Good morning, everybody.I’m delighted to be here.Everybody I encounter asks me how things are going, how I’m enjoying the job.And, of course, I have to point out that’s a completely rhetorical question.I am SUBPAC, so life is pretty good.The job is great.I’m delighted to be here and bring along some tropical breezes to the Washington, D.C. area, and most importantly a spirit of warm aloha.
I’d like to spend just a little bit of time today telling you a little bit about—kind of expand on what my predecessors have already been talking about in terms of what’s going on in the world, certainly a Pacific sort of focus, but I’m going to take the liberty of speaking a little bit more broadly, and some of the things we’re doing in response to all that.
As has been talked about, we’re doing a lot of things within the U.S. Navy with Virginia-class, with VPM, with Ohio modernizations, with Ohio Replacement, that are going to make our platforms more capable.That’s really important because the rest of the world is doing things that make their Submarine Forces more capable.So just around my AOR what you see is all the different nations that are operating submarines, that are building submarines, and down there in the lower right-hand corner is what that means in terms of the inventory.
As my predecessors have talked about here, we’re on a path where we’re going to have a trough in our own numbers.We’re going to have to make sure that the numbers that we have are the most capable submarines we can possibly put out to sea because we have important work to do and more demands than we can possibly meet.The yellow curve on there obviously shows some of what China is doing, both with respect to capacity and capability. Even the Russian curve on there, although relatively flat, I need to emphasize that really reflects the replacement of old and relatively less capable platforms with brand new very modern ones.
Obviously, Theater ASW is a team sport, so a number of the nations that I picture on here are, in fact, our teammates, our partners, our friends, our allies. So it’s not us going alone, but there’s no question they look to us for leadership and we set the standard in terms of not just the TTPs but in the capabilities we’re bringing to bear.
The last thing I’d point out, and it doesn’t show up on the slide very well, but for a number of those countries there’s a little asterisk, and that’s countries that actually have an indigenous submarine manufacturing capability.It used to be that most of the rest-of-the-world Submarine Forces were comprised of submarines that had been exported by primarily one or two near-peer competitors.But everybody around the world has recognized the value of submarines, of submarine capabilities, and for their own national security interests are interested in having that as an indigenous capability.So almost everybody on there is in various stages of developing an indigenous submarine building capability.
Let me tell you a little bit about some of those capabilities.Obviously I’m just featuring a couple of nations here in particular, but Russia recently has taken possession of and is now operating its new SSGN, the Severodvinsk.Out in the Pacific we just have seen Petropavlovsk receive its first Dolgorukiy.
China is heading to sea with not just a new SSBN, the Jin, but nuclear attack submarines, the SHANG I and SHANG II, under production.Submarine capabilities are enhanced by things such as what you see in the lower left.Russia recently has not only deployed, but they are employing new cruise missile systems, submarine-launched and surface ship-launched, capable of both anti-ship and land attack mission.And as was mentioned earlier today, North Korea is also seeing the advantage of having a deterrent that can be put to sea, and they are pursuing that right now under their Gorae program.
Let’s talk a little bit more about Russia.Their military budget has doubled in the last decade.Most of that is going to their Submarine Force.Again, they recognize the value of assets that can go to sea and try to remain stealthy.
The red range rings you see there are the ones that highlight the potential threat that is posed by this new weapons system, the Kalibr, which they are now putting out to sea.The larger ring is the land attack cruise missile range, and the smaller shaded in ring is the anti-ship version.And conveniently, I put those circles across some of our fleet concentration centers, just to give you some sense of what they hope to be able to hold at-risk.
The other thing I point out in the lower right, and having to do with their resurgence is not only their capability but their intent, or their demonstrated actions.So what you see in the lower right, 10 years ago, or even 20 years ago, would have looked like a Tomahawk cruise missile being vertically launched from a DDG into Desert Storm, Iraqi Freedom, Enduring Freedom, etcetera. But that is a vertical launch land-attack cruise missile of the Kalibr system being launched from a Russian platform into Syria. So again, they are not being at all shy in demonstrating and using the capabilities they have.
