Episode 767: Battle Damage Repair for Arleigh Burke–Class Destroyers--with Brad Martin

WEBVTT
1
00:00:31.120 --> 00:00:33.920
Welcome to mid Rats with sal from Commander Salamander, an
2
00:00:34.000 --> 00:00:37.280
Eagle one from Eagle Speak at Seer Shore your home
3
00:00:37.320 --> 00:00:40.640
for a discussion of national security issues and all things maritime,
4
00:00:41.799 --> 00:00:45.159
and welcome board everybody to another episode of mid Rats.
5
00:00:45.200 --> 00:00:48.280
We really appreciate you taking time to join us, and
6
00:00:48.399 --> 00:00:50.240
if you are with us live, i'd like to go
7
00:00:50.280 --> 00:00:53.119
ahead and extend the invitation. We've already got a few
8
00:00:53.159 --> 00:00:57.039
people lined up there in the live show chat, and
9
00:00:57.200 --> 00:00:59.520
if you would like to join Chris and Mark and
10
00:01:00.000 --> 00:01:01.960
anyc and all the other good folks, go ahead and
11
00:01:02.000 --> 00:01:04.200
hop hold in there. That's the perfect place during the
12
00:01:04.200 --> 00:01:07.079
course of the show. If you have some observations you'd
13
00:01:07.159 --> 00:01:10.079
like to share, or even better, perhaps a question are
14
00:01:10.239 --> 00:01:13.280
a rebuttal to what we've been talking to our guests
15
00:01:13.280 --> 00:01:15.560
about for the next hour, go ahead and hop in there.
16
00:01:15.840 --> 00:01:18.799
We'll monitor during the course of the show and we
17
00:01:18.840 --> 00:01:21.439
are always more than happy to bring in your good
18
00:01:21.480 --> 00:01:25.920
ideas to the conversation. And as always, if you don't already,
19
00:01:26.079 --> 00:01:28.439
because I know not everybody can join us live. Or
20
00:01:28.439 --> 00:01:30.400
maybe this is the first time you've bumped into mid
21
00:01:30.480 --> 00:01:32.560
Rats because you liked our topic and you saw the
22
00:01:32.959 --> 00:01:35.680
link to it. If you like it, consider going over
23
00:01:35.799 --> 00:01:40.439
to iTunes, Spreaker, Spotify, wherever podcasts look us up, we're there,
24
00:01:41.000 --> 00:01:42.879
and go ahead and subscribe that way. If you can't
25
00:01:42.959 --> 00:01:46.040
join us live, you can always have them stand by
26
00:01:46.120 --> 00:01:48.959
there when at a time, to your convenience, you're able
27
00:01:49.000 --> 00:01:52.719
to listen to us and today's topic. It just it
28
00:01:52.799 --> 00:01:55.840
brings in all sorts of threads of things Mark and
29
00:01:55.840 --> 00:01:58.239
I have talked about over the course of the last
30
00:01:58.280 --> 00:02:01.680
few years, and if you haven't been paying close attention
31
00:02:01.760 --> 00:02:08.319
to the events before October of twenty twenty three, where
32
00:02:08.360 --> 00:02:11.080
things started getting busy in both the Red Sea and
33
00:02:11.159 --> 00:02:15.520
of course this year in the Arabian Gulf again. One
34
00:02:15.520 --> 00:02:22.639
thing that is quickly apparent to everybody is the US
35
00:02:22.800 --> 00:02:25.560
Navy for a whole host of reasons we've talked about
36
00:02:25.560 --> 00:02:29.400
here when it comes to the surface warfare community. It
37
00:02:29.479 --> 00:02:33.960
is an Arly Burke show, and not just related to
38
00:02:34.039 --> 00:02:36.280
Arlely Burks, but the Navy in general. We've talked to
39
00:02:36.319 --> 00:02:38.719
people over the years over some of the concerns that
40
00:02:38.759 --> 00:02:44.840
we've always had here about maintenance, sustainment, repair, and the
41
00:02:44.840 --> 00:02:50.000
reality vice the convenient vignettes we see about what a
42
00:02:50.199 --> 00:02:53.800
war West of the international dateline into Pacific should look like.
43
00:02:54.319 --> 00:02:57.159
And when I saw that back in May that RAN
44
00:02:57.240 --> 00:03:02.080
did put out report title Battle Damage Repair for Early
45
00:03:02.120 --> 00:03:06.560
Bird Class Destroyers Tabletop Exercise results, it was it was
46
00:03:06.639 --> 00:03:09.599
Christmas time and I appreciate everybody at RAND putting us
47
00:03:09.599 --> 00:03:12.159
in touch with our guest today. He was one of
48
00:03:12.199 --> 00:03:14.759
the authors of the report. You'll find it linked over
49
00:03:14.759 --> 00:03:16.360
in the show page you want to read it all
50
00:03:16.360 --> 00:03:20.719
the way. It's Brad Martin, Captain the United States Navy, retired,
51
00:03:21.080 --> 00:03:25.599
who is also a senior policy researcher at RAND. And Brad,
52
00:03:25.639 --> 00:03:27.879
thank you for joining us for this edition. Mid rats.
53
00:03:28.400 --> 00:03:30.879
I'm delighted to be here and I'm honored and I
54
00:03:31.000 --> 00:03:34.439
really look forward to having a discussion about this topic. Yes, sir,
55
00:03:34.520 --> 00:03:36.960
great to have you on board. It just to kick
56
00:03:37.000 --> 00:03:38.840
things off. You know a lot of our listeners they
57
00:03:38.879 --> 00:03:41.439
may have heard about you know, there's been a study
58
00:03:41.479 --> 00:03:43.919
done of this. There is a commission of that. They
59
00:03:44.080 --> 00:03:47.840
war game the following thing. But it's right there in
60
00:03:47.840 --> 00:03:53.080
the title this was a table top exercise that I
61
00:03:53.120 --> 00:03:55.280
know some of the folks who are joined us have
62
00:03:55.280 --> 00:03:58.680
already read the report and have you sent a couple
63
00:03:58.680 --> 00:04:02.280
of notes to me, but as really interesting and the
64
00:04:02.919 --> 00:04:05.199
diversity of the people that you brought in, So talk
65
00:04:05.199 --> 00:04:08.919
of a little bit what makes a tabletop exercise and
66
00:04:08.960 --> 00:04:10.639
who were the members of the team that you all
67
00:04:10.680 --> 00:04:14.319
brought together to put their minds to it. Sure, a
68
00:04:14.360 --> 00:04:20.800
tabletop exercise is a structured form of casting a problem
69
00:04:21.160 --> 00:04:24.439
in such a way that you can bring different perspectives
70
00:04:24.439 --> 00:04:30.560
to it. And ideally what happens is that present a scenario.
71
00:04:30.879 --> 00:04:33.319
In this case, we presented a whole set of scenarios
72
00:04:33.759 --> 00:04:38.839
where people from different backgrounds are given the opportunity to
73
00:04:38.920 --> 00:04:44.199
think about what the scenario applies. They bring their their
74
00:04:44.240 --> 00:04:48.120
knowledge and the way we construct these types of things
75
00:04:48.120 --> 00:04:53.560
typically is that we'll start with a start with a
76
00:04:53.600 --> 00:04:56.800
plenary sessions what we usually call it, and we'll brief
77
00:04:57.759 --> 00:05:03.839
the main scenario, will will brief the what we hope
78
00:05:03.879 --> 00:05:08.199
you'll accomplish, what the research problems are, and then after
79
00:05:08.279 --> 00:05:15.360
that we'll break the larger session into groups and those
80
00:05:15.399 --> 00:05:20.279
groups will then formulate answers to the questions and they'll
81
00:05:20.279 --> 00:05:23.519
come back and we'll have a plenary session where we
82
00:05:24.160 --> 00:05:27.600
discuss things together. It's not the same as a war
83
00:05:27.680 --> 00:05:31.959
game because we're not We're adjudicating results in the sense
84
00:05:32.079 --> 00:05:37.120
that we say, okay, you what you're talking about probably
85
00:05:37.120 --> 00:05:40.079
wouldn't war, but we don't. We're not rolling dice or
86
00:05:40.079 --> 00:05:44.079
we're not setting up engagements or anything like that. So
87
00:05:44.120 --> 00:05:47.800
in one sense it's not as formalized as a war game,
88
00:05:48.519 --> 00:05:51.439
but it is structured in such a way that the
89
00:05:51.480 --> 00:05:56.439
issues are are made are made very clear. A successful
90
00:05:56.480 --> 00:06:02.240
TTX requires having the right people in the room, and
91
00:06:02.360 --> 00:06:08.439
for this we were very fortunate. The TTS itself was
92
00:06:08.519 --> 00:06:15.560
sponsored by an os W actually by Acquisition and Sustainment Directorate,
93
00:06:16.240 --> 00:06:20.279
and they helped us to get a very broad range
94
00:06:20.279 --> 00:06:24.439
of folks to have the discussion. We had the Navy,
95
00:06:24.639 --> 00:06:27.600
we had NFC, we had the Navy staff, we had
96
00:06:27.639 --> 00:06:33.920
packed leet people who were familiar with Harleyburg destroyers, with
97
00:06:34.000 --> 00:06:40.360
the operating conditions. But we're also fortunate to get representatives
98
00:06:40.399 --> 00:06:44.759
from Japan at the flag level members of the JMSDF.
99
00:06:45.240 --> 00:06:48.680
We were able to get representatives from our Republic of Korea.
100
00:06:49.000 --> 00:06:53.279
In Australia, we did not have anybody from Singapore, but
101
00:06:53.319 --> 00:06:57.399
we did have a representative from the from the US
102
00:06:57.560 --> 00:07:01.680
activity in Singapore who's very familiar with with how things
103
00:07:01.720 --> 00:07:08.319
work there. Over the two day period, it became clear
104
00:07:09.199 --> 00:07:14.600
some themes were emerging, and well, I should actually go
105
00:07:14.680 --> 00:07:16.959
back and just specify that the four groups that we
106
00:07:17.959 --> 00:07:21.680
broke people into. One was a Gift Make group. They
107
00:07:21.680 --> 00:07:23.959
were supposed to be the ones that were overseeing the
108
00:07:24.000 --> 00:07:29.240
overall battle. Then there is was a theater Logistics group
109
00:07:29.319 --> 00:07:34.240
where essentially did the work of for the Gift make,
110
00:07:34.279 --> 00:07:39.319
of coordinating repair, coordinating logistics. Then we had a foreign
111
00:07:39.319 --> 00:07:45.519
Coordination group where where some of our partners were in
112
00:07:45.519 --> 00:07:48.800
that some of our partners were also distributed in other places.
