 Good afternoon. Congratulations for being engaged citizens in this week in August and for venturing back downtown after the earthquake yesterday. An impressive group, and I just want to briefly introduce our speaker and get us started. My name is Steve Callum, the president of the New America Foundation. And welcome on behalf of my colleagues here. We engage regularly, as many of you who are here know, in discourse about South Asian security affairs and about the relationship between the United States and the nations of South Asia. Under the auspices, my colleague Peter Bergen, a national security studies program here that has a strong concentration in South Asian regional studies and a host of fellows and experts both from the region and from the west that work continuously on these subjects. So it really is an honor to host our speaker today in the context of the work we do. I think many of you are subscribers to our regular products such as the AFPAC newsletter online. If you're not and you want more frequent contact with our work product, please stop at one of the desks on your way out and make sure that you're signed up for everything you'd like to receive. Bob, we're on the record today. I should also mention just by housekeeping, you'll see a couple of cameras here. Deputy Assistant Secretary is going to speak. When he's finished, I might ask him one or two questions, but we'll open the floor to you. We've got an hour together, so there'll be some time for your questions. If you are going to ask a question, please respect the audience and the folks online by speaking concisely and asking a question and wait for the microphone when that comes around. My colleague Andrew will be handling all of that when the time comes. Bob Shure is the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for South and Southeast Asia in the Pentagon system. That means his border is disputed even today between India and Pakistan, but he also is responsible for many nations in Southeast Asia. India obviously is an important subject in his shop and has been for many years, deepening importance, I think. Bob is very well experienced and very well traveled as the principal lead on this defense partnership. He spent 15 years in the Pentagon, came there as a presidential management fellow, has served on the policy planning staff at state and has held a variety of responsibilities in the Pentagon, almost all of them involving Asian defense and security matters. In his current role, he has principal responsibility for bilateral security relations with India as well as with the rest of South Asia, ex-Pakistan and Afghanistan, and Southeast Asia, Australia, East Timor, New Zealand, and the Pacific Island states, so he is on the road a fair amount. I think the context for this speech is the ongoing work of the Defense Policy Group, the bilateral defense partnership between the United States and India that has developed to try to find practical ways forward in the context of the partnership, the strategic partnership that is often articulated at the highest levels of our government and of India's government. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's speech in Chennai recently lays out the grand vision. I think what we're going to hear from Bob today is where the rubber actually meets the road in defense cooperation between the United States and India and what at the level of programmatic and operational cooperation is underway. He's just back about a month ago from Delhi, traveled there with the secretary, and so has, I think, a very hands-on feel for where this vitally important relationship is going. So with that, please welcome Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Robert Scherr. Thanks, Steve. Appreciate it. I hope to be able to deal with all the charges that I've been given. And also clearly, as I was telling Steve earlier, my strategy of having this talk in August so that nobody came in Washington clearly hasn't worked. So nonetheless, I appreciate everyone coming out and realizing it's a beautiful day, and I saw the Hello Cupcake truck out there, too, so another poll to not come into this building. I appreciate it. I really want to also thank the New America Foundation for hosting me today to be able to share my perspectives on the U.S.-India defense relationship. Just about a month ago, as Steve said, I was in New Delhi with Secretary Clinton, and I assure you that defense and security cooperation was a key issue for her discussions in India. Given that, I thought it made sense to talk to a broader audience here in Washington to discuss that defense relationship in greater detail, and really do appreciate everybody coming out today. Now, for those of you who follow Asian issues closely, you often hear analogies likening India and its neighbors to different animals. I've heard tigers. I've heard elephants, dragons, and everything. Today, while the buildings of Washington, D.C., still stand tall after the earthquake, I wanted to use a more structural argument. I want to tell you more about the foundation that we are laying in defense relations through our day-to-day interactions and how we are building that relationship that we expect will help shape the future of Asian security architecture. It goes without saying that further developing the U.S.-India relationship is a priority for the Obama administration and for the Defense Department. President Obama has called it one of the defining partnerships of the 21st century. Prime Minister Singh's state visit in November of 2009 and President Obama's highly successful visit a year later cemented both sides' commitments to this relationship at the highest levels. But this year, we aren't expecting any presidential visits. And although we sustain high-level engagements, notably, as I mentioned, Secretary Clinton's recent visit to New Delhi for the strategic dialogue, there are those who will view one less motorcade as a slowdown in relations. And, disappointingly, we are no longer competing in the high-profile and news-generating, medium-multi-role combat aircraft competition. So, as a result of this, I've heard a lot of people question India's commitment to our relationship, and often these voices of cynicism and doubt generate more press than anything else. People continue to look for what I would call grand gestures and deliverables and ask, what's next? One year ago, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Michelle Flournoy said, the U.S.