The other thing I want to point out on this slide is really the tag line at the bottom.As the Russians go about modernizing their forces, and you can see that progression across the top as they go and ultimately replace Oscar IIs with Sevrodvinsks and replace Deltas with Dolgorukiys. These are very, very quiet platforms, manned by very capable submariners, and heading off into really, really big oceans. One of the things that we realize every time that there’s activity out there that we’re interested in, is that when adversaries have very, very quiet platforms heading out into a really, really big ocean, it’s really, really important for us to be postured, be positioned, to be able to try and have some awareness of what’s going on from the moment they get underway. Once they disappear out into the broad ocean expanses, it’s a very, very difficult problem.
And if the combatant commanders, if the National Command Authority, gives us the Navy, us the Submarine Force, the task of finding those folks and holding them at-risk, if we haven’t really begun that on day one of their strategic deterrent patrol or their forward deployed operation, then it’s going to take a lot of time and a lot of assets and a lot of resources for us to be able to do what the National Command Authority is asking for.So it’s a pretty big challenge.
One of the other areas in which Russia is being very active right now is up in the Arctic.I’m going to spend a little bit of time here talking more deeply about the Arctic.Why?Well, obviously, global warming and the melting of the ice cap is creating the potential for not only commercially viable transit routes, but commercially viable resources.
The Arctic, although the smallest of the world’s oceans, is assessed to have—even just within the U.S.-claimed Arctic—a trillion dollars’ worth of hydrocarbon resources.It’s assessed that throughout the Arctic basin as a whole, about 30 percent of the world’s undiscovered natural gas, 15 percent of the world’s undiscovered oil resource reserves, and 20 percent of liquid natural gas, are all within the Arctic.So there’s obviously commercial and economic interests.
There’s a desire for resources. Fishing stocks have the potential to become more accessible and more affordable. Maybe soon we will even have Arctic tourism. Additionally, the Arctic is warming relatively faster than the rest of the planet;about twice as fast. So this is a phenomenon which we are not only monitoring but we’re anticipating and trying to get out ahead of.
Right now it’s estimated that on average you get relatively ice free conditions going through the Bering Strait for about 20 weeks out of the year.Over the next couple of decades, it will probably increase by about 20 percent—that’s almost 30 weeks out of the year.That northern sea route that you see shown there currently is ice free on average about two weeks out of the year.Over the next couple of decades that should quadruple, to an estimated about nine or ten weeks out of the year.
So that explains why people are interested, including the United States.Russia, you see with those little colored dots there, is busily reactivating military facilities that previously had been deactivated at the end of the Cold War, some that have been inactive for decades. And they’re adding additional facilities as well.They’ve created a new strategic military command responsible for the Russian Arctic.They’re adding a couple of brigades of marines up in that area as well.That, on top of all the other investment, including the modernization of their northern fleet, which remains their largest fleet.
But of course it’s not only the Russians. In fact, I’ll hold that thought here for a moment.
The United States, of course, has some of those same interests.We have a long history of interest in the Arctic, not just in the nation and not just in the Navy, but particularly in the submarine force, going back to the first challenging explorations in the ‘40s and then some seminal events there with nuclear power.
As a result, just within the last couple of years now, the nation, the department and the Navy have all issued new Arctic roadmaps, new Arctic strategies, which you see summarized here.The thing that I want to emphasize here is that when you look at the Navy document just signed out within the last couple of years, it lists the responsibilities for the Navy in the Arctic; and those are no different than Navy responsibilities anywhere else around the world.It’s a recognition, though, that executing those responsibilities in the Arctic has some unique challenges just because of the very, very harsh environment.
For the near term the good news is that we think that we can execute those responsibilities with the force in being.It doesn’t require additional capabilities.It doesn’t require additional capacity.But as we look forward and as this roadmap looks out to the future over the next couple of decades, this will be an area where—if warming and ice melting continues—this is going to be an area where it’s going to require more capability and more capacity in order to execute these very same responsibilities.
Fortunately, though, the Navy and Submarine Force are well positioned for this.We have a lot of experience.In fact, how many folks here in the room have Arctic experience?Okay, that’s even more than I thought.We’ve been operating up here a lot.
We’ve been doing this through a variety of things, but in particular one of the things that we’ve been doing for a number of decades is the ice exercise, or ICEX.This is a year where we have an ICEX scheduled. Through the leadership of N97 and SUBFOR, we’re on a biennial cycle now for our ICEXs.In fact, you’ll notice from those dates that some of us are going to be privileged to head up for the ice camp this year.We’re leaving pretty soon.In fact, when I leave here it’s to go start packing my bags.