113
00:07:49.279 --> 00:07:53.319
And the last place was a headquarters of Washington group
114
00:07:53.959 --> 00:07:57.639
and they all got the same questions. They all were
115
00:07:57.839 --> 00:08:01.040
asked to formulate the same kinds of you know, what
116
00:08:01.079 --> 00:08:05.319
the responses would look like. And then we you know,
117
00:08:05.480 --> 00:08:08.639
we brought everybody together multiple times, and then at the
118
00:08:08.759 --> 00:08:11.800
end we had an out brief and what you see
119
00:08:11.800 --> 00:08:15.240
in the report is principally what came out of the
120
00:08:15.279 --> 00:08:20.399
out brief. But I think what we we did discover
121
00:08:20.560 --> 00:08:25.399
a lot of friction points. We discovered things that we
122
00:08:25.439 --> 00:08:32.960
didn't we expected that there would be challenges identified. I
123
00:08:32.960 --> 00:08:37.000
think that we came away from it saying not only
124
00:08:37.039 --> 00:08:42.039
are there pretty significant challenges, but there are some things
125
00:08:42.039 --> 00:08:44.240
we really need to get after if we think we're
126
00:08:44.279 --> 00:08:47.320
going to have to deal with this type of contingency
127
00:08:48.039 --> 00:08:52.080
in the immediate future. And I will I'll just in
128
00:08:52.279 --> 00:08:58.399
my saying the scenarios that we presented are not outlandish.
129
00:08:58.480 --> 00:09:01.360
They are exactly the kinds of things that typically you
130
00:09:01.759 --> 00:09:08.840
see represented in a campaign, more formal war game. But
131
00:09:08.879 --> 00:09:11.200
what we did that most of those did not do
132
00:09:11.320 --> 00:09:12.960
is we took it to the level of saying, Okay,
133
00:09:13.000 --> 00:09:18.360
there's been something bad happened, what do we do about Yeah.
134
00:09:18.399 --> 00:09:21.200
I thought it was interesting that you essentially you went
135
00:09:21.240 --> 00:09:27.399
from a probably best case scenario something bad happening, which
136
00:09:27.480 --> 00:09:30.080
was a collision at sea, which we've had a few
137
00:09:30.120 --> 00:09:35.799
of those recently involving Burkes, to an extended war, and
138
00:09:35.840 --> 00:09:38.519
then a couple of scenarios that were kind of short
139
00:09:38.559 --> 00:09:43.399
of that but still posed interesting issues out of that.
140
00:09:44.720 --> 00:09:48.320
As you were going through this, what was what was
141
00:09:48.360 --> 00:09:51.159
the if there was a biggest surprise to you? What
142
00:09:51.720 --> 00:09:55.320
was the biggest surprise that you thought you'd come across.
143
00:09:55.679 --> 00:10:02.159
The biggest surprise I encountered was there, despite all the
144
00:10:02.200 --> 00:10:06.440
good reasons for thinking that it would be difficult that
145
00:10:06.519 --> 00:10:12.039
we can't necessarily count on getting access to host nations.
146
00:10:12.679 --> 00:10:14.600
There was just an assumption that that was going to
147
00:10:14.639 --> 00:10:19.159
be possible that which was disabused I think during the
148
00:10:19.799 --> 00:10:25.399
during the course of the exercise, and of course for Korean's, Japanese,
149
00:10:25.440 --> 00:10:30.360
Australians all said, we're delighted to help, but there are
150
00:10:30.399 --> 00:10:33.159
some things that you need to consider before you you
151
00:10:33.879 --> 00:10:37.200
try to bring things you know to us to one
152
00:10:37.240 --> 00:10:40.720
of our ports that we really that we haven't talked
153
00:10:40.720 --> 00:10:43.600
about yet that we need to so I would say
154
00:10:43.639 --> 00:10:46.679
the big surprise was that there were surprises and that
155
00:10:46.759 --> 00:10:52.279
people felt like that some things were given. I think
156
00:10:52.320 --> 00:10:56.559
another not exactly surprised, but a matter of rather deep
157
00:10:56.679 --> 00:11:06.120
concern is if the lack of there are no organic
158
00:11:06.279 --> 00:11:12.480
towing assets in the Navy. There may be in THTS
159
00:11:12.519 --> 00:11:17.720
has become a thing, but there also is a fairly
160
00:11:17.799 --> 00:11:22.919
limited afloat salvage capability. A lot of things that we
161
00:11:23.039 --> 00:11:27.639
used to assume would be possible would be available really
162
00:11:27.720 --> 00:11:33.360
aren't available. And I think that the wake up call
163
00:11:33.559 --> 00:11:37.720
is something like, if this were to happen in reality,
164
00:11:41.000 --> 00:11:45.519
we might have a very hard time responding because we've
165
00:11:45.639 --> 00:11:51.840
just allowed ourselves to get into a situation of vulnerability.
166
00:11:52.440 --> 00:11:55.120
So I'd say those were kind of the big main
167
00:11:56.120 --> 00:12:03.720
themes that I took away, and let's let's blush that out,
168
00:12:03.759 --> 00:12:06.559
that organic part you know before the show. For in
169
00:12:06.639 --> 00:12:10.720
the show Lee Whaler Waller, Sorry Lee can never pronounce
170
00:12:10.720 --> 00:12:13.080
your last name, right. He sent me a little note
171
00:12:13.120 --> 00:12:16.200
that that was spot on the to what we're looking
172
00:12:16.279 --> 00:12:21.720
at here is and I think part of it it's
173
00:12:21.759 --> 00:12:26.080
an issue with the fact that we really haven't since
174
00:12:26.080 --> 00:12:27.759
the end of the Cold War we had to think
175
00:12:27.759 --> 00:12:31.080
about the Red ban or Northern Fleet coming through the
176
00:12:31.080 --> 00:12:33.799
g i UK and making a mess of things. Uh,
177
00:12:34.080 --> 00:12:38.840
we haven't really had to contemplate sustained war at sea
178
00:12:39.000 --> 00:12:42.639
and what we know requires and we have dealt in
179
00:12:42.679 --> 00:12:46.000
the Arlely Burkes were you know, I remember when when
180
00:12:46.159 --> 00:12:50.720
Arley Burke actual was at the commissioning of whole one
181
00:12:50.960 --> 00:12:53.399
of the Arlely Burke. You know, he said, this ship
182
00:12:53.519 --> 00:12:55.279
was built to fight, you need to be ready to
183
00:12:55.840 --> 00:12:58.759
and it is a rather robust ship. We saw with
184
00:12:58.799 --> 00:13:01.919
the damage from the coal that Fitzgerald and the McCain.
185
00:13:02.399 --> 00:13:05.840
It can't take signigat damage and not snink, sink or
186
00:13:05.879 --> 00:13:09.600
break apart. But one of the characteristics that we saw
187
00:13:10.639 --> 00:13:15.360
on those incidents. Is that organic capability that we should
188
00:13:15.399 --> 00:13:18.759
own that we don't have. You mentioned towing, there's also
189
00:13:19.440 --> 00:13:23.320
that heavy lift where you have the ship carrying the
190
00:13:23.320 --> 00:13:26.840
ship so to speak. That in war, especially when you
191
00:13:26.840 --> 00:13:28.919
have multiple ships in one of your I think the
192
00:13:28.960 --> 00:13:31.919
fourth vignette outlines pretty well what I think is very
193
00:13:31.960 --> 00:13:36.559
realistic is unlike the coal and the McCaine that Fitzgerald
194
00:13:37.279 --> 00:13:39.559
where at peacetime or even you can go back to
195
00:13:39.679 --> 00:13:44.360
Sammy Roberts, you know, you have these little incidents that happen,
196
00:13:44.720 --> 00:13:46.639
and even in a warm piece where you have a
197
00:13:46.799 --> 00:13:50.519
ship get hit, but you don't have an ongoing demand
198
00:13:50.679 --> 00:13:55.360
for ships and missile strikeability forward, etcetera and so forth.
199
00:13:55.840 --> 00:13:58.639
But without that organic capability where instead of having a
200
00:13:58.759 --> 00:14:01.080
lease where you you know, give the Dutch a call
201
00:14:01.159 --> 00:14:04.039
and they bring one of their semi submersibles here to
202
00:14:04.080 --> 00:14:07.320
come pick up your damage ship and transport it across
203
00:14:07.360 --> 00:14:10.240
the great expanses of whichever ocean you need to do.
204
00:14:10.279 --> 00:14:13.600
In this case, the specific that there's a whole host
205
00:14:14.399 --> 00:14:16.360
of what we should have and what we used to
206
00:14:16.399 --> 00:14:22.440
have as a navy organically significant towing capability. I think
207
00:14:22.559 --> 00:14:27.360
you also mentioned that EOD Mobile Unit ten absorbed because
208
00:14:27.360 --> 00:14:30.399
we used to have mobile diving teams that we decommission
209
00:14:30.440 --> 00:14:32.799
in twenty five. You know, maybe talk about that a
210
00:14:32.840 --> 00:14:37.039
little bit. But also you have an industry is prepared
211
00:14:37.080 --> 00:14:41.759
as we have a put under contract for additional submarine tenders.
