the strategy and policy department and has previously taught in the national security affairs department so he's got a lot of Experience across the college. He is the recipient of the 2016 Navy meritorious civilian service medal He also has served in the Navy that service includes Surface on the USS Wisconsin a battleship during the first Gulf War and during that war Jim was gunnery officer and was the last Officer in the US Navy to essentially pull the trigger on 16-inch battleship guns in anger Jim holds degrees from Vanderbilt University Salve Regina Providence College and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy Where he earned his PhD in international affairs? Jim has over 25 book chapters and 200 scholarly essays published his most recent books only his most recent books our strategy in the second nuclear age and The recently published red star over the Pacific Which has been named to the Navy professional reading list as essential reading Copies have been placed on board every US Navy ship With every Navy jet squadron or aircraft squadron and shore installation So for you Navy spouses who are here in the audience when you go home from this lecture You should be ready to quiz your husband your spouses on the topics. You're gonna hear about tonight We could go on with all of Jim's accomplishments, but I would like to close with one very pertinent fact Our former secretary of defense James Mattis Pronounced professor Holmes to be troublesome. That is certainly an interesting compliment Thank you very much for coming and with that professor Holmes Thanks Tony and thanks for everybody for coming out now I bet you I bet you think that the title I gave the lecture is a cheap ploy to get you to come out on a nice Tuesday afternoon and you'd be right about that But I think as I go along you'll you'll understand that there's actually a more serious point I'm trying to make in beneath the facetious invoking of zombies even though everybody loves zombies the walking dead of course has been a phenomenon for quite some time Oh, let's see if we can get out. I think I got a little too cute with the animations here And the point is this the point is that when you when you debate something as simple as the strength the relative strength of the United States Navy reviews of its potential opponents You're going to come across a lot of ideas that are that are some of them of which are deeply flawed Most of them are partial none of them is a single index of us naval power visa vias potential adversaries So I want to equip you to ask the right questions as you as you go out and as you start hearing these partial fallacies About sea power to ask the right questions of the people who are put in them about because you will hear this from very distinguished people And we did we definitely need to hold people's feet to the fire as we go for us So that's so that's really the idea behind the facetious title that I gave it as I said you will fit when you do this I've been I've been writing about this stuff for at least 10 years and I the ideas they keep coming back We're not talking about real goals. We're talking about undead ideas that refuse to die about sea power You will often tell you will oftentimes feel like you're Rick Grimes You're standing behind a thin fence and as you know shooting down a zombie You can take it out He can take it out with a headshot and 10 more just like it come behind it and you have to take those down And that's that's just the kind of relentless Parade a parade of ideas that that you will sometimes encounter when debating about sea power now If you if you want to if you prefer to read this just just yesterday Yeah, who picked up a column that I ran on Sunday about this basically making the same points that I'm about to make it to To you right now in capsule form including using the zombie analogy, which is always one that gets a lot of readership Now, let me let me tell you what my agenda is for our time together this afternoon First of all, I want to talk a little bit about us maritime strategy review that for you So that we just so that we see what we are trying to accomplish in the Pacific Deed or the Indo-Pacific region as we've taken to calling it in recent years Then I want to turn and talk about resources Talk about that talk about the resources that the the Navy the Marine Corps in the Coast Guard the American sea services have allocated have allocated to that region in order to execute our strategy and then finally I want to spend I Want to spend about the last half of our time or thereabouts Talking about why it is so hard for ourselves Even if even if we are stronger on the hold in our adversaries to make ourselves strong in the Western Pacific in the Indian Ocean region It is just not easy to go on to somebody else's home port just as in sports. It's the same way same way in naval warfare It's it's just hard Even if you're the stronger team to be the visiting team and go defeat a home team on its own home port So let me turn right to it Our strategy goes by that and this dates back to about the 2011-2012 timeframe under the Obama administration When the the sea services and then the administration picked up on it as well declared that we would pivot to Asia as You know the United States as an offshoot of the British Empire has traditionally looked more across the Atlantic and thought more about Europe the Mediterranean sea the North Atlantic and so forth and about the Pacific Ocean region so in a sense This was a this was a change up in in America's strategic orientation Propted by the rise of China the rise of the rise of Russia as well And it's a move to reestablish itself in the Far East and so forth this way This was a shift in priorities and that warrant that warranted a Move a move of resources in terms of ships and airplanes and all the things that make up sea services These are the two these are the two documents that that codified that the pivot to Asia for the sea services back in 2007 over in our other auditorium sprints auditorium You see the doc we saw the document on the your left the merit the cooperative strategy for 21st century seapower unveiled on the stage there It was updated or was a as the Navy said refreshed in 2015, but I think the essentials more or less stayed the same. Here's what the Here's what the here's what the 2007 version said that the the sea services should try to accomplish in the Indo-Pacific region first of all We would that we would we would keep credible combat power on station in that region for the foreseeable future for the next 10 to 15 Years whatever the shelf life of the document happened to be this was widely interpreted including by myself as Meaning that the United States meant to stay number one in those regions as far as as far as naval power and the support supporting air power and In the joint services that are in that region So again, we set out a pretty ambitious aim as starting as trying to stay number one in somebody else's backyard Secondly and to add to put a little more oomph into that This the cease of the document declared that we would reserve the right unto Washington to take local sea control of any Expansive water within that larger region and in fact if you read the documents Pretty broadly it seems to say we get we would do that across the globe if we saw it fit to do so We would prefer to do it with our allies, but we reserve the right to do it on our own if necessary This is a very very ambitious thing to say and yet it was it was codified in that document And lastly then this is a this was a little bit of a departure from past maritime strategies Which were more or less about sinking in the Soviet Navy or sinking whoever whoever our adversary of the time happened to be These documents these documents stated that the United States would like to a symbol Coalitions and partnerships and alliances to be a multinational custodian of the system of maritime trade and commerce and also of military affairs That's why you hear so much about freedom of navigation Or as I prefer a freedom of the sea which which basically is the idea that Seagulling and seagulling nations may use the sea as a highway to conduct maritime affairs Whether it is commercial affairs military affairs If you read the UN convention on the law of the sea that what which is referred to as the Constitution of the oceans It reserves almost complete freedom outside certain outside certain distances from coastal states to actually do commercial and military things We thought we actually thought that this was an idea that was more or less unchallenged until the rise of China And then what it's trying to do in the Chinese China seas have called that into question And also Russia and the Black Sea to a lesser extent as well So again very very ambitious document and there if you were tried to execute it It's also going to be very resource-intensive as well The Obama administration and its last in its last year or so an