 It's great to see you all, and I want to thank the Surface Navy Association, Admiral McCullough, Admiral Hogg, all the Executive Director, Bill Erickson, and others for putting on a great show. It's wonderful to get together as a community because there's an awful lot to talk about. About two years ago, General Garimazov, the Chief of the Russian General Staff, wrote an article in the Military Industrial Magazine in Moscow talking about military science and prediction. And he said in the current environment, non-military means, the role of non-military means is growing to eclipse the role of military power. Supplemented by asymmetric means such as information warfare, in many cases, military means will be covert or hidden in the way that they back up in their role of force. Some call this the hybrid warfare approach. And as I began to think about what I would talk about today, I preferred to call it, as one writer did when he reviewed it, that we're entering an area of non-linear warfare, that the progressions from phases of campaigns and conflicts are not linear anymore. And we see at one end asymmetric the breakdown of governance, the use of resistance movements, terrorist movements that are happening. You're seeing migration, you're seeing at the other end of the extreme, hybrid warfare is applied in Ukraine or in Georgia. You're seeing now those measures supplemented by a very robust application of advanced A2AD technology taking place across the theater. So as I began to think about what I would talk about in terms of what Europe represents, what's happening in Europe and Africa, I like the description of a non-linear model of campaign and non-linear warfare. So let's use that as our entry as we go forward because it's a very robust, it's a very dynamic theater, it's very volatile at the present time. And the surface Navy has a great role. So what I'll talk about is the two challenges that I spend most of my time dealing with. In the NATO parlance we talk about the challenge of the East, a revanchist Russia which is building great capability that has moved in Ukraine and Georgia, is now in Syria, that has fired the caliber missile from the Caspian Sea and multiple salvos into Syria, has fired from a kilo submarine in the Mediterranean into Syria. This build-up of a conventional capability as well as backed by robust nuclear capability is something we'll talk about. But in the aftermath of the Wales Summit that was the principal thrust of the alliance. So we'll talk about that a little bit. And then we'll talk about the south, as I call it, the southern flank of NATO or NATO parlance, the strategic direction south and the challenges represented there. We'll talk a little bit about NATO response and then to bring it to the audience to think about what are the implications as we see them for the future for the surface force. So let's talk about Russia. What we're seeing being constructed in terms of a doctrine and I encourage you to read the doctrine because I like to tell my staff as we do planning read the doctrine that is being written and published out of the Russian general staff because they are telling you what they're going to do, they are investing in the capability to do it and they're building the infrastructure to do so. We are seeing at present the highest level of submarine activity in the North Atlantic that we have seen since the mid-90s in terms of the numbers of submarines, their proficiency and the tempo of their operations. The chief of their Navy made a quote last year that their tempos increased 50% in intensity over the previous time. This has caused a greater cooperation among the allies. If you were following the press you probably noticed recently we had French, we had Norwegian, we had American aircraft operating out of Scotland and Iceland recently that we haven't done that in years and multiple ASW task forces operating in the Atlantic in November of this year. The Russians are moving six caliber equipped Kilo submarines from the North Sea to the Black Sea. Two are in place, one was the one that fired in the Syria, four more are coming. The stars on there is a construction of a series of bases across the north of the Arctic that as they militarize that space and put advanced air defense systems and other military bases along the stretch of the Arctic. This is going to become increasingly important. I was glad to see Bob Papp on the program because last fall China sent a merchant ship through the North Passage, shaved nine days off the transit and for the first time brought it back through the passage. So think of the economic impact as those lanes start to become open into the future and Russia is getting ahead of that as they look at their own sovereignty claims, mineral exploration as we go forward. Large red circles that we see being constructed. I used a phrase in a speech, I gave the Atlantic Council, I call it the Ark of Steel, but what we're seeing built is in the infrastructure a series of what I call A2AD areas, Kaliningrad, where we view these advanced air defense