212
00:14:41.759 --> 00:14:43.440
They've tapped us on the shoulder and said, hey, we
213
00:14:43.480 --> 00:14:47.159
can also do destroyer tenders. Again, talk a little bit
214
00:14:47.159 --> 00:14:51.679
about what people need to understand about, especially at war,
215
00:14:52.039 --> 00:14:58.120
an extended war, where having that organic ability is distinctly
216
00:14:58.240 --> 00:15:00.840
different than what we've become a cut to a peace,
217
00:15:00.919 --> 00:15:07.840
which is contractability. Yes, those are great examples. Well, just
218
00:15:07.879 --> 00:15:10.679
to go back in history, when I was a XO
219
00:15:10.799 --> 00:15:16.639
of a minesweeper one of the MSO four five six
220
00:15:16.799 --> 00:15:20.759
USS inflict gresation in Little Creek and we're part of
221
00:15:20.799 --> 00:15:25.639
Compsuppron eight. Compsuppron eight had I don't know, maybe eight
222
00:15:26.200 --> 00:15:29.519
ars's and there were a couple of atfs, and there
223
00:15:29.559 --> 00:15:33.360
was a whole community of people whose job it was
224
00:15:33.480 --> 00:15:37.120
to do diving in salvage. So if there happened to
225
00:15:37.120 --> 00:15:41.600
be an incident someplace or if somebody needed to be towed,
226
00:15:42.360 --> 00:15:45.879
they were ready to do that. All that pretty much
227
00:15:45.879 --> 00:15:50.919
evaporated in the nineties as we drew down with the
228
00:15:50.960 --> 00:15:55.120
assumption that if towing needed to take place, we could
229
00:15:55.120 --> 00:16:02.200
always find a commercial vendor to do it, and that
230
00:16:02.279 --> 00:16:05.600
wasn't necessarily a bad assumption for peace time. But like
231
00:16:05.679 --> 00:16:09.679
a lot of things, what's efficient in peace time is
232
00:16:09.720 --> 00:16:17.600
not what's required for war. And what we what we
233
00:16:17.639 --> 00:16:20.879
would almost certainly encounter if we were to get into
234
00:16:20.919 --> 00:16:25.080
any kind of a battle where surface ships were in
235
00:16:25.120 --> 00:16:29.759
harm's way, some of them would be damaged, some of
236
00:16:29.799 --> 00:16:34.399
them would not be able to maintain propulsion, and some
237
00:16:34.440 --> 00:16:37.200
would have to be towed. Now, and you can make
238
00:16:37.240 --> 00:16:42.480
an argument about, well, if it's that dangerous, do you
239
00:16:42.480 --> 00:16:45.000
want to send towing vessels and stuff like that in there,
240
00:16:45.159 --> 00:16:48.440
which is, you know, certainly something to consider that you
241
00:16:48.480 --> 00:16:51.240
don't want to have to say the option is either
242
00:16:51.320 --> 00:16:55.960
let the thing sink or do something or do something
243
00:16:56.039 --> 00:16:58.960
about it. And it's certainly a lot more feasible to
244
00:16:59.799 --> 00:17:03.120
go so carry out that kind of operation with a
245
00:17:04.119 --> 00:17:09.960
organic toe, you know, young towing vessel, that is, to
246
00:17:10.000 --> 00:17:13.359
try to contract with somebody in the Philippines to go
247
00:17:13.440 --> 00:17:18.519
out and do this for you. And it's it is
248
00:17:18.599 --> 00:17:25.920
a characteristic of the Department of Defense, but the Navy,
249
00:17:26.519 --> 00:17:29.480
as we're talking about, it had been a characteristic to
250
00:17:29.559 --> 00:17:32.200
really think that we could always find a way to
251
00:17:32.240 --> 00:17:35.200
pay for something and we'd be able to deal with it. Well,
252
00:17:35.519 --> 00:17:40.599
the fact is, the conditions of life have changed and
253
00:17:40.640 --> 00:17:45.039
we're going to have to go back toward more organic capability.
254
00:17:45.400 --> 00:17:48.759
Now you mentioned the Mudsous. I think that one of
255
00:17:48.799 --> 00:17:52.279
the one of the points that's made in the TTX
256
00:17:52.480 --> 00:17:55.960
is before people can make really good decisions about what
257
00:17:56.039 --> 00:17:57.839
to do with the ship, somebody needs to have gone
258
00:17:57.920 --> 00:18:02.079
on board and made it a valueuation of whether or
259
00:18:02.079 --> 00:18:05.400
not the thing is is seaworthy. We wouldn't want to
260
00:18:05.400 --> 00:18:08.559
try to toe it if it's got so much underwater damage,
261
00:18:08.559 --> 00:18:10.559
it's going to sink and you know, so that's a
262
00:18:10.559 --> 00:18:15.759
different decision, and mud Suzor would have been one of
263
00:18:15.759 --> 00:18:19.920
the ways to have done that. So that a lot
264
00:18:20.000 --> 00:18:22.599
of things have been given up that I think that
265
00:18:23.039 --> 00:18:25.960
our point is is not that you can uncover everything
266
00:18:26.039 --> 00:18:27.960
or not that what we were doing in the Cold
267
00:18:27.960 --> 00:18:31.640
War was necessarily the right approach in every circumstance. But
268
00:18:33.240 --> 00:18:36.640
what we what we have found is that we have
269
00:18:36.759 --> 00:18:40.440
thrown away a lot of capability that we really are
270
00:18:40.440 --> 00:18:45.519
going to have to recover, and that when we talk
271
00:18:45.559 --> 00:18:50.119
about organic, it means that belongs to the Navy and
272
00:18:50.160 --> 00:18:54.400
can be readily accessed and doesn't carry with it insurance
273
00:18:54.480 --> 00:19:00.920
and proprietary types of concerns. It's something as you can
274
00:19:01.039 --> 00:19:06.759
just use. You just mentioned tenders and I will put
275
00:19:06.799 --> 00:19:10.640
a plug here for some work we are doing that
276
00:19:10.640 --> 00:19:13.720
we're not complete. I can't as a result, I can't
277
00:19:13.720 --> 00:19:17.000
give you all the results. But one of the things
278
00:19:17.039 --> 00:19:24.599
that we say is that for a lot of different
279
00:19:24.640 --> 00:19:26.880
things that are going to need to be repaired in
280
00:19:26.920 --> 00:19:32.279
this fight that we are contemplating. Host nations are great,
281
00:19:33.119 --> 00:19:39.359
but it's asking a lot to say you're under missile attack.
282
00:19:40.200 --> 00:19:43.079
We like to bring a ship into your port and
283
00:19:43.160 --> 00:19:46.160
dry docket there, or maybe not dry docket, but fix
284
00:19:46.200 --> 00:19:51.519
it there and increase the chances that you're going to
285
00:19:51.519 --> 00:19:56.240
get attacked, particularly if depending on what the geopolitical circumstances are,
286
00:19:57.160 --> 00:20:01.880
the need to have some sort of tender like capability
287
00:20:01.960 --> 00:20:04.640
that it's not going to be out in the open ocean.
288
00:20:04.640 --> 00:20:07.799
It's going to have to be somewhere that's protected. But
289
00:20:07.839 --> 00:20:13.119
the need for a mobile organic capability to conduct repair
290
00:20:13.880 --> 00:20:18.680
and not just for submarines is is essential. We've got
291
00:20:18.720 --> 00:20:21.359
to do that now. It doesn't have to be a
292
00:20:21.359 --> 00:20:23.680
submarine tender, which I think comes in about two point
293
00:20:23.680 --> 00:20:27.680
two billion dollars. You know, the types of types of
294
00:20:27.680 --> 00:20:29.759
things that would take to carry out the repairs that
295
00:20:29.799 --> 00:20:37.200
we were we put into this report wouldn't necessarily require
296
00:20:37.240 --> 00:20:39.079
all the things that a submarine tender's going to be
297
00:20:39.079 --> 00:20:42.079
capable of doing, but it would be very good to
298
00:20:42.160 --> 00:20:48.160
have mobile capability, and not just for the most extreme
299
00:20:48.200 --> 00:20:51.920
things what we're talking about here, but also just for
300
00:20:52.160 --> 00:20:57.759
routine maintenance types of things that that are okay, that
301
00:20:58.480 --> 00:21:03.400
often go undone because there's no place to do it
302
00:21:03.519 --> 00:21:08.680
kind of You know, there are a few industrial facilities
303
00:21:08.680 --> 00:21:13.319
better in the world than SRA Refua Cooska, but a
304
00:21:13.359 --> 00:21:16.640
lot of things that ships need to get done can't
305
00:21:16.640 --> 00:21:20.279
get done because of the nature of the operations, and
306
00:21:20.440 --> 00:21:24.640
having some mobile capability is probably going to be It
307
00:21:24.680 --> 00:21:27.119
strikes me as something we really need to be doing.
308
00:21:27.759 --> 00:21:31.759
And again shameless plug on that on that front.
309
00:21:32.799 --> 00:21:36.440
Yeah, I was reading this, I'm going somebody needs to
310
00:21:37.039 --> 00:21:40.720
yank out old Admiral Carter's beans, bullets and black oil
311
00:21:41.319 --> 00:21:43.720
and go back to look how we had to invent
312
00:21:43.759 --> 00:21:46.119
all these capabilities during World War two. I mean, that
313
00:21:46.720 --> 00:21:50.839
is a story of advanced basing. Because you couldn't read,
314
00:21:51.119 --> 00:21:55.039
we had no places to initially to put stuff, and
315
00:21:55.720 --> 00:21:58.119
you know, and then the other things that struck me
316
00:21:58.119 --> 00:22:01.839
were the amount of preparedness you describe here, which would
317
00:22:01.880 --> 00:22:06.839
mean training personnel, having a a not a just in
318
00:22:06.920 --> 00:22:12.839
time parts replacement, but a wartime stock of stuff, and
319
00:22:12.880 --> 00:22:15.839
being able to you know, I don't I think Sala
320
00:22:15.880 --> 00:22:18.319
and I've rattled on this a long time, which is
321
00:22:18.359 --> 00:22:21.880
the need to be able to load and offload VLS
322
00:22:21.880 --> 00:22:26.119
cells somewhere other than in a major port. I mean,
323
00:22:26.519 --> 00:22:29.440
it is, it is is that kind of thing that
324
00:22:29.480 --> 00:22:31.720
when you read this what you've done, which I think
325
00:22:33.039 --> 00:22:37.519
is pretty accurate about stuff, you know that the whole
326
00:22:38.000 --> 00:22:40.720
is just annoying that we haven't we let all that
327
00:22:40.759 --> 00:22:43.319
stuff go and we've forgotten that apparently forgotten how to
328
00:22:43.359 --> 00:22:46.160
do it. But yeah, when I was driving ships around,
329
00:22:46.200 --> 00:22:48.480
the tenders were great because if you you didn't need
330
00:22:48.519 --> 00:22:50.079
them for everything, but when you know, if you needed
331
00:22:50.079 --> 00:22:52.960
something like some binoculars six, there was an opticle shop
332
00:22:53.000 --> 00:22:56.039
on the tender that could take care of that. Another
333
00:22:56.119 --> 00:23:00.000
minor thing, but useful and abandoned.
