 Okay, if people could please start taking their seats and we'll get started. Let me start by welcoming everyone today to our event. Thanks very much for taking the time to come and thank you very much to Rolls-Royce, North America for their generous support of our military strategy forum that makes these events possible. If I could just have a few admin notes quickly, if people could turn their cell phones and PDAs to vibrate, that would be appreciated. We will start with Secretary of Works remarks followed by some Q&A and then the panelists will be in the second hour also with Q&A. When we get to Q&A, people could quickly identify themselves, their organization, and then be very succinct in their questioning, then that'll be much appreciated. With all that out of the way, let me again welcome you today to our event. It seems like a timely discussion to have given some of the questions that Secretary Gates has been raising in the past few months. In a speech in May, he credited the Marines with having had a game-changing impact in Afghanistan and in Iraq. At the same time, he noted that they've been acting as essentially, I quote, a second land army, unquote, for the last few years. And he posed some questions about what new capabilities they might need for the future and which ones might be obsolete. And in the course of that speech, he also raised some questions, in particular, about amphibious capabilities and where they might be headed. So we wanted to have a deeper discussion about all of that. And there's almost none better suited to have that discussion with than under Secretary of the Navy, Bob Work. The Secretary spent 27 years in the Marine Corps, then was an analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. And last year became the under Secretary of the Navy, in which he serves as Secretary Mavis' right-hand man and assists him with all of the management of Department of the Navy functions on a daily basis. So we're very honored to have him here. We look forward to your remarks and to the questions that follow. Thank you. Well, Martin, thank you for that kind introduction. And CSIS really, really remains at the forefront of many of these issues as a former CSBA alum. I understand all of the different challenges you have, is keeping a think tank at the cutting edge. And I just think it's great to be here with you and with everybody else this afternoon. I'd also like to echo Martin's appreciation to Rolls-Royce for setting up and also sponsoring these military strategy forum speaking series. I think they're quite good. The sessions on the QDR and strategic surprise and the one most recently on power projection in an era of declining bases overseas, I think, have just all been superb. So I commend your willingness, Rolls-Royce, and any other sponsor on allowing us to have these type of forums, which allow us to talk about critical national security issues. Now, we're here today to talk about the post-Afghanistan Marine Corps. And we just wrapped up our POM-12 budget submission on Friday. And we're continuing to work hard, as you know, on trying to identify efficiencies under Secretary Gates' initiative to try to shift money from our overhead and our department to tooth. The particulars have not yet been briefed to OSD leadership. So I have to tell you, and I hope you do not mind, by saying that I have a very strong secondary requirement today. And that is not to make any headlines. But I'm going to be talking the majority of my time, the way I thought I would do this. So I talk the majority of my time on an issue that's been percolating for the last two years. And it just keeps getting larger and louder. And a lot of different people have a lot of different opinions. But the future of amphibious assaults and joint forcible entry for the Marine Corps and the degree to which the Marine Corps will concentrate on that particular mission in the future. Now, first, I'd like to say something that I hope every single person in this room knows. Since March 2003, the Marine Corps has been in almost constant combat. And today, they are just an absolutely stunning, battle-hardened, ready, and just top-notch military force. The quality and the esprit of Marines. Now, I say this is a former Marine, but I'm talking now as Under Secretary of the Navy when I go over and visit our wounded lawyers in Bethesda. The esprit of these Marines, after giving so much, is just unbelievable. It's very, very humbling to be one of the top two leaders of the department. And I thank my lucky stars every day that we have a Marine Corps, and I think you should too. Now today, as you know, there's over 202,000 Marines that are on active duty. That's the result of a decision in 2006. To build up the size of the Marine Corps, because quite frankly, we were just running ourselves to ruin with a dwell of almost one-to-one. Marine Infantry Battalion would go out for seven months, come back for seven months, right back into the fight for seven months. You cannot sustain that type of tempo over a long period of time. You just do not get the training you need in dwell. The pressure, as you know, on the families is just enormous. So building the Marine Corps to this size, we are now almost two, the one-to-two dwell. In other words, for every seven months back, I mean, seven months in the fight, you might have 14 months back, or six months in the fight, 12 months back. That is the minimum dwell that we think the Marine Corps needs to sustain itself over the long haul. And we're getting there. We're very, very close. We've already surpassed the dwell in some of the MOSs, the military occupational specialties. But we haven't quite got there yet for our infantry units. We hope to be there soon. So without question, the Marine Corps really is focused on the fight in Afghanistan and winning that fight. That is what the entire kind of institutional focus is on right now, as it should be. But we are now starting really to think about what the post-Afghanistan Marine Corps might look like. Now, the first thing we're doing is we're trying to reconstitute the stocks that the Marine Corps has drawn down over the last seven years of war. And we're turning to our thinking to resetting the Corps. That's the code word. And it really has to do with what do we want the Marine Corps to look like once we are out of Afghanistan and assuming there are no infantry battalions and sustained combat operations anywhere in the world. Now, the basis for this thinking is going to be a force structure review group. I'll call it the FISRIG. That's going to be conducted over the next several months. It's going to be done primarily at McSiddic and the Marine Corps' staffs. It will have the input from the outgoing and the incoming commandant. It's going to consider the projected future security environment post-Afghanistan, whatever we consider to be the new