office also codified its own ideas about the Asia Pacific And it basically just said what I did I actually I was I stood up and cheered when I saw page one of this document back in 2015 and it starts off by time talking about why we and our allies and partners and friends Should all try to defend freedom of the sea because if you need access if you need access to the rimlands of East Asia Western Europe whatever the case may be you have to be able to get there and most things whether it's commerce military power Still go by it's still go by water even if this even in this age of air and space power. So Freedom of the seas actually does need a guardian Especially especially when great powers are increasingly challenging that now I alluded to the 6040 split When you translate this into resource terms The the the sea services basically said look we are going to reallocate some of our resources so that about 60% It's of the of the Navy the Marine Corps and the Coast Guard assets would be in the Indo-Pacific region This of course is a picture of USS Ronald Reagan Which is which is the core of a carrier strike group based in Yokosuka, Japan Which is where which is where it is pictured right here The the idea was that we would swing out more forces so that we would have forces on scene Should something go wrong with seeing ourselves in China and Russia, but really the question is and that's I mean that's an input measure Isn't it we're just basically saying okay? We'll take 60% of our stuff and our 60% of our manpower and put it in the region But the real question is Is that enough to win? If you think about it if we want peace in the Indo-Pacific region, we need to not only be able to win Whether it's having a good strategy a good operations and then and so forth and the resources to execute them But also to impress upon our opponents that we will win if we can make believers out of them They probably are not going to challenge us They would end us freedom of the sea and all of our other interests in the region may survive without a fight So really you really do have to ask yourself whether 60% is enough I will I'm not going to say it, but I will at least I will at least imply that I'm not entirely convinced That's 60% of our forces are enough But this is this is something that you can that you can debate with yourselves and we can talk about during the Q&A if you like and this is where and this is where these ideas these undead ideas start meddling with our Calculations and throwing us off as we try to think clearly about these math these about these matters The first the first one of these the fallacies about seapower. I would call the idea that he who spends the most wins Think about it think about it, especially in election years a lot of times you're going to hear people say stuff like this This is out of the Washington Post probably in about I think this was during the 2016 election cycle Usually it's going to be phrased something like this us defense spending do dwarfs most of the rest of the world We spend more than the next X countries combined that X is usually something like 12 or 13 in this case They compare us with that what we spent almost as much as the next 14 countries combined and therefore we win We simply outs we simply outspend our adversaries and therefore we will prevail Well, I mean it's I mean spending is I mean defense spending is obviously an important thing We debate budgets every year. I mean it did it did it is something that is very very important obviously But it isn't is it decisive Think about what the United States does in the world We only play away games as it's as it's often said and playing away games is a very very expensive thing because it requires You to have bases on the route on the routes to places that you might fight whether it's in Japan whether it's in The Philippine Islands where whatever the case may be This is these are things that cost a lot of money that our adversaries who are fighting close to home Do not have to spend because they're within easy reach of their own home bases We also have a lot of expensive stuff on our honor in our inventory. This is a this is our latest Guided missile destroyer, which is really a cruiser. I would say USS zoom Walt sitting at pier two a couple of years ago when they when they stopped here in Newport in route from Bath to the what to the West Coast? This is a this is a guided missile destroyer that costs four billion dollars That's a I mean that's a that is something that that is something that our adversaries really do not have in their Inventories and so that's something that's really going to start soaking up some of that differential in defense spending between ourselves as Indicated in that graphic. Here's the USS for this is our next generation aircraft carrier Which is undergoing some growing pains But the important point that I would raise it raised with you here is that this is a 13 billion dollar asset and that's just the haul That's not that doesn't that doesn't include airplanes That doesn't include cruise stores or any of any of the other things that goes into it making a fighting ship a fighting ship Again a very expensive asset as well. It's going to I think it's going to be a very good asset But it does cost you speaking of airplanes If that that particular ship as well as our older ships will also carry the new stealth fighters the F-35 joint strike fighter These run out. I think the naval version is running about a hundred and six million dollars a copy So pop a couple of squadrons of those on one of these aircraft carriers And you're talking about adding two to three billion what dollars made you get that you get the idea Though these these differentials these simple cost cost comparisons budgetary comparisons really do mask mask a whole lot It's simply more expensive to be the United States and wage war far far from home This is all happening at the same time We are also trying to recapitalize our fleet of undersea warfare ballistic Med ballistic missile submarines which are dating from the Cold War and are getting really really old We're trying to we're trying to build including these are and these are being built right here on the Narraganson Bay as well As over in Groton, Connecticut These ballistic missile submarines the Columbia class are running about seven billion dollars a copy and we want 12 of them This is a this is a shipbuilding program that that Cuno Richardson and his predecessors have said will bankrupt the Navy if it's not fall as if it's not funded by Extraordinary means all by itself. It would squeeze out spending on all of their shipbuilding programs So again, something that needs to be done that is very very expensive Manpower think I think about this if anybody was a fan of the old top gear show which flamed out some years ago They didn't the top gear guys did not employ low-cost labor to drive around their super cars and then do and do silly things on on Screen they explained they employed very very high-cost labor including the stick this so this is a professional race car driver Think about that as a metaphor for for American personnel costs It's been estimated by the people in the China Maritime Studies Institute here at the college and elsewhere that The PLA the People's Liberation Army can but about eight or nine sailors soldiers or airmen in uniform for every one American It's it's really really expensive when you when you pay your people well provide benefits and so on and so forth This is this this is also something that's going to cut into that into those budgetary disparities Documented in that Washington Post graphic so again Our people are expensive and our adversaries pay a lot less and therefore that's going to eat into into the differentials as well Bottom line he who spends the he who spends the most need not win It's this is an important metric But is a very pot it's a very partial metric and yet you see it oftentimes trotted out as if it tells the entire story Which it does not I think let's move on to the next one And you hear this a lot as well including right here at the Naval War College the idea that he who weighs the most wins Kind of a kind of a funny one isn't it but yeah Here's Robert Kaplan one of the great commentators on geopolitics in my view of all times Standing in Spruin's auditorium a couple of years ago Says well he's talking about the geography of the United States But then he says the United States Navy is the largest in the world by far What does he mean by that if I if I count up halls I mean that's a that's that's not only untrue It's like absurdly untrue In fact, my friend Captain Jim Fanell former up the US Pacific Fleet Intel chief But out a nice chapter in a China Maritime Studies Institute book a couple of years ago Pointing out that by about 2030 China will China's Navy will exceed 500 holes in the water at a time in which the United States Navy is Trying to go to 355 So clearly number so clearly numbers