334
00:23:01.039 --> 00:23:05.880
Well, i'll give you a quick sea story. From nineteen
335
00:23:05.920 --> 00:23:08.400
ninety one to nineteen ninety three, I was the logistics
336
00:23:08.400 --> 00:23:12.519
and maintenance officer for what was in comedies for slash
337
00:23:12.799 --> 00:23:15.960
Communist nav Sent. I was a lieutenant commander, so obviously
338
00:23:16.000 --> 00:23:20.480
I wasn't all that influential. But among the things I
339
00:23:20.559 --> 00:23:23.039
was supposed to do was ensure that ships were able
340
00:23:23.119 --> 00:23:25.759
to get into port, and we try to give them
341
00:23:25.759 --> 00:23:28.839
five to seven days mid deployment so they could get
342
00:23:28.839 --> 00:23:31.440
in and get work done. We loved having the tender
343
00:23:31.799 --> 00:23:36.839
because level one repairs, electronics, repairs, du buy, drydock, Basrak,
344
00:23:36.920 --> 00:23:41.519
those places that were great. But there are some things
345
00:23:41.559 --> 00:23:44.359
that they just couldn't do well. During that period, that's
346
00:23:44.400 --> 00:23:49.519
when the tender the tenders started to be be commissioned.
347
00:23:49.519 --> 00:23:51.960
They were starting to get rid of the destroyer tenders
348
00:23:52.240 --> 00:23:57.640
and that was a matter of some emotion to us.
349
00:23:57.640 --> 00:24:01.000
As a matter of fact, I even got the Admiral
350
00:24:02.400 --> 00:24:08.240
to send a personal for to Scentcom and you know
351
00:24:08.279 --> 00:24:10.680
pekon pack Fleet to say we really need to keep
352
00:24:10.720 --> 00:24:14.440
tenders in theater. Well, that didn't work out. It didn't happen,
353
00:24:15.000 --> 00:24:21.200
and the reasons given were because destroyer tenders had a
354
00:24:21.279 --> 00:24:23.920
large number of people on them steam plants, so there's
355
00:24:23.960 --> 00:24:25.680
a lot of just taking care of the ship itself
356
00:24:25.680 --> 00:24:31.319
that paide it expensive. But the theory was that, uh,
357
00:24:31.839 --> 00:24:33.799
you know, in the event of a war it used
358
00:24:33.799 --> 00:24:36.119
it by dride op will fly people in if we
359
00:24:36.440 --> 00:24:40.119
if we have to. Uh, we're not worried. We're not,
360
00:24:40.440 --> 00:24:47.920
We're not. We're not worried about the uh little background. Uh,
361
00:24:48.119 --> 00:24:54.319
We're not worried about that that eventuality. Okay, so the
362
00:24:54.400 --> 00:24:57.640
year I, you know, everybody moves on. Years go by,
363
00:24:58.599 --> 00:25:02.240
and then you know, now we're faced with the situation.
364
00:25:02.319 --> 00:25:04.880
We're faced, and I think the essential thing about the
365
00:25:04.880 --> 00:25:07.960
TTX is we're not We didn't start out pushing a
366
00:25:08.000 --> 00:25:12.279
particular point of view about you know, what organic capability
367
00:25:12.359 --> 00:25:15.559
was required. We just said, okay, do these you know,
368
00:25:15.599 --> 00:25:18.960
we actually ran the scenarios past the past the Navy
369
00:25:19.079 --> 00:25:23.680
and pass the Joint staff and athlete said do these
370
00:25:23.839 --> 00:25:28.680
sound plausible? And everybody agreed they sounded pretty plausible. From
371
00:25:28.680 --> 00:25:32.599
there we drew the implications, and the implications kind of
372
00:25:33.079 --> 00:25:35.160
take us to the point where we are right now,
373
00:25:35.200 --> 00:25:41.160
which is we need we need to have ways to
374
00:25:41.319 --> 00:25:49.000
repair things in theater that do not necessarily require some
375
00:25:50.359 --> 00:25:53.079
one of our partners necessarily to open a port for
376
00:25:53.160 --> 00:25:59.440
a big major repair we need there. There has to
377
00:25:59.480 --> 00:26:07.720
be something in between. So that's again, I've certainly have
378
00:26:07.799 --> 00:26:12.359
been accused of being overly focused on things in my life.
379
00:26:13.400 --> 00:26:16.799
This is one place where the focus came back to me.
380
00:26:16.880 --> 00:26:20.799
I didn't come to the focus. You know, you mentioned
381
00:26:20.799 --> 00:26:26.079
the nineteen nineties, Like everybody, I'm probably eight or nine
382
00:26:26.160 --> 00:26:29.279
year groups junior to you, but you know, as your
383
00:26:29.279 --> 00:26:32.440
standard issue fleet lieutenant. As everything was coming apart in
384
00:26:32.440 --> 00:26:35.640
the nineteen nineties, and we all have our little trauma
385
00:26:35.680 --> 00:26:39.000
that we're working through. But there was a lot of
386
00:26:39.039 --> 00:26:42.920
things that because of the rapid change of things after
387
00:26:42.960 --> 00:26:46.319
the Cold War, that we threw off because basically, from
388
00:26:46.359 --> 00:26:49.640
a budgetary point of view, we were drowning. We had
389
00:26:49.680 --> 00:26:52.799
to get weight off. But there's been a few generations
390
00:26:52.839 --> 00:26:57.200
of people that just assume not having these items are
391
00:26:57.319 --> 00:27:00.480
are rather normal, and we've been we've been a little
392
00:27:00.519 --> 00:27:06.519
lucky in the nine to eleven was a different type
393
00:27:06.559 --> 00:27:10.279
of situation. But y'all mention something in the summary that
394
00:27:10.279 --> 00:27:13.559
that got me thinking a bit quote and I want
395
00:27:13.559 --> 00:27:15.640
to see if you could help me ponder through some
396
00:27:15.680 --> 00:27:17.480
of the big pixels when to quote a little bit
397
00:27:17.480 --> 00:27:21.319
from it, and the summary says, quote, we determined that
398
00:27:21.400 --> 00:27:24.319
attempting repairs in the hostile into a pacific environment will
399
00:27:24.359 --> 00:27:30.559
be significantly more complex than existing plans allow. Existing Navy
400
00:27:30.759 --> 00:27:34.759
systems for battle damage repair are burdened by outdated peacetime
401
00:27:34.839 --> 00:27:40.279
frameworks and ambiguous C two structures during conflict unquote. And
402
00:27:40.319 --> 00:27:44.960
then especially five years ago, there was this big argument,
403
00:27:45.400 --> 00:27:49.480
and you know, we talked about it here that I
404
00:27:49.519 --> 00:27:51.720
and you know, guilty is charged. I don't think I
405
00:27:51.759 --> 00:27:53.960
pulled a thread on this hard enough as well. But
406
00:27:54.119 --> 00:27:56.640
the events of the Russio Ukrainian War and also the
407
00:27:57.039 --> 00:27:59.799
events against Iran after October of twenty three, I think
408
00:28:00.039 --> 00:28:02.200
broad it to the front if you look at the
409
00:28:02.240 --> 00:28:05.680
Western Pacific. But two things that dominated a lot of
410
00:28:05.720 --> 00:28:08.640
conversations that people wanted to argue about, kind of like
411
00:28:08.759 --> 00:28:11.279
medieval monks arguing about how many angels you get on
412
00:28:11.279 --> 00:28:13.920
the head of a pen was the whole theory of
413
00:28:14.079 --> 00:28:20.160
deterrence by denial and deterrence about punishment. And then you
414
00:28:20.279 --> 00:28:24.160
had people like Michelle Flornoy and that group who wanted
415
00:28:24.160 --> 00:28:26.839
to talk about the seventy two Hour War. All three
416
00:28:26.839 --> 00:28:30.559
of those things had everybody thinking about short term conflict.
417
00:28:30.759 --> 00:28:33.000
How you know, everything's going to be fast, Everything's going
418
00:28:33.079 --> 00:28:35.200
to be done real fast. And you could you could
419
00:28:35.240 --> 00:28:42.160
see how the Russian general staff and briefing putin about
420
00:28:42.200 --> 00:28:45.480
how they were going to take down Ukraine. And as
421
00:28:45.480 --> 00:28:48.720
a former operational planner, I could have briefed that if
422
00:28:48.720 --> 00:28:50.680
I was told to develop a certain course of action
423
00:28:50.839 --> 00:28:54.880
based upon you know, whatever red blue scenario combination you
424
00:28:54.920 --> 00:28:57.039
wanted to do, I could see this happening very well.
425
00:28:58.119 --> 00:29:01.759
So we have just got into this habit of making
426
00:29:02.759 --> 00:29:08.839
certain assumptions and having certain arguments that give us a
427
00:29:08.880 --> 00:29:14.400
reason to avoid what I thought your tabletop exercise brought
428
00:29:14.480 --> 00:29:18.640
up in quite a few areas, one of which is
429
00:29:19.000 --> 00:29:24.440
the reality even though everybody wants war to be short
430
00:29:24.880 --> 00:29:30.119
and quick and decisive, that is the exception, not the rule.