normal. It's going to consider the guidance we received in the 2010 QDR and the most recent defense planning and programming guidance, which tells the Marine Corps to accomplish certain things. And it's going to incorporate, obviously, the lessons the Marine Corps has learned over the last seven years of war. So the FISRIG is going to outline the size and organization of the post-Afghanistan Marine Corps. And we expect those results sometime in November and December so that it can be thoroughly vetted first within the Department of the Navy, then within the Department of Defense. So the earliest, you might see concrete changes to the structure, organization and size of the Marine Corps in Palm 13, but all of the changes are going to be conditions based on what happens in Afghanistan, obviously. If we're still hard in the fight, then the Marine Corps will stay focused on that fight. But we will at least be thinking of what the Marine Corps might look like and perhaps General Flynn might be able to provide you with some modest insights, although we haven't done the study, so we can't really provide you with any details at this point. Now, although I can give you specifics, I want to tell you six things that I think are certain to kind of define the character of the future Marine Corps. Besides, of course, it's warrior ethos and just first to fight mentality. First, the future Marine Corps is going to more reflect its naval character. Now, Vincent Southwest Asia over the past seven years have kind of conspired to keep the Marines focused on sustained land combat, which goes to Marin's comment of the Secretary of Defense, where he says essentially we've been a second land army for quite some time. The Marines have been a second land army. But the last three commandants and their guidance to the Marine Corps have said we really want to start getting back to our naval heritage and our naval roots. And the department, and I think the whole Marine Corps is committed to doing that. So I think whatever the fissure shows up, it is going to indicate a tighter linkage with the United States Navy. Now, that's going to be reflected in a lot of things. I'll talk about the amphibious fleet in just a second. But you should be seeing Marines operating, I think, from a wide variety of new platforms. We're going to have joint high-speed vessels and literal combat ships you're going to have, of course, the amphibious fleet. So I would not be surprised that the Marine Corps comes up with new and innovative ways to deploy Marines, possibly in smaller packages, possibly more distributed. This is very much in line with what they've been doing over the last seven years on land. We'll be spending a lot of time reviewing our tack air integration plans, making sure that the Navy and Marine Corps plans for our future tactical aviation component are completely in sync and in sync with what the department can afford as a whole. There are just absolutely very few decisions that do not impact the Marine Corps when you're talking at the departmental level. So this first thing, I really do believe that the Marines and the Navy will continue to move closer and closer together. Now, second, and I'll leave General Flynn to talk about this if you're interested, is the equipment density list will be higher than our pre-war equipment density list. Now, this is the amount of equipment that a force takes to combat. And especially in Afghanistan, it's unbelievable how widely spread out United States Marine Corps units are. There are platoon-sized units, company-sized patrol bases. They're spread out North and South and East and West across Helmand Province. What that has required us to do is to put more crew-serve weapons, more communications equipment, all sorts of different stuff into the units to allow them to fight. And this, we think, is kind of what the Marine Corps is really, really good at. Distributed operations. They've been talking about this since the mid-90s when General Crulac was starting to talk about Hunter Warrior. And the Marines are actually employing this on the field in a joint way. They have access to joint fires. They've redefined close air support. B-1B bombers. I think, Tom Earhart, I see, I think there's four aircraft that keep orbits all over the battlefield, 24-7. A Marine needs fires. He can call in that type of immediately responsive fires. There's intelligence that's being pushed down to the platoon level that used to be pushed to the battalion level. So I think it's safe to say that the equipment density list will be higher and the Marines will be struggling to figure out, okay, what's the best way to handle this? Does everyone get a big equipment density list or we have sets? That's going to be part of the fishery. Third, the future Marine Corps along with the Navy is going to rely increasingly on unmanned systems. Secretary Mabus, the Secretary and the Navy is going to be unveiling a wide initiative on unmanned systems and the Marines have been instrumental in establishing that vision and the things that they are thinking about doing are really quite exciting. So I believe that in addition to UAVs you'll see more unmanned ground vehicles, et cetera, but I think the Marine Corps will increasingly rely on unmanned systems and that will be reflected. Fourth, the future Marine Corps is going to be much more energy-efficient than today. I just received a clip from the Third Battalion and Fifth Marines. They were out. They have these little solar panels that go out in the field with them. They set up their little solar field. At the time I saw the input they had been operating without any external energy for over 130 hours. That's the type of things where the Marine Corps is doing experimental forward operating bases solar-powered reverse osmosis generators, solar-powered things. The Marine Corps is really, really I think at the forefront in establishing tactical energy savings. And it's going to have such a huge impact on the battlefield of the future. The Army made a study and they estimated that for every 25 fuel convoys on the road that one soldier or a Marine would either be killed or wounded. So taking those fuel convoys off the road has a direct impact on our readiness and our ability to fight. Fifth, the future Marine Corps is going to need to be lighter. As Secretary Gates said over the last seven years, the Marine Corps has become more and more like a second land army only because of the requirements in the particular theaters they're fighting in. But it is clear that Marine units are heavier across the board. And this is going to be important for us to tackle. The Marines have been asked by the Secretary of Defense to produce a ground combat tactical vehicle strategy which will address this. And the Marines are looking hard at the mix and types of vehicles that we have. But finally, and what I want to