-India relationship is not built on and cannot be sustained on grand gestures or brief moments of crisis, but rather is built on shared interests and values. And I'm here today to reiterate her message and to tell you that the U.S.-India relationship is not defined by one visit and certainly not by one sale. The United States and India are two countries that are destined to be closer because of our shared interests and values, democracy, human rights, and our desire for a stable, secure, and inclusive world economy that makes us, all of this makes us natural partners. And it's important for people to recognize that we are now entering the long haul, the phase in our relationship where we do the unglamorous work of learning about each other's processes and systems and spend time to discuss and deliberate over our differences. Let me assure you that we've had substantive engagement and major successes in the past two and a half years, and we are making real progress. Constantly striving for big gestures ignores all of the good work we are already doing and the strong foundation we have begun to build between our two defense establishments. Indeed, we've accomplished a lot over the past several years that has gone unnoticed and arguably is more important to the durability and longevity of this relationship than any one big thing that we've initialed with the Indian government to date. The day-to-day successes of the defense relationship that lay the groundwork are rarely in the spotlight for a number of reasons, but I think the key reason is that our defense interaction is increasingly routine, such as going to staff colleges, attending conferences, planning military to military engagements. And even when these meetings are at high levels, such as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff hosting general and flag officers from Indian National Defense College or the Indian parliamentarians meeting with the Deputy Secretary of Defense, these don't make the headlines. Office calls aren't glamorous. They don't make headlines. But they are an important factor in driving our relationship forward and helping us understand each other better. So as we grow this relationship, we need to be realistic and clear about what the future of the U.S.-India relationship looks like and what the United States seeks from India. India is a major regional and global power. We view our relationship with India as a partnership of equals to nation-states with a commonality of security interests in the Indian Ocean region and beyond. Further, we understand and respect the fact that India has its own national goals and objectives, and while many of these converge with U.S. goals, at times India may want to act on them on their own. India is neither an ally nor a junior partner of the United States, and will never be either of those things, nor is this what we seek. There will be times when our nations will work separately to achieve our individuals or even mutual security aims, and that's okay. And there will be times when we disagree, and that's okay too. What we seek is to enable and strengthen the efforts where we could and should be working together and to make any such a cooperation easier and more effective. And right now the most important thing we are doing in our defense relationship with India is building mutual trust and understanding that will help ensure that our common values and interests can translate into common approaches where it makes sense. So today I would like to tell you about three of the key areas where we are building the foundation I spoke of of our relationship. People-to-people ties, military engagements, and defense sales. So let's start with people. People-to-people ties are a key driver of the overall U.S.-India relationship. President Obama has said this cannot be a relationship only between presidents and prime ministers. Ultimately, this must be a partnership between our peoples. It is the people-to-people ties that have always been a driver in the bilateral relationship, and this is no different with our defense relationship. Let me just give you a couple of examples. Our service members attend one another's military educational institutes. In fact, in 2010 alone we had nearly 100 members of the Indian Armed Services at military schools or courses in the United States. These educational interactions are fantastic opportunities to share perspectives, understand cultural mindsets, and simply become friends with colleagues. I'm proud to say also that many of India's senior military leaders are prime examples of this trend. In fact, all three of the current Chiefs of the Indian Services did some level of military schooling in the United States at some point in their career. Aaron Marshall-Brown graduated from the Air Command and Staff College. General Singh is a graduate of both the U.S. Army Ranger School and the U.S. Army War College. And Admiral Verma is a graduate of the U.S. Naval War College. Reciprocally, we have some great examples among our senior military leaders as well. A great example of a retired officer, Admiral Walt Dornan, attended the Indian Defense Service Staff College in Wellington in India in 1979, where he formed, it turns out, a close relationship with Indian colleagues such as the Indian Chiefs, two former Indian Chiefs of Naval Staff, Admiral Prakash and Admiral Mehta. This has real world implications. Admiral Dornan is one of the, Walt's one of the great examples. I'll note that during his tenure as Commander Pacific Fleet, Admiral Dornan's personal relationship with Admiral Prakash proved instrumental in initiating coordination between the U.S. and India response efforts to the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. And there are many other examples. I'll pick on just one other. Someone who I know, a friend of mine, Brigadier General Belen