Source: United States Navy
Good afternoon, everyone! What a great first day to kick off this year’s Surface Navy Association National Symposium!
I want to thank Rick for that warm introduction and for being my boss those 17 years ago and helping mold a bit of the “Franchetti clay” along the way. I also want to say hi to Admiral Faller and thank you very much for everything that you’ve done here, Craig, both as another mentor and also here with SNA. I also want to congratulate Chris Bushnell, on wow, what a full house, and a big waiting list, and all of the things that you and the team have been able to do. How about a big round of applause for the whole SNA team.
Well, I like to say a lot of thanks, so let me continue in that same vein by saying thank you to all of you. Whether you are active or reserve Sailors, our Navy civilians, our industry partners, our Allies and partners, Congressional liaisons, and folks from academia. I want to thank you for making the time to be here, for caring about your surface Navy and for supporting and leading all across our Navy team.
And I also want to extend my thanks to all of your families, your big support teams and networks out there for their own service and sacrifice. Because I know that we can’t do what we do every day without their encouragement and support. So, when you get home today, and you get on your phone and text them, say thank you, from me because what they do really makes a difference.
I know you had a lot of really great discussions today. You’ve been focused on the things that we need to do to achieve warfighting lethality, to deliver decisive combat power, and “Sharpening the Surface Warfare Sword.” I love that theme for this year’s conference.
I know from SWOBOSS’s update on “Competitive Edge 2.0” to Admiral Daly and General Brodie’s update on our warfighting capabilities, and now just in the last session, hearing from Admiral Munsch on the Black Sea fight, we are walking away from day one with a lot of information to build on throughout the rest of this symposium.
So I’d like to take a little bit of time to add to these discussions by talking about what I’ve seen and learned since becoming the Chief of Naval Operations, a little bit about the Navigation Plan for America’s Warfighting Navy and the future fleet, and how each of you can help deliver the Navy that our Nation needs, both today and in the future.
So, let me start by sharing my perspective and my observations after having been CNO for just over a year, and after visiting every fleet, engaging with industry, Congress, OSD, the Joint Chiefs, all of our Combatant Commanders, and meeting with a lot of Heads of Navy from all across the globe.
First, it’s clear that the geostrategic environment is changing, and we are facing an increasingly complex security environment. The international system which has provided for security and stability for over three-quarters of a century is under threat in every ocean and in every domain – on, under, and above the sea.
The People’s Republic of China is our pacing challenge and presents a complex, multi-domain and multi-axis threat. And I am eyes wide-open that the challenge posed by the PRC to our Navy, goes well beyond just the size of the PLAN fleet. It includes grey zone and economic campaigns, expansion of dual use infrastructure like airfields and dual use forces like the Chinese maritime militia, and a growing nuclear arsenal.
And, it is backed by a massive defense industrial base, which is clearly on a wartime footing and includes the world’s largest shipbuilding capacity. The growing capabilities, capacity, and reach of the PRC military alongside its aggressive and coercive behaviors in the East and South China Seas underscore what Chairman Xi has told his forces, that they should be ready for war by 2027.
The PRC is not our only competitor, however. We are seeing new “no limits” relationships forming between the PRC, Russia, DPRK, Iran, and state sponsored terrorist organizations.
And in ways that we have not seen before, these malign actors are strengthening their linkages and posturing themselves to build their own warfighting advantage and create additional dilemmas for the United States and for our Allies and partners. But from what I’ve seen, these linkages are largely self-serving and transactional.
This is very much in contrast to our enduring relationships with our Allies and partners, which are based on shared beliefs, ideals, and values.
We are seeing a deepening integration among Allies and partners across regional lines. NATO navies have led important naval deployments in the Indo-Pacific over the last several years, deepening cooperation and strengthening interoperability in increasingly complex and multilateral operations.
And we are seeing security partnerships like AUKUS alongside existing cooperative initiatives like the Quad and ASEAN, or intelligence sharing among the Five Eyes and NATO that really proved critical in preserving that international order.
It is this network of alliances and partners that sets us apart from our adversaries.
Second, the character of war is changing, with advancements in battlefield innovation and cheaper, more accessible technology available to state and non-state actors alike driving part of that change.
Starting with the conflict in Armenia and Azerbaijan in 2020, through today in the Russia-Ukraine war, the Houthi attacks in the Red Sea, we are seeing the increasing use and effective adaptation of robotic and autonomous systems in every domain.
It’s abundantly clear that we need to both have these capabilities and have the capability to defeat them, kinetically and non-kinetically.
