Security in the Western Pacific: Building Future Capabilities in the Time of AUKUS

good morning I'm Mark Kian a senior advisor at the center for strategic and International Studies this morning we're going to talk about our new report Pacific Security in the age of aus we're going to look at the threats and challenges in the uh Pacific we're going to look at our allies and partners the arus agreement the submarine force and finally what can be done while we're waiting for additional submarine capabilities to come online we're going to start with an overview of the report itself the full report is on the csis website then I'll go to my panelist to talk about the general topic of security in the Pacific and then we'll take questions from the audience so when we go ahead and look at the um results of the report the uh to do a quick Sprint through uh what we're going to do uh the report is aimed at governments and Industry to give them some ideas about how they might work together to uh build capabilities in the Pacific we talk about in the age of aus because the Aus agreement has had such a major effect on us posture in the Pacific and with our allies particularly Australia uh and we want to acknowledge that the study itself was funded by the Talis group I think the China uh challenge is quite uh recognized we don't need to uh dig into that in any depth except to say that it is uh rising and uh although we was hope that this will be kept um uh as a uh peaceful uh uh competition uh there's always the possibility of that escalating um United States has many allies and partners in the region uh those uh relationships are range from very close to uh maybe a little more distant uh the one challenge for the United States is that there's no NATO to bring all these allies together these relationships are bilateral and then there's the OAS agreement itself we'll hear more about that later it has two parts the first part is to create a conventionally armed nuclear submarine capability in Australia and to increase us presence in Australia and the second part is to facilitate coordination between the three Partners on technical matters I want to note the uh about submarines in general they're here we say loved by strategists strategists uh are very um positive about submarines because of their stealth heal and covertness they can operate inside uh the Chinese defensive Zone in a way that surface ships cannot what we see here on the screen are a variety of analyses of fleets from both the government and think tanks and you can see that all of those recommendations are above the current level of the submarine Force the challenge is that the US submarine force is going to decline in the term and won't reach the current level until the 2030s and really won't start to rise until the 2040s and hit some of the target uh uh Fleet sizes until even the 2050s and the reason is that when the Cold War ended the US production of submarines scaled back and now we're living with that trough from the reduction and construction after the end of the Cold War so what should we do until additional submarine capabilities uh arrive well the first thing we did is to look at insights from war games uh in and a real War uh the picture depicts a war game that was run here at um csis and I hadn't realized but it has I think two of our panelists in this picture uh who play the game and we appreciate their participation uh other uh think tanks and organizations have also run war games uh CZ and Rand for example so we looked at their results uh and then we looked at some insights coming out of a real war the war in Ukraine so we organized these into about six General topics I'm not going to go through all of the recommendations and we don't uh argue that all of these are necessarily um uh could be implemented but we uh wanted to highlight some ideas that have potential for further investigation each one of them of course is quite complex and it's an analysis of its own making submarines more effective for example uh we note that uh unmanned underwater Vehicles might be uh give existing submarines a lot of Leverage they uh uh can be fired out of torpedoes extend the range of sensors uh and also improving maintenance because you a large part of the US submarine Fleet is tied up in um maintenance and not available uh for deployments bringing more forces to Bear uh two things here one is improving uh CQB n command and control uh with our allies and partners always difficult uh but to the extent we can do that of course we can leverage their capabilities uh and then using contractors for things like U Coalition training which is always uh needed but uh very often is limited by the availability of uh military personnel we talk about being ready to operate in a hostile environment and the uh pentagon is quite aware that a great power conflict will be different from what they've experienced for the last generation nevertheless there's a cultural change that is in progress and we want to argue to push that along but two examples one is about the ersing aircraft uh and the air force of course doing that a lot of that already uh but there's potential of course to do a lot more Harden shelers or another item that is to protect aircraft uh on existing uh bases and then finally contested Logistics again a lot of attention attention there but just beginning to wrestle with what that means unconventional threats what we see here are swarming tactics that the Chinese have often uh used uh we suggest looking at Conor swarming capabilities many civilian organizations have already uh thought about that in connection with anti-piracy those kinds of capabilities might be uh distributed we also uh uh talk about countermine capabilities again an area that gets a lot of uh attention during wartime the United States has shown itself to be very vulnerable here uh but uh in the uh budget competition often uh uh loses out we talk about air defense and let we say here in all of its aspects um two I want to note here is counter drone that's getting a lot of attention in Ukraine and the United States has been putting uh considerable effort in there in the last couple of years that needs to be pushed along because it's clear that drones at all levels but particularly at the Tactical level uh are becoming quite ubiquitous and finally thinking offensively and the services uh I think are very uh oriented in this direction uh we wanted to put this in here just to remind everyone that even though often we will be on the defensive at least in the initial phases of a conflict there are always opportunities to go on the offense um and two areas again that we point out one is uh uncrewed area vehicles uh from the Tactical up to the operational uh level and then standoff SE mines sea mines again have great potential uh for uh interfering with adversary operations the problem is getting the mines into place they have to be uh inst U imp placed by a platform those platforms tend to be very uh vulnerable Navy is looking at ways to uh uh lay sea mines in uh uh from uh from a distance and with that as a quick introduction let me turn to our panelists and we are very uh um fortunate to have uh the panelists today all of them have been deeply involved with Pacific security and with OAS we're going to start with uh Charles Adel who is our inaugural Australia chair and a senior advisor here at csis he's taught at University of Sydney at the naval war College he was on the Secretary of State's policy planning staff co-author of uh two books about foreign policy uh he is an officer in the Navy Reserve so you may get a chance to do this in person and uh he holds a PhD in history from Yale University Becca waser on my left here is a senior fellow uh for the defense program and a lead of the gaming lab at Cass uh Center for New American security also an adjunct uh instructor uh at the school for foreign service at Georgetown at where she teaches an undergrad course on wargaming uh before joining Cenas she was a senior policy Analyst at Rand and she has uh degrees from Georgetown in brandise and finally but not least we have Mark Montgomery uh who is a senior director for the senior for the center on Cyber and Technology Innovation over at uh the um foundation for the defense of democracy uh where uh the center looks at us prosperity and security through Technology Innovation uh previously he was policy director at the Senate armed services committee and before that served 32 years in US Navy retiring as a rear Admiral and during that time he was um um he had command of forces in the Pacific and was um the director of operations yes in Pacific command so has operational experience so with that let me turn to our panelists and give them a chance to provide their perspectives I'm going to start with Charles Adel uh and we'll go around great uh well thanks Mark and first of all congratulations uh to you on the release of the report it's also great uh to be sharing the stage the platform the whatever it is that we're sharing here uh with both Mark and Becca uh two colleagues whose work is terrific who I've long studied and really who have made an impact I think on thinking through the various ways that we need to field more capabilities uh different concepts if we're to have any chance of competing effectively uh with China so uh I thought I might uh step back as you said as the inaugural Australia chair just to provide a bit of a strategic loss here uh for some of the settings uh for both Australia