spend the remainder of my time on really is that the future Marine Corps closely supported by the U.S. Navy and the joint team is going to be capable of conducting amphibious assaults and conducting joint force voluntary operations. Now I want to spend the rest of my time on why I think this is true and why I think it has to be done. Now as I said this question has been bubbling a lot. There's an awful lot of different opinions on it. Secretary Gates has himself asked Secretary Mabus, the CNO and the Commandant to consider the requirement for amphibious landings in the future. As he most recently said at the Sierra Space Symposium this is a quote. We have to take a hard look at where it would be necessary or sensible to launch another major amphibious landing again. Especially as advances in anti-ship systems keep pushing the potential launch point further from the shore. On a more basic level in the 21st century what kind of amphibious capability do we really need to deal with the most likely scenario and then how much? Now we're getting close to an answer which we have been working on in a very systematic way since last May. Before going on though I want to clarify a couple definitions. Let me just ask this audience if given a choice between an amphibious assault or landing a force where the enemy isn't how many would choose the amphibious assault? How many would choose the landing where the enemy isn't? You've just conducted an amphibious assault. The definition of an amphibious assault is the principal type of amphibious operation that involves establishing a force on a hostile or potentially hostile shore. That's all it means. If you suddenly got HBO specific in your mind if you were thinking Tarawa that's all think. An amphibious assault is nothing more than putting a ready to fight combat unit ashore. It doesn't even have to take a shot. The difference is that if they do take a shot they're ready to respond. Now forcible entry is seizing or holding a military lodgeman in the face of armed opposition and a lodgeman as a designated area in a potentially hostile or hostile environment or operational area that when seized in hell may continuous landing of troops and material possible and provides maneuver space for subsequent operations ashore. Keep those definitions in mind. The Department of the Navy never ever at least in my mind ever I never heard anyone question the need to conduct amphibious assaults because all it is is putting an intact ready to fight force on the ground. It's distinct from naval movement or trans oceanic movement and I'll define that as the disaggregated delivery of personnel and equipment to ashore hostile or potentially hostile where an assembly is required. That's movement. You'll notice we no longer have troop transports. Why? Because in the Cold War we decided to transport people over the seas in aviation platforms. And what we take across the seas now is equipment in our sea lift and that's it. And those people and equipment have to be married up and they have to assemble in a process called our SOI reception staging onward movement and integration. Now I just ask you how many people how many opportunities you think do we need to be able to inject an intact combat force? How about Somalia? We were taking fire when we went ashore. We were taking fire when we went off the shore. You don't want to be assembling your forces in a situation like that where it's potentially hostile. I'll give you an example Operation Torch. Operation Torch was our entry theater entry in the northern African World War II. We landed where we thought the enemy wasn't Vichy France. Nobody told the Vichy French that they weren't supposed to fight. So when the units came across the shore they found themselves in a knocked down drag out firefight. If they had been assembling on the shore I assure you it would have been a lot worse. So it was an amphibious assault. They did not think they would fight but when they got to the shore they were ready to do so. So today when I am talking I will use the term literal maneuver to distinguish when we're trying to inject an intact combat force from the sea and literal movement when we're just delivering people and equipment and having them marry up. So the first thing we did is a department in trying to answer Secretary Gates' question is look at the capacity issue for literal maneuver and literal movement in the Department of the Navy. The farmer is provided by the amphibious landing fleet. That is optimized to inject intact combat units ashore and the latter is by our maritime prepositioning force which delivers equipment in which people I mean Marines marry up with that equipment. Now if you remember back in April of 2009 in PB10 the end game for PB10 Secretary Gates deferred the decisions on the amphibious fleet and the maritime prepositioning force to allow the CNO the Commandant and Secretary Mabus to examine this issue. The size of the fleet was a matter of intense debate within the department as well at the Department of Defense. We knew that 38 amphibious ships was required for a full up absolutely high end amphibious assault but when we looked at all of the requirements across the department we settled the CNO the Commandant and the Secretary settled on a fleet of 33 amphibious ships 11 big decks these are very that 40,000 45,000 ton they look like a small aircraft carrier they're optimized to carry both helicopters v-22 tilt rotors JSFs and Harrier Stovall and Vistall aircraft and they carry people and equipment 11 LPD-17s landing platform docks really optimized for large vehicle large vehicle masses 25,000 square feet of vehicles and 11 landing ship docks or LSDs they're primarily our LCAC landing craft air cushion movers we went to the Secretary Defense and we laid out the requirement for these 11 ships and the Secretary Defense agreed with it and signed off on that in the 30-year Shipbuilding Plan so for the first time we have Secretary of Defense approval of our future plans for an amphibious fleet of 33 ships it will carry the assault echelons of two marine expeditionary brigades with not all of their combat service support but it is everyone agrees that if we had to do an amphibious assault with that size force it would accomplish the mission now prior to PB-10 what we had was a plan for was what was called a maritime prepositioning force future squadron which was really optimized for high-end forcible entry operations we took a look at that and said really what we would prefer to have is three maritime prepositioning force squadrons with enhanced sea basin capabilities they're applicable across the range of military operations those enhanced capabilities are a large medium speed roll-on roll-off ship extremely commodious lots of room a auxiliary dry cargo ship called a TAKE which is in serial production now which can carry both bulk fuel