do not explain what people are mean when they're talking about who has the largest Navy Here's a Michael O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institution another one of the great defense commentators of of our generation He actually starts to get at what he's talking about weird We are trying to put more technology and spending and so forth into fewer halls But then he reverts back also and says our gross tonnage our aggregate tonnage of our fleet Is about three times that of China What he means basically is that our ships are bigger and they actually have to be don't they if you're going to go across Thousands of what miles of water into the western Pacific 7,000 8,000 miles of water you have to have more fuel You need to bring all your stuff whether it's spare parts of stores fuel all this kind of stuff in order to be able to fight again And somebody else's backyard So he started to he started to get at the point here this so there again This is this is not an irrelevant point at all, but again, it only tells part of the story So be aware when you hear this trotted out as though size is the only thing that matters when you're comparing one fleet against another I mean think about it If they if you have tonnage is the only determinant of combat power of who has the strongest Navy Well, this this ship right here is five times as strong as a you as the Ford class aircraft carrier I just showed you this is the Emma Merrick a commercial ship out of Denmark, which we weighs in at about 550,000 tons About five times the displacement of that aircraft carrier. Obviously an absurd obviously an absurd comparison But yet it illustrates the sort of the absurdity of just using tonnage as a proxy for combat power Well, I mean think about it You think but do you think coach Bellachic before they come before the Super Bowl the other night was both beating down this guy's Nate this this guy's door to be on the on the defensive line and yet He's probably that he's probably bulks more than anybody on the Patriots lineup if you actually came in that came into camp Love the zit on his on his belly there, too. It's kind of fun This way does now this a this this image to me gives starts getting it starts getting at what a more realistic way of measuring Naval if this is if this is a proxy if this is an image of us naval power I then I'm kind of done I'm kind of happy because this is a big beefy guy who also has a lot of combat power If we can take the PLA Navy and slinging around like this and give it a nice wedgie I'm good with that This this seems like this seems like a really really good metaphor for us naval power And I hope that we approximate this that more than we do that Patriots fan He who weighs the most need not win in battle now the next one that the next fallacy that I would call to your attention It's sort of the idea that At some point in the past the United States Navy was the right size had the right number of ships the right amount of combat capability and so on and so forth And therefore if we fall below that if we fall below that number of ships or whatever then we're in dire peril This is a this is another one that comes up a lot in election years We didn't hear too much about it this past year just because it was mostly just kind of congressional elections But especially in presidential election years this comes up a lot the idea that the Navy is in dire peril because it is the smallest since 1917 1917 I'm not sure why exactly why they picked 1917 in particular 1916 is the year the the Wilson administration launched us on to a major naval expansion to me That would be the logical year, but but anyway, that's the that's the idea This is one of the United States Navy starts to become a two-ocean Navy such as we're used to today So the idea is that we now have fewer ships than we did in 1917 and therefore we are in a danger zone You've actually heard this section kind of recently I just in just in the wake of the 2018 elections We've actually seen a change in the Senate Armed Services Committee with Senator David Perdue taking over the seapower subcommittee And he actually he actually used that that little factor. We have the smallest Navy since World War one Again as though this is some sort of threshold beneath which we should really be alarmed about the size of the Navy This is this something like I said, this is something that comes up. It's a it's a hardy perennial This is what this is our former Navy Secretary Rave Mabus a few years ago, and he's actually he's rebutting this idea And I think he actually rebuts one fallacy with another one. Let me let me show you what he says here He says well, I mean this is this is a pointless comparison because ships today are far more advanced and more capable than our Protesters from a century ago, which is that which is undoubtedly true I'm pretty sure the great white fleet if we if it steamed into Norfolk would not stand up to today's fleet very well That's what he says man. It's a the fleet is not it's not it's not nearly technically advanced back then as it is now But I but they the the part that it tends to get left out when you hear that sort of riposte That's sort of come back against the idea that the Navy is in trouble because it's it's smaller than 1917 it they never seem to mention that yes ships have moved on but also the threat environment has moved on as well Think about do you think the idea? Do you think the great white fleet the fleet of 1917 faced Chinese stealth fighters? Probably not. I mean when you think about what combat is you're talking about relative combat power If the Navy if the Navy today is strong enough relative to the threat then it is sufficient Going back going back a century and then in staking these things up is really not all that meaningful a comparison and yet It happens a lot ships today are far more advanced But also the so also are the threats that they face So I'll always be prepared to ask the questions when you hear these simple metrics tossed off as though they tell us everything That we need to know about the naval balance next the And this one this one's a pretty common place as well the idea basically that if I want to figure out who has the stronger force I basically flip open your jeans fighting ships or whatever your favorite reference book is about naval power Look at and see who has the most ships airplanes and and weapons and so forth and that then that you can basically Pit one fleet against another and figure out who is going to win and that one way that one seems to make Superficial sense doesn't it? To me that to me at the the idea conjures up This is an image out of the battle of Jotland a little over a century ago And it was a I mean this was a very much a naval battle the Imperial German German Navy met met the Met the Royal Navy's grand fleet out in the out in the North Sea far away from land and they had a fight It was solely a naval on naval encounter Nothing else could read nothing else coming from shore could really influence the outcome And that's I mean that's something that was I think that was fairly commonplace back during the age of sale and really Really up until about 1916 But yeah, but think about it Think about the you think about the range of implements that are that are available to to Coastal powers these days. I'll show a couple of them to you See battle involved in sea battle today is a matter for more than fleets and more than navies as well There is a range of implements that can actually shape events at it See if I'm going to fight in the China seas the East China sea yellow sea South China see whatever the case may be I will be fighting within within reach of an array of Chinese land-based aircraft packed with a packed with anti-ship missiles These are things that can come out and supplement the fighting power of the PLA Navy That has to be counted into two calculations of Chinese sea power It says and it actually gets even more even more Troublesome effort than that China has declared has evidently developed the world's first working Anti-ship ballistic missiles. These are ballistic missiles I can strike from sites on the Chinese mainland Against moving ships hundreds if not thousands of miles away If so if I get within those hundreds or thousands of miles of Chinese of Chinese coastline, then I might be standing into danger this said This is the original one the DF 21D which were reportedly has a range of about 900 to perhaps to out as far as 1500 nautical miles which would mean Once you get to once you get shorewood of Guam you might be in weapons reach of this thing back in 2015 at a military parade in Beijing The PLA the People's Liberation Army also paraded the DF 26 an extended range Ballistic missile reportedly able to strike as far as as far offshore as potentially 2500 miles You're starting to talk about getting west of Wake Island being within missile reach of the Chinese coastline again These are these are implements that