and uh for the United States uh for Aus talk a little bit about some of the challenges uh with Aus and therefore why other types of capabilities Beyond ssns are needed and why they're needed quickly uh and then uh you can see I think from that why this report is likely to be so helpful and so impactful in terms of the menu of options uh that policy makers have in front of them uh let me start uh not uh with Aus uh but rather uh in 2020 uh this is in Australia uh they released uh the DSU the defense strategic update uh it was released Just 4 years after their last defense white paper that's very quick in Australian defense uh terms and that was really meant as a signal um that strategic Circumstances had changed and changed more rapidly uh than anyone had been led to believe and therefore they needed to adjust their strategy too uh the DSU uh as it was called at the time doesn't call out China by name name it talks a lot about military modernization in the region but I can speak Australian and that translates to China and the grave concerns I think about not only the U increase the rapid increase of military modernization uh by the PRC but also the increasingly assertive use to which it's been put um and as a result um when the then prime minister different prime minister different party rolled it out he talked a lot about the 1930s and I am a historian by training I love history this wasn't history for history's sake this is history with a policy Focus because he said if you read the history of the 30s you need to feel haunted by the fact that democracies were insufficiently aligned uh insufficiently armed and unwilling to meaningfully push back on acts of resistance and therefore you could see the pull I think of where Australian policy wanted to go that it would align itself more closely than it had with both the United States and other member states it would seek to arm itself uh more readily and perhaps in certain occasions when you talked about offense there would look to meaningfully push back so that's the backdrop to this the DSU at the time then said because of that uh what we are going to attempt to do is turn China's anti-axis area denial strategy on its head we're going to acquire some of those own capabilities our elves they highlighted submarines they highlighted longrange strike uh they also called about unmanned systems uh seam mines with the idea being that they could push China further from their own Shores turning A2 a on its head now that was then uh that was in 2020 we've had a change of government in Australia and the policy is the same uh so the new government released uh the defense strategic review uh last year and the punchline while underscoring both Aus and the desire to uh take some more of these capabilities that we're talking about was really that the assumptions that it had long guided Australian defense planning namely that any major conventional conflict would come with a 10-year warning time and that 10-year warning time would allow policy makers to align capabilities Acquisitions and strategy gradually to get ready for that that 10-year planning window is gone um the DSR uh concluded and you can see therefore that the need to get capabilities uh to get AC to speed up acquisition and to speed up preparedness are now confronting Australia now not 10 years hence all right so that's kind of the Australian uh take for why I think they're shifting to wanting more of the capabilities that you've laid out in this report Mark uh the American side is similar but it's not the same uh so the American story is obviously animated by increasing competition with China uh but also an increasing desire to work more closely with allies and Empower allies in ways that they haven't been empowered before uh Aus in some ways might be the most interesting part of that story and also the most hard to pull off part of that story uh we've heard President Biden from the time he was campaigning through uh having taken office saying that allies and partners uh are America's comparative advantage they'll sit at the heart of any American approach to strategy uh that is rhetorical but it's more than rhetoric I think because the idea is that with a decreasing security environment America is incapable of doing this on its own and unlikely to deter China if it's just the United States so Aus amongst other things though I think really represents the shift in how America is thinking about things that now we are going to work hard not only on that pillar one capability but to give our closest and most trusted allies more capabilities than they've had before to kind of interconnect our systems uh more closely than they have before with the idea being uh that there's strength in numbers and that doing that will allow them to play a greater role and as is a long-term tenant of us thinking if you do that you confront threats further from American Shores uh so that's the thinking uh I think behind where America sits on this I should note at the outset though to that Aus as great as it is uh as much support as it might have of course fundamentally represents bet um it's a bet uh with a lot of risk uh involved in it's a bet first of all uh because we don't know if we can pull it off uh it's quite challenging to do you laid out some of the challenges on the submarine uh production with our defense industrial base uh sharing some of our closest Technologies uh making sure that we integrate ourselves but it's also a bet and I think this is where we begin to shift uh the aperture right uh towards your report Mark uh because submarines are great we want submarines it's a bet that giving up even some of American capabilities in the short run which is a risk uh will lead to increased production across the Allied space in the medium to long term but we don't have a deterrence problem that begins to materialize round about 2035 or 2040 or 2045 we have a challenge and a deterrence problem that is is already here and so the question then uh becomes what fills the Gap what can we get in more immediately in front of us and because Aus is just beginning to move from pillar one to Flushing out pillar two the advanced and emerging capabilities that we're going to kind of build an ecosystem hopefully uh with both the Brits uh and the Aussies maybe others too uh where we can kind of share Concepts share research and field those capabilities out to Warf fighter hands quicker because the Dilemma that we have not solved is talking about alignment is good I don't think that deters China One bit and the question is for a Beijing that are incredibly astute readers of power uh what new dilemmas can we uh impose for them with our allies and that's where I think some of the options that you've teed up get us into a really good menu of options type of conversation great thank you very much Mark well thanks thanks for having me it's great to be here with Charlie and Becca and I like your report a lot um I would say a little uh I'm not okay with the title you know I I like if I'm thinking about Security in the Western Pacific it it may be an error of aus but we don't want to lose our focus on Japan I mean to me they're the relationship changing the most right now I think for the first time in a long time one could reason reasonably believe that Japan would say and act as if Chinese actions and particularly Taiwan but maybe even the South China Sea are existential threats to Japan so in that regard I think we're seeing real change and that's why we see such significant changes in posture and capability and capacity development in Japan but I think that builds into overall you know your argument in here about allies and partners uh I do love the focus on submarines I think almost all of us have played a lot of War games we all know that submarines are a critical sometimes determinative factor in those games that the United States is going to do well of course they're not the only thing that you need to succeed and if you only had a good submarine Force you'd be in a lot of trouble um there's a lot of things that can't do um I do think you know it's good to remind ourselves that when we speak publicly about it when we the US government does we say we need somewhere between 66 and 70 and we actually have 50 going down to 40 as your report shows 50 going down to 46 I have zero optimism or belief that we'll ever get to 66 I I know we show these things uh you know we say things like well we're in a 2.0 production right now we're actually in a 1.2 production we're paying for 2.0 we're getting 1.2 ships a year over the last couple years as long for the next 12 years we'll or 15 years we'll be building a Columbia class about once a year to get to 12 uh over 15 years and I can guarantee you we are not going to substantially be able to alter the SSN the attack submarine production to more than uh 2.0 and we'd be lucky to get to that so I think that that those arrows are in the 2050s OR 2060s and I just it's very hard to make concrete determinations about things then so I actually think we're in much worse trouble than any slides or graphs the Navy is willing to put out um so that says well how do you fix this and the way you fix it is availability how many of the 46 or 50 are available you know because they're either deployed or in a an ability to be surged and on some re that's a very explicit thing because there's things associated with their nuclear reactor maintenance and with assessments that we do to those ships both and the reactor end and