ammunition supplies it's a tremendous ship and then a mobile landing platform which allows you to marry ships at sea cross-deck equipment transfer equipment ashore using landing craft air cushions and other ship-to-shore connectors so we will have three squadrons with those capabilities so this the size of this force accommodates two MEB amphibious landing force and a reinforced MEF capability along with the MLP you ask wow is that a lot? well in World War II there were 96 divisions in our order of battle we had enough amphibious ships to land 13 divisions in other words almost 15 percent of the entire force could be lifted by amphibious ships right now the army and the marines will have a total of about 86 brigade combat team equivalents once all of the modernization is done we will have enough amphibs to lift two brigades 2 percent of the entire force structure we believe that is a reasonable floor to provide the joint force with this capability even though it may not be used very often having that capability is like money in the bank when you need it you need it but because of the flexibility the thing that really sold the secretary defense on our amphibious fleet was the incredible flexibility of these platforms with the exception of BMD ships they're among the most highly demanded ships independent amphib steamers are among the most highly demanded ships of our combatant commanders why? because they have classrooms they have a place to put people they have a boat haven they have a helicopter pad they have a hospital they have exquisite communications they're great for partnership building missions they're great to supporting special operations forces they're great for a wide variety of reasons so this is an incredibly capable force that can do any number of missions global patrolling regional patrolling partnership building HADR humanitarian assistance disaster relief raiding shows of force etc now we still need some work to do we're working to get the 10th and the 11th LPDs I think this is probably a little too high we're working to get the 10th and 11th LPDs on contract along with the 8th LHA we're not going to put those ships on contract till we get the price that we think those ships should be so we're working hard with North Grumman to make sure these ships are put on contract soon we need to get the MLP the mobile landing platform on contract we're working with General Dynamics to do that we're assessing the character of the 8th LHA which is to be built in FY16 and the new landing ship dock which we are bringing ahead of need to make sure that we have the right number of medium deck amphibs that we need to support the force and we're looking at whether or not you know what is the size of the ships the well decks and that is going to be informed by the FISRIG in large degree but we need to get this right for another reason I told you that the Marine Corps is getting heavier for the first time in our history we are maxing out our amphib ships in weight before we max them out in cargo square footage cargo square excuse me vehicle square footage and cargo cube we are simply too heavy now in an unconstrained environment we'd say well let's just keep building 100 different amphibs so that we can accommodate a heavier Marine Corps the amphibious system is a system in which the Navy and the Marine Corps operate together and we have to be able to make tradeoffs both in what we put in those ships as well as the number of ships we have so we think we have the capacity right we think it's available for a wide variety of missions and then we took a look at hard challenges of literal maneuver and little movement in the 21st century now we didn't have to look very hard the QDR stressed the importance of overcoming what is now commonly referred to as anti-access challenges in the QDR they said deter and defeat aggression in anti-access environments is four of sixth fourth of sixth critical missionaries and the U.S. Joint Force Command Joint Operating Environment concluded that the United States may not have uncontested access to bases in the immediate area from which they can project military power the battle for access may prove not only the most important but the most difficult now people say wow we haven't done an amphibious major amphibious operation since Enchon and I say okay in the Cold War we had ready access everywhere we had divisions stationed and ready for fighting along the forward line of troops on the inter-German border we had troops in Korea we had troops in Japan we had troops where they were ready to fight the need for a major amphibious operation was not really high in the Cold War but throughout the Cold War we kept a division and a half on average of amphibious capability so since the end of the Cold War we've been trying to figure out what's the right size and we think right now we have it a lot of people say well you know the interesting thing is we heard that amphibious assaults were obsolete just before the Enchon movement and my good friend Jim Thomas over at CSBA has actually said we might be moving into a post-powered projection world but quite frankly the department just wasn't moved by these arguments it is without a doubt that we are losing our monopoly in the guided weapons battle network regime any student of history would have anticipated this in the 90s we drank our old Kool-Aid and we assumed we would have this monopoly forever we started talking about ridiculous concepts like rapid decisive operations 10-30-30 I'll tell you what I really think about this stuff it really we drank the Kool-Aid and it was all about speed when you were in the guided weapons battle network regime and the bad guy has him speed kills not the bad guy you if you go into an intact battle network with guided weapons you are going to regret it this is about co-evolution it is about our reaction to this instance so why would we want to do it and I'll go back to the QDR because power projection has a broader strategic value this is what the QDR said in the absence of dominant U.S. power projection capabilities the integrity of U.S. alliances and security partnerships could be called into question reducing U.S. security and influence increasing the possibility of conflict I assure you ladies and gentlemen that if all we did is move to offshore long range artillery bombardment warfare we would have a heck of a time making alliances we have to be ready to be able to project power the perception that U.S. forces cannot gain or sustain access or influence in regions of our interest are those of key allies from the department of the Navy's perspective would seriously undercut American diplomacy and deterrence so it is without question we acknowledge that the bad guys are getting guided weapons that we will be pushed out and we will have to operate differently so we looked at models now one is land