you would have to have to add to the total Aggregate power the of the PLA to resist an American offensive would be very to becoming increasingly difficult just to get into the theater There's a here's a graphic that and this is not a partisan thing This is I think this is out of the one of the Trump administration's reports on Chinese military power But you will find a version in the Obama administration's the Bush administration before that there He would you will generally find a map of China depicting the ranges of various depicting the various ranges of Aircraft and missiles reaching offshore as you can as you can see let me grab my laser And I'll send and I'll point it out to you a little bit If you look at that if you look at those the range rings really rippling out Well, there's Taiwan you can tell Taiwan Taiwan is within a range of a whole lot of stuff as is Japan on a on out to the second island chain centered on Guam Straight of Malacca with a within reach of certain weapons systems with that even those weapons even leaving even leaving the Chinese mainland So again, this is these these are danger zones around China around China These are not hard shells that basically delineate a no-go zone But it does show that you're standing into danger if you go in within those reaches What can you find there to the PLA Navy has Has fielded an assortment of small craft that they can also operate within those general envelopes as well Whether it's diesel submarines packed with anti-ship missiles whether it's these two hundred thirty a ton Small craft to these are these small hobay Caterbrans that are also packed with the anti-ship missiles These are these two can lend their firepower to the defensive effort for the PLA Facing off against the United States coming from coming from the Eastern Pacific I like this kind of I like this gearish graphic simply because the color coding Indicates that as you start closing in the on the Asian mainland The defenses get deeper and deeper and denser and denser and thus moving from the yellow light into the red zone So these are these are at these are zones in which we could expect to incur a Potentially heavy cost just to get to the battle theater and I'm just leave just just point out a couple of things that you hear about a lot about in the news These are this is one of the Manufactured islands in the South China Sea These are things that are not that have now been completed and armed also with guns and missiles and so forth to lend that sort of Firepower farther offshore as you as you penetrate deeper into the South China Sea You can also I used to this used to be a laugh line a few years ago You can actually look you can actually look at almost anything that can go to sea as part of Chinese sea power If you look at the confrontations in the South China Sea This has actually been the vanguard of these have actually been the vanguard of the Chinese up What we call the gray zone strategy fished a large fishing fleet man by maritime militiamen These are these are these have been the shock troops essentially for the For a Beijing as it faces off against the Vietnamese Coast Guard the Philippine Coast Guard and so forth So again, these are implements that China can use to shape events at sea You have to factor that in as well Don't think they would go up against a destroyer But they could do a lot and that's sort of uneasy in that sort of uneasy piece in which we find ourselves So bottom line when you think about this when you start aggregating who has the stronger fleet It's not it's not who has the stronger fleet. It is who feels the stronger force is likely to win So don't don't ever get sucked into thinking this is solely a Navy on Navy thing that we are talking about in fact when you when you start to when you start to Think about putting all these metrics in and trying to come up with a realistic picture There's a lovely anecdote in In this history of the Vietnam War which we use when I was a student here The idea is basically the Nixon administration comes in in 1969 and wants to know when we are going to win the Vietnam War So they feed all the statistics into the computer and the computer says You won in 1964 It is very it's really it's really really very difficult to to come up with a realistic estimate about combat power Just by using partial statistics, which is what the idea this joke is trying to convey garbage in garbage at So always so always demand always demand more more metrics so that you can come up with some sort of realistic Appraisal of what the combat balance is at a certain place on the map at a certain time give a given a certain adversary You simply have to you simply have to be more Sophisticated in these simple metrics would suggest now if you sum up these bad ideas or these these partial ideas you get things like this from very Distinguished commentators. I'm going to pick on John Meersheimer. He's a professor of political science out at The University of Chicago and it's been a commentator on maritime strategy since the 1980s. In fact, he was here in the mid 80s To comment on the US maritime strategy against the Soviet Union. He was just here a few weeks ago Also in a follow-up vis-a-vis China and here's what he He doesn't actually say this, but I'm going to show you something. This is actually actually accurately conveys what he's trying to say Here's what he says in his uh, oh, excuse me Here's what he says in his influential book the tragedy of great power politics. Here's how he leads it off Present-day China does not possess significant military power Wow, I'd say I've just showed you an array of things that seem to contradict him and let's look at the second half of the sentence It's military forces are inferior to those of the United States And he seems to think that the second half of the Senate supports the first half Isn't it possible that China's military forces could be inferior to those of the United States on the whole but yet stronger at the right place in time Where China sees the need to do battle and I will suggest to you that the answer is quite clearly Yes, in fact a political scientist who study this kind of thing have done surveys of history and concluded that the weaker power Wins about a third of the time scoping back through history because It concentrates at the right place in time. It's smart. It does things smarter. It wants its goals more There's a there's a whole that there's a whole array of factors that can offset simple calculations of military strength like we've been going through But yeah, it's so he goes on and he draws out rather strong implications from this China is weaker on the hold in the United States and therefore it is a major major disaster for China if it picks a fight with the United States these days Really All right, and obviously I'm going to argue with that and say and take issue with that and We'll spend the balance of our time talking about why this is such a misguided way of looking at military power and naval power Away games are hard as I started off by saying here's our here's our patron saint in the strategy and policy department Sorry for those of you who are current students But you I mean you just can't have you just can't have a talk without them with without the grandmaster Carl von Klauswitz He's basically saying a really really simple thing here. He's basically saying one be really strong Go to Gold's gym, you know hang out every day bulk up so that you are really really strong in general But then he goes on and they started and then he starts to break this down Yes, it's important to be strong in general be best to have the biggest and strongest military But it's the most important to be strong at the decisive point at the decisive time That's where the fight is going to happen. If it doesn't really matter how much stuff you got your your adversary has if it's far away It really matters. What's what's on the scene at the right time in place for battle? And therefore he's this is one of the past disease He's known for keeping concentrated keeping all your stuff all your manpower resources and stuff at that decisive place Is the best way to assure that you outmatch your opponent? Pretty pretty straightforward and isn't it wherever the battle is you want to be stronger there? And therefore it's best to concentrate most of your stuff at that point And here he actually and here he actually gets it gets it a little more deeply and a little more been a little more accurately Keep in mind that we are talking about relative superiority at a particular at a particular place in time Even if you are not stronger than your adversary on the whole You can still be stronger at the right place in the right time. I mean think I take a bit take a simple Let's take a simple metaphor What are there probably a hundred of you all here? I sort of doubt that I have more aggregate combat power myself Even though I work out and so on and so forth against all 100 of you But