the comat systems end that make them less flexible than say destroyers or frigates in that regard once the difference between being import and being available is is uh is hard and the way you do that is you fix the maintenance and and the Aus has uh accounts for that with some money for maintenance fixing there's a difference between having money available and seeing shipyards get better and seeing maintenance get better those are I mean that's not like three signs of the Cross to get there but it's you know some things have to go right um what we can't have is what we've had over the last few years which is we've had four or five submarines go into 18-month availabilities and take four or five years to get done that's completely unacceptable there's some there's also some poor development for the officers and enlisted on board those ships but even setting that aside it's the availability so we got to fix that availability and again I think Aus will help um but it's going to take a while to get there I love and so thinking of that one are the other things you have to get at is you go right into Munitions and to me that's the secret sauce here and let's be clear for 10 years Indo pcoms been saying the Munitions count is wrong the production does not equal the requirement um and we're ignored you know they ask for 100% they get to the services they'd say we can make do with 0 you don't understand our forces and and substitution then joint staff would say yeah but this other thing's important so 60 gets a DOD they drop it to 40% of the requests saying don't worry Munitions are something we can buy back quickly not kind of recognizing that because a plant can build a 100 if you only build 40 every year eventually a plant can build 40 right and then finally Congress will get and say well if that's where you're making your cuts to pay for other things that's where I'll make my cuts and it wasn't uncommon for the request of a 100 to end up with a final budgeting appropriation of 20 and the only thing that saved us was the war in Ukraine revealing all the problems with javelin and stinger it didn't take too long for the search light to go over to all these other kind of more high-end systems that we use for China and say we had the same problem there so we're seeing fixes in El rasm a longrange an ship cruise missile sm6 things like that um so I'm glad that's getting fixed we do have to recognize though that we need a better high low mix so our war games you know have pointed out the longrange anti ship cruise missiles the harpoons those are kind of high-end million plus Maritime strike Tomahawk these are million plus missiles million dollars a shot um and you're you're you know the threat might be a thousand different types of vessels out there between high-end warships that do need a high-end weapon and lowend you know fishing boats mil Maritime militia coming across so for that we do need and the government the dud is not good at this because we're very we understand high-end we understand very limited risk in delivery um we don't like to buy the medium end and lower end because there's an implication of a lot of risk to our war Fighters they deliver it but we need to get powered J dams um and kind of offensive drones those kind of things going and finally I'd say like we don't even do good on systems sometimes so six years ago Congress asked the Air Force hey how do we get that this new great almus on the B52 because it's only on the B1 which is a decaying airframe you know that the Air Force would like to retire and the Air Force is like no problem we'll be there in four years and so when they went back again last year they said hey how we doing on that B52 El rasm oh no problem we'll be there four years I mean no one paid for it and the Air Force I don't know what they're waiting for the magic sign but they need to get El rasm on a b52s and that kind of system part of the Munitions needs to be fixed as well I also like that you went into survivability um you talked a little bit about the the agility in the Air Force you know agile combat employment and and and you know what's really critical here is we need to be at about 40 or 50 bases in Japan 10 bases in the Philippines four or five bases in the Mariana's compact States four or five bases in in Australia we're not there all the time in fact we're almost never there but we are there on occasion so we're checking out those bases making sure we can fly from them and then we have to buy something called Deployable Airbase sets we need about 30 of them we magically have them in y Yukon European theater because they were bought with what's called OKO off overseas contingency funds didn't come out of any Air Force money because the Air Force doesn't see this as their problem this is a paycom Pro Indo paycom problem or Yukon problem so they don't buy them and so we don't have the Deployable Airbase sets we need for specific we have a small number but again a service is like well that's not my problem why isn't there a Bishop's fund or some other outside thing to buy this thing that paccom needs well and we're past that kind of argument now you know the Air Force needs to get on it and buy these deploy Air Base sets and then we need to exercise and practice not we're excited that we practiced at four or five Japanese airfields last year we need to be excited when we're practicing at 20 of them a year uh you mentioned electronic warfare Fair here I'll just say generically a dumpster fire for The Joint Force we're awful at it uh we're starting to see the Russians were pretty good at it in in Ukraine or the implication being the Chinese might be good at it we need to get much better at it so I like that you dealt with it I I don't know that there's an easy solution on the shelf for that almost every service has walked away from most of its tactical capability the na the Navy still has some but that's about it and you mentioned deceptions in decoy I like that that's a lower-end way I mean not that we ever take the lowcost route but at is a lower cost route to get things done and you mentioned air defense missile defense I like that you left off the issue I like the most Hypersonic defense um Hypersonic defense is interesting we're spending money like a drunken sailor $18 billion over 10 years to catch up with Russian and Chinese hypersonics after we came out of the I uh the INF treaty restrictions I'm glad we're doing that we're doing the right thing um unfortunately we've only we're spending about $250 million a year on Hypersonic defense so about 10% and I would just say it would be an unhealthy condition when an authoritarian regime has an offensive capability for which we have no defensive capability and in fact I see DOD taking risk averse decision-making in other words slowing down the process on Hypersonic defense so we can get more missiles in competition this is one where I'd be getting all my chips out and I'd be betting on multiple Solutions cath hick talks about how she wants to change you know uh DOD procurement I put her I'd say Hypersonic defense is job one getting multiple bets out there and maybe some would fail that's okay I mean it's not okay because DOD never lets anything fail but it really is okay and we should be out there making multiple bets and I and i' circle back by saying I love that the allies and partners are the focus of this I I do think it's critical Australia and Japan have really evolved over the last 10 years to a position where you can say they are the most interoperable forces with the United States period they've both passed the United Kingdom they both have smaller in the case of I'll show you much smaller versions of the US Navy and Air Force and their in their uh systems and when they have built their own system like the E7 wedg tail uh it's not an E7 to them but you know the wedg tail it's very interoperable with our forces and and has a lot of similar things to say e2d so much so that we're now buying the wedge Tail as our awax relief so both Australia and Japan have really done that and now the real question is how much access will we have in there during a war in all our war games we play that we have it that's nice um and then how much participation do you have and that's where I'd say Japan's move Australia is there I think and Japan's moving very closely because as you saw in your war games I think going back to your last report there's a 30% reduction in US casualties when there's a high participation by allies and partners and and that doesn't mean they have the 30% casualties is that you brought a bigger critical mass better angles of attack and you drove down casualties that's an important very important metric for us decision makers and the LA last thing I'd say is um we should have some kind of like El electric jolt that's installed on all General officers and DOD civilians and when they say the words Jad C2 or joint all domain um Commander control and they don't say Coalition Jad C2 C Jad C2 at the beginning they get jolted because there is no value to Jad C2 there's significant value to cjad C2 we cannot once again build an expensive discreet system that our allies and partners can't enter easily they they have to be there from the the ground up and they have to understand the cost from the ground up because our things are expensive and they're going to need to set aside the money for it so that cjy to needs to be there so all in all a good report I think it hits all the right U metrics you know that