where the enemy isn't that was the model prior to the 20th century even though you landed a force that was ready to fight when it hit the ground you know if you got caught on the beach by Calvary or any other type of mobile unit you were going to be in a hurt locker Vera Cruz the biggest amphibious operation the United States conducted prior to Operation Torch landed where the enemy wasn't they were actually within sight of Vera Cruz but they had were closed up inside the city and the reinforcing army had not arrived yet so they landed about three miles to the south they were unimpeded they got their forces ashore without the loss of single life then there were the frontal assault and seizures of defended bases this is what the Marine Corps excelled in in the Pacific if you saw HBO's the Pacific you have a really good idea if you didn't see that then saving Private Ryan those type of assaults are extremely difficult then there were theater entries this is where you did an amphibious assault to inject a joint force into a theater we did it at Torch we did it in Sicily we did it at Salerno, Italy we did it at Normandy, France we also looked at different ways to enhance land-based air power using amphibious operations which is what Douglas MacArthur did in the southwest Pacific and then we looked at operational and tactical envelopments like ANZO didn't work out too good Incheon worked out really good then there was a little rump called OMFTS operational maneuver from the sea that envisioned a force from the sea going maybe 200 nautical miles inland very, very quickly which is kind of a model landing where the enemy isn't but going very deep striking at centers of gravity but if you take a look at all these models the one that seems the most attractive at least in my view and this is still being debated this is not a settled law is theater entry now there I know there are some people who say oh theater entry is manly like you know forcible entry theater entry is forcible entry theater entry is amphibious assaults it's total nonsense don't listen to people like that theater entry is about what you're doing you are injecting a joint force for a follow on campaign and that is a mission that the marines could excel at now the capability of theater entry allows you to conduct land based air power operations I mean doing amphibious operations to enhance land based air it allows you to do operational tactical envelopments but it's most attractive to the joint force now the other interesting thing about every theater entry torch sicily celerno and normandy was accompanied by airborne operations now the reason why that's important is if you only have two marine expeditionary brigades worth of amphibious ships having the six airborne bcts brigade combat teams that the army has allows you an awful lot of different interesting and novel operational choices now we probably have enough aircraft in world war two we had enough aircraft we demonstrated it twice to drop two or three divisions over two to three day period so let's say that we wanted to drop two bcts over two to three day period along with two mebs that is a pretty formidable force able to conduct a joint lodgement now the other thing when you do theater entries you got to think about bringing the harbor with you now the first time this happened was in 1866 when some British subjects were imprisoned by emperor Theodore of Abyssinia well this didn't sit over very well to the queen but he said execute the operation Sir general Robert Napier was in India he got 13,000 Indian and British soldiers 26,000 camp followers we don't do that anymore tens of thousands of now this was a you know instead of rolling stock this was walking stock tens of thousands of mules pony sheep camels bullocks donkeys and 44 elements but for the first time in history that I can find they carried a prefabricated harbor with him he knew that if he was going to go into theater and if he didn't have a port that he could readily land upon he better build a port to allow continuous support of the operation it was a prefab harbor had a lighthouse and a rail system it was unbelievable logistic feet the next time we really see that again as the mulberry harbor on Normandy one of the two mulberry harbors was actually destroyed by the most biggest channel storm in about a hundred years but the other one was the primary means of logistical support for our invading armies all the way up until the time we took Antwerp so going for this joint mission of theater entry makes a lot of sense when we look at the type of forces we have the J lots the joint logistics over the shore the prefabricated excuse me our crane ships the mobile landing platforms which would allow you to operate we can actually go somewhere where there isn't a port and conduct the theater entry and that gives you an enormous amount of flexibility as a joint force now what are the three big differences that's going to happen in this world where the bad guy has a lot of guided weapons first is time you're going to phase this operation you are not going to put a brigade ashore in 14 days if you do you will regret it in addition to achieving air sea and subsea superiority you must achieve battle network superiority and that will take time we are debating on how much time we should count on the minimum amount of time it would be excuse me the minimum amount of time it would take before we even contemplate trying to inject forces ashore we will have agreement between the navy and the marine corps before we go to the secretary of defense to outlay out this concept this phase will depend a lot on the us air force air sea battle is a concept which really looks at high end anti-access networks but in the case where you are contemplating injecting troops ashore the us air force will be central as will the us army not only with their follow on forces from the sea but with their airborne so this will be a joint operation all the way with different phases how am I doing for time oh I need to wrap up here second is how far away from the shore should you be before you launch your assault once you have achieved these superiority we haven't answered that question since 1986 if you talk to a marine it is like a canonical fact that you have to be 25 nautical miles over the horizon but guess what since 1986 we have gotten pretty good at guided weapons warfare too when you look at the capabilities of nifca counter air naval integrated fire control counter air with an e2 delta with a very advanced radar that can look deep inland and a surface to air missile that can do engagements out to 200 nautical miles and you have this network defense why can't you get in a little closer than 25 nautical miles after the period of time in which you've gained battle network superiority we will have agreement between the navy and the marine corps on what that distance