if you all were to scatter all the way or throughout the war college Compound and if I can if I can arrange a series of one-on-one battles against you all I might stand a chance That's what clouds of its is idea is if I if I can outmatch you at the decisive place in time I might actually be able to beat you even though collectively you all are far stronger than I am They have very basic idea. He's trying to make but it's actually it's actually a really powerful point as well And that's something we we need to bear in mind as we think about military power in the Pacific and elsewhere in the world You need to be relatively decide decisive at that super at that place. Here's the here's the Pacific Ocean Here's the thing. Here's the theater that we are finally coming to that brings us together today You notice it's a pretty watery place if you courtesy of Google Maps here North America to the extreme right Asia to the extreme left Not a whole lot in the middle except except the Hawaiian archipelago and lots of small islands and nathals in the middle of the ocean Which is all right because we know zombies can go underwater So they so this logic applies to what we're talking about as we start to come to the particular scene in time We'll talk about some maps as we start to get some sense when you're thinking about strategy always start with geography This is a map out of the this is a World War two era map out of the the world fortune atlas of world strategy published in 1943 Makes it really makes a really salient point. You're talking about a large theater. In fact, I delineated in red This is the this is the outer defense perimeter that Imperial Japan sought to make the edges To make the maximum extent of the Japanese Empire it basically wanted to partition off these waters for its own and Leave the leave the rest basically to the United States That's a vast amount of water space is such as Japan was trying to defend with actually a pretty lean-sized fleet And that's a big theater, but there are bigger theaters aren't there Look at I look down from the pole This is a Nicholas Spikeman's a map out of Nicholas Spikeman's book geography of the piece published the same year as that one In red I've drawn out that I've drawn out those waters again These are the waters that mostly concern China the way they mostly concerned Japan 75 years ago That's where that's where that's where China can afford to concentrate its assets Do that claus of itsy and think try to be stronger within those waters What do you think the what do you think the major theater for the United States is? Even in the age of the pivot the United States has a really really hard time cutting loose commitments We have commitments all over the globe. Yes 60 percent in the in the pacific and so forth But if you if you look at russia making mischief, we've had exercises off of norway just in the last few months There's that we just have our finger. We have our fingers in a whole lot of stuff That suggests that the u.s. Military is scattered Largely around the globe whereas china has it has the luxury of Concentrating close to home china kind of china can hope to at least be relatively superior within the waters and skies that it Cares about which way which again would be the western pacific So as we see as we see a moses coming down the laws of strategy Yes, stay concentrated, but it's really not that easy to do Think about think about why that is Let's delve into this just a little bit more If if i'm right the united states has a hard time shedding commitments even when the need it seems to be pressing Why is that true? Well, I mean you can think about it in terms of opportunity costs What would the united states have to cut loose in order to concentrate more of its forces in the western pacific? Well, what would happen if we draw down in europe? You're going to get you're going to get major protests from our from our natu allies What if what if we draw down and say the care the carabincy? You're going to you're going to see you're going to have trouble with our with our latin american friends Every every one of these commitments is going to have a constituency And it's going to make it it's going to make it tough to actually concentrate forces in the western pacific To outmatch china on its own turf There's simple geographic distance Another another map out of the fortune atlas from 1943 Depicting basically just how hard it is and how far how far away us forces have to go Just to get into battle theaters in western europe and in the east asia as we did in 1940 in the 1940s Look at that You have to sweep around either side of eurasia. You have to pass lots of congested territory that might be armed by your adversaries It's just not it's just not an easy thing to do to get from the east coast of the united states into the indian ocean west coast into the pacific Whatever the case may be It takes bases doesn't it this is an old photo of pearl harbour from back in the 1980s That we talked about we talked about cost of budgetary differentials and so forth maintaining a facility like this to help Your maritime forces get into the theaters That's something that's that's simply going to demand a lot out of your force structure and out of your budgetary Your budgetary resources In fact, I like I like to go I like to reach back to high school physics and talk about it in terms of The inverse squares law. I mean think I think about when we radiate radiation from a particular source this is the simple graphic measures makes the point that The the radiation intensity doesn't drop off in sort of a gradual linear fashion It goes off the cliff as you get farther and farther from that source Military power is kind of like that. You really it's really really hard to boost the signal as you go along You need bases. You need logistical capability You need all that kind of stuff that you need to operate hundreds or thousands of miles from your own shores So again just to recap recap obeying that highest and simplest law of clausowitz is really hard Far from your far from your own coastlines and let's say this actually This this doesn't even really start to get it to the heart of the question We like to we'd like to say in the strategy department that the enemy is not a potted plant The enemy gets a vote in the success or failure of your strategy And the enemy is going to want your strategy to fail and that is if you're going into his backyard That means he's going to have a lot of options even if he is weaker on the whole than you are It's not really easy to be like the great brucelly in fist of fury back in the 1970s Go into somebody else's dojo and punch him out take out his entire force That's a that's sort of was sort of the idea that we have to to accomplish here Why is why is it so hard more like When you try to go into under the other side's home to home field or a home turf This is probably somebody this is probably the metaphor you how to have in mind This is a general a paul van riper of the us marine corps Really an inventive guy back in 2002. There was an exercise Called millennium challenge in which van riper made he basically commanded iranian forces facing off against the us Navy carrier task force operating in the persian gulf region He was basically given the same resources that iran would have which would would be a bunch of speed boats and airplanes and so For you know pretty limited resources And yet he was wildly creative in defending the persian gulf and he actually sank that carrier task force I mean he was doing wild stuff like using mosques to pass orders out to the fleet I mean they're just just just crazy stuff except it worked And so I this is always the metaphor that comes to mind when I think about trying to carry the fight to somebody else In their own in their own backyard That's I I mean that this is somebody who was wildly creative with limited resources and actually gets it done By the way, what do you think the navy does after after he actually brings us about? The navy Yeah, the navy changes the role so that the navy wins He he van riper actually resigns. I don't think he brought legal action But he actually he actually quit and discussed after we changed the assumptions so that the navy would prevail Don't don't do that. I mean that's that's really a stupid thing to do when you're facing off against a savvy foe Think about think about some of the other the other assets that go to the home team I mean here's here's Texas A&M user for university which claims to be the inventor of the idea of the 12th man The home team has lots of manpower right there close to scenes of action They're not I don't think the fans are allowed to rush the field or otherwise assault the opposing team But you get the you get the idea lots of manpower very close by Bases the bases are close by you have short routes to potential points of conflict There's just a lot of there's just a lot of geographic advantage and manpower advantages