I’m going to spend a little bit of time talking about where we’ve gone with ICEXs and what we’re hoping to get out of this one.We do have now an ice camp set up.It’s almost 200 miles north of Alaska.It was kind of interesting to observe the process that goes into just figuring out where you’re going to set up an ice camp.There’s a few things that you really have to have.
You have to be far enough north that it’s cold enough that hopefully the ice is going to stay stable.You have to be close enough to be able to range with aircraft, and you don’t want to assume that it’s a one-way trip—that you’re going to be able to refuel once you get there.So that kind of limits the range a little bit.
The ice moves, so we set up the camps in places that hopefully are going to remain in international waters or in U.S. territorial waters.You need kind of the right mix of ice, too.You really want to set up your camp on places where you hope the ice doesn’t break apart.That’s the really rugged, multi-year ice.But because it’s really rugged stuff, it’s difficult to land a plane on, so you also want to have nearby some first year ice as well, which is a little easier to groom.
So the team spent most of the last few weeks looking at a variety of sources.They picked a site, this site right here. As of this morning there are 50 personnel from a variety of organizations who are living on the ice.As you can see on the schedule there, we’ve got more things coming.
One of the challenges from CNO Greenert back at the 2014 ICEX was to recognize this isn’t just about the Navy, this is a national priority and we need to find ways to be more collaborative. So you can see—I won’t read the statistics to you, but in addition to the Submarine Force presence and Submarine Force objectives with a couple of SSNs, tactical development, UUVs, etcetera, we’ve got multiple services, multiple agencies, multiple nations, academia, and there’s going to be a good bit of media associated with this as well.
So, why Ice Camp Sargo? Well, it commemorates the first-ever submarine winter time transit of the Bering Strait by USS SARGO under the command of Lieutenant Commander Nicholson. Vice Admiral Nicholson, of course, Submarine League members will remember, was here on this very stage last fall being recognized with a lifetime achievement award.I was proud to be in the room to participate in that applause for Admiral Nicholson.
There are a lot of things that we’ve learned, lessons we’ve learned over the years that are going into trying to improve the quality of our data take and improve the quality of the experience, and always in keeping with environmental regulations.So this will be the first ice camp where we’ve obtained EPA permission for any discharges, and the expectation that we’ve put upon ourselves is for a 100 percent back haul.Everything we bring up we’re going to bring back, and literally leave the camp site cleaner than when we found it.
These are the strategic objectives.Again, I’m not going to read it all to you, but I hope you’ll see that it’s a combination of things that benefit Submarine Force readiness through tactical development and also through having additional submarine crews and submarines experience with an understanding of what is unique about operating in the Arctic.
I got to do the OP-EVAL for the Seawolf-class on USS CONNECTICUT.Despite the best modeling and analysis and engineering, what you always discover with any brand new design is that things operate a little differently when the water is less than 32 degrees than it is at say 33, 34 or 35.So I’m sure there’s going to be a lot of learning conducted.
A lot of engagement opportunities. It was mentioned earlier that the Arctic Council is having meetings as we speak in Fairbanks, Alaska.So there’s going to be an opportunity for the U.S. delegation to the Arctic Council to participate and go visit the ice camp.There’s going to be some media.We’re looking forward to a great experience and some great results.
My segue here might not be obvious when you look at the title of this slide, but this is about going back to what is going on in the environment, what’s changing and what we’re doing about it.I’m shifting now over to China.But the reason I segued over here to this slide is to look at that red arc that goes up into the upper right-hand corner of the slide.The Chinese navy, not only their Submarine Force, is developing capabilities, developing capacity, and they’re doing what I think any emerging naval power would aspire to do.They are trying to expand their areas of operations and trying to secure their lines of communication.
So that red arc going into the upper right-hand corner of your slide shows last year a three ship surface action group of the PLA-N went up into the Bering Sea, exercising the right of innocent passage which allows you to pass within 12 nautical miles of another nation’s territory. In this case it was U.S. territory of Alaska—all innocent passage, all peaceful, but that’s unprecedented activity.Similarly, a lot of what else you see in this slide is an unprecedented level of activity.Again, not surprising given that they’re an emerging power.
If you look over to the right side of that slide you’ll see that in 2014 China for the first time ever participated in our Rim of the Pacific exercise, RIMPAC.In 2016 they plan to participate again with three ships, three ships among the 47 ships, and China among the 27 nations that are going to be participating in what’s going to be, once again, the largest RIMPAC in history.Every year we make that claim because every year it keeps growing.