that we need to make investments in with some you know minor edits that are put in there so thank you very much well well thank you very much and your comments about the submarines and the optimism there I'm course reminded of the saying in the Pentagon you'll get well in the out years we'll here you we'll well in the 2040s and 2050s back up well I'm the Caboose I guess coming in last and I'll try to say things that are a little bit different but I feel like most of my good talking points have already been stolen so uh first off you've got a great report and I'm so hearten to see that you're advocating for so many things that I think we all collectively have been talking about over time and really what we're trying to do here is strength and deterrence and I think that that is so incredibly important when we're looking at what is the goal what is the goal ultimately of augus what is the goal of any of the Investments that we might take in this interim period so I wanted to focus a little bit on a slightly different framing for some of those near-term Investments that the United States and its allies and partners could make to strengthen deterrence as we wait for that big bet of aus to pay off um I think sometimes we tend to focus a little bit too much on cap abilities themselves and this you know creates this idea of potentially having you know a magic fix that this one widget's going to come and save us all that's not really how we view things um and that's not really how it works but I think sometimes when we talk and put so much emphasis on capabilities we uh undermine some of the other critical enablers that really enhance deterrence and so I wanted to maybe just frame some of those a bit differently um you know those those things I think also give us a broader range of options right you came up with a really good menu and having that broad range of options that we could draw from so we could deal with a wide array of potential scenarios in the Indo Pacific from a high Invasion scenario to gry Zone as you pointed out I think that's really going to be what enables us to successfully change beijing's calculus to believe that any type of aggression uh in any form in any location uh would not be successful so when I've been thinking about sort of these different buckets of near-term Investments um I've been thinking about them in three ways and I just want to give some illust illustrative examples these are not exhaustive and you've come up with a heck of a lot more uh in your report but some of these I've drawn from my own work um I recently published a report at CNAs called Campaign Of Denial which looks at how to strengthen deterrence in this near-term period period as well so the first area for investment are what I like to refer to as the critical enablers for capabilities uh Mark you mentioned Munitions right out the gate and you are so incredibly right about that because what good are is really having these new capabilities if you don't actually have the Schlitz to fight right and in all of the war games that I've run and been a part of including the ones at csis you know one of the big findings is we're out of preferred munition within the first few days of a potential fight if you extrapolate the lesson learned from Ukraine that a potential conflict in the Indo Pacific is likely to become protracted that becomes an even more daunting problem set so we need to take steps now to try and reinvigorate the US and Allied defense industrial bases to produce the Munitions that we believe we're going to need both today and for some of those future challenges so here it's producing a wider array of Munitions not just over optimizing for5 but thinking about the different ranges of Munitions that we might need and that high low mix that you mentioned I also think that more needs to be done when it comes into some of the investments in sensing Technologies and here I believe that pillar two of aus actually holds a lot of Promise thinking about how we can build uh some additional air around sea and space sensors that's going to be so critical for our own indications and warning and allowing us to shorten that planning time for potential conflict but also will be incredibly useful for any queuing of the new capabilities that we might have in the future should we find ourselves in a hot fight and then the other part that I think underg guards that is investing in some of the right C4 ISR capabilities and network architecture um and this I think we need to think about as Allied from the outset we can't just plug in allies after the fact if we really want to have cjad C2 with the c being combined and actually make it so that allies and partners can be a part of the concept it needs to be Allied from the front and we haven't really been doing enough to think about Allied architectures and to invest in them and I think altogether what this does is it starts demonstrating both the the capacity and the capability to fight should we need the next area that I think is really ripe for investment and sometimes takes a while to bear fruit so again why we need to make some preparations and Investments now it's investing in posture and Readiness so we don't know when where or how China may choose to aggress and that means that we need to have a range of operating bases throughout the Indo Pacific and have forces with high levels of Readiness so we can be responsive should we uh see any coercion or aggression and so I'm not necessarily advocating for permanent presence but instead thinking about having contingency access at a wider range of bases the current Administration has made great Headway in improving uh us access in the indopacific that's not to say that more doesn't need to be done done in terms of broadening that out but also thinking about the Investments at the locations we have so there I think it's about the United States along with allies and partners and not just host Nations thinking about investments in the right infrastructure at those locations that will enable these new capabilities to operate so thinking a little bit more about having you know uh new runways having those kits that you mentioned having fuel storage at dispersal bases um and making it so that those dispersal bases are not as austere as perhaps they currently are but allowing us to actually operate from them with these distributed Warf fighting Concepts and ensuring that forces both us and Allied Forces have the high levels of Readiness to be able to execute those Concepts it ALS also means thinking a little bit more about stockpiling where do you want those stockpiles to be what do you want to stockpile for me if I'm thinking about it it's fuel it's uh Munitions and it's key supplies including foods and medical supplies those are the things that I want to have to enable operations at near and far bases and to be able to uh ensure that us and allied forces are able to operate but also that civilians are protected and if needed have some of the medical supplies that they might require it also means that as we're thinking about how to strengthen some of our future submarine operations we need to think about some of the rearm and reload infrastructure not only in Australia but also rearm and re reload at Sea and so demonstrating that we have the preparation to respond swiftly and to fight near threatened territory I think is a very strong deterrent signal to China and then the last area of investment um is I would probably put it as capability demonstrations demonstrating that the United States and its allies and partners have the capability and the will to operate together so I think we see this with a lot of exercises and experimentation that the United States can do with allies and partners some of these are going to be bilaterally trilaterally multilaterally large small they're all relevant um and I think it's incredibly important that interoperability is demonstrated not only between the United States and its high-end allies and partners but those allies and partners with each other so here I'm actually really heartened by some of the recent steps that Australia and Japan have taken together in terms of exercising and having different uh basing agreements because that's going to enable them to work together and to me that is almost the highest demonstration of the capability and resolve that impacts deterrence and then the other key part of that is making sure that in these exercises what we're doing is we're practicing key warfighting skills we're practicing the parts of War fighting missions that we think we might need to take in the Indo Pacific should there be a Warf fight that's not to say that you're going to be showing the ability to do something in totality but showing that you can do a part of it is the type of thing that might give China pause in believing whether their aggression can actually be successful or not so to me these are just a few of the core elements of deterrence and a glimpse of what we can do in this interim period to strengthen deterrence with the existing resources that we have and making smart Investments that will enable the future capabilities that we hope to have well thank you very much Becca and panelists uh I have a lot of questions that I would like to ask but I'm going to give our audience an opportunity and I'm going to go to some of their questions uh the first one is one that's sort of near and dear to my heart coming out of Cape in the Pentagon and OMB uh which is General how do you pay