Iyer, was an exchange pilot in the Indian Air Force in the late 1990s. He later went on to be an aide to both Secretary Gates and Admiral Keating. So I could do more, but I have limited time. Let me move on to talking about how these growing ties are not just between our military officers. But for example, the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School recently formalized a memorandum of understanding with India's Defense Institute of Advanced Technology. This September, they will jointly conduct a defeating terrorism workshop, which will bring together senior leaders from both sides, including the Director General of India's Defense Research and Development Organization, and, on our side, the Chief of Naval Research, to discuss ways to leverage research capabilities to contribute to the defeat of terrorism, a similar workshop on cybersecurity's plan for the near future. Another example this past January, the Executive Director of the Air Force Research Laboratory visited India with a team of Air Force scientists. They returned with proposals for further discussions in 18 new areas, as diverse as nanomaterials, IED detection, and high-temperature superalloys. I promise to figure out what those things are really soon. Several of these will likely yield to a lead to agreements for the exchange of technical information or collaborative research projects that will add to the dozen or so such agreements established between the two countries since 2005. Compared with similar cooperative programs with other countries, the technology cooperation relationship with India is one of the fastest growing ones the United States has, both in terms of numbers of agreements and areas of collaboration. So I want to switch now to military-to-military engagements, which is another pillar of our partnership. We partner with the Indians on a number of educational, doctrine, institutional training, and other subject matter exchanges. These engagements and exercises provide opportunities for our militaries to work together and learn from each other. They build on those structurally invaluable people-to-people ties I just spoke about, and most importantly, they help us improve our ability to address real-life challenges. Not only do these interactions serve to make future interactions easier, but more importantly, we learn from each other. In my discussions with senior U.S. military officers, they universally note the importance of the insights gained from working with a country, India, that often must address similar challenges, both operationally and organizationally, but that come to it with appreciably different solution sets for those same challenges. Today, the U.S. and Indian militaries hold exercises routinely among all of our services, Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines, and we soon hope to add Coast Guard interactions into that mix. Many of you are familiar with the statistic that India routinely does more exercises with the United States than it does with any other country. In fact, over the last six years, we've done nearly 50 major exercises with India. But as I said before, this isn't just about numbers or the tallies. Our exercises are evolving in complexity. In only a decade, Malabar, our annual naval exercise, has advanced from little more than a passing exercise to a full engagement that exercises all functional warfare areas. Malabar allows our navies to work cooperatively in integrated air and missile defense, anti-submarine, and naval special warfare scenarios, for example. We've also held two multinational Malabar naval exercises. Malabar 2011 was scheduled to be conducted with the Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force until the earthquake and tsunami. But to give you an idea of the scale of past cooperation, Malabar 2007 included 28 ships, three aircraft carriers, 150 aircraft, and 20,000 sailors from five different nations. This September, we're going to send a training team of subject matter experts to India to work with the Indian Coast Guard on counter-terrorism and anti-piracy-related boarding measures. And this will be one of the first major interactions with the Indian Coast Guard, and really rounding out all of our interactions. In the Air Force, through small-scale combined exercises with the Indian Air Force, such as Pacific Angel, Pacific Airlift Rally, and the Air Mobility Rodeo, we focus on the use of airlift in support of humanitarian assistance and disaster relief scenarios, which is really an invaluable skill in a geographically disaster-prone part of the world. Our major exercise with the Indian Army, Udabhas, started in 2004 as the first conventional Army-to-Army training with India since 1962. The exercise, in addition to sharing training and capabilities, promotes cooperation between our armies on partner readiness. As many of you know, the first deployment of striker vehicles outside of the United States other than to a war zone was to India to participate in Udabhas. This all has a practical effect as well. Increasing our military-to-military engagements allows us to make progress on issues of shared interest, such as maritime security. The United States and India share a clear desire for freedom of navigation and unimpeded sea lines of communication, particularly in the Indian Ocean. And through our military engagements this year, we will seek to deepen cooperation on key issues such as maritime domain awareness, countering piracy, and humanitarian assistance and disaster relief. There will also be an important role for the United States and India together to play in fostering multilateral cooperation in Asia and supporting the emerging regional security architectures focused on these common areas of interest. In particular, we in the department look forward to continuing our work with India to strengthen the ASEAN Defense Ministers Meeting Plus Forum. Overall, we will increasingly look to India's leadership and partnership in promoting and maintaining security in the region and the world. Lastly, I want to talk about defense sales. Earlier in my remarks, you heard me say that our relationship is not predicated on any one sale. Although