is it may turn out to be 25 nautical miles it may turn out to be greater than 25 nautical miles and it may turn out to be less but when we go to the secretary of defense we will make the case based on campaign analysis and threat analysis on the time and the distance from the shore that you have to be able to launch and then what is the key difference when you get ashore the reason why you would want rapid combat build up is because you were probably going to get a counter attack in the unguided weapons warfare regime now there are all sorts of different defensive schemes against amphibious ops very few of them worked but generally you could either defend at the beach that didn't work out too good you could go inland and build up a fortification and try to just attrit the force till it bleeds to death or you could have mobile forces that would get to the beach the Germans damn near kicked us off Salerno and really caused us a problem in Anzio because they were able to concentrate their defensive forces faster than we could build up enough forces to get off the beach but by Normandy 13th Panzer or 15th Panzer never made it to the beach we had done questionnaire superiority now when you have guided weapons there aren't going to be massive tank armies coming at the lodge what is the counter attack going to be it's going to be guided rockets artillery mortars and missiles so what the United States Marine Corps has to think about is how far out is the energy ramp perimeter how far out do they have to push to make sure rockets artillery and mortars are not landing on the joint lodge NIFCA counter air on the U.S. Air Force will take care of the deep G-RAM fight that is how you can work in this operation to give up to just say look the bad guy has guided weapons we ought to go home just doesn't work for us the future of the post-Afghanistan Marine Corps just like the Marine Corps that actually exists today is very bright General Krulak the Elder in his book First the Fight which is like a Bible to all Marines it stole five major cultural characteristics inside the core that makes it institutionally prevalent and agile these represent groups of Marines but they also represent the core cultural what my good friend Frank Hoffman called the institutional DNA he called them the thinkers the innovators the improvisers the penny-pentures and the fighters the thinkers were those whose headlights always reached out past the present people who are looking beyond Afghanistan and saying what does our Marine Corps need to do to the nation in the future through Krulak's son Truck Krulak who is a tremendous commandant was just one of these type people second one are the innovators so those that can imagine what you could do with technology and new operational concepts and with the unbelievable spirit and capabilities of Marines they envisioned what helicopters could do and B-22s after those and what vertical launch jets could do the improvisers Jim Mattis now the combatant commander out at CENTCOM when he took over Task Force 58 and he's trying to figure out how to inject Marine combat forces 300 nautical miles inland he didn't whine he did it he improvised with what he had the penny-pentures look all Marines are known as scroungers when I my first job as a Marine was as a battery motor T officer and my job got blessed I hope I'm not going to go to jail for saying it was to steal army equipment whenever I could we called it scrounging they probably considered it stealing but in today's fiscal crunch the Marine Corps really needs to look at this and they are they're looking at this very very hard and then there's the fighters every Marine is a rifleman the most enduring cultural component of the Corps the fighters are in the words of George Orwell those rough men who stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who do us harm the Marine Corps right now I think is well positioned to really think through these problems we've talked about today how do they become more efficient energy efficient how do they use unmanned systems how do they get closer to the Navy how do they get a larger equipment density list at the same time they need to lighten up so they can fit on the ships that we can buy this is a time for a lot of innovation and I'm very bullish on the Marines and their future as Mr. Gates said in his Navy League speech to all of the Navy leaders look you have to think creatively and boldly you must have the vision and insight to see the world and the technology are constantly changing and the Navy and Marine Corps must therefore change with the times ever flexible and ever adaptable I can guarantee everybody here that that's exactly what's going to happen I look forward to your questions yes sir Renaud Girard foreign correspondent from Le Figaro which is a French daily good afternoon Mr. Secretary Norm Bundy was a brilliant operation but it happened 66 years ago in the beginning of your speech you spoke about Afghanistan and you said you used the expression winning that fight I would like to know how you intend to win that fight and what kind of victory you imagine for Allied troops in Afghanistan and for the Marine Corps over there and more generally I would like to know what kind of lessons to shape the future you are drawing from the Iraq War we understand that combat operations will be finished by the end of the month and by the current Afghanistan War what kind of lessons are you drawing to shape the future of the Marine Corps thank you well we're here to talk about the nature of the post-Afghanistan Marine Corps so I don't want to spend a lot of time on you know what Afghanistan will look like after the fight I could just tell you what the Marine Corps has learned from Iraq and Afghanistan I think and I will defer to General Flynn and other Marines in the audience who can speak more eloquently on this the first one is this really necessary to war among the peoples is much different than high-end operations the Marines have a say no better friend no worse enemy they go into an area they work closely with the local population they are not afraid to explore different types of relationships with locals on the ground that would help accomplish the mission and they do this because of their intense confidence in the quality of our junior officers and NCOs who can be distributed across a battlefield it is unbelievable what we asked of sergeants today as a result of Iraq and Afghanistan the whole idea of distributed operations and what it brings to the nation and the areas that a small unit a relatively small unit a couple brigade combat teams and cover an entire province is really quite stunning so in addition to just re-learning small wars doctrine operating in wars amongst the people trying to figure out how to disperse their force and use them more aggressively I can tell you that the amount of patrolling