Right now, OPNAV and the Fleets are really focused on rapidly prototyping, testing, and employing these RAS (Robotic and Autonomous Systems) capabilities and using initiatives and organizations like Replicator, NavalX, the Disruptive Capabilities Office, and the Unmanned NAVPLAN Implementation Framework to craft solicitations that maximize our opportunities to quickly field effective solutions and then integrate them.
I believe this is an area where there is great promise for collaboration, innovation, and “baking in” interoperability across all our Joint Services and with our Allies and partners.
But this doesn’t replace the need for our conventionally manned Fleet. The future of war at sea is neither fully robotic nor fully manned. As Admiral Paparo said last month, “it is not an either or, and we cannot overlearn the lessons coming out of Ukraine and the Middle East.”
In Ukraine as Admiral Munsch was just talking about, we have seen an essentially ship-less Navy effectively deny the Russians the use of the sea using robotic and autonomous systems, and they’re doing that in tandem with cruise missiles, strikes, intelligence, deception, and electronic warfare. And in the Red Sea, we’ve seen a conventionally manned fleet – our fleet – defeat waves and waves and waves of robotic and autonomous systems.
Robotic and autonomous systems will complement and extend the reach, the depth, and the lethality of our conventionally manned fleet. They will do the dirty, dangerous, or dull activities and free up the creative power of our Sailors to do the things that only they can do. There is no doubt that the Future Fleet will have a mix of both manned and unmanned platforms.
My third observation is that the Defense Industrial Base is under strain. We face real challenges in ship, submarine, and aircraft construction and maintenance, and in munitions production – all while acknowledging the industrial, bureaucratic, and budgetary constraints that complicate our efforts to address these challenges.
We need a bigger fleet, every study we’ve done since 2016 shows that, but it will take years and significant resourcing to expand our traditional industrial base to produce the platforms, the munitions, and the capabilities at the scale we need.
And our entire Navy team is committed to working with all of our stakeholders, industry, Congress, and OSD, to pull every lever to put more players on the field.
My fourth observation is that we’re all facing workforce challenges. Across the Department of Defense and across the Defense Industrial Base. To get after our recruiting challenges, the Navy embraced the red and leveraged data-informed decision-making and process improvement to great effect.
In Fiscal Year 2024, we exceeded our recruiting goal by 300 Sailors, and we are seven percent ahead in 2025. How about a big shout to our recruiters! Every Sailor is a recruiter out there. I have to say, it’s not only about recruiting, it’s also about retention, and thanks to all of you in this room for making sure that our Sailors know that they are valued for the work they do, our retention is greater than 105 percent across every enlisted pay band.
But I know there is much more work to do here, both in the Navy and within the industrial base, where they are likewise experiencing challenges with recruiting, retention, and workforce development.
My final observation is that our Navy- Marine Corps team remains in high demand, and that the events of this past year underscore the enduring importance of American Naval power.
In the Middle East, our naval forces have operated inside the weapons engagement zone for nearly fifteen months, working alongside our Allies and partners, knocking down hundreds of Iranian and Houthi-launched ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and drones at a rate not seen since World War II in self-defense, in defense of civilian mariners, in defense of the rules-based international order, and in the defense of Israel.
And this is just one region of the world where the Navy is operating forward with our Marine Corps partners to deter aggression, to be postured and ready to respond in crisis and to win decisively in war, if called.
When you take a step back and you look at our global footprint, our Fleets are operating seamlessly in all theaters. Operating alongside the Joint Force and our Allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific, the Atlantic, the Arctic, the Baltic, the Mediterranean to deter any adversary and protect our Nation’s security and prosperity.
I could not be more proud of our Navy – Marine Corps team and of our active and reserve Sailors, our Navy civilians, and our families. No other Navy in the world operates at this scale. No other Navy in the world can train, deploy, and sustain such a lethal, globally deployed, combat-credible force at the pace, scale, and tempo that we do.
All of this is a testament to the hard work and commitment to excellence over time by the people in this room and the people that you represent. So again, thank you, for the exceptional partnership and the teamwork that makes this all possible.
And while all that we have achieved fills me with great confidence, I also know that we cannot take our foot off the gas because our Nation is at an inflection point in history.
My Navigation Plan for America’s Warfighting Navy, that I released back in September, is my overarching strategic guidance to the Fleet to get after many of these challenges I discussed earlier. The changing security environment, the changing character of war, and our financial and industrial headwinds.
As the CNO who will be at the helm into 2027, I cannot stand still as we work to secure the long-term investments for the force and then wait for them to manifest.
As the one who is charged with manning, training, and equipping the Navy our Nation needs, I am compelled to do more and do more faster to ensure that our Navy is more ready for conflict than the PRC.