systems being put in place which encompass part of NATO territory in Poland and the Baltics make it increasingly difficult for the NATO response forces to respond within NATO territory. You see the Crimea and the arming of the Crimea that's taken place where we put the Akhant missile caliber advanced electronic warfare systems, advanced fighters, again an Ark that gives an offensive capability that reaches into Europe. And now Syria where we see an increased presence of the Russian force and when I say building proficiency, they are testing the new systems, operating them and building their doctrine as they did in Ukraine, as they did now in Syria. All this is surrounded by, if you go back to the Garamossov article, about advances in asymmetric means. My assessment is they're approaching near-peer status in terms of cyber, their abilities in cyber. They are working very heavily in the information domain. For every time there's a remark by NATO commander or the Secretary General, you can rest assured there'll be a counter-response coming through some media organ in Russia or in southeastern Europe. This is sophisticated as a whole of government approach and it's something that we're not used to seeing in terms of the information space and the continual battle that's happening in the information space in the cyber. And I think you have to think of the future where the words that I would leave you that we start thinking about is those domains that we took for granted to operate in are now becoming contested. And they're becoming contested in a nonlinear way and the escalation will happen in nonlinear ways. It'll be hybrid backed up by robust conventional escalatory up into the high end of warfare. This presents a significant challenge for the Alliance. When we shift to the south, the meds getting pretty busy. Off of Libya you have the European Union Task Force for the Interception of Migrants. That present is about four to eight ships from those countries supplemented by aircraft from other EU partners and it's primarily focused on the interdiction of the human traffickers outside of territorial waters. We're hopeful that an agreement between the two governments in Libya presenting a unity government will enable us and the EU force to now start to go forward but that is a force operated by the European Union in Libya. And we're involved primarily in counter-terrorism efforts. The red highlights the issues of Daesh or ISIL influence. The French have a large force in Mali that they have been operating for some time. The dark red is territory. ISIL probably controls 200 kilometers of the Libyan coast and if you have read they are now attacking the oil infrastructure off the coast and increasingly presenting a maritime challenge in that environment. NATO of course still maintains the standing naval groups that are operating there. The mine group and then the surface group. But we're seeing the increasing presence of the Russian surface force both the LSTs that many of you remember in the surface auxiliaries that are running the lifeline of supplies from the Black Sea down into the Mediterranean. There's generally a surface action group present in the Eastern Med but the new change is the change of the caliber equipped kilos that are coming to that environment, six of them. And we don't think they'll stay in the Black Sea. As I mentioned, Crimea is being robustly upgraded. They've announced a program in billions to upgrade it for both weapons systems, capability, aircraft and of course the Akhan or Bastion system going into the Black Sea. If you look at these red circles that I talked about then what it essentially is is it's coming from a place of a defensive position with offensive projection into NATO territory and designed for us as a sea denial strategy in both the Baltic Sea around Kaliningrad or the Black Sea. So working in that space has taken a lot of my time. I mentioned the UN, there's a UN task force off of Lebanon that is still operating, the Russian force. We now have the four ships in Rota so that's, you know, as I like to say it represents 12 sitting in the United States and we're very happy to have them. And we're still continuing to do in Gulf of Guinea as AFRICOM divides the campaign, the naval role is going to be focused on counter-terrorism support in the north. Think of ISR from ships in Scan Eagle, intelligence collection, SIGINT collection and then for the Gulf of Guinea our principal mission is interdiction. It can be human trafficking, the pirates or the oil smuggling. Even narcotics, we work with the Maritime Analysis Operations Center which is an EU force in Lisbon in tracking vessels and assisting with them. But in the Gulf of Guinea it's principally working with our partners, the French, other countries that are there, Portuguese, Spanish, Germans to some degree for capacity building in the Gulf of Guinea to interdict. Though the fall of the price oil has really, I think, reduced the economic incentive for that oil piracy that was taking place in the Gulf of Guinea several years ago. We've