That go along with fighting off your own shorelines You can you can have really vicious fans These are this is duke university where they were there where the where the basketball fans are crazy They're they can in fact they call them camera in crazies They are allowed to harass the opposing team into trying to miss shots and so on and so forth again Kind of a kind of a metaphor for what you can see in military affairs as well There's nobody who in for to enforce rules against this sort of thing Is there in fact you want to amass more resources more manpower at the scene of conflict? Nobody's nobody's going to compel a home team to maintain the same size team as the united states and its allies as visitors In fact, if you had anybody try to referee it would probably be Ineffective like this referee off to the site as this poor guy gets tossed out of the ring There is nobody to maintain fair play In fact, this is this would be the metaphors the sports metaphor. I would reach for this is a The fans rushing the field after Manchester Sweden City won the english premier league a few years ago They're allowed to rush the field and they're allowed to be soccer hooligans These are all assets. These are all advantages that go to that home team in this sort of free-for-all environment that is combat Bear in mind Yes, so again the enemy gets a vote and the enemy is going to cast that vote against the success of your strategy Going going into this far away game So to wrap this up and start to get us towards uh towards the q&a I would actually describe mehan our second president here and of course What probably the most influential c power historian and theorists of all time He actually he actually acts as a zombie killer here He reduces a lot of these ideas to a simple formula that we can use to try to estimate whether we are strong enough Relative to our potential adversaries in the end of pacific region Let me break it. Let me break it down really really carefully carefully for you And give you something to take away with you If I want to size a fleet So that it so that it can actually accomplish its goals. I need to do a couple of things I need to estimate whether it is great enough when he says great enough He's talking about this of the the material measures that we started off talking about at the beginning of the hour How many holes do I have what combat power what sensors all of these material things Have a have a have I actually assigned to my fleet if I built the right fleet and sized it correctly Okay, so there's the material there's the material factor there I need to I need to size that I need to size that fleet relative to my adversaries So that it can take to the fleet to the sea rather and fight with reasonable chances of success reasonable chances of success So there's an element of probability in there I may not I may not be able to act absolutely overwhelmed my adversary But I need to figure out whether i'm giving myself a fair chance Great britain back in into back in the age of sail greatest navy in the world for for for a couple of centuries Used to used to have what they called the two power standard Basically, they would look at the at the at the combined fleets of their next two biggest Next two biggest navies assume that they would join forces and that was how they sized the royal navy So the and basically they said well if we have equal numbers. Well, we're great britain So we're gonna we're gonna we're gonna go in with equal numbers And because of searing ship and gunnery and all this other stuff that we do better than anybody else That was what they thought would give them the edge in combat Even with equal numbers of ships and guns and so on and so forth So that's a that's the kind of a probability assessment that mahan wants us to get into Okay, so material factors probability and then He talks about Measuring ourselves against the largest force that we are likely to meet This is kind of this is kind of an interesting one because it's he's talking about politics here I talked about opportunity costs and another political calculations a minute ago If I if I if I'm facing off against another rival, I need to figure out what else that what that power is doing in the world If I'm looking at China, what other China? What are the commitments just trying to have that I need that I need to plan against? I mean, I need to figure out the largest fraction of my adversaries force that I am likely to meet at a potential battleground Once I do once I do that I've alleviated myself of the need to plan against this entire force I just need to plan against the force that I will actually meet in battle So again political calculator. There's a political calculation trying to figure out what fraction of the adversaries force The political leadership of that adversary is likely to put in the battle And that becomes the bed the benchmark the measuring stick for for what I need to put out there So so again politics The opportunity cost the material set the material thing And just a simple probabilities. These are all this is a deceptively simple passage that my hand puts out there But yet I reach for I reach for it quite a bit in my own writing simply because it is a there's really it's really rich in content When you boil all this down and then we're going to turn it over to q&a I think this is the question that we were there were actually considering as we go out zombie killing What what happens when a fraction of the United States Navy Marine Corps and Coast Guard goes up of a huge number of people Goes up against the entirety of an adversary force close to that close to that Close to that adversaries own shores backed up by its air force Its strategic rocket force and potentially even its army That's really what we're talking about the the United the United States having part of its force Going out into the Pacific Ocean to connect To confront potentially the entirety of the PLA Who are perhaps even backed by the russian military as well And that's that's really a difficult that's really a lot more difficult calculation than the simple ideas about spinning and Tonnage and those so forth would actually convey to you who is going to win And that's sort of where that's sort of where we are as we debate strategy and force design And trying to try to execute through the military strategy that our current administration has Before us and which is actually an extension more or less of what the previous administration bequeath to us as well Here's what I would leave with you when you when you hear these when you hear these ideas from even from imminent scholars Such as the ones I've pictured here just ask the tough questions and let the buyer beware From there I will so what I've learned a lot of material at you Questions what what's on your mind? What can we talk about some more as we consider all this stuff? I will assist you with the microphone so everyone can hear your questions, please Which will be the first question? Yeah, don't be shy Don't be shy 20 The host always the host always has one in his back pocket. Isn't it just a guess? Based on everything you've just discussed based on All the factors you just discussed Do you think the u.s. Navy is on the right track? In the way we're pursuing our construction plans and all that Yeah, I think that I mean that's sort of where the rubber meets the road, isn't it? I think the the answer is at My gut feel is yes I think I actually feel a lot better than I did even a couple of years ago about our prospects And the reason I the reason for that is this for one thing. I think you've just gotten serious the We did a really we did a really foolish thing right after the cold war And this is one of my other hobby horses that I'm going to climb up onto Since you give me the the ability to do it And I was I was actually here teaching it down at the surface warfare school right about 100 yards from here back Then in 1992 the the navy issued its first post cold war effort at strategy And it basically and it basically said The soviet union is no more the soviet navy is no more There's nobody else to fight for command of the sea for all the kind of stuff We've been talking about here for the last 45 minutes and therefore we should remake ourselves as a fundamentally different naval service That's a that's a direct quotation We can we can afford not to prepare to fight for command of the sea because there's nobody left to fight That's a I mean too it's strangely enough This was actually the same year that frank fukiyama put out his famous thesis about the end of history Almost exactly the same time in fact His idea was basically that all forms of government have been tested out now Liberal democracy is best and therefore history has ended the navy is basically saying that naval history has ended and that our first And foremost function is no longer viable We can simply assume that we can use the sea for whatever we want to because We're the