for this and the question actually that came in was where would you take risk since many investments will require additional resources that might have requireed then some tradeoffs where would we take risks and I'm going to give Becca the opportunity to go first since she went last before I'm used to all of this my last name starts with w so you know a lot of practice being the last uh so here again I think part of my emphasis was trying to see what we could do with existing resources trying to maximize the ones that we have so I think there's a lot that can be done but in terms of where we can accept risk ultimately it's about global tradeoffs and trade-offs across time and here I think we found some of the some of the push and pull that you often get when you take Global risk uh you know there has been the long awaited pivot from the Middle East to the Endo Pacific and I think parts of that have been successful but we're finding ourselves time and time again uh being pulled back posture wise to the Middle East but again it's thinking about what you can do that's a little bit different not getting pulled back into having permanent presence large base large bases with large permanent presence that is an area where you can accept risk in order to ensure that you have the posture that you need in the indopacific I think that's a very smart trade I I know it's probably not a terribly popular one at the moment but I think it's a smart trade and one where you have to look at the potential over time I think another area where perhaps we can accept a little bit more risk is uh a little bit controversial because it requires making some of the uh it requires us going toe-to-toe with Congress so often times you know when we've been trying to make some of the trades in modernization we're trying to retire a lot of outdated and older systems and Congress particularly with the US Air Force has been highly res consistent to that we've managed to make some progress this year uh but I think there's a little bit more that needs to be done with retiring Legacy equipment and accepting that there is going to be a little bit of risk as we wait for these newer capabilities to come online but that requires us really changing how we interact with Congress how the department interacts with Congress in a way that hasn't been politically palatable because everyone's got a boss but also everyone eventually wants to get promoted thanks Mark for asking I definitely have some ideas on how to reduce uh what I trade um the first one is it's controversial as well but we have to at some point we have to acknowledge that there is not a requirement for joint forceable entry with large amphibious forces in the in a China war plan or in a Russia War plan um as a result we needed we do not need to we do not need to be building 31 large deck amphibs um General Berger had this realization at the beginning of his term as commant he slowly got it beat out of him but he had the right idea they need to build some smaller ships some Landing ship mediums they were called something else initially but something to move the the Marines before battle because while I don't think there's a need for large de deck amphibs in a fight with with China in fact realistically in almost all your war games it was Return to port or sink um there is a big need for Marines you know the the Innovations of the Marines Lor regiments was was big you know the the third in Hawaii the 12th in Japan and eventually the fourth in Guam those three mlrs can be gamechanging events along with the Army Maritime domain teams as well I think there's real opportunity for those in theater moving around pre pre combat starting during the crisis there's not a need for Marines on big decks in this and if the first thing if the number one thing is the number one thing and getting ready for China is the number one thing and I would take risk in that and I know the Marines will push back and say but it's so important for showing the flag or humanitary assistance Disaster Response I would say that's pretty far down the priority list of of what we need to buy against Congress will be the number well the Marine Corp will be the number one impediment to this Congress will be the number two impediment they you know if you want to make real change that's that's where you make it I'll also jump in on retirements and say the Navy ships as well um we should get rid of every Cruiser except the three that were modernized that's being fought by the senators from the states where they're in uh we should get rid of the older lpds which are complete maintenance Hogs and and preventing other ships from getting ready uh and we should be allowed to reduce the loral combat ships to the number they need for mind sweeping plus a little so down to probably 21 or 25 and you know and Congress needs to get out of the game of micromanaging that along with the Air Force Air frames um if you made those two decisions you'd get there final thing I say is Munitions I said low high you know you need that mix of high low if you get that right that actually drives down cost lowc cost Munitions by definition cheaper than the high cost Munitions and and we need to get down into that game but if we can do that I think we could we could pay for a lot of the things we have here um at at the risk of getting you crosswise with your uh Navy colleagues um what about aircraft carriers so um I think there's still a strike mission in other words when I play when you play these war games they get sunk but they also impose cost um so I think there's value I I think they've got to get smarter about how you get long range strike off of them um I think right now they're uh along with the uh you know like I said the B1 can fire the El rasm the F-18 is the other one uh so I do think that there's in my mind uh you know there's probably a reason for them my my other issue on the amphibs is what you're not building all this nuclear stuff all these submarines we talked about between the Virginia class the replacement Virginia class the Columbia class you know you're talking about 60% of the ship bu budget maybe 65% I mean you're not leaving room and so at that point um if you don't build destroyers and fret to defend all those things and to be the you know launch all the missiles um and and I and to defend the carriers you won't have to defend the amphibs anyway so we're building amphibs at the cost of the ships that would defend them so to me that's where I'd make the first cut I mean you can have continue to have an argument the one thing i' say about carriers is you can continue to Envision way where they impose cost I cannot Envision way where we're going to do a 20 knot you know amphibious assault on on the mainland of China or something like that okay Charlie so I have a three uh although uh they might not address Cape because I think they point in slightly different directions where we need to be willing to assume more risk than we are because the signals are that we're going to do it let me start at the overall uh gloss that uh I think it's the decision that we've made and I think it's the correct one that we're not going to do this on our own and the only way that we're going to get there is by significantly plus up the capabilities again of our most trusted allies and then we move out where from there if we actually believe that we are revising our export controls way too slowly if we actually want to be able to Share technology build capabilities indigenously in other countries uh and trust that they will plus up their own plus our our own uh we have to move from concept of saying that we're going to reform export controls to actually having regulations that highlight and enable Allied cooperation in the ecosystem uh second thing we have to trust as we kind of build up Allied capabilities uh that we don't need to have all of the maintenance ability on our own and to me this is the most interesting part of aus uh right if we begin to look at Surf West which is that submarine rotational force that are building up in Perth in Western Australia um you know there are a whole bunch of conventional Subs now there we've had some visits uh by ssns but there are plans to get as many as 2 three four or more rotating down there and those are starting with the US and Brits and eventually for the Aussies an interesting and underd discussed aspect of aus thus far Mark you alluded to this is that it's going to plus up the Americans ability to do maintenance by the Australians investing taking Australian money into the US maintenance system and then putting more maintenance facilities in Western Australia so I think uh again if we're talking about risk we have to move and progress this forward but trust that those facilities are going to be there for our own assets as well as theirs uh the third one is just uh kind of playing with the concept of risk uh a little bit you know when I think about this when we think about what has happened over the last several years uh particularly on the lower end of the spectrum of conflict we're talking about is we have been risk averse and they have been risk acceptant uh that's clearly true within the first island chain uh we talk a lot about the fact that we have to be willing to assume more risk we're talking about cost but this is also true operationally uh right that everything that the Chinese do is not going to lead to escalation Dynamics nor World War II no matter what they say and frankly we have plenty