activity that goes on with any Marine unit I think surpasses any other infantry outfit in the world I can't state that for certainty but I'm willing to bet that that is true so patrolling getting out among the people doing this type of stuff I think these are the lessons that the Marines not necessarily have learned but they've certainly re-learned and it is central to the way they're thinking about the future and conducting distributed ops it is true that Normandy was 60 years ago and instead of looking back you know we haven't fired a submarine torpedo at an enemy ship since 1945 those type of questions looking back the Marine Corps and the Navy and the Department of the Navy is looking forward and we look at the guidance we have been giving by our seniors and say look we've got a problem with access in the future it's going to be more difficult to get you sometimes may have to fight for it so instead of looking back 60 years the Marine Corps and the Navy are now looking forward 20 or 30 just like they did in 1921 and by looking forward 20 or 30 they were ready in 1942 and 43 when they had to conduct these types of operations so I think that's how I would answer that and I just don't think this is the proper place to talk about you know what most Afghanistan might look like yes sir good to see you I really don't need this mouthpiece it's often said in this town that your sincerity is reflected in your budget Mr. Secretary you indicated that the Marine Corps and the Navy of course but the Marine Corps internally will be looking in the force structure review in the next year along with the Navy in terms of how we operational concepts will evolve and impact how we must do what we need to do you also indicated that right now the overall capacity reflected in about 33 amphibious ships and other things seemed to be about right but we had to wrestle with a larger problem so can I take it from that that decisions regarding the changes that would be necessary if there were major changes are going to follow the program review in 2013 and that therefore the the budget that is being submitted to OSD which next year will be reviewed by the Congress is essentially a logical continuation of what we saw last year or are there changes that are likely to happen before the force structure review is completed I think right now did everybody hear the question it's all about how the budget will follow all right starting in the 1980s there's a way that you track of course you know that the Marine Corps does not have a separate budget it has it is carved out of the overall total obligational authority of the Department of the Navy in the 1980s the United States Marine Corps essentially got about 8 percent of the total obligational authority of the Department of the Navy that grew over the 90s because the Navy was coming down and the Marine Corps remained relatively flat so the percentage went up to about 12 to 13 percent of the total obligational authority and when we jumped to 202,000 Marines right now the Marines are right around you know 17 percent of total obligational authority maybe 16.8 etc that does not include all of the money that the the Navy spins on what is called blue in support of green amphibious ships all of Marine aviation platforms are purchased by the Navy that's totally separate so the way I would interpret your question Bob is that once we do the fist rig we have to take a look at the percentage of the Don Toa that would be devoted to the Marine Corps to allow them to make the changes that they have to do and that of course would be a central part of the fist rig as you know the Marine Corps is a manpower intensive force I think 60 percent of the cost is about manpower George so what the fist rig will be looking at is the size of the force that meets the needs of our combatant commanders and the guidance that's been given to us by the SEC DEF and it will be a balance of force structure people equipment the search and development and operations and maintenance so the question will be what is will we make sure that the Marine Corps has the percentage of the Don Toa that allows them to make any necessary changes and I think the answers to that will be yes obviously it's a challenge inside the Department of the Navy is sometimes like a shotgun marriage and the tensions rise when budgets fall because everyone is competing but for right now I believe that what we are going to have we'll be looking at across this the Department and I believe that we are definitely going to have a very strong Marine Corps after we decide what after the Marine Corps leadership briefs the Secretary and the Secretary of Defense and says this is what we think we need yes Otto Otto Kreischer with C-Power magazine and others the one weapon system or system that you didn't mention in your description of the amphibious requirements is the expeditionary fighting vehicle when you talk about how much standoff range we're going to need for an amphibious landing will the EFV come into play on that or is the indications some people think that EFV is already a dead duck in regards to how the trials in California turn out what's the thinking on where the EFV plays into your amphibious capabilities expeditionary fighting vehicle is a very tremendous capability it's a infantry fighting vehicle designed to be launched from 25 nautical miles over the horizon ingress have the speed to just been one hour on the water that's about as much time as you would like Marines on the water before they get ashore and then being able to have the cross-country mobility of Abrams tank it's a tremendous technological machine it's also quite expensive the program office for that program was actually established in 1988 the Marines have been asked to look at their entire ground combat tactical vehicle strategy by the Secretary of Defense they were tasked that after the last QDR the EFV will be central to that inside the department the Navy they're making the case to the Secretary of the Navy on the affordability of the platform those things will come together in a strategy that will be determined on the best way forward every single platform we have in the department is under scrutiny to make sure we can afford it make sure it meets the criteria that we think we need to have et cetera so the EFV is no different it will be part of the Marine Corps strategy part of our affordability discussions and it is a tremendous machine no doubt but it is quite expensive I think in fact I need to you know doing a forcible entry capability or an amphibious assault capability is not an inexpensive proposition the V-22 essentially costs about the same right now as a KC-130J the Marines are going to buy 360 of them so the Marines are going to have an equivalent of about 430 KC-130s but 360 of them are going to be able to land vertically go very fast and land on ships that is