You see as well over there to the left that yellow line shows that they’ve been expanding their operations into the Indian Ocean, and not just expanding their operations but again attempting to put in place the kind of Mahanian coaling station theory of getting logistics and resupply and repair kind of facilities through agreements with other nations.So you see highlighted here a port facility in Sri Lanka, a pending agreement in Djibouti, a pending agreement in Karachi as well.In their own writing China describes this as trying to establish a maritime Silk Road or a string of pearls.They recognize that their national security and the security of the party depends upon economic development, and that economic development depends on those secure lines of communication.
So they’ve been investing heavily in this area, an 85 percent stake in ownership of that port facility in Colombo, Sri Lanka; about 25 percent in Djibouti. But, of course, the China Overseas Shipping Company has large investments in overseas ports from Antwerp and the Suez and Singapore to Seattle and Long Beach.So, they are very aggressive.
Their Submarine Force is similarly aggressive.Obviously, here I won’t talk about any specific operations, but they’re out and about and they are building.Not only are they building new submarines, but they are exporting.Pakistan is a customer. Thailand is rumored to be becoming a customer.Again, you can kind of see that they are also using their submarines for their own version of theater security cooperation, with stops as you see highlighted here in Karachi and in Sri Lanka.
In talking about China, I’ve referenced both capability and capacity.They are learning and developing and maturing technology, and building more capable platforms.They have a shipbuilding industry that allows the generation of an awful lot of capacity as well.I wouldn’t presume to compare the quality of workmanship that goes into a JIANGKAI with what goes into anything coming out of any of our U.S. shipyards, but the fact is that quantity has a quality all of its own.The point here is that on any given day it’s entirely likely that the U.S. assets under the command of the U.S. 7th Fleet are going to be outnumbered numerically, again not qualitatively, in their backyard.
North Korea we’ve talked about a couple of times.Again, I want to point out that they are seeking to expand both capability and capacity.We’ve talked about their SSB, the Gorae, which has been in and out of port.And they’ve been doing a number of tests on a potential submarine-launched ballistic missile that could come out of the Gorae at some point.In the upper left you see that they claim to have successfully tested it, and as one of the earlier speakers alluded to, my teenagers would look at that as a bad job of photo-shopping, but that at least is what they claim.
But again, they obviously feel like they need to be ready to defend themselves.What was interesting is just last August, you see in the upper right hand corner, during yet another round of heightened tensions between North and South, they were actually able to sortie 50 submarines in about 24 hours and get them out of port.That’s pretty surprising.Now I have no idea whether 50 actually returned to port.
And although they’re submarines, I have no indication that any one of them actually ever submerged.But they were able to get them out of port.
I do live in an interesting neighborhood out in the Pacific.We’ve talked about this a little bit.The yellow there highlights the AIS, the Automated Identification System tracks of merchant shipping.It speaks to the importance of the South China Sea and the world economy.That’s where all the traffic goes.
The South China Sea is also very resource rich.So in addition to a national security perspective to commerce there’s an economic security consideration that makes that an area with a lot of competition, a lot of potential friction.
What you see highlighted there on the right is kind of the difference in just a handful of months between the natural reef of Fiery Cross and what it has recently looked like.You’ve all been able to read in the newspapers how this work continues and is now getting to the point of actually putting capabilities onto those reefs.And although our press, actually even many of our leaders both in uniform and out of uniform, describe this activity as land reclamation, I would offer that that is an overly generous characterization that does not benefit the international community and does benefit the Chinese.
This is reef destruction, which is resulting in land creation where land, at least under legal definitions, never existed before.So again, I would suggest that in our dialogue on this we call it for what it is.There are estimates of significant negative impacts to the fisheries in the South China Sea, which all those littoral nations also compete for.So now we’re taking a scarce resource, making it even more scarce and increasing competition at a time when nations are becoming increasingly militarized in seeking to enhance their claims.
A last point I would make, and sort of the point of that inset down at the bottom, is that China is not alone in trying to bolster their claims.Many of the other littoral nations who have competing claims have occupied reefs, have built some sort of facilities and have tried to add to their territory, but certainly not of the magnitude that we see from China.