military sales are deeply intertwined with defense cooperation, they are not the only indicator or marker of our success. I view defense sales as a mechanism to enable new training and exchange opportunities between our militaries. And we are also now enabling new levels of technology transfer through our defense sales. Importantly, there is an economic aspect to these sales, absolutely, which supports the bottom line for U.S. industry and in many cases helps lead to job creation. But I want to tell you a few of the success stories about our defense trade relationship in the past five years. These are not stories, however, about the bottom line. Rather, they exemplify how a piece of equipment creates sustained cooperative opportunities between our two militaries. And it's important to see this in the context from where we came from in this arena. In the 1990s, we had virtually no defense trade relationship with India. Today, we are nearing nearly $6 billion in foreign military sales alone, not counting direct commercial sales. It is clear that the Indian military of the future will routinely use U.S. equipment in all services across a full range of mission areas. Now, this past February, I had the honor of attending the C-130J induction ceremony at the Air Force Station, Hinden, with the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, General Schwartz. The C-130J is the first U.S. military aircraft to have been delivered to India in a half a century. And I am especially proud of our on-budget and on-time delivery, a resounding message to the Indians that the United States is a reliable and trusted defense partner. But again, this is not just about a platform. So let's talk about this for a bit. Along with the aircraft, the U.S. Air Force trained more than 100 Indian Air Force personnel, including pilots, loadmasters, and maintenance staff. The Rhode Island Air National Guard also sent training teams to India on two separate occasions to assist with the establishment of the Indian squadron and plans to return to India in the future for follow-up. These interactions are just as valuable as the top-of-the-line aircraft that was delivered. Earlier this summer, we were able to announce the completion of the C-17 deal. Once that contract is fulfilled, India will operate the second largest fleet of C-17s in the world, next to ours. This fundamentally changes the way India can think about its forces and its reach. One of our earlier examples of a success story was the transfer of USS Trenton to become the INS Jalashwa. Several hundred Indian sailors spent more than nine months in Norfolk, Virginia for the transition of the ship, which enabled unprecedented levels of interaction and relationship building between our two navies. As the Indian Navy works at expanding its amphibious and expeditionary warfare capability, the Jalashwa has helped the Indian Navy to fulfill that role. Additionally, it increases the Indian Navy's humanitarian assistance and disaster relief capabilities and our ability to partner together during natural disasters in South Asia. These are only a few examples of the defense sails that have helped to build a stronger relationship between our two militaries. We also look to build on our defense trade with the Indian Army. As only one example of this, we look forward to their decision regarding the purchase of the M77 Lightweight Howitzer, which completed firing trials this past winter. We will continue to work with India to identify opportunities to provide technology and equipment to fulfill India's defense needs. The United States is and will continue to be a reliable defense supplier to India. And these examples really just show the deep levels of service-to-service cooperation that are enabled by defense sails. Not only do Indian personnel have the opportunity to train at U.S. bases and interact with U.S. personnel, but sails like these also provide opportunities for us to refine and share our tactics, techniques, and procedures and gain further operational trust and understanding. This ultimately increases the ability of our forces to work together more seamlessly over time. So I started with an analogy of creating a foundation for building this bilateral relationship, and if you will humor me as I return to torture that analogy for just a little bit as I end. Those who live and work in D.C. routinely see gaping holes where they're beating construction on a new building. And other than, I hope you all share the sort of unsettling feeling of not being able to remember exactly what was there in that spot before it was destroyed, I personally have always marveled at how long it seems to take progress. How do you get that hole in the ground seems to be there for months, if not years? But then, in what seems like only a few weeks, suddenly a high-rise structure emerges. What takes so long and allows them to build so quickly later on is, of course, all the work they are doing laying the foundation. And that is what I would argue we are doing now in the bilateral relationship. For any of you who have built something from the ground up, it's no easy feat, and I do not naively believe that the U.S.-India defense relationship will continue to grow at the expansionary rate that it has experienced over the last past five years. We understand why there has been, and will continue to be, a natural leveling off as we normalize our relations. And we understand that as true partners and more importantly true friends, there will be areas where we disagree. But because of our friendship, we will talk openly and transparently about our differences. What is important is that we maintain the commitments we have already made and that we maintain the progress already realized while we continue to build on the foundation of our day-to-day interactions and our personal connections. With that, I'll stop. Thank you, and I look forward to your questions. Thank you very much, Bob. I'm glad to hear that at the Pentagon today we're only torturing analogies. That was very good. I want to ask just a couple of questions before I open it to the floor. One, I'll start in the sort of nuts and bolts spirit of your