of operational experience uh I defer to mark on this one but both historically and contemporaneously dealing with uh swarm tactics uh dealing even with big boats bumping up against each other if we kind of rewind the clock uh to the late Cold War uh and so it strikes me as being more acceptant of escalation Dynamics within that first island change while not according it is something that's going to make a lot of sense because if you don't push back you have a de facto game change and that's why actually I would put towards your report one of the more interesting aspects in this that I found is using those uh counter swarming tactics uh at the lower end I think is something that we want to both be equipping uh our white holes with and then pushing out uh to allies particularly the Philippines on this great and and the next question that came in from the audience sort of Builds on what you were talking about Charlie and I'll give you a chance to start uh and that is the contributions of allies and partners are there some areas where they are particularly well positioned to uh contribute here to some of these you know um Concepts that we've put out or or elsewhere uh the United States tend to you know we're sort the elephant in the room we tend to sort of Take the Lead everywhere and and on the other hand we recognize that there were some you know some of our all are really very good at certain things yeah um actually I'm going to kind of Punt on that uh to the experts in the room on this but let me say a couple things so one is on particular capabilities that they are particularly Advanced on Mark's already alluded to wedgetail uh there are things that they can do better than us and I defer uh to my colleagues if they want to address which particular capabilities you've seen over time the two other things though that I would say uh uh that allies do have the ability to provide not us but all of us together because we're talking about Collective deterrence we're not talking about individual deterrence is location and more locations than we have currently and money and more money than we have now again I I look at Aus or the era of aus because what's so interesting about this is allies have to make their own decisions too about how much of this is going to be investments into their own Sovereign systems totally understand that and how much of this will be acquiring things quickly which probably means purchasing more US kit for this but when we think about what they can contribute we don't have enough money we were just talking about trade-offs so we're kicking up more now Aus one of the things that's most interesting about this right from the submarine industrial base Aus has prompted a $3.2 billion above in Beyond uh supplemental request you couple that with the 3 billion that the aans are going to put into our system and then you add on top of that the sale price of each SSN we're beginning to talk about serious money here but on particular capabilities I I would defer to colleagues on this one sure I'll I'll take a first whack um first I want to say this about Japan they already are a significantly more efficient defense spending country than any than ourselves or any of our allies except Israel I mean fact there's no other country like Japan uh than Israel in terms of what the Japanese got for 45 billion a year two years ago was um 25 ships at sea at any one time three or four submarines at Sea a thousand plus intercepts of Chinese and Russian planes I mean it was very impressive what they got for that if you say compared to a similar spend by Germany um in Europe or if you took took that multiplied by 16 and you get to the US defense spending you know that you know they're very efficient now having said that they added 23% last year they're adding 16% this year these are significant increases as they kind of take their as they double their National Security spending it's not necessarily their Ministry defense spending but double their National Security spending over a 5year period it's impressive so I think they're doing a lot in there I'd say the things that I value the most they have good diesel submarines the kind of submarines I wish Australia had bought 10 years ago instead of the French and we probably wouldn't even be having this long August discussion but you know they didn't uh you know with a lot of us front end gear and their AIS ships which both they they have extremely functional and highly uh capable uh Agia ships Australia has Agia ships they're slightly less capable um than the Japanese ones but you know they still both bring that in there and then I'd say again the wedge tailes a big one one suggestion I'd have I think so I I do think the Australians have made good Investments as well but Japanese really good one area where Australia could jump in there is uh the US just figured out how to make the p8 El rasm capable longrange Ed that's going to pop out in the next 6 months or so as an AS as a 6 or nine months as a as a functional capability we could do the Australia has bought p8s so making the Australian p8s lrasm capable introduces more airfields more aircraft more they could buy Elms for them or their f-18s um you know and and and use them so I think there's a real opportunity here um for them to to jump in there so I think in those areas that's where I rely on both those countries both high-end good War fighters who already are very interop as I said they both probably both pass the UK over the last three or four years as the most interoperable countries with us so I'm going to agree with Mark on uh Japanese ships and also point to the fact that they have a very robust ship building industry one of the uh current um you know different ideas that has been put out there um in part by Uh current US ambassador Rah Emanuel uh has been to for the United States to actually uh do more maintenance at Japanese shipyards so that does kind of dub tail Charlie with the points that you were making about Australian uh ship maintenance as well to me if I'm looking at capabilities and where I think Australia can bring the most it's really that promise on some of the pillar two technologies that haven't been actualized yet I mean Australia is light years ahead of the United States when it comes down to Quantum Technologies right so being able to leverage that and harness that actually would give the United States an opportunity that it doesn't currently have if you're looking more in this near term looking at some of the advancement that Australia has made on unmanned technology particularly uh in the maritime domain but also uh some of the unman unmanned aircraft you know thinking about some of those smaller atable um unmanned aircraft that we um air vehicles that we would want perhaps maybe for cathic replicator initiative even those are areas that I would want to get my hands on some of those newer Technologies and the last thing that I'll say is that yes there is a very good news story to tell here when it comes down to working with J Japan and Australia but it's not all a good news story you know from my uh interviews with uh both members of the Australian and Japanese military and Senior policy makers as well as on the US side you know in our conversations there's a huge Gap that comes up when it comes down to some of the genuine strategic and operational planning that we need to have that would allow us to actually use these capabilities in a combined way there is still a bit of a hold up on some of that Frank conversation of and how we would sequence some of our activities that I think still needs to be done and still needs to be really had in this open manner so we're getting there removing toward that but we're not quite there yet and I do want to just throw that out there to kind of give us a little bit of pause and say there's still a lot of work that needs to be done yeah I jump on that for one thing say I think Keen Edge at the end of this month which is historically our largest US Japanese bilateral kind of high-end strategic operational War planning exercise where we show a lot of leg to each other about what our plans are um is this year adding in at the Japanese request Australia so I think you know I do think those are doable and and in our Talisman saber and other exercises with the Australians we show that and they've added in the Japanese so I do think it's moving along I worry at the slightly above that Ministry of Defense Ministry of Foreign Affairs you know that kind of decision Mak I mean the only thing harder than one democracy deciding to take action in a crisis and potentially go to war is two democracies trying to simultaneously take action in a crisis and go to war so I think we really need to work on that I jump on one of the things the Japanese just put out uh you know just now have a plan for uh a PGA a permanent Joint Force Headquarters right um that they're going to have done by 20 end of 2025 but they've already got a temporary one standing up uh in Japan and to serve as as a c-com the Australians did this a decade ago more than a decade ago with their jock a joint operational command having them have a cocom that can control forces so you don't have to negotiate with three or four different Services it's going to go a long way I think to addressing this and particularly the Japanese had a highly um siloed system that made it interoperability uh and Coalition operability as hard as it did their own joint interoperability often I think the US and Japanese