There’s been a lot of discussion about electronic maneuver warfare.This is an area where I think our industry partners can be of great assistance to us.There are two things I want to highlight here.First, on the right, the normal progression of technology, not even for military purposes but for commercial purposes, such as a surface search radar.
As we get to digital solid state radars what we find is that just as it has a tremendous capability for every bass fisherman, it has a tremendous capability for everybody who might be out wanting to look for a periscope.So we need systems that can keep pace.And what you see in the lower right is the result—that small low-powered digital radar has a better defined return off of that target than the much more high-powered analog radar that would be very easily detected by signal strength on our ESM suites.
The left-hand side, talks about cyber.Keep in mind, the very first Virginia-class went to sea with more computing power than the aggregation of every submarine that we had ever built before it.That is a great, great strategic and tactical advantage for us, but it creates a potential vulnerability as well.We will always want to try to pay attention to our defense, to keep people out of the networks, but I think it’s going to be equally important for us to try and make sure that we are designing systems and training operators with the resilience to be able to recognize and identify an intruder and be able to mitigate any harm or any damage.
There are a number of things that we’re doing in that realm.We’ve recognized that a lot of the training for our submarine information technology specialists, the ITS community, a lot of that training was probably inadequate; it was not pacing the threats.We’ve invested heavily in the schools and on the officer curriculum as well to try and give our officer corps greater awareness of the threat and ability to deal with it.
On the deterrence side, we talked a lot about Ohio Replacement.I would just say that operationally, as has been previously mentioned, we’re really blessed to have Admiral Haney as the Commander of U.S. Strategic Command, not only for his advocacy of the Ohio Replacement Program and his recognition of the importance of the sea-borne leg of the triad, but because of his vision and leadership of the discussion of what it means to deter in the modern world.Deterrence is no longer about only trying to keep somebody from firing a nuclear-armed weapon, because there are other means of attack, in cyberspace and in space, that have the potential to have almost similarly catastrophic effects on our way of life, on our economy, etcetera.
So he just last year got approved a revision to the plan, some-thing called the Family of Plans that integrates the responses across a variety of threat vectors.The other thing I’d point out is that Admiral Tofalo and I are very concerned about making sure that as the fleet ages and it becomes more and more challenging to maintain the material condition, we’ve got to maintain the Ao, the ability of those ballistic missile submarines, and for that matter the attack submarines, in meeting their underway times in order to generate the forces that the combatant commanders require.
I just want to say something on SSNs and SSGNs.Obviously the things that they do, the missions, are not new to anybody.But what I simply want to emphasizehere is that the force is doing great.It’s just eye-watering what these folks do.
But I want to emphasize again that I think we’re being reason-ably successful at adhering to what we’ve set as our goal, which is to have a supply-based Submarine Force.There are always going to be more demands from combatant commanders for submarines than we can generate.In fact, it’s about twice as many as we can generate.
So there are frequently requests from combatant commanders—that to respond to this new crisis, this new brushfire, this new concern, I need an additional submarine beyond what my normal global allocation is.There is great pressure to try and then identify somebody who is not yet normally ready to deploy and figure out a way to expedite them, load them out, get them underway, which perturbs that whole training cycle.Thanks to a lot of support from Navy leadership we’ve been pretty successful at trying to makethe case that we’ve got a very efficient system that’s capable at any given time of having about 10 attack submarines forward deployed anywhere in the world and leave it to the combatant commanders, the Secretary, and the Chairman to figure out where you want them to go. If you really need an 11th or a 12th, we can do that.But let us show you exactly how painful that’s going to be and what the impact is going to be through deferred maintenance and missed dry dock availabilities and the ability to generate forces in the years to come.And so, so far we’ve been pretty successful at that.
The other thing I’d point out here is that as the rest of the world gets more, shall we say interesting.—as China, for example, becomes more assertive—we’ve never been more popular.That’s true of the U.S. government.That’s true of the U.S. Navy. That’s particularly true of the U.S. Submarine Force.
We’ve got all kinds of folks around the world who now more than ever want to be our friends, want to be our partners, really want us to show up in their ports on liberty or doing maintenance, really want to be known to be doing exercises with us.That pays off in spades particularly as, as I mentioned earlier, theater ASW is more and more of a team sport.
My predecessors here on the podium have really already talked about these things, but unmanned systems clearly are the future for us.