431
00:29:30.480 --> 00:29:35.160
And if the rule is that any war that we
432
00:29:35.279 --> 00:29:38.480
have in the Western Pacific is not going to be short,
433
00:29:38.839 --> 00:29:43.279
quick and decisive, that we need to take a really
434
00:29:43.319 --> 00:29:47.279
deep breath with ourselves and our allies and have some
435
00:29:47.559 --> 00:29:53.799
very brutal murder boards on a lot of the assumptions
436
00:29:53.839 --> 00:29:58.359
we have about what that will look like when it
437
00:29:58.440 --> 00:30:02.640
comes to our lead over the course of years, and
438
00:30:02.720 --> 00:30:06.119
our weapons inventory that we're going to want to use
439
00:30:06.799 --> 00:30:11.160
our work around. And y'all brought us some interesting observations
440
00:30:11.200 --> 00:30:15.119
about repairing ships that are armed to the teeth. I mean,
441
00:30:15.400 --> 00:30:17.480
it is part of the problem that y'all saw at
442
00:30:17.480 --> 00:30:21.880
the tabletop exercises, just that we've become too comfortable thinking
443
00:30:21.920 --> 00:30:29.119
about scenarios and views and strategies that aren't very well
444
00:30:29.160 --> 00:30:33.319
grounded in what we actually experienced. I think so, and
445
00:30:33.400 --> 00:30:35.839
it's not the first place that we've seen that. I'll
446
00:30:35.839 --> 00:30:42.440
give you another shameless plug. Shortly after the war started
447
00:30:43.599 --> 00:30:47.640
Russia into Ukraine. About a year into that, I wrote
448
00:30:47.759 --> 00:30:52.559
with another Sean Marnatt, a colleague, a report that talked
449
00:30:52.599 --> 00:30:55.960
about all the logistics mistakes that you the Russians had made,
450
00:30:56.640 --> 00:31:02.680
and how exactly the points you were making about they
451
00:31:02.720 --> 00:31:04.880
thought this was going to be done in a couple
452
00:31:04.920 --> 00:31:09.440
of days, and that didn't happen, and then they're their
453
00:31:09.599 --> 00:31:15.799
logistics trains just collapsed, and and so among the reasons
454
00:31:15.799 --> 00:31:17.480
that the war has gone on for so long as
455
00:31:17.519 --> 00:31:19.480
they it took them a long time just to figure
456
00:31:19.519 --> 00:31:25.400
out their operational logistics. So that is not just a
457
00:31:25.440 --> 00:31:28.880
problem with the United States. Uh, A couple of other
458
00:31:28.920 --> 00:31:33.680
shameless plugs. We are looking at issues like fuel and
459
00:31:33.920 --> 00:31:37.480
the provision of fuel, and the Pacific, we're looking at
460
00:31:37.480 --> 00:31:40.079
issues like you know, everybody's looking at ordinance. So I'm
461
00:31:40.079 --> 00:31:43.559
not going to talk too much about that. But you know, well,
462
00:31:43.720 --> 00:31:46.319
but historically, you know, we looked five years ago, we
463
00:31:46.359 --> 00:31:50.119
were talking about how UH and and published work. We
464
00:31:50.200 --> 00:31:57.559
talk about how the ability to manufacture standard missiles and
465
00:31:57.599 --> 00:32:04.400
lorasms and and ms ts you know, maytimes strike comahawks.
466
00:32:04.880 --> 00:32:07.119
Here's what the demand is based on, just on a
467
00:32:07.319 --> 00:32:14.319
quick glimpse of the unclassified information, here's what the production
468
00:32:14.599 --> 00:32:16.559
capacity looks like. It looks like we've got a bit
469
00:32:16.599 --> 00:32:21.960
of a gap here. It's a huge gap. And I
470
00:32:22.000 --> 00:32:29.480
think that we don't we have not paid adequate attention
471
00:32:29.680 --> 00:32:36.039
to what it takes to fight a prolonged battle that's
472
00:32:36.240 --> 00:32:39.519
likely to be worldwide in scope. And the Chinese are
473
00:32:39.559 --> 00:32:42.960
not just in the Western Pacific there, you know, there
474
00:32:43.000 --> 00:32:48.000
are a lot of other places. And uh, it's but again,
475
00:32:48.440 --> 00:32:54.119
but the table talk that wasn't intended to highlight that,
476
00:32:54.160 --> 00:32:58.000
but it did because that's what we found. We found
477
00:32:58.400 --> 00:33:03.440
based on conversations that if you know, the structured discussion
478
00:33:03.920 --> 00:33:08.160
that if they, if this type of highly likely damage
479
00:33:08.200 --> 00:33:12.079
were to occur, we did not have we do not
480
00:33:13.039 --> 00:33:16.400
have the ready ability to respond, and we need to
481
00:33:16.440 --> 00:33:21.319
work on that. It can it may not, It may
482
00:33:21.359 --> 00:33:23.960
not be by trying to probably will not be by
483
00:33:24.000 --> 00:33:27.400
trying to reconstitute what the Cold War of World War
484
00:33:27.400 --> 00:33:31.200
two davy looked like. But better look different than thinking
485
00:33:31.240 --> 00:33:32.640
things are going to be over in three days and
486
00:33:32.880 --> 00:33:34.759
just in time, logistics are going to save this. It's
487
00:33:34.799 --> 00:33:44.039
that's just delusional. So I think I agree very much
488
00:33:44.079 --> 00:33:51.279
with what you were your point, and I just strengthen
489
00:33:51.319 --> 00:34:03.079
it by saying that they we the Navy is is
490
00:34:03.160 --> 00:34:06.839
not really poised for a long fight. It, I think
491
00:34:06.960 --> 00:34:08.920
is well aware of that. I read the fighting at
492
00:34:08.960 --> 00:34:12.920
the CNOS fighting instructions. I think, you know, I don't
493
00:34:13.719 --> 00:34:16.679
I'm trying to say people were irresponsible or dumb or
494
00:34:16.679 --> 00:34:20.159
anything like that, but I am saying that the circumstances
495
00:34:20.519 --> 00:34:24.760
have changed and we we need to be ready to
496
00:34:24.760 --> 00:34:28.440
to deal with something that could go on for a while.
497
00:34:28.920 --> 00:34:31.960
We also have to deal with the fact that the
498
00:34:32.039 --> 00:34:35.280
way the war comes it might not be in some
499
00:34:36.159 --> 00:34:39.639
you know big paroxism that you know, there's a battle
500
00:34:39.679 --> 00:34:42.480
of the Taiwan Straits and it's resolved one way or
501
00:34:42.519 --> 00:34:46.119
the other. It may work work up very slowly with blocks,
502
00:34:46.360 --> 00:34:49.400
with a lot of different things that are really going
503
00:34:49.440 --> 00:34:53.599
to challenge our ability to to to meet the moment
504
00:34:53.760 --> 00:34:56.119
to sustain what it is that we we have to
505
00:34:56.159 --> 00:34:57.280
sustain if we're going to fight this.
506
00:34:59.000 --> 00:35:02.559
Yeah, I think that's I think that's absolutely right. The
507
00:35:02.559 --> 00:35:04.519
the there are a couple of things I found interesting.
508
00:35:04.599 --> 00:35:09.920
One was the the problem of battle damage assessment, and
509
00:35:10.079 --> 00:35:14.320
which is based on my experience, every time a ship
510
00:35:14.360 --> 00:35:17.199
gets damaged, depending on where it is, but I know,
511
00:35:17.239 --> 00:35:19.480
we had a couple of we had we had a
512
00:35:19.519 --> 00:35:23.960
destroyer of Vietnam run into a mine, and the amount
513
00:35:24.000 --> 00:35:26.920
of the level of attention that got from the highest
514
00:35:27.079 --> 00:35:30.440
levels was extraordinary. And and the problem is that the
515
00:35:30.519 --> 00:35:33.679
highest levels get in the way of really assessing what's
516
00:35:33.719 --> 00:35:35.719
going on with that particular ship or any ship that
517
00:35:35.760 --> 00:35:38.239
gets damaged that way. And I think you were you know,
518
00:35:38.320 --> 00:35:43.639
part of your See two discussion was uh that sometimes
519
00:35:43.639 --> 00:35:45.960
the higher levels wanted more information than they were getting
520
00:35:46.000 --> 00:35:48.639
fed by the by the lower levels. And you know,
521
00:35:48.719 --> 00:35:53.159
but then they began driving reports that necessarily may interfere
522
00:35:53.199 --> 00:35:56.559
with the people on the scene, uh, giving them the
523
00:35:56.599 --> 00:36:01.679
real information they need. But that let into this just
524
00:36:02.239 --> 00:36:05.760
an observation, but that led into the idea that the
525
00:36:05.880 --> 00:36:09.880
Navy has developed. This is a report developed expeditionary mobile
526
00:36:09.920 --> 00:36:14.400
repair facilities which are deployable. And I'd be darn I've
527
00:36:14.400 --> 00:36:16.360
been looking at all over trying to find out where
528
00:36:16.400 --> 00:36:19.840
the heck those expeditionary mobile repair facilities are.
529
00:36:19.840 --> 00:36:20.880
They do they exist?
530
00:36:20.960 --> 00:36:24.559
It's just something really happens because I can't find much
531
00:36:24.559 --> 00:36:26.519
in the way of who's in charge of that and
532
00:36:26.559 --> 00:36:27.119
where it went.
533
00:36:27.679 --> 00:36:32.639
They do exist. I believe they were. Like for the
534
00:36:32.679 --> 00:36:36.960
purposes of this exercise, we stipulated seven of them. I
535
00:36:37.000 --> 00:36:40.119
think I think the Navy would like to get seventeen
536
00:36:40.480 --> 00:36:44.960
something like that. We're in the process of recommending that
537
00:36:46.360 --> 00:36:49.599
the numbers larger. But what they are as they are,
538
00:36:50.280 --> 00:36:56.639
they are shipping containers, collections of shipping containers that have
539
00:36:57.000 --> 00:37:03.000
repair capabilities within them. Uh. I think that napsis actually
540
00:37:04.280 --> 00:37:10.679
you know, NAPS organizations of course shifting, but uh, it
541
00:37:10.719 --> 00:37:13.880
would be something under the command of the Fleet commander,
542
00:37:14.480 --> 00:37:19.599
and it would be something that that's portable and you
543
00:37:19.639 --> 00:37:21.960
can put it in some place like Subic Bay or
544
00:37:22.599 --> 00:37:26.079
or where in I Guam or war ship or something
545
00:37:26.159 --> 00:37:32.760
like that. So uh they during the tt X, the
546
00:37:32.800 --> 00:37:38.039
way it was presented was some of these are available
547
00:37:38.079 --> 00:37:43.960
and will play some various places. The Navy would like
548
00:37:44.000 --> 00:37:48.519
to would like to get more, and I think our
549
00:37:49.079 --> 00:37:52.559
programmatic recommendation is that they should have more. Now you
550
00:37:53.119 --> 00:37:54.880
tell that to the Navy and they say, yeah, okay,
551
00:37:54.920 --> 00:37:56.639
if we do that, you're going to take something away
552
00:37:56.639 --> 00:38:01.039
from something else. And you know that's that's one of
553
00:38:01.039 --> 00:38:04.360
the reasons that in other venues we're trying to say, Okay,
554
00:38:04.440 --> 00:38:07.239
let's make this more of a joint problem. Everybody needs
555
00:38:07.280 --> 00:38:10.000
to have things repared. Lots of things can go lots
556
00:38:10.039 --> 00:38:15.320
of repair capability can go into uh into chipping containers.