biggest the strongest and there will be nobody to contest our access The way i've been the way i've been explaining that somebody now can to contest that access that access if you think about i mean that's a For somebody in uniform for your for your big boss chief of naval operations commandant of the marine corps Commandant of the coast guard to say something like that that you no longer need to prepare to fight for command That's a really really powerful bureaucratic signals. You know what the service is actually complied with that We stopped preparing to fight other submarines. We stopped. We stopped upgrading our anti ship missile capability we stopped doing a whole lot of stuff and Basically built in an intellectual lag I think that we're only now starting to get over So which is one reason I think you've seen the navy the navy and the marine corps and the coast guard Sort of flailing around because it's one thing to get serious about it But it's another thing to get a big institution to start coming along and doing the things it needs to do so But I think I actually think we're we we're getting religion about about the need to compete Against china and russia iran potentially whoever the case may be And gradually the material capabilities are starting to follow as well. We're getting good We're starting to get good at unmanned systems, which I think is going to be key to the to the size of the future fleet We've gotten serious about anti ship and aircraft missiles and so forth and a lot of that stuff is starting to come Come to fruition now We're starting to have the material capability in line and offset some of that stuff that that I said we're in trouble on Jim why did jim mattis consider you troublesome? Oh He uh We and this is a you're actually sending me off on another tangent Captain jay was actually my last boss and in uniform by the way back back in 1996. Believe it or not we I got to I got to know him because we we were sort of our minds were sort of working on on Parallel tracks We were thinking about how to make things really difficult on china I mean I put an article in a couple articles in the naval institute proceedings about How to make things really tough for china and the idea was basically and I didn't get into this But the idea was basically if the first island chain The island chain from japan down through taiwan down through the philippine islands and on around through the indonesian archipelago Those are american friends or allies or or both If you if you want to make things really tough on china You can actually you can actually threaten to close the straits between all of those islands and basically pin up china in its own backyard Yeah, and you can do that on the cheap. I think you I mean you could It's it's not hard to put a diesel submarine out there to lay a minefield or whatever the case may be To do and if you pose that threat to china if you pose to to sever china's contact with the outside world commercially and militarily That's a really powerful the way to deter china So he and I had made it turned out he had been thinking along the same line So he dropped me a line and we started he said and you really you really troublesome to your avid to your superiors and He's and I asked him if he could put if I could put that in my bio and he said yes As long as you make clear that it is a compliment and not a criticism so Yeah, he's a but yeah, that's it And I think we've actually seen that strategy start to take shape as well when you look at what we are at We are japanese friends and so forth have started to do along the island chain. Yes, ma'am Yeah, I don't I don't think I have as clear that actually possibly some other people here have a clearer sense on this But I mean in the terms that I put it to you I would say that that's that's actually going to that's actually going to exacerbate that budgetary That budgetary differential that we talked about simply by simply by cutting the costs to china or to rusher or whoever of Developing technologies that are more or less parallel to our own And so again, I don't do classified work So I don't have a really strong really strong fix on this But it does seem like it does seem like china has come a long way in a short time They I mean they claim to have leaped to a stage to a technological leap to parity with the united states navy They'll always tell you that they're uh destroyers that they're developing now are peers of our own I mean, I I think there's a certain amount of guesswork there My guess is there probably a generation behind but they've come a long way in a short period of time And that that must be part of it Which is probably probably probably why some of their stuff looks a lot like our stuff Just like soviet stuff looked a lot like our stuff during the cold war I think there's I think there was there's something to that as well But yeah, that's a good to cost cutting measure for our adversaries if they can steal technology and ideas Oh sir, please sir great presentation. Thank you very much Regarding your formula of the navy against the PLA's entire assets its army air force, etc Shouldn't we also include that in our own calculation not only our other armed services But our you alluded to our allies and partners in the region as well. Thank you absolutely I think the the more we can leverage the more we can leverage Non not strictly naval assets as well as allies and so forth the better off here One thing that's and actually do that back to tony's question One other thing that I found really gratifying in recent years is as we start thinking about Thinking about bulking up american seapower in the far east and the indian ocean is Just how just how eagerly the the united states army and the united states air force have embraced their role as maritime services I mean you're starting to you're seeing the the air force send out bombers to do the things like drop precision mine fields at sea Again, if you want to if you want to make things tough on the PLA navy, there's there's the air force playing a role If you if you think about when I talked about closing those straits along the island chain to chinese to chinese access A lot of the implements you would probably use for that would be things like Bodies of ground troops armed with anti ship missiles that would basically be on those islands and could it could actually reach out and touch Ships trying ships and airplanes trying to go through those straits. That's an army funk The army the the army is actually has actually deliberately tried to rediscover its own past as a maritime service Keep in mind if you look at war war two in the pacific The the army army people will tell you that they they actually did more amphibious stuff in the united states marines A general mccarthur of course commanded that one of the major legs of the expedition towards the philippine islands where he had promised to return Again, I mean this so you hit so the in a sense the army is getting back to its own routes as a sea service And the air force seems to be joining it as well. So yeah, all that by all means if the problem was joint I think the I think the solution is probably joints as well. Absolutely That's that's pretty good you were saying that Part of their calculations and part of the fallacies is how much you spend and how expensive away war games are recently with the whole Korea scare and I call it scare because I was close to it They were demanding and they were asking to stop the war games And there were some that were cancelled or postponed Do you think that the enemy would see that as a weakness? Do you think that stopping those war games? Has a negative effect on the us and their armies and navies and forces Well, I work at the naval war college. So I have to say yes When I I mean we're we're basically right below where we're right below where the game floor almost Where a war plant war plant orange was assembled here in the 1920s and 1930s I mean after that was basically the navy the navy's efforts to foresee how japan might wage war against us And our ability or in our effort to figure out how we ought to do things to counter that. Yeah, I mean gaming I mean gaming is a huge thing President trump's idea seems to be that you can postpone it for a while to try to ease tensions And I think I think that's possibly true for a while But ultimately ultimately if we do not practice where we are going to play I mean back to the sports analogy you need to practice where you're gonna play Ultimately if we if we do not practice what we might need to do again in a north korean situation Well, we would be fighting alongside allies there if you need to practice with your allies I mean there's you simply have to stay competent or else your efforts to deter the north are simply going to lose credibility If kim jong-un stops believing in our capability to do what we say we're going to do at that point Deterrence is really going to start to sag and it's become