navies are closer than the Japanese Navy and Air Force um so breaking that down will be important I think that'll happen significantly over the next 12 to 18 months great um a question came in about Munitions and that's come up a couple of times particularly from Becca and uh and Mark so I'm going to come back to that uh and the question was about surging Munitions and stockpiles we've seen that a lot in um Ukraine where we've used our stockpiles and now we're getting short we're trying to surge surge turns out to be pretty difficult so on the other hand the war gaming that that we've done and that you've done shows clear that we need lots of munition so what what what's the best approach there surge stockpiling whatever I think all of it goes hand in hand right you can't really have one without the other right now you know we are struggling with very brittle Supply chains and that has made it difficult for us to be able to have the right equipment right supplies right Workforce in place to be able to Surge some of the holdup has also been these long lead items that take a while to acquire when you factor in the fact the the fact that we also have a bunch of supply chain holdups because we have just these really small almost fourth fifth six tier suppliers that make one component it holds everything up so we really need to take a look at the US defense industrial base to think a little bit more about how can we size it to make it work for great power competition to make it work for what we think we might need for us War fighting in the future and for our allies warfighting so what does that mean if you want to have a dib that has expanded capacity that is more resilient and is more responsive to some of those global Dynamic changes we haven't really done enough thinking through all of that and I think what our answers would be in each of those categories would have different characteristics for the defense industrial base particularly when it comes down to Munitions again my biggest fear right now is that we and our allies may be over optimizing for5 Munitions and the things that are currently high in demand not so much thinking about how some of our restarting lines setting up new lines might come at the expense of producing some of the longer range Munitions that may be more relevant for a potential fight in the indopacific that's my current fear when it comes down to Munitions more so than you know is surge capacity really right at this moment first I attach myself to everything like I said I think that's very accurate about our our defense industrial based ammunitions I I am very specifically thinking we had to stockpile I mean one of the reasons we've been successful in Ukraine is a border with Poland Romania and Slovakia there there is no land border a delivery of weapon as you saw I think one of the war games you had me as a blue Force Commander you forced me to try to do resupply and basically that was like how many squadrons of f35s and c7s do you want to lose each round um there will not be resupply after heavy kinetic start uh not for quite a while so we need to get we need to stockpile on Taiwan now Congress saw this in the 2023 National Defense authorization act under that Taiwan enhanced resilience act very specifically it said you can put $100 million worth of gear for three years of Munitions in and they added Taiwan to the list of Pacific spaces um dods done nothing about that um and Congress didn't appropriate for it it wasn't necessary the way it was but that would have been helpful uh then this year uh there was something called a war Reserve Supply allies Taiwan it's something called Warsaw we have one in Korea one in Israel we need one in Taiwan and what this is is pre presetting the Munitions in there that either US forces like a marine loral regiment you could put Naval Strike missiles in there for them or you could put in harpoons or other missiles uh javelins uh man pads things like that for the um eventually 155s when we get that turned around for the um uh for the taiwans to pull from neither neither one of these is being done and one of them is not even authorized the wars so to me getting that stockpiling right you can see this from Ukraine this is not like you know this is not you know breaking the Rosetta Stone we know we need this go ahead get these things authorized start flowing what Munitions you have and as the defense industrial base gets healthy flow in the rest of the stuff um just three uh points uh to not uh associate myself with my colleague no I I'm in violent agreement of what we'd heard but I would say uh you know as we've seen kind of the brittleness of Supply chains not only for Co but obviously what we're talking about in the munition space because of Ukraine I think we have to underscore that the world and therefore the us as well are moving away from efficiency and towards redundancy so we have to be willing to take risk uh to buy more things so that we have more things around point two when this point was emphasized earlier if I'm sitting in Beijing and I think about things that might give me pause um more fuel and more Munitions stockpiled and available are the two things that ring my bell quicker than anything else in more locations uh so it's easy to talk about uh it's a little harder to do but it's pretty clear exactly what we need to do if we want to actually underscore that deterrence uh third uh Point uh because you were talking about Ukraine I couldn't agree uh more to my mind there's another interesting thing that flows out of the Ukrainian example uh and it's really the zalinsky example uh if we think about how well prepped he was he is for every one of the five six seven Zoom talks that he gives per day right when he Zooms in to Australian National University or the Australian Parliament or the University of Sydney if he does this over in Brussels he has an exact list and inventory of just what he wants each one of those countries to supply him from what they have there I'm really interested to see uh with the taiwans what their list and what their research looks like from other countries other than the United States uh the conversations that I've had generally are what would you actually like from others and the answer is international support for us to have viability uh in international institutions absolutely I would also like them to be doing a little better research and reaching out and saying specifically what type of things that they want from whom because I think that actually makes the question a little bit harder for our allies and friends I'll just be thrilled if their Zoom can work you know I think the Chinese are going to probably do a slightly better job than the Russians at knocking down satellite Communications um we've talked a lot about partners and allies and the we've highlighted the the Japanese and the Australians as being particularly capable and my question about other allies and partners is first are there any hidden gems that may be don't get the attention they should and are there any problem children that we really need to help out and U um you know because of the difficulties they're they're facing so I'll start with Becca great um I'm going to not answer the second part of your question uh because I would like to go to a range of countries uh so we haven't talked a lot about the Philippines and I think the Philippines do deserve a bit of attention one in terms of the uh enhanced uh access agreements that we saw in the last year which had built on to the existing edka sites uh to have new edka sites I mean that has opened up a totally different array of potential us posture and operational plans and I think that that should not be understated I think the other area that we've seen is the Philippines moving closer to other us allies and partners in the the Indo Pacific right we've had uh there are some talks between Japan and the Philippines at the moment and I think that that is showing a lot of good progress um so I think the Philippines deserves a little bit of a shout out I think there is of course you know a um grain of salt that we need to you know add into the discussion about the Philippines there does tend to be a bit of um you know political unevenness within their own domestic politics and so that's something that we need to be mindful of because this has actually gummed up us access in the past and something that we just need to have in the back of our minds obviously we've also seen great progress when it comes down to Japan cooperating with the Republic of Korea I think you know if we are thinking about again a wide array of different scenarios both high and low end thinking about the ways in which uh you know being able to have broader cooperation uh with perhaps maybe in missile warning uh perhaps in being able to uh draw equipment that is already prepositioned in Korea for a broader indopacific contingency these are things that I think are incredibly useful and that we're starting to make progress on not only on a bilateral basis but also a trilateral basis and that really has been a sea change from what we've had in the past Mark uh thanks so first I we do need to and we've all said it but Australia and and Japan and their allines with us and their B you know their bilateral lines with us are absolutely the most significant contributors to you know deterrent uh to improving deterrence in in the Western Pacific and it's something that is measurable by the Chinese and I think every exercise