foundation building. And as you said, the partnership between the United States Navy and the Indian Navy is one of the most active in this suite of partnerships that you describe. There have been exercises. There have been cooperative operations involving anti-piracy and involving humanitarian relief and so forth. And since you work on these partnerships across the whole region, I wonder as a practical matter what are the challenges to interoperability between the United States and India on the seas, whether it's equipment or tactics or communications, given their legacy systems from the Soviet Union. In comparison to the rest of Southeast Asia, how far along are we and what is the sort of trajectory looking out for our attenders? Sure. Actually, before the latest meeting between the seventh fleet commander and his counterpart in India, I actually talked with Admiral Van Buskerk. And so we talked a little bit about this. And I think you'd hate to put it on a spectrum. I'm not going to, with the obvious lights and camera, we'll avoid ranking. But what I think is the most interesting is that, first of all, there's clearly, there's a clear will in the Indian Navy to have better ability to understand how we operate and share those what we'd call TTP tactics techniques and procedures. But clearly, we've had such different approaches, maybe not different. We've had, you know, just we built the doctrine based on different equipment and different approaches for a little while. So there's a lot of commonality, but there's a lot of language issues and English not being not one of those barriers, but sort of within English. How we talk about, how our navies talk about things. But that's actually fairly easily overcome if you're interested in pursuing greater cooperation and can get together to figure out where those differences are and how to bridge them. And I think we've been able to do that over a series of exercises. Again, as an example, I use, you look at how Malabar went from what we call pass X, which is basically, do you know the right things to signal that pretty much every Mariner knows to really much more complex issues, mission areas, skill sets. So I think we're getting there, but certainly we could always, you know, commonality of equipment as you want to get deeper and more ingrained working together and the ability to work together. Commonality of equipment is important, but I don't want to say that having uncommon equipment isn't overcomeable because it clearly is and we do that routinely. Our NATO allies don't have all the same common equipment. We don't fly the Typhoon or the Raphael. But we managed to figure out ways to do it. And that's really what we're doing now with the India relationship is realizing we have these different approaches we've taken, but figuring out how we can make that system work. And something that I will most likely say a number of times. We're still in the point, not as much in the Navy relationship, but a lot of things where we're doing everything for the first time. It always seems hard doing it the first time. But then the second time, you've done it once. So I think we're beyond that in the Navy, but still working on it. I think it's, I have to say, the Navy to me, the Indian Navy, I have the best interactions with the Indian Navy, I think of any of the services. Perhaps I've just had more, but they really are looking at this and trying to figure out how they can work together because naturally, Navy's think similarly from their very basis of operation. I think we've seen that in the Navy-to-Navy relationship, and it's been a strong pillar of our military-to-military ties. Great. Thanks. And so just one more, and maybe I'll venture into a little more geostrategic territory. While you were in India recently, I was in China, and even as a think tank person, I can't imagine receiving more talking points on the South China Sea's islands than I did on that trip. I hope never again to receive so many talking points. I think I know what they were. Yes, I bet you do. So it raises the broader question of rules of the road in the South China Sea and in Southeast Asian waters generally. And what is the nature of the U.S.-India partnership around the approach to resolving the multiplicity of bilateral and other disputes over the islands and rocks and submerged flora and fauna in that part of the world? Yeah. First of all, we do have a dialogue with India that's led by the State Department Assistant Secretary Kurt Campbell on East Asia issues, a broad range of East Asia issues. And I have participated in that. And it's a very good conversation about a broad range of things. So it's something that we do talk to the Indians about, and they talk to us about. We tend not to get into the specifics of the South China Sea, but I will say that what you've hit on, the international norms of behavior. This is really one of the reasons why I see such promise and see such benefit to the bilateral relationship in building that. Because India is clearly a country where we share the same vision, I think, similar vision. Not exactly, but I think very similar visions of what are these international rules of the road? What are the norms of behavior? Now, this system certainly grew up over many years. And this is not to say that the system is, as it is now, is exactly how it's going to be in the future or how exactly it was. There are going to have to be modifications to this system. A lot of those modifications, frankly, are going to have to be as how we figure out to deal with the emergence of new powers in the world. And China and India are foremost among those. But what's gratifying is whenever we have this discussion with India, there's a clear commonality of approach towards what, in general, these international norms are. And that's why working together with other like-minded countries in determining how we best make sure that their certain international norms and rules of the road are adapted correctly, and then clearly articulated as we look to apply them more universally is really one of the crucial geostrategic benefits I believe this relationship. And some of our best discussions