557
00:38:15.639 --> 00:38:17.239
Let's figure out a way that we can make this
558
00:38:17.280 --> 00:38:20.320
more of a instead of making it a bill to
559
00:38:20.360 --> 00:38:23.880
the Navy, make it a common user lift type of
560
00:38:23.920 --> 00:38:25.840
thing that we can all you know, all the services
561
00:38:25.920 --> 00:38:31.000
can use. You know, it is a fact there's only
562
00:38:31.000 --> 00:38:36.159
a limited limited resources. These things aren't all that would
563
00:38:36.159 --> 00:38:39.199
not be all that expensive. I think that you know,
564
00:38:39.400 --> 00:38:43.159
the actual box with stuff in it's like a million
565
00:38:43.199 --> 00:38:45.519
dollars or something like that. I say that as if
566
00:38:45.519 --> 00:38:50.039
I had a million dollars. But a big problem with
567
00:38:50.639 --> 00:38:55.199
the biggest problem with any organic repair capability though, excuse me,
568
00:38:57.039 --> 00:39:00.159
is it really figuring out where to buy equipment or
569
00:39:00.159 --> 00:39:02.800
where to put it? Is to get the people and
570
00:39:03.440 --> 00:39:08.239
getting artisanal type of folks who can work on work
571
00:39:08.280 --> 00:39:12.440
on things, is it is probably the bigger, the bigger challenge. Yeah,
572
00:39:12.440 --> 00:39:14.639
I've got ten of these things. Where do I get
573
00:39:15.800 --> 00:39:19.280
the types of people they used to man Semas? I
574
00:39:19.320 --> 00:39:24.519
don't know we have that anymore, so, but answer your questions, Yeah,
575
00:39:24.559 --> 00:39:27.800
they exist. Yeah, they would be in you know, they
576
00:39:27.880 --> 00:39:34.039
have a seat, you know, overseen thing with pack fleet
577
00:39:34.480 --> 00:39:38.760
doing the actual direction. Yeah. I think it was at
578
00:39:38.800 --> 00:39:41.559
the end of last year. I could be wrong. Here
579
00:39:41.760 --> 00:39:45.119
time flies where they announced that they were bringing back Sema,
580
00:39:45.679 --> 00:39:49.400
and I was like, yes, more locations over capitalize that
581
00:39:49.639 --> 00:39:53.599
because we lost so much when we got rid of Sema.
582
00:39:53.639 --> 00:39:56.599
You know, the past is the past. There's nothing you
583
00:39:56.599 --> 00:40:01.000
can do about it. The I'm glad you mentioned parts
584
00:40:01.440 --> 00:40:03.920
because it's it's one of those areas that you just
585
00:40:04.000 --> 00:40:05.679
kind of kind of look at each other and goes like,
586
00:40:06.159 --> 00:40:09.800
are we are we a serious organization that are really
587
00:40:09.800 --> 00:40:14.360
focused on what we need to do here because in
588
00:40:14.519 --> 00:40:16.280
NEC I'm not picking on you, but you made a
589
00:40:16.280 --> 00:40:19.119
comment that makes sense on the surface, but I think
590
00:40:19.119 --> 00:40:21.079
it tells a real fascinating story. You know, do kind
591
00:40:21.079 --> 00:40:23.480
of touch on it is in the comments, and see
592
00:40:23.639 --> 00:40:27.840
said and y'all outlined early on that we have seventy
593
00:40:27.920 --> 00:40:30.880
hourly Burkes and we're going to be building fifty more,
594
00:40:30.920 --> 00:40:34.039
as I like to say, especially with with DDGX kind
595
00:40:34.079 --> 00:40:37.159
of being shunted off. You know, we will be building
596
00:40:37.280 --> 00:40:40.719
Arley Burkes until the crack of doom. People think that
597
00:40:40.760 --> 00:40:44.079
there is as a result of that, there's going to
598
00:40:44.199 --> 00:40:49.559
be a lot of parts commonality, but that's not true,
599
00:40:49.679 --> 00:40:52.159
especially for some of the older ships. Arley Burke Hole
600
00:40:52.239 --> 00:40:55.559
one still commissioned. The Old Girl's thirty five years old.
601
00:40:55.960 --> 00:40:58.559
You know, somebody somebody broke her, broke her back ing
602
00:40:58.599 --> 00:41:01.639
a trans pack of the ninety. She's got some issues,
603
00:41:01.960 --> 00:41:05.480
as all all ships who have been ridden. Hard to do.
604
00:41:06.239 --> 00:41:09.119
But it's not only that some of the manufacturers, especially
605
00:41:09.119 --> 00:41:12.679
for some of the older baselines, they no longer exist.
606
00:41:12.679 --> 00:41:17.000
They're very bespoke parts. I've heard people wave the magic
607
00:41:17.119 --> 00:41:20.760
wand about you know, attitude manufacturing will fix it all
608
00:41:20.880 --> 00:41:23.960
CE and CE machines can create whatever you want to.
609
00:41:24.000 --> 00:41:26.000
I'm like, I don't know about that. But what was
610
00:41:26.119 --> 00:41:29.320
more shocking to me, I think goes back to mindsets
611
00:41:31.079 --> 00:41:34.760
you mentioned just in time logistics, and we're going to
612
00:41:34.800 --> 00:41:36.559
we're gonna get an eye twitch from going back to
613
00:41:36.559 --> 00:41:39.480
the nineteen nineties when I say the following thing. A
614
00:41:39.519 --> 00:41:45.440
lot of well meaning people brought in Deman's concept total
615
00:41:45.519 --> 00:41:49.400
quality leadership as opposed to total quality management, et cetera,
616
00:41:49.519 --> 00:41:53.440
et cetera. But this, for those that have the report
617
00:41:53.480 --> 00:41:55.840
in front of you can read along from the hymnal
618
00:41:56.000 --> 00:42:00.840
on page fifteen of the report quote everybody should should
619
00:42:00.880 --> 00:42:04.840
should hoist this on board and scratch it and sniff
620
00:42:04.880 --> 00:42:06.760
it and get a feel for it, because it's it's
621
00:42:06.840 --> 00:42:10.800
very important. Here's the quote. The US Navy no longer
622
00:42:10.840 --> 00:42:14.800
has a budget line for war reserve material. Parts are
623
00:42:14.920 --> 00:42:18.679
ordered through the Defense Logistics Agency under a working Capital
624
00:42:18.719 --> 00:42:22.599
Fund arrangement, which does not address issues of load demand
625
00:42:22.639 --> 00:42:26.679
for critical components. Many critical parts would not routinely be
626
00:42:26.800 --> 00:42:30.039
replaced in peacetime, so it might be unlikely that the
627
00:42:30.119 --> 00:42:32.880
parts would be in stock in wartime because no demand
628
00:42:33.199 --> 00:42:37.599
would have been established for them during normal peacetime use.
629
00:42:40.880 --> 00:42:44.960
And there's the line right there. There is no magic
630
00:42:45.039 --> 00:42:51.679
warehouse in an abandoned mine somewhere where we have our
631
00:42:51.800 --> 00:42:56.719
war reserve parts ready for and especially in vignette number four,
632
00:42:57.320 --> 00:43:00.320
where you have you know a handful of our early
633
00:43:00.360 --> 00:43:04.760
birks of different builds in different baselines and different spy
634
00:43:04.880 --> 00:43:08.159
radars that all need to be repaired. That there's probably
635
00:43:08.199 --> 00:43:12.599
an unrealistic expectation that even a ship that's received a
636
00:43:12.639 --> 00:43:16.199
mission kill, how long is it going to take before
637
00:43:16.199 --> 00:43:18.639
you can get that ship back in the line. Uh,
638
00:43:18.679 --> 00:43:20.840
it's it's ah, We've put ourselves a little bit of
639
00:43:20.880 --> 00:43:27.159
a pickle with parts absolutely and the whole. In fairness
640
00:43:27.159 --> 00:43:30.119
to the Navy, I've actually been in meetings where a
641
00:43:30.639 --> 00:43:36.559
Navy Supply Corps admiral took on DLA for he felt
642
00:43:36.599 --> 00:43:42.760
like DLA was doing a poor job of helping to
643
00:43:42.880 --> 00:43:49.760
manage the the low demand but critical poor type of
644
00:43:50.480 --> 00:43:56.880
uh inventory. The way DLA works is the working capital
645
00:43:56.920 --> 00:44:01.000
fund concept. Is works great in peace time because it
646
00:44:01.039 --> 00:44:03.239
is a maybe as a business, you know, military is
647
00:44:03.280 --> 00:44:05.960
a business type of thing where if you need something,
648
00:44:05.960 --> 00:44:10.519
you buy it, we'll restock it. If you don't buy it.
649
00:44:10.599 --> 00:44:12.880
Obviously you don't think it's that important, so we're not
650
00:44:12.880 --> 00:44:16.039
going to keep it in stock. Now the services have
651
00:44:16.119 --> 00:44:20.679
the ability to order and keep parts. But there's a
652
00:44:20.719 --> 00:44:25.159
couple of problems to go with that. One is you
653
00:44:25.280 --> 00:44:31.519
don't know in war time what's going to break, and
654
00:44:31.519 --> 00:44:35.519
and some of the things that are really critical really
655
00:44:35.559 --> 00:44:37.519
need to be there for the ship to operate don't
656
00:44:37.639 --> 00:44:40.960
routinely break during peacetime, but you know, for more time,
657
00:44:41.000 --> 00:44:44.519
for a variety of reasons, they may become more use.
658
00:44:44.840 --> 00:44:53.719
More conditions are different. So going to more to a
659
00:44:53.880 --> 00:44:59.639
parts regime where you're saying the systems that we really
660
00:44:59.760 --> 00:45:01.760
really you need to be able to keep up are
661
00:45:02.079 --> 00:45:06.599
these things we need to have bought and kept in
662
00:45:06.639 --> 00:45:11.719
a warehouse, These things that you know that a ship
663
00:45:11.800 --> 00:45:14.559
will need, maybe not a warehouse, maybe on the ship,
664
00:45:14.559 --> 00:45:19.159
maybe on a tender, maybe in theater. I think that
665
00:45:19.159 --> 00:45:25.800
that that kind of thinking is it's expensive. Nobody likes
666
00:45:25.840 --> 00:45:30.800
it goes contrary to good inventory management and business. But
667
00:45:31.079 --> 00:45:35.519
we're talking about a situation where ships are undergoing something
668
00:45:36.159 --> 00:45:38.400
that doesn't occur in peace time. It's a wartime thing
669
00:45:39.119 --> 00:45:44.039
and changing to a wartime focus. UH is going to
670
00:45:44.079 --> 00:45:48.960
have to be part of keeping the legacy force running.
671
00:45:49.599 --> 00:45:52.840
And you know, maybe there may be differences that occur
672
00:45:52.960 --> 00:45:59.679
as we start to move toward other types of autonomous systems.