we do especially as we go trilateral that you know from the Tactical the Strategic level drives has to drive Chinese decision- making and recognition that the more desirable case which is deterring an attack is likely and and so you know really Cordo you know the administration Des a lot of credit on Aus and there Des a lot a lot of credit for its really detailed work with Japan over the last three years in both cases that's really contributed towards deterence if I look at other countries I do think Philippines is the most important uh the use of the L on sites you know exercising at them using the airfields leaving equipment behind I think that's all critical whether we'll have access or not in a war will probably be driven on a crisis will be driven with how it plays out but I think more and more likely you know that we'll have access I don't think we worry too much about Philippine contribution to anything other than a Philippine contingency but access is important I I do on Korea Korea is an important Ally their problems North Korea I don't think they'll ever be involved in anything involving China elsewhere because the minute there's any indication of that the Chinese will wake up their one Ally true uh treaty Ally North Korea and they'll rattle the cage and and keep everything there and I don't think we'll get anything off the peninsula I mean it'd be nice if we could but realistically at this point for planning purposes I wouldn't rely on any of that but I'd rely on Korea to be still be a strong partner and I certainly appreciate the development of the trilateral there again because of the uh B administration's commitment to trilateral meetings ridiculously nearly 100 plus meetings over three years is what drove us to to that level of cooperation so credit to them but Australia and Japan are the backbone of the line structure for us in in the Western Pacific and they're the reason that if there's any reason for the Chinese to take pause it's that great so as we begin to wrap uh we should disagree with each other actually now and then so I'm going to disagree with Mark uh only to say that we've already gotten things out of the Koreans uh that we didn't think that they would be getting out and that actually is for Ukraine they've actually been providing more Munitions than the European allies have I I know you would agree with that one too uh but you look you guys have stolen my thumber th when we talk about uh both the rocks and what they may or may not be able to do certainly on the production side of things obviously the Philippines uh let me note two or three others uh so first of all uh as we're still negotiating what the supplemental is actually going to look like we have something clearly in front of us which needs to be locked down the Administration has gone through great efforts to renegotiate and extend the Kofa agreements uh out in the Pacific if we talk about access to the Western Pacific if we don't have uh Marshal Islands if we don't have uh palow you can't even begin to imagine how we would do this we've now negotiated it it's $7.2 billion for 20 years of access that we get if we can't fund this this is a bigger strategic own goal than our not signing TPP in the first place so one that is an opportunity and a giant risk that's right in front of us uh the other thing I would say is as Ukraine has evolved we now have more players in the game and I look particularly at the Nordic States who produce things uh yes always concentrated on Europe but we begin to think about what other production capabilities begin to flow not that they're going to put out there uh but there is more production there uh in some discret areas than we have had previously the third one that I'd simply say is we haven't been talking too much uh about pillar two which is still more sketch than it is reality uh as the sketch has become a little bit more clear uh in December we now have eight discrete lines of effort uh six that are actually functional two that are kind of information sharing uh you can see that a variety of other countries uh particularly starting with allies are what I would call pillar two curious uh and New Zealand is actually towards the top of the list on there now uh pillar one for a country like New Zealand is not going to happen they're an anti-nuclear country pillar two uh particularly on some of the space elements uh is looking more interesting particularly with the new government in New Zealand so that's one that I would chase after a little bit because I think we have an opportunity there I think New Zealand needs to do a few more push-ups on their China policy before I 100% go in on that I I think I I I they are not Australia in that regard they have not had that kind of you know that Reckoning uh to the same degree as as as Australia so I I I agree they could get there they are five eyes but you know I think I think they've their approach to China has over the last 15 years has not been as rigid as we would expect I would say no argument uh on that but a five ey uh treaty Ally or not a treaty Ally five ey Ally kind of Ally uh that wants to contribute that is willing to put money and get capabilities into war Fighters hands as they think through what their China policy is is nothing to sneeze at and they have PHS we're not opposed to them okay we're essentially out of time but I wanted to do a lightning round here give each of you 60 seconds to talk about either reinforcing something you've already said or something that you want to put on the table that hasn't come up yet uh so Becca all right the things that matter in terms of strengthening deterrence in the Endo Pacific in the near term it's the deeply unsexy things it's the things that we don't want to point to it is things like stockpiling it is things like increasing Munitions production it is things like holding exercising and practicing Warf fighting skills that's not necessarily the stuff that we want to talk about when we're thinking about these new shiny capabilities but those are the things that actually matter if you're trying to alter a deterrence calculus of a wouldbe adversary Mark thanks the um so I think we sometimes get fixated on 2027 because adal Davidson said it that was at the moment the time where he saw their Chinese capacity increasing past some assess amount of ability to invade Taiwan successfully we what he probably didn't what he didn't say afterwards and probably should have is but we all get a vote on this right China may not spend as much on their defense the United States could spend more Taiwan could do more Japan and Australia could do more some of the other countries we mentioned could and that's happened the United States has done more since then our allies and partners have done more and and we've moved that to the right and and so it's important because you know we we need to not over overreact we need to build a deterrent Vision that works today it works in the midterm and then is invested for the long term and we can't get overly fixated on on 2027 and I I would give I would say one other shout out we haven't mentioned them by name but the the select committee on the Chinese Communist Party by with um representative Gallagher and Chris Mur as a ranking as a chairman and ranking has done a really fantastic job on security issues over the last year and just put out a very good job on a very good report on economic uh security issues to address so I'm excited to see that play out over the next year so I think we're I'm optimistic and I last I say I have a son about to select a ship and he's excited to go to yakusa Japan and I'm not unexcited for him to to yuska Japan so that tells me that that should tell you that I think it's a safe place to operate for the next 3 or four years great Charlie you get the last word that's a great uh point to build on so one I want to say that uh while we're talking hard military capabilities even unsexy hard military capabilities there's a whole another conversation with the China select committee has really prompted us into about economic uh tools that we have and that we might build into our belt along with allies point one point two uh I'm going going to give you your homework mark because this is a terrific report but there's obviously a follow-on report uh in here too which is you didn't preference or wait any of these capabilities you just listed them and I think uh the very good work that needs to happen after we have this range of options in front of us is for each of these discrete um capabilities that we've discussed or even operational Concepts what do we actually think that they have the ability to accomplish uh what do they provide the or a particular Ally that they don't have uh now and most important and hardest to decipher how do we think having that would affect beijing's calculations because once you have the capability then we have to think about how you're going to use it well thank you very much to my panelists uh the full report is available on the csis website and thank you all for joining us this morning [Music] oh

Channel: Center for Strategic & International Studies

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Keywords: Center for Strategic and International Studies, CSIS, bipartisan, policy, foreign relations, national security, think tank, politics, #ISP, #DIIG, #Event, #Brack

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Length: 79min 59sec (4799 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 12 2024