a tremendous capability provides you with an awful lot of different options but it's expensive EFV is very expensive amphibious ships are expensive the problem that the Secretary and I both wrestle with every day is what is the best capacity you can get for the money that we think we can expect and it's a trade-off every single day I consider the day a success and everyone leaves a meeting pissed off if anybody leaves happy I need to take more money from so it's just a very it's a struggle on every one of our systems and I'll have a better answer for you Otto once we brief the Secretary of Defense and there's decisions that are made within the Department of the Navy those decisions have not been made yet in the back and then I'll come over here you enjoyed the talk I'm with Doug Brooks with IPOA which is the Association of Stability Operations Contractors and my question is the Marines have a tradition as sort of the keeper of the flame of the Small Wars Handbook and these sorts of operations which they're always going to be involved in and I'm wondering in terms of the future of the Marines and from your perspective the budget and everything how much effort is still being paid to the Small Wars like the counterinsurgency operations and so on for the future it's central I mean although I did although I decided to talk about forcible entry we're only talking about a capability for two Marine Expeditionary Brigades along with some maritime pre-positioning force the Marine Corps in my view is one of the best Small War organizations in the world and so their vision of the future is one of constant deployments Marines live or Marines can live forever on a one to two dwell you know six months out 12 months back the Marine Corps is designed to deploy it's designed to go out and do things it's designed to really get down and dirty and working among the people comes very very naturally to the Marine Corps and I think it's a forte of theirs so when you take a look at what they're doing with their equipment density lists I mean the Marine Corps the future of the Marine Corps I'm not trying to say we're gonna have forcible entries all the time I don't believe that they're extremely rare operations we believe we need to keep that capability alive but the Marines will do what they've always done do whatever the President directs and be the first to fight and you know I'm very very confident that George and Dakota and Creighton will be able to give you their opinions on what that might cause the Marine Corps to do yep just right here and then I'll come back to Tony Bill Sweepman Defense Technology International Magazine in the construct of theater entry that you were talking about against the missile threat you were talking very firmly about the need of the fact that that would involve E2D, the full Navy air defense air defense counter air system and would involve Air Force air power as well in that context what added value does the traditional Marine organic fighter force bring to the operation especially given that you know that's becoming a very big Marine Corps program and also in terms of weight of equipment it's an aircraft that's twice the size of its predecessor so what is the actual added value that the Marine organic air flying off the amphibs brings to that kind of operation question was what does the JSF bring to the operation when this is a joint fight and the JSF and the Navy and Marine JSF program are kind of tied together in that it is central to the view of the department of the Navy moving to more stealthy aircraft from the Marine Corps perspective having the ability to operate off amphibs allows you to distribute your air power it would be extremely good for faints for example where you might not be able to put a carrier out there but put a small use one of your large deck amphibs for a small carrier it provides you with an enormous amount of flexibility one of the things we have to consider is the idea that you'd have all these farps in a G-RAM environment that's I think something that we really need to discuss and we need to say what do we do but having the flexibility of a vertical I mean a short takeoff in vertical landing aircraft that's supersonic that's stealthy that works in tandem with the longer range Navy systems off a wide variety of ships really provides us with a lot of capability generally I believe that what will happen is in an operation like this the primaries help we're going to get from the Air Force is in a bomber force which is just big trucks carrying lots of PGMs precision guided weapons I don't expect to see a lot of Air Force spiders there unless there is a nearby base and if there's a nearby base then all sorts of different options are open to you I think I have time for one more one more question I'll stay behind Tony I think you're next and but I will be staying behind to listen to the panel so if you have any questions I'll be happy to stay behind afterwards for its assessment that the Navy should needs 346 ships the tooth I guess 1993 bottom-up review construct that's a little higher than the Navy goal the alternative QDR said that we ought to have an alternative force structure focused on increasing the size of the Navy and it's totally consistent with the 2010 QDR we're 286 ships today we established a target between 313 and 323 and the 2010 QDR and if you take a look at the 346 bottom-up review fleet and the fleet that we're building it's the same the Berks said that you needed 11 active and one reserve carriers our plan is for 11 active carriers the Berks said you needed 45 to 55 attack submarines with a long-term goal of 45 our long-term goal is 48 they said that you needed 110 to 116 surface combatants with 8 to 10 reserve frigates we're going to build 88 to 96 large surface combatants 55 LCSs it's about the same when you add it all up the amphibs they were going to build 36 ships for 2.5 mebs lift marine expeditionary brigades we're building 33 for 2 if you take a look at the core of the Berk fleet we're building it the extra numbers were like tenders that we got rid of and what the Berk fleet was for those of you who remember it wasn't a steady-state projection of what the Navy needed it said this is where the Navy will be in 1999 as it comes down and if you take a look at the heart of the two fleets they're exactly the same so we applaud the alternative QDR we do believe we need a strong Navy we do need we believe we're building that Navy we do need think we need to focus a lot on the Pacific which we are doing and we do think we need to improve our long-range strike power which we're doing so all in all the alternative QDR and the 2010 QDR if you lay them on top of each other pretty much a wash we're very happy with it thank you very much ladies and gentlemen like I said I'll be here this afternoon if you have any questions thanks very much Mr. Secretary