with my discussions with my Indian counterparts and others is about things like the norms around the global commons, the maritime security issues. And I think that's where this relationship from a broad perspective really has a tremendous global value. Open it up to the floor. I see some folks up here and through the media. Aziz Hanifa with India abroad, there's no denying that the burgeoning military sales defense partnership with India has caused a good amount of paranoia in Pakistan. And for all the talk that it's not a zero-sum game anymore, that we've moved far, far beyond that, Pakistan and the difficulties that the U.S. is having with Pakistan, it's still very much a strategic partner. How do you balance this paranoia of Pakistan considering the difficulties you have and the fact that you've got to still coalesce in Afghanistan in terms of these increasing defense partnership with India, the military sales, et cetera, in terms of trying to keep a balance and making sure that there isn't any more instability in the region? I think one of the key features of our approach towards both India and Pakistan has been that we no longer have to see this as hyphenated, that in fact we can have good relations with Pakistan and with India, and that there's no natural reason why we can't. And so that really is the way we're approaching it. We have a very strong relationship with Pakistan where we realize that we are committed to a broad partnership with Pakistan, and we also simultaneously feel like we very much can have that relationship with India. And in fact, that these are not competing. In fact, it'd be difficult to have a strong relationship with one if we don't pursue a strong relationship with another. So I guess I would push back and say that while it's certainly something we continue to look at, we believe it's very important that all sides understand that this kind of a strong relationship with each country is in everyone's interest for broader stability in the region. Thank you very much, Desi, for your continued service. Why? Thank you, Ms. Law. You're welcome. And I couldn't resist. You talked a lot about the developing relationship, the people-to-people, the defense sales, the commonality of interests and goals in the region. And I was wondering, and you framed it in the context of what we're doing together and what the relationship is like and what the U.S. is looking for from India. I have the privilege of maintaining my Indian context from some previous assignments. And I'm curious, if you were to put yourself in the shoes of the Indian and you were to understand or to learn that perhaps there's a level of frustration with impatience that the Bush administration and this administration perhaps maybe set the bars too high and haven't delivered, what would you tell your Indian colleagues in a candid moment about some of the apparent disappointments or the slow list of us moving forward in more concrete ways? As soon as I tell you they're no longer candid, are they? I think both sides are realizing what I've said that the hard work ahead is working together and figuring out these places. Again, as I promised, I would come back to everything seems hard the first time you do it, but then you get past it and you go, oh, you know, there is a way. One of the great examples of this, I hate to always go back to defense trade, but the FMS process and the DPP were developed totally independently from each other and shockingly they don't work well together all the time. Well, you know what, we're learning that and we're learning how to figure out our way through that. So I think we all on both sides and I have very fun candid conversations with my Indian colleagues and I think we're both figuring out those places. The key is to remember that both of us really are trying to approach us from we share these interests. We know that this relationship is destined to get better. How do we get there? And that's the sentiment that I have seen almost every one of my interlocutors and friends approach this from an Indian perspective. That's what gives me great hope even when we get to those parts that we're seeing things for the first time and kind of trying to and getting a new hurdle thrown up in our way. But I think it's really, it's moving forward and that, I mean, dare I say I did not mention my own people to people ties, but that's the kind of stuff that we need as well. Can I just decode that question and answer a little bit because I'm not sure that everyone here would understand exactly what you seem to be saying, which is if there is an Indian perception that we have over promised, is it in the area of you use the acronym FMS, Foreign Military Sales, not being connected to the Defense Policy Group? Sorry, the DPP is the Defense Procurement Plan in India. Sorry, it's two different regulations. So what did you understand her to be referring to if there were a reason for frustration on the Indian side? Is it the pace of delivering against planned sales in that channel? I think I consciously avoided telling what the government of India is frustrated about with the government of the United States. But thank you for pointing that out, Steve. Look, I mean, what I can say, what can we do? I think all of us, I mean, we are, a lot of the frustrations that we both see are things that we didn't know were problems that we didn't think were going to be problems, but ended up doing it and both sides have, we all have our catalogs and guess what, that's what we talk about. That, you know, you look and go boy, I could have sworn this was going to work. Oh yeah, well, you know, I mean, there are things that, some things that seem easy turn out to be harder than we thought. Some things that we thought were going to be hard actually are a snap, it turns out. That's the mechanics and the things we have to work through in a relationship that let us not forget is between two very large, well-established countries, bureaucracies and sets of lawyers that has been going on for approximately five years in some cases, people will say, sometimes people go back beyond that, but, you know, not a long time. If you look at our other relationships, it's, you know, first of all, it's unfair to compare the U.S.