going to become a major problem So so yeah, so I as a temporary expedient navy, but it's a long-term solution. I think it would be a bad move See, I'm not speaking for the government I used to work at the University of Georgia and when I would come to a forum like here Like this where I was operating with the us government people I would always say I am speaking for the state of Georgia So complain to the governor if you don't if you don't like it Sir, what a role do you see the coast guard feeling in this specific strategy? I think the I think the I've kind of lost I've kind of lost touch with the with the budgetary situation Situation with the coast guard, but I know the trump administration came in talking about cutting the coast guard's budget And I was like man, I think that would be the worst thing the worst I would almost let rather have a coast guard that's twice or three times its current size as a bigger navy almost I mean We aren't an able place, but I mean think about think about what the coast guard gives you If you read they if you read the coast guard's website, they will remind you that the coast guard is indeed a fifth A fifth combat service it's been a while since they've done combat things as far as you know strict navy type stuff But as late as the vietnam war you had a you had a coast guard cruiser that was actually doing gunfire support against against the vietnamese coast I mean there is there there is that legacy there But I think that I think the coast guard's Real contribution would be in places like the south china sea where china is contesting Basically the sovereignty of coastal states such as the philippine islands vietnam Our other friends and friends and allies in the region These are basically legal questions if china and that's one reason I Splashed that picture of the china coast guard and the chinese fishing fleet On the screen up there that these are the major implements that china can use to try to degrade their sovereignty and try to try to Establish the principle that china rules In the in those waters which don't belong to it at all under international law That's that's what we had a huge International law case a couple of years ago in which china got a major slapdown But also refused to to accept the results I mean these these are coast guards. These are law enforcement type Type problems think about what the coast guard could do I mean I could see I could see doing things like getting with the philippinos And basically forming a combined coast guard between ourselves and the philippine coast guard At that point the united states would start showing that it has skin in the game Of this contest for sovereignty and for freedom of the sea If the the more that we show that we're all into the problem I think the more seriously our allies will take us and the more and then the more the more deterrent The deterrent power it would have vis-a-vis beijing or russia in the sea of azov and then in the Black sea or whatever the case may be so yeah, I think that there's a major missed opportunity to to get a lot of Geopolitical value out of the coast guard. So yeah, that's I think I think I agree with the drift to where you were going That's yeah, we need to rediscover that resource I've stunned you all in the silence Any other questions? Yeah, they must be for you. They must do you have requires them to requires them to ask a question. Yes, sir I think you suppose that if united states has enough power, you know enough sorry enough power united states maybe can win the enemy but If the war is limited the resource or risk depends on the value of the objective The value of the south chinese sea is Belly is higher for china side And that of united states is much less than that of china. So I think it is possible even if united states have much naval power Then that of china if the value of object object is much less than that of china united states cannot put enough naval resources to the ocean and eventually lose the war What do you think about the difference of value of objective? Yeah, I didn't want to I didn't want to go too far into claus of us with the albage. I mean, that's that's that's basically The best we know that may hand may hand never read claus of us as far as we know But a lot of the things he says sound a lot like claus of it So if you think of it, oh, where's my yeah, where's my clicker? We'll go back to that Go back to that passage that I closed with That I mean it says that's what that's what my hand is my hand is actually alluding to it Oh keep going There we go Yeah, I mean, I mean that's part of the likelihood I mean when he talks about the the the biggest force I am likely to meet at a potential scene of battle Part of that part of that depends on how much my adversary wants its goals And you're you're you're basically saying that china cares a whole lot about what happens in the south china sea I mean in fact In effect if you if you read what shijian ping the president of china and his in his lieutenants and his Predecessors who jantal and so forth have to say about that they have repeatedly stated that this is part of china's Effort to come back from a century of humiliation Reaching all the way back to the 1830s at the hands of western seaborne conquerors. I mean, this was the imperial This is something that it really really resonates not only with the chinese leadership But also with the rank and file chinese citizens Man, I tell you I tell you what do you really appear really framing a powerful field appeal to those constituencies there And yeah, he's basically president she and his advisors are basically bound themselves To to basically do whatever it takes in order to restore chinese sovereignty I mean They talk about historic claims to most of most or all of the south china sea dating back hundreds or thousands Of years. I mean these are things that suggest that china is really all in on its claims on the south china sea So that and this would be something that would support what I said about china's China's luxury of concentrating most of all or all of its assets in the waters that it cares a lot about Which would be south china sea around the sinkaku islands in the east china sea Whatever the case may be the calculation would be that the united states if you turn to turn this around I pointed at the united states from the chinese standpoint The calculation on on china's part would be that the united states is not likely to put most or all of its assets Into a contest to basically preserve freedom of the sea And that yeah, that's and that makes that makes this actually look doable from a chinese standpoint Simply because china wants it a whole lot and the united states does not necessarily because it has other things going in the world And plus how do you how do you explain that to the american people? That you want to send their sons and their daughters and all this all this expensive equipment over to defend Something that looks kind of abstract I mean think about it. I mean even people here at the war college will sometimes think say things like Are we really going to fight with china over a bunch of rocks? Well, I mean I mean that's a I mean that's kind of what the the Manufactured islands on the south China the sinkaku islands are uninhabited. I mean that's that's actually that's actually a pretty powerful thing to say Even though I think it's utterly misguided We're actually talking about the nature of the international system, whether it's sovereignty whether it's Freedom of the sea all of these things Go to go to the nature of the system over which we have presided since 1945 and without which the modern the modern world Really would not work the on a commercial or a military level Trying to put that trying to explain that to your average person on the street is not not the easiest thing in the world to do So That's that's kind of where we are as we as we try to make the case To actually execute a decent strategy that upholds freedom of the sea in the far east And i'm not sure I have any any pat answers for you, but you're you're entirely right to look at political motivations And basically how much we want it relative to our adversaries You guys wanted a lot you live in the region though Okay, well, I tell you what I will hang out for a few minutes if anybody wants to talk offline But other than that thank you thank you for your kind attention and for coming out this evening and We shout oh, I think I was supposed to give a teaser for the for the next for the next round of round of lectures as well Our deeds doing it Well Okay, you'll hear by you you'll hear by email It's supposed to be a slide up on the screen right now that looks much like this. There we go Yeah, but that's that's better. Yeah, I like that one better. I'm the one. Ah, there we go. There we go Okay, so the next Hope we'll see you all there your attention if you didn't get a chance to sign in please do so on your way out Thank you very much and