673
00:46:00.760 --> 00:46:03.599
You know, those are may have a little bit different
674
00:46:03.599 --> 00:46:06.320
maintenance concept that go with them. But as long as
675
00:46:06.320 --> 00:46:12.199
we're still relying on arly burks to be on the
676
00:46:12.239 --> 00:46:14.920
in the forefront of defending the nation, you got to
677
00:46:14.960 --> 00:46:21.440
fix them. And all the observations that a flight one
678
00:46:21.920 --> 00:46:25.480
early flight one arly burk DDG is not the same
679
00:46:25.559 --> 00:46:28.880
thing as the latest one that was just came down
680
00:46:28.920 --> 00:46:35.440
the ways and UH. The the the management of industrial
681
00:46:35.480 --> 00:46:39.880
base is uh, it's something we have not done all
682
00:46:39.920 --> 00:46:43.679
that well with. Actually, if you don't mind, I will
683
00:46:43.719 --> 00:46:46.960
give you a story about the Defense Industrial base as
684
00:46:46.960 --> 00:46:53.239
it actually exists for a lot of Navy parts. And
685
00:46:53.480 --> 00:46:56.679
I among the things I've done at RAND is we
686
00:46:56.960 --> 00:47:02.079
did another one of these table talk exercises on rominator cartridges. Now,
687
00:47:02.119 --> 00:47:04.960
those of you who have some kind of navy engineering
688
00:47:05.000 --> 00:47:08.559
background remember rominator cartridges as the things that you put
689
00:47:08.559 --> 00:47:13.119
into a potable water system to powdable water system, to
690
00:47:14.480 --> 00:47:17.440
kill bacteria and keep everybody from you know, getting the
691
00:47:18.119 --> 00:47:25.239
getting sick. We did the TTX where we're looking at
692
00:47:25.239 --> 00:47:29.519
the supply of rominator cartridges and you'll be fascinated to
693
00:47:29.639 --> 00:47:34.599
know that bromine comes from a lot of different places.
694
00:47:34.760 --> 00:47:40.280
Israel is one of them. But the rominator cartridges are
695
00:47:40.280 --> 00:47:46.920
made in Chicago by a company of twelve people, one
696
00:47:46.920 --> 00:47:49.119
of which is older that the head, the owner of
697
00:47:49.199 --> 00:47:52.239
the company is older than I. And they buy all
698
00:47:52.280 --> 00:47:55.840
their rominator paste, the stuff that actually goes into the
699
00:47:55.920 --> 00:48:01.400
cartridges from a guy in Tennessee. And there's three of
700
00:48:01.440 --> 00:48:04.960
those guys. That's the actual industrial basics that we deal
701
00:48:05.000 --> 00:48:07.239
with and that you know, so we looked at, you know,
702
00:48:07.239 --> 00:48:12.599
some other things pumps h back a lot. That's a
703
00:48:12.599 --> 00:48:15.400
lot more common than people realize. So people when we
704
00:48:15.760 --> 00:48:18.039
talk about the industrial base, we think of Lackey Martin.
705
00:48:18.400 --> 00:48:23.840
Well for a lot of these legacy parts for ships
706
00:48:23.840 --> 00:48:28.000
that are thirty five years old, it's some dude older
707
00:48:28.039 --> 00:48:30.800
than I am with ten of his friends who are
708
00:48:30.920 --> 00:48:34.679
making those things.
709
00:48:35.159 --> 00:48:37.880
Uh, why am I not surprised? Anybody ever served on
710
00:48:37.920 --> 00:48:42.519
a carrying class destroyer will not ever be or probably
711
00:48:42.559 --> 00:48:44.639
on the old mind sweepers probably will not be shocked.
712
00:48:44.679 --> 00:48:48.480
But here who actually is making that thing that you
713
00:48:48.519 --> 00:48:52.039
can't get anymore. There was a pretty good There was
714
00:48:52.079 --> 00:48:54.760
a pretty good thing done by I don't know, uh,
715
00:48:55.199 --> 00:49:00.400
Commander Eric Schwartz, I think that's his name, uh, for
716
00:49:00.480 --> 00:49:02.880
a joint Tech Exchange group, but he was he was
717
00:49:02.920 --> 00:49:06.119
the OP now and he had repair challenges. Uh mentioned
718
00:49:06.239 --> 00:49:08.159
I think on page five is this thing I linked
719
00:49:08.159 --> 00:49:11.079
on the on the on the chat room, but I
720
00:49:11.079 --> 00:49:14.440
thought this was just the first thing on they put
721
00:49:14.480 --> 00:49:18.159
there was the tyranny of distance, which requires a combination
722
00:49:18.239 --> 00:49:22.599
of prepositioning material, inter theater lift and mobile mobile intra
723
00:49:22.719 --> 00:49:25.760
theater assets perform battle damage assessment and repair. And I thought,
724
00:49:26.239 --> 00:49:28.920
we are seeing this play out right now in the
725
00:49:29.000 --> 00:49:35.000
in the activity involving around the The assumptions about always
726
00:49:35.039 --> 00:49:39.440
having a nearby base to draw material, well, that's that's
727
00:49:39.519 --> 00:49:43.840
been that's gone. The ability to to rapidly have our
728
00:49:43.920 --> 00:49:46.880
ships move from where the supply stocks are to the front,
729
00:49:47.280 --> 00:49:49.559
that's that's kind of blown by the wayside because we
730
00:49:49.559 --> 00:49:52.519
don't have enough ships to do that. So, you know,
731
00:49:52.599 --> 00:49:54.800
and I'm thinking, well, you you, this is what you
732
00:49:54.840 --> 00:49:58.519
guys very much discussed in this thing too. Talk a
733
00:49:58.519 --> 00:50:00.519
little about the other terrier. I mean, you've got the
734
00:50:00.599 --> 00:50:03.719
tyranny of distance, and that includes the fact and I
735
00:50:03.719 --> 00:50:07.719
think I didn't get as much uh blatant coverage as
736
00:50:07.760 --> 00:50:10.599
I thought you guys put in. But you can't put
737
00:50:10.679 --> 00:50:14.400
assets in Japan, rely on assets in Japan or or
738
00:50:14.559 --> 00:50:18.239
walm maybe even because they're within somebody's missile range. Now, uh,
739
00:50:18.639 --> 00:50:22.559
you know, so you know what what you know. Part
740
00:50:22.559 --> 00:50:24.679
of what you're doing, I guess is suggesting that we
741
00:50:24.719 --> 00:50:28.280
need to have these these portable assets, movable assets, you know,
742
00:50:28.320 --> 00:50:30.239
the floating dry docks, all that stuff we had in
743
00:50:30.280 --> 00:50:32.719
World War Two, because we don't know where we're going.
744
00:50:32.639 --> 00:50:36.559
To be to fight this stuff if we have to fight. Yeah,
745
00:50:36.719 --> 00:50:39.400
and the tyranny distance is certainly there. And I think
746
00:50:39.400 --> 00:50:43.320
we a lot of that is we we make implicit
747
00:50:44.119 --> 00:50:47.719
we among the things that we wanted to get from
748
00:50:48.039 --> 00:50:52.280
the partners, partner nations who were you know, part of
749
00:50:52.320 --> 00:50:57.920
the TTX is how how they felt about the the
750
00:50:57.960 --> 00:51:03.440
possibility that we were going to rely on them for repairs. Now,
751
00:51:03.639 --> 00:51:07.440
the Koreans were and I think the Koreans were very
752
00:51:08.079 --> 00:51:11.960
oh yeah, we love to have you. Of course, there
753
00:51:12.000 --> 00:51:14.159
is a problem of actually getting the ship either to
754
00:51:14.280 --> 00:51:17.239
coreer or jor pay if it's damaged down for the Pelopines.
755
00:51:17.760 --> 00:51:26.920
But the National Defense Strategy is clear that the Secretary
756
00:51:27.840 --> 00:51:33.199
expects the United States Joint Force to be able to
757
00:51:33.280 --> 00:51:41.119
provide some type of meaningful offensive presence inside the first island,
758
00:51:42.400 --> 00:51:47.719
which means that we got to figure out ways given
759
00:51:47.760 --> 00:51:55.159
that that's the requirement. Obviously, you can't operate in ways
760
00:51:55.159 --> 00:51:58.199
that just create targets. You have to figure out ways
761
00:51:58.280 --> 00:52:04.320
to move around. You have to figure out ways to
762
00:52:04.320 --> 00:52:11.039
to organically respond when something bad happens. And the assumption
763
00:52:11.159 --> 00:52:14.039
that we could just stay far enough away that we
764
00:52:14.119 --> 00:52:20.719
won't have a problem is problematic from a couple of perspectives.
765
00:52:20.880 --> 00:52:23.920
One is, we don't know when something bad might happen.
766
00:52:23.920 --> 00:52:27.320
It might not happen at the height of the war,
767
00:52:27.880 --> 00:52:29.280
happened before, and then we have to be able to
768
00:52:29.280 --> 00:52:35.719
respond at that point. We also that we can't be
769
00:52:35.800 --> 00:52:41.239
effective to actually affect events, you have to be able
770
00:52:41.880 --> 00:52:49.440
to move somewhere within the range of the enemy's weapons.
771
00:52:50.360 --> 00:52:54.239
And in addition, if something does get damaged or something
772
00:52:54.280 --> 00:52:57.360
has to be resupplied, you have to find ways of
773
00:52:57.440 --> 00:53:01.400
doing that. In spite of the contested nature of the
774
00:53:01.920 --> 00:53:08.239
of the environment. So, uh, you're right to say that
775
00:53:08.320 --> 00:53:13.559
what our suggestion is relying on large fixed bases is
776
00:53:13.559 --> 00:53:17.840
not going to work because they are going to for
777
00:53:17.880 --> 00:53:21.639
two reasons. One is that they're going to be highly vulnerable.
778
00:53:22.079 --> 00:53:25.920
Another is that the owners of those bases, not Guam
779
00:53:25.960 --> 00:53:32.000
but owners in Japan, Korea, Singapore, Australia are aware that
780
00:53:32.039 --> 00:53:37.559
they're vulnerable. So they're they're going to they will be affected.