-India relationship with any other relationship. Secondly, you know, if you look at some of these other ones, some of you have been our closest ones, we've been working on these for years. So, I mean, and not to put too fine a point on it or call anybody out, we have frustrations when dealing with other countries too, even ones that we've been friends with for a long time. So, you know, we, I don't just mean to be returning to my talking points, although I sound that way. We're trying to get to the same place together, more times than not. That's what gets you over the parts and allows you to talk about where they're disconnects and where they're frustrations. Lalit Jha from Press Trust of India. Why do you think India is important for Pentagon in Asia-reasonable context? And what do you want India to do more for the building blocks that you said you want your building now? I mean, I think when you look at the series of interests that we have in the region, and you look at what we're trying to do in terms of international norms of behavior, responding, I mean, from a defense department perspective, responding to natural disasters, protecting sea lines of communication, you can look at across the wide range of missions that we say we have to conduct, countering terrorism, all of these things, all of these mission sets, I believe we do better with other countries. And we have made very clear that we seek to incorporate other countries and work with other countries to address these threats. In many cases, these are threats that simply can't be addressed by one country alone. When you start looking at which countries do you want to cooperate with the most, you look immediately to countries that bring great capabilities and bring shared interests. And that's what we have in India, and that's why the partnership is so important. I'm sorry, I totally forgot. That wasn't intentional. I may intentionally dodge it, but I'll... What are the things you want India to do in the defense sector? One of the things that comes to my mind immediately is the U.S. is pushing for more FDI in the defense sector from India. Well, I think the... I talked about, I think the clear area of focus right now for where we want to see what more we can do in terms of missionary is maritime security, and that has been a large focus of both the Defense Policy Group, it was a focus of Secretary Clinton's trip talking about maritime security and recognizing that maritime security is not just a Defense Department piece, but there are many other actors involved. So I think that would be the one... the key area that we're looking to see how we can explore more with India. Hi, I'm Kaho with NHK Japanese TV. Thank you so much for your speech. I have two questions. One, if you shed a light a little bit more about what sort of frustration the two countries have been experiencing with the Chinese Act in the Indian Ocean, not only in South China Sea, but specifically the Indian Ocean in securing the sea lanes and how your effort to intensify the... not allies, but the cooperation between the two navies might address this issue. And the second question is how this U.S.-Indian collaboration may play out to U.S., India and Japan Navy collaboration. Thank you. Sure, I think recently for the first time with the anti-piracy efforts ongoing in the Indian Ocean, we've seen the Chinese Navy participating, and we encourage that. Clearly, once again, we have a country that has a shared interest in anti-piracy specifically and addressing that interest and bringing capabilities to bear. I'm not at all concerned right now, sort of the premise of your question, of seeing Chinese in the Indian Ocean as being anything other than helpful. Right now, they are contributing to these multilateral efforts, and it is reasonable to expect that Chinese Navy, having these blue water capabilities, could continue to be looked at as a country to help provide multilateral and global security of these important sea lines of communication. And U.S.-India cooperation is not targeted at any country. It is cooperation that we are doing on our own for our own purposes. The U.S.-India-Japan relationship is, I would argue, an emerging relationship. We have seen just recently the announcement that there will be a trilateral dialogue between U.S.-India and Japan. And as noted in my speech, we have had Malabar exercises, and we're planning to have Malabar trilateral exercises. I think Japan really falls into the category of another country similar to India that has many of our shared interests, shared objectives, and brings capabilities to bear to addressing international and regional security issues. And as well, they are finding these three countries are some of the largest proponents, not to mention beneficiaries, of the international system that we have now. And on all three countries, I believe, very strongly understand the importance of being a stakeholder in that international system and the burdens that are involved in supporting that. So I think there's a natural connection, but we'll see how it emerges over the years. We are taking some of the first tentative steps, and it may yet yield something, but on the other hand, there are a lot of countries that we should be working with. In fact, as many as we can who share these interests. This is Ajinder Singh from India Today Group. You mentioned counter-terrorism cooperation. You also mentioned about Coast Guard mission. So in the light of Mumbai attacks, which we call 2611, what do you see the significance of this? Well, I think obviously the horrendous acts of 2611 have really animated and increased the desire of both of our countries to have greater cooperation in counter-terrorism. I was in New Delhi less than a week after the attacks in Mumbai this year. I think that it's going back to where our shared interests, what things do we have in common? Clearly, both the United States and India share in interests in countering terrorism. And it is only natural, therefore, that we should look at ways of trying to deal with, prevent terrorist attacks from occurring and dealing with terrorism. So we have looked at this from a broad perspective. Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security was in New Delhi with Secretary Clinton, and she talked to her counterparts, and we're figuring out a way that we can work together from a whole-of-government perspective to best address this common threat and how we can deal with this in a common approach and learn from each other on how to move forward. You see, Pakistan is a close ally. India, with India you have a cooperation. So how do you balance this? I apologize that this may sound like a question I've already answered, but again, I would characterize both of these relationships as close and important to U.S. interests. And I don't see, dare I say, the zero-sum game that many people do in South Asia, and I think we need to get out of thinking about it that way. And that the only way to best serve all of our interests is to work cooperatively with both countries. Interestingly, I note that Prime Minister Singh understands the importance of working closely with Pakistan, and I am, we are all very encouraged by the dialogue that is happening between India and Pakistan across a range of issues. Thank you. Caroline Sapp from Secure Strategy Group, kind of changing the conversation a little bit to talk about perhaps private defense industry, and there's a lot of talk in Washington about what a need for a well-rounded approach to diplomacy, and so what do you see the private defense industry's role in the building of the relationship between the U.S. and India and what opportunities might be missed that we're not quite catching? Just to be clear, when you say private defense industry, you are bowing Lockheed Martin? Yeah, exactly. Well, I think all over, I come from a national security consulting group, so perhaps addressing some of that with the counterterrorism programs coming up. I mean, I think what has always been a driver of the U.S.-India relationship is not just the government to government. In fact, there will be people who will argue very strongly that the government-to-government relationship was the last part of the Virginia relationship, and that it was, in fact, the people-to-people ties and the private industry ties. And so I think, obviously, there's a role here for private industry across a range of issues. And, you know, we, obviously in the government, we're not going to, I'm not going to get in the, I don't pick winners and losers, I think, but I think it's a very important part of our overall relationship is, is that private industry link? And, obviously, one of my jobs in the U.S. government and those people in India, in the embassy in New Delhi, is to promote private business and private industry in India. So I think there's a valuable role. But I think, you know, it will depend on which part of that spectrum you are. But I think I have only to, if I go and look at the two-and-a-half years that I've been doing this intensively, whenever I go to meet with U.S. industry, there are more and more people represented there in New Delhi, in India. And I think, based only on that evidence, private industry sees a wealth of opportunities continuing in India. I just ask the follow-up on that. You, in your speech, made the point that one sale was not going to define this relationship. And let's accept that. But let's talk a little bit more about that sale, because for those of us in the South Asia watching community, the effort to participate in that bid animated the Obama administration and really brought a lot of people into heavy engagement with trying to put the best pitch forward. So now you've had some, there was an enormous disappointment among those who had given so much time and energy to trying to make the case at the time the decision was announced. Now we've had some months. What are your reflections on that? Was there, are there lessons for the United States? Are there lessons more generally about these kinds of processes that you've taken away? Yeah, I think one of the lessons other than the, I guess I should start with the obvious lesson that it's not just about one sale. But I think subsequent lessons are, I actually have to say, I was really amazed, impressed, I'll choose impressed. With the level of technology we had agreed to release to India in these, for these fighter aircraft. I mean this is a level of technology that we had not looked to release anywhere. And so I think, one of the lessons I certainly took was there is no barrier to looking at any equipment, any advanced technology for sale to India. I certainly hope that the government of India took that lesson as well because I think if you look at the technological specifications of the equipment that we were willing to offer in the Merkur competition I will note the actual physical presence of this equipment and not just the good idea of an AESA radar for an example but an actual functioning one that is proven in combat. I think it's pretty amazing what we were willing to offer and I think surprised many people on both sides. So I think I took a lesson from that. I took another lesson that we actually can make our systems work. That it is not always easy and it is not always painless. But it is very possible, even among our most complex systems to be able to get to the point where we could make a full, viable tender to a very complex request that was absolutely in the running until they didn't down-select. So I think to me that's a lesson. I guess the final lesson is that there was a clear appreciation that this was an important thing for the U.S. government and absolutely disappointment. But an understanding of how these sales fit within our overall strategy and I think an understanding of the value of this to the relationship I think is something that we will continue to work from and I think subsequent sales are frankly easier because of the work we did on this very high-profile sale up front. We're just about at the top of the hour. It's been an honor to host you Bob, really. Thank you for your thoughtful remarks and for your willingness to take questions and please come back sometime soon. Thank you very much for your question.