seen it decrease but the rise of other things. I highlighted migrants. There are two major migrant flows at the peak of it. We were seeing 9 to 10,000 a day crossing through there. This is human migration and trafficking in some cases on an industrial scale where we have individuals profiting from the movement of these people but in the Syrian conflict you have essentially 2 million displaced refugees in Turkey, a million plus in Jordan and the system is straining to accommodate for their welfare. And so the flow paths are into Greece, into Macedonia and up north of Germany or in the maritime sense principally out of Libya to Lampedusa or Sicily. So how did NATO, it didn't come out too well in the visual, I'll read the top one, but in responding to Russia and what we saw coming out of the Wales Summit, NATO really focused on several things. We said one, we're going to do assurance. So we've increased the number of exercises and increased their tempo and increased their high-end war-finding. NATO did its first amphibious exercise in many, many years with 30,000 troops landing in Portugal and Sardinia. 3,000 US Marines participated here this past fall that we did that. I was doing an exercise at that time in Poland and we're trying to improve on speed and responsiveness. One of the things that we saw this past year with the Russian naval forces is an increasing number of SNAP exercises where the entire force gets underway or we move 30,000 troops by airlift in a very rapid way. And if you look at that type of model where speed is of the essence, NATO created a very high-rated task force in order to be able to move very rapidly and so we're putting that in place, but then on top of that, exercising at the high end. Trident Juncture was won. I'll show you a film clip in a second from Joint Warrior where we did the first ballistic missile defense shot in Europe. We shot out of the Hebrides Range in the United Kingdom and did that test. And we're bringing back this year major ASW exercises into the Mediterranean which will start again this summer between the Allies. So that's the assurance piece. The exercises, the practice, the gigant force. The adaptation really talks about how do we build a credible deterrent in the Alliance and how do we create more responsive structures to face the threats that I outline, the information campaign, the cyber, the asymmetric, and have a NATO force that doesn't generate in 120 or 180 days but can generate much faster and have maritime forces that are on call to do that that are trained and ready to go. A work item we're working on now is the Southern Flank Strategy which means how does NATO and the U.S. be involved in the challenges of the South? And then the real focus has been the focus on A2AD. I would tell you right now the U.S. effort is principally focused on the counter-ISIL-DIESH fight, the migrant issues being handled by the European Union and their forces and we're focused on the ISIL piece. So let me talk about three areas that are going to be important for the surface Navy. That's Romania there. We accept it in December on the 18th. Think of it as a ship custody transfer where everything works, it'll fire, they'll find themselves at ball tops one week, they'll find themselves following a kilo through the mid to the next week, they're up in the black at sea being over flown and do an intel collect and then a week after that there are 14 miles off the coast of Syria doing freedom and navigation ops and so they are very, very busy and they're very, very happy but ballistic missile defense will be for the surface Navy our first strategic level mission for the defense of Europe and be on call for them. Very important transition. ASD-15 is what we did. Many of you in this room may have had a hand in this and doing this exercise. The engineering deserves a lot of credit for it as does Phil Davidson for helping make the assets available but we wanted to build the architecture and bring our allies into the ballistic missile defense world and so we had eight ships, eight nations contributed ships. We put the BMD software into the Spanish Aegis ships. They worked with us to have that load put in them for this exercise. The other ships were testing their tracking abilities as we go forward. The Germans sent a staff officer but you'll see that we're represented with the major allies Italian, Brit, French, Spanish, Canadians. And so what we did was a BMD scenario with a cruise missile scenario built into it to test our allies in the stream rate. So we will show you what that looks like. It takes a few seconds. Here we go. I think this will work. So these are the ships getting out. They're based out of Faslane in Scotland. When they came out, we did significant investments to make the Hebrides range ready. So we had a group up to the long range search and track group with our allies. We had a firing group separately to the south. You'll see Ross. We had Mount Whitney underway with observers and Strike 4 NATO. And then we had, you'll see our BMD shot going. And then we'll shift to