And so, the NAVPLAN sets our course to make strategic gains in the fastest time possible with the resources that I can influence. It’s my guidance to the fleet, to make our Navy more ready for the possibility of war with the People’s Republic of China by 2027, all while enhancing our enduring long-term warfighting advantage.
It builds on America’s Warfighting Navy that I released here at SNA last January which laid out my priorities of warfighting, warfighters, and the foundation that supports them, and it continues where my predecessor’s NAVPLAN left off.
It lays out my plan to raise our Fleet’s baseline level of readiness and put more ready Players on the Field – that’s platforms that are ready with the requisite capabilities, weapons, and sustainment and people that are ready with the right mindset, skillset, toolset, and training.
And we’re gonna do that, first, by implementing Project 33, seven key areas that we need to accelerate by 2027. I know you’ve talked about several of these already today, but it’s areas like achieving 80% combat surge readiness for our major platforms, operationally integrating robotic and autonomous systems, and fighting from the maritime operations center. Project 33 is where I will invest my personal time and resources and put my thumb on the scale to urgently move the needle with readiness for potential conflict as our North Star. Project 33, the name, is a reference to my place as the 33rd Chief of Naval Operations, but equally as important, as my place in the continuum of past and future Navy leaders.
The second way that we’re gonna do this is by expanding the Navy’s contribution to the Joint Warfighting Ecosystem. This is all about investing in the key capabilities and enablers that will guarantee our enduring warfighting advantage, what we call the Navigation Plan Implementation Framework 5+4. The NIF 5+4 for shorthand.
These capabilities like long-range fires, how we shoot; counter-C5ISRT, how we maneuver; and contested logistics, how we sustain, that are critical to creating the layered effects our Navy will contribute across all domains to those of the Joint Force and our Allies and partners. Because it’s the aggregate effects that we deliver that matter.
Hitting the targets set forth in the NAVPLAN will not happen without you, America’s Warfighting Navy. And especially for the junior folks out there in the audience, NAVPLAN 2024 may seem far removed from the work that you do every day, but everything in it is designed to give you – our true secret weapon – all you need to be the best warfighter that you can be every single day.
The NAVPLAN is designed for the near-term, to deter the PRC and any other potential adversary. Achieving these Project 33 targets – these stretch goals – will make us even more ready to fight and win should that deterrence fail.
It is also designed for the long-term as we pivot from a Navy optimized for power projection in a permissive environment to a Navy focused on seapower and distributed sea control. And I want to anchor here just a bit.
I have been talking a lot about the 2027 “to be,” but as CNO my charge is also to think about the future, to think about the decisions we need to make now to ensure that we will be able to fight and win, as part of a joint and combined warfighting ecosystem, across all time horizons.
So, in that vein, I’d like to show you a short video, it’s called Sea Strike 2043, to get you thinking about the future of warfare. It was created by two of our Naval Warfare Centers: Naval Information Warfare Center Pacific and Naval Air Warfare Center – Weapons Division.
It’s a vision of what a future fight could look like as part of a Warfighting Ecosystem. You know, nobody has a crystal ball that predicts the future, but the video can help us expand our thinking. We need to be intellectually agile, we need to be ready to out-think any would-be adversary in unpredictable and uncertain situations.
So I encourage you to use this forward-looking vision to inform your discussions this week and in the future on what the Navy might need to look like in 2043, focusing on how we will fight, including operational concepts for fighting from the MOC and human machine teaming with robotic and autonomous systems, as well as what we will fight with, including our people, platforms, weapons, and combat systems.
And with that, and it’s pretty short, let’s roll the video.
The Ensigns and the Lieutenant JGs in the room, you’re gonna be the O-5s and O-6s commanding our ships, aircraft, and submarines, and new platforms that we can’t even imagine right now into the fight. The E-5s, the E-6s you’re gonna be the Master Chiefs, you’re gonna ensure that our people are trained and ready for whatever comes our way.
The Commanders and Captains here, you’re gonna be the Fleet Commanders, Combatant Commanders – one of you is gonna be me – and you’re gonna be in charge of our overall operations, our strategy, our plans, and our resourcing.
So, when you continue on with your discussions this week and return back to your bases and places, I encourage you to think about how you and your teams will think, act, and operate differently today so we can be ready to fight and win decisively in the future. How will you help me, and our single accountable officers get after the goals in the NAVPLAN to help us to deliver the Navy that our Nation needs?
As the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, CQ Brown, said and still believes, we must accelerate change, or lose.
And, with the team I see right here in front of me, and those you represent, I am confident that we will indeed accelerate change. The countdown clock in my office continues to tick away, and it tells me – when I walked in today – that there are 716 days left until 1 January 2027. There is no time to waste. So, let’s get after it. All ahead Flank! Thank you very much.