781
00:53:37.639 --> 00:53:44.519
Philippines very much so will be affected by how they
782
00:53:44.599 --> 00:53:47.199
feel we're responding to the problem. If we're just relying
783
00:53:47.199 --> 00:53:50.840
on them to to hey, welcome us, give us everything,
784
00:53:50.960 --> 00:53:55.039
give us our you know, act as a repair hub
785
00:53:55.079 --> 00:54:01.159
and the logistics hub. They if if we say that
786
00:54:02.079 --> 00:54:04.400
and they see that that just makes them a target,
787
00:54:04.639 --> 00:54:09.119
they're just going to call that bad planning. So all that,
788
00:54:09.960 --> 00:54:14.079
I think has to be part of our discussion. It
789
00:54:14.159 --> 00:54:17.960
can't be we'll never go there because we must go there.
790
00:54:18.280 --> 00:54:23.199
It also can't be Uh, Oi'll be fine. And to
791
00:54:23.320 --> 00:54:26.119
kind of to go back to your point about the
792
00:54:27.159 --> 00:54:33.400
about the current fight. You know, I mentioned that in
793
00:54:33.440 --> 00:54:38.159
my earlier days, I was responsible for one of the
794
00:54:38.199 --> 00:54:40.679
people responsible for the movement of stuff and out of
795
00:54:40.800 --> 00:54:46.320
the Jebel. Well it should be pretty apparent now that
796
00:54:46.400 --> 00:54:50.880
relying on Bahrain and jebel Is resupply points was not
797
00:54:50.880 --> 00:54:55.480
not a great not a great plan. So that's that.
798
00:54:55.519 --> 00:55:01.280
I I think that we we need to be realistic
799
00:55:01.440 --> 00:55:03.880
about what we're trying to do, and we need to
800
00:55:03.920 --> 00:55:09.400
be we owe you know, we who are supposed to
801
00:55:09.400 --> 00:55:14.519
be thinking about these things, owe the nation something like
802
00:55:14.599 --> 00:55:18.519
a realistic view of what, you know, what could happen.
803
00:55:19.599 --> 00:55:22.679
And uh, you know again that was the purpose of
804
00:55:22.719 --> 00:55:29.119
the purpose of the exercise, was to say, here are
805
00:55:29.159 --> 00:55:34.599
a set of perfectly realistic vignettes. None of these are
806
00:55:35.880 --> 00:55:41.360
you know, lasers from space and Godzilla descending from the deeper,
807
00:55:41.519 --> 00:55:43.639
you descending from the deep, or anything like that. None
808
00:55:43.639 --> 00:55:50.000
of that. These are perfectly plausible, uh exercise, you know,
809
00:55:50.480 --> 00:55:57.079
uh potentialities. How would the nation, how would the Navy
810
00:55:57.639 --> 00:56:03.280
deal with them? Go? And what we saw was, wow,
811
00:56:04.480 --> 00:56:09.840
we thought about it. We're not real sure. I thought
812
00:56:09.840 --> 00:56:13.599
that was one of the great strengths of the summary
813
00:56:13.639 --> 00:56:19.800
that y'all provided from the tabletop exercises, and in theory
814
00:56:19.840 --> 00:56:22.079
it correct me if I got unplus our minds a
815
00:56:22.159 --> 00:56:24.880
year here. But it's supposed to take place between the
816
00:56:25.000 --> 00:56:28.119
various vignettes between twenty seven and twenty nine, but you
817
00:56:28.280 --> 00:56:33.840
limited yourself to what are real world capabilities and numbers
818
00:56:34.079 --> 00:56:37.360
of to twenty twenty five because y'all did this exercise
819
00:56:37.360 --> 00:56:39.840
back in the summer of twenty twenty five. And I
820
00:56:39.840 --> 00:56:43.960
thought another very refreshing thing that y'all broached. Here is
821
00:56:44.000 --> 00:56:49.239
something that, for variety of reasons best explained by the
822
00:56:49.239 --> 00:56:53.639
people who do it. They don't broach a very critical
823
00:56:53.960 --> 00:56:58.280
aspect of even our best allies. And y'all had a Japanese,
824
00:56:58.320 --> 00:57:02.119
South Korean, Australian rep reresentatives. There. You had people familiar
825
00:57:02.559 --> 00:57:06.119
with Singapore and the Philippines and these are these are
826
00:57:06.119 --> 00:57:09.039
our friends, and some of them we have bilateral agreements with.
827
00:57:09.280 --> 00:57:14.719
But the essential thing is these aren't colonies, and we
828
00:57:14.840 --> 00:57:17.760
are are not an old school imperial power. These are
829
00:57:18.159 --> 00:57:23.119
democratically based nations who have agencies and have their own priorities.
830
00:57:23.480 --> 00:57:27.360
And especially when you look at things, you know Singapore,
831
00:57:27.400 --> 00:57:30.039
the comments about Singapore, I think we're really good. You
832
00:57:30.079 --> 00:57:32.360
just can't assume that you can go into a commercial
833
00:57:32.400 --> 00:57:38.199
shipyard and another sovereign nation that has contracts already pre existing,
834
00:57:38.360 --> 00:57:41.159
go excuse me, I want to move my fully loaded
835
00:57:41.199 --> 00:57:43.559
warship that's got a couple holes in it into your
836
00:57:43.559 --> 00:57:46.400
shipyard for repairs. And by the way, we've got to
837
00:57:46.440 --> 00:57:50.360
offload about you know, three, three or four dozen live
838
00:57:50.400 --> 00:57:55.000
warheads while we're at it, and you have additional challenges
839
00:57:55.039 --> 00:58:00.360
in places like Singapore. Refreshingly mentioned the fact that should
840
00:58:00.360 --> 00:58:04.559
you find yourself in a shooting war with the People's
841
00:58:04.599 --> 00:58:08.000
Republic of China, when you go into Singapore, you're going
842
00:58:08.039 --> 00:58:12.840
into a nation that is seventy percent ethnically Chinese, regardless
843
00:58:12.880 --> 00:58:18.239
of the stance of the government there. That is water
844
00:58:18.360 --> 00:58:22.880
in which a lot of unpleasant fish can swim in
845
00:58:23.320 --> 00:58:27.000
and a lot of the I use this term because
846
00:58:27.000 --> 00:58:31.599
I like to the intellectual vanity of certain coping mechanisms
847
00:58:31.599 --> 00:58:33.639
we've had over the course of the last thirty years, like
848
00:58:33.679 --> 00:58:38.119
the thousand ship Navy. I always thought that it under
849
00:58:38.639 --> 00:58:43.679
appreciated the reality that nations that are even aligned to
850
00:58:43.760 --> 00:58:47.880
you are friends with you. They're independent nations that are
851
00:58:47.920 --> 00:58:50.639
subject to the will of the government of varying degrees.
852
00:58:51.280 --> 00:58:55.360
And in that tabletop exercise that you'll get a couple
853
00:58:55.519 --> 00:58:59.719
of lessons learned in that sector coming out that you
854
00:58:59.760 --> 00:59:01.679
may he didn't think you're going to find going in.
855
00:59:02.239 --> 00:59:07.800
We found first off that Singapore is a good friend,
856
00:59:07.840 --> 00:59:11.400
but they're not a as you say. They are a
857
00:59:11.440 --> 00:59:15.000
sovereign nation and they have significant Chinese influence, and relying
858
00:59:15.039 --> 00:59:18.679
on them is to do everything is a mistake. A
859
00:59:18.760 --> 00:59:24.199
second thing is both Japan and Korea are good allies
860
00:59:24.239 --> 00:59:27.119
and they're they want to cooperate, but they're very realistic
861
00:59:27.199 --> 00:59:31.280
that when the missiles start flying that things could change.
862
00:59:31.400 --> 00:59:33.320
And then I guess the last thing is that Australia
863
00:59:34.000 --> 00:59:37.800
great ally, but they're a long way away and so
864
00:59:39.079 --> 00:59:43.599
being able to use them maybe pretty challenging. But we
865
00:59:43.719 --> 00:59:47.000
learned a lot. Yeah, I really.
866
00:59:48.480 --> 00:59:50.400
I think this is really an important piece of work,
867
00:59:50.440 --> 00:59:52.719
and they're so you guys were I thought it little
868
00:59:52.719 --> 00:59:57.400
subtle sometimes, but but you know, that's that's understandable. But this,
869
00:59:57.679 --> 01:00:00.360
you know, this is exactly the kind of thing that
870
01:00:00.079 --> 01:00:03.400
that the and I'm glad the Department of War funded this.
871
01:00:03.480 --> 01:00:06.880
I assume this has been circulated upward, but if it hasn't,
872
01:00:07.000 --> 01:00:11.400
I hope it gets up because the amount of energy
873
01:00:11.559 --> 01:00:13.360
and effort it's going to take to overcome some of
874
01:00:13.360 --> 01:00:18.599
the obstacles that you guys identified is astonishing. So anyway,
875
01:00:18.679 --> 01:00:21.639
thank you for joining us today and I appreciate talking
876
01:00:21.679 --> 01:00:22.440
you talking.
877
01:00:22.199 --> 01:00:27.159
To my pleasure. It's honor. Yeah, Brad, it's been been
878
01:00:27.199 --> 01:00:30.280
a great pleasure, and you've outlined some of the things
879
01:00:30.320 --> 01:00:32.000
that y'all are working on there. I'm going to keep
880
01:00:32.000 --> 01:00:34.719
an eye on it. Y'all doing really important stuff, so
881
01:00:35.360 --> 01:00:37.800
pass on to everybody else in your team. We appreciate
882
01:00:37.840 --> 01:00:40.320
it and we'll try to keep keep a light on
883
01:00:40.360 --> 01:00:42.599
it so others can view it as well. It's important
884
01:00:42.679 --> 01:00:46.880
work they all are doing. And thank you everybody for
885
01:00:47.000 --> 01:00:50.159
joining us for another addition a mid reps and until
886
01:00:50.199 --> 01:00:53.360
next time, hope everybody has a great Navy day. Cheers,
887
01:01:09.079 --> 01:01:10.000
only one to.
888
01:01:10.199 --> 01:01:15.639
Marry me and leave a friend of Becaudily for you
889
01:01:15.880 --> 01:01:23.519
being to blame more lovely love me, silly faulting your
890
01:01:23.880 --> 01:01:24.559
the tame.
891
01:01:26.360 --> 01:01:34.480
It's a long way to Dipperary, It's a long way.
892
01:01:34.760 --> 01:01:39.800
It's a long way to Dipperary, to the Queen.
893
01:01:43.519 --> 01:01:50.239
Dor b becdily Fairwell, listen, twell.
894
01:01:51.159 --> 01:02:02.679
It's a long long way to Dipperate. But my my thing, hey,