the simulation so you can see what happens. There's the BMD target coming off the Hebrides. The missile's coming. And then shortly from the other ships, you'll see two cruise missile targets fired at the force. So we got rocket motor separation here. And you'll see the kill view will come out. This was an exo-atmospheric shot, the first one outside the United States, which was successful. Now we shift back. Sullivan's was doing an engagement on the cruise missiles that was designed to miss so we could do a subsequent engagement with the allies and then the Canadians fire. So very successful and great work to a lot of people contributed and allies. But the allies now see the value of ballistic missile defenses. We go forward. But more importantly to me was the testing of the architectures. We now integrate the ships in the East Med with the shore site in Romania that we now bring this into the NATO architecture and we now prove that it will function and operate and the allies now, they want more of this. And so this is going to be important as we go forward as they see the threat evolve as well. The second piece that I talk about in this asymmetric environment is we have to change the culture of the surface force. When you sell the COs in Rota, when you get underway, it's not a decision of what you turn off anymore when you get to sea. It's a decision of why you're turning something on. Why do you have to have that radar? Why do you have to have? Because in the environment we're in, the days of you get a cyber attack against the network, you can't shut down the network because you have a mission to do in ballistic missile defense. You have to execute the mission. So maybe we isolate the rest of the gig and we have to figure out how to fight through. So it has spurred tremendous creativity for the folks in the first couple of rows who remember this from the old days. The COs very much like getting mission orders. They like not having the chat rooms turned on the headquarters. They like being able to have the permission to, you know, how do I get information to the ship when the satellite may not be there, when GPS may be jammed for example, how do we start to work in that environment? And we are running exercises taking those capabilities away. And now investing in other systems that help us in the PK to operate in close to shore against advanced cruise missiles, be able to execute the BMD mission and be able to fight through the cyber or the network attack. This is the area when I look at the asymmetric piece that we have to be ready to move into. It will be more unmanned, it will be more distributed, it will be more cyber focused as we go forward where the ships have to understand that and have to maneuver in this space. And so weaving the asymmetric into our day to day operations is a big thrust of our operations in Europe and the young generation loves it and they're having a great time with it and coming up with some really marvelous ideas. Unmanned, as I look at the CT fight that we're in you can greatly assist me in helping the range and reach of the ships in Rota and the assets I have by being unmanned. And unmanned in a sense of more than electro-optical sites but SIGINT packages, ISR, the ability to get out with other sensors into the battle space. You may have read that we struck the head of ISIL or Daesh in Libya with some F-15 fighters out of Lake and Heath. They were enabled by surface ships flying ISR to do positive ID of the target and to go forward. So this type of capability is what's needed in the CT fight as we look at ISIL as we go forward particularly as they spread their reach along the coast. This is where we can contribute. So as I look at NATO and the maritime flanks, so what are the things that I'm working on principally? First of all it's reinvigorating high-end joint warrior bringing the nations back to bold alligator here in the United States getting carrier operations in the future in the Mediterranean taking our high-end exercises that we run on BMD, ASW and now integrating asymmetric approaches into those. Take the network down from a cyber attack, which we did last year. Take some of the other systems that we've come to rely on with the mindset of the things we assume for granted as uncontested will be contested in the future and then how do you fight through and do that? I talk about it's unmanned and distributed and I think that the biggest thing as we go forward was that now the surface Navy let me tell you the debates I have as I travel around Europe is can you put that Aegis BMD ship off my coast? Is it going to be here if I need it as a threat? So the demand for those ships and the capability they bring is going up and I just think it's a great challenge for the future as we go forward. It's a theater of innovation and we have to be in terms of the pacing of these threats that are both asymmetric coming from the south, coming from the east and then all the way up to the high-end threat coming from Russia. Again, I want to thank the SNA for letting me have a chance to chat.