Let me then kind of use this as my get off the stage slide.I finish here with people because that’s really where it all begins in the Submarine Force. Admiral Tofalo already mentioned this when he was going through the Commander’s Intent.The sixth of those areas that we’re focusing on is the challenge, the exhortation for us, the submariners in the Submarine Force, for our partners in industry,for everyone who supports the Submarine Force at a training activity, at a maintenance activity, at a shipbuilder, to be the best.We have been blessed with the people that we have in the Submarine Force, both historically who have gotten us to where we are, to those of us currently serving as we look at the new young millennial entering the Submarine Force right now.I’m very confident we will continue to make the investments in our capabilities and our capacity that will always keep us the world’s preeminent Submarine Force.But the secret sauce that we have is our people even if we found ourselves ever in a conflict with adversaries whose submarines had the same capabilities as ours,I’m am completely confident we would come out on top because of our people.The high quality of them entering the service, and of course the training and experience, they gain is what makes us the world’s greatest submarine force. I just couldn’t be prouder.
In that regard a couple of things I’d point out, Admiral Tofalo had mentioned that we had just integrated our first female 1120s on attack submarines.One of those submarines, USS MISSISSIPPI, just left on deployment, so that’s a bit of a milestone.Admiral Tofalo also mentioned the expansion of opportunities now for enlisted women in submarines.I just was up in the Pacific Northwest last month and was able to shake the hand of the first woman, a female corpsman chief petty officer, to report onboard USS MICHIGAN.The modifications to the hull are well underway and that is going to be yet another great success that is only going to make our Submarine Force better.
And then all these things that you see on here, these are all just some of the different programs you may have heard of, or read about which are all designed to try and ensure that our Navy and our Submarine Force continue to have the very best people and to keep the very best people.One of the things Admiral Mulloy mentioned is that before I was blessed to escape the beltway I was doing a lot of this work for CNP.One of the things that I think is going to be a real challenge is that looking across America today it’s only about 25 percent of the young men and women 18 to 20 years old who are even eligible to serve in our military.Of those, a much smaller number are even aware of or interested in serving in our military, or serving in our Submarine Force.
So we’ve got a challenge to try and make ourselves an em-ployer of choice so we can compete for all the best talent that’s in America.And then the best talent that joins the Navy, we need in our Submarine Force.And we need them not only in the door, they are the ones that we need to make sure that we retain to be our reliefs.
So, thank you for your time.With that I’d be happy to take as many questions as Admiral Padgett says I can take.
MR. BRAD KRATOVIL:Admiral, Brad Kratovil.Earlier in the conference they talked about going from three to four –we’ve made the shift from three to four SSNs in Guam.I was wondering, from your perspective does it make sense to put anymore there than the four?
RADM ROEGGE:Thanks, Brad.The question has to do with theforce laid down through the Pacific, and in particular for Guam.It was about 10 years ago that we recognized that even from some place as far away as Pearl Harbor –and having just gotten off the plane I can tell you it’s a long way –even from some place as far away as Pearl Harbor, it’s still even further away to get to all those places out in the Western Pacific where the nation needs us to do our work.So we forward deployed three attack submarines to Guam about 10 years ago and cut that distance by more than half.That has been hugely successful at generating forces that are spending less time in-transit and more time in-theater at the tip of the spear.
Just this last year we added a fourth SSN.In fact, we just this last year also got approval to change the home port for the USS EMORY S. LAND so that when she returns from her current deployment we will now have two tenders also permanently home-ported in Guam.So that’s all good.
We’ve done studies that indicate there is some additional capacity in Guam, so if we were to decide to try and put more forces out there that is an option we could consider with some additional infrastructure.But this is a discussion thatis going on not only in the Submarine Force but the Navy and all of DOD.One of the things that we have to be conscious of is kind of the demands on the island as a whole.In fact, I think it was when we were first talking about putting three SSNs out there that some, I’m sure well-natured questioner, was worried about whether the island wasgoing to sink by all this burden of military personnel.
But we’ve got 1,900 Marines who are being reassigned from Okinawa who are showing up in Guam this next year.There’s a lot of discussion about whether the pivot to the Pacific should include carriers?Should it include an ARG?Should it include additional surface ships, etcetera?Obviously, all those Navy resources would then compete for some of the support services there in Guam.
In terms of Ao, I think it would be good.It would improve our Aoa little bit.But it has to be part of a broader kind of a strategic approach to what we put in Guam.At the moment, we have no plan to go beyond where we are right now.
