---------------------------------------------------------------- The United States Navy on the World Wide Web A service of the Navy Office of Information, Washington DC send feedback/questions to comments@chinfo.navy.mil The United States Navy web site is found on the Internet at http://www.navy.mil ---------------------------------------------------------------- Remarks as delivered by The Honorable John H. Dalton Secretary of the Navy National Youth Leadership Forum Washington, D.C. 11 February 1998 EXPLAINING THE NAVY Thank you… It is always such an honor to be asked to speak to the future leadership of our great Nation, in one of our finest interactive youth leadership programs. I always enjoy opportunities such as this, where I know you are here because of a genuine interest in the affairs of our times. I commend you for your involvement and your active engagement. Looking out into the audience today, America’s future seems bright indeed. I was pleased to hear that some speech by a silver-haired Secretary of the Navy, old enough to be your Dad, would not be your only exposure to the dynamic Navy and Marine Corps during your visit to our Nation’s capital. I hope you will take the opportunity to talk to our young, bright and motivated Sailors and Marines during your visits to Patuxent River, Quantico, and my alma mater, The United States Naval Academy, later in the week. I hope you will feel their palpable self-confidence, place yourselves in their state-of-the-art training facilities and aircraft systems, and be able to almost taste their sense of purpose and pride. You will find that they faced the same decisions about their futures only a year or two ago, as you now face. My invitation to this morning’s event was specific on two items. First, it requested that I speak about our national defense and second, it promised that I would be addressing an intelligent, inquisitive and interested group of America’s future leaders. So this morning, I will address our Nation’s foreign policy strategy of “engagement;” as it defines the role, structure and employment of our Nation’s defenses, more specifically our Navy- Marine Corps team - now, and for the 21st century. Before I begin, however, I want to share a quick story with you about global thinking. The great World War II cartographer Richard Harrison upended the map-reading world when he developed “strategic projections” for strategic planners. He turned maps in new directions. The United States was not necessarily in the center of the map… North was not necessarily at the top… He urged us to “get out of the unnecessary straitjacket of geographical fixations.” Global perspectives are not new, but they are essential concepts we must embrace if we wish to continue to lead on an international level. For almost five years now, I have been very proud to lead the finest forward expeditionary forces in the world. I have been privileged to witness our Sailors and Marines in action. I have gained an insider’s view of the ship, submarine and aircraft programs they will use in the next century. And, I get to tell the Navy-Marine Corps story to groups like this, and in testimony before Congress. Just last week, I began this year’s testimony season before the Senate Armed Services Committee. Congress controls our purse strings and must agree with our budgets and spending plans, so as you can imagine those hearings are very important. Thankfully, that first hearing went very well, and Congress believes we are on the right track. As Secretary of our Nation’s Navy and Marine Corps, I too believe we are on the right track, but I can tell you the answers we derive for today’s complex security questions are not easily conceived. However, we have never backed down from a challenge, and as a result, I am able to echo the words of our Secretary of Defense, Bill Cohen, who recently said, “The Navy is the key to our global reach.” In many respects, our global reach - our ability to respond swiftly and effectively across the spectrum of crises we face, often appears effortless because of the active engagement, on a daily basis, of our forward-deployed naval expeditionary forces. I am sure that it seems effortless to you as you read about the latest positioning and deployment of our aircraft carriers, Marines, and Tomahawk capable missile ships in your local newspaper over breakfast. But, more than effortless, I hope that global reach and engagement are comforting and reassuring to you… reassuring in the knowledge that our Nation and its leaders are committed to protecting American citizens, interests and ideals around the world. Let me assure you that the Navy-Marine Corps team’s contribution to our foreign policy is an important and uniquely relevant one. The great statesman George Kennan once said, “You have no idea how much it contributes to the general politeness and pleasantness of diplomacy when you have a little quiet armed force in the background.” Our ships, submarines and aircraft are indeed a potent deterrent force to those who would threaten our varied interests in a global economy. But the value of our naval forces is so much more complex today. Today, I think of our Navy and Marine Corps strategy as a much more evolved version of the turn of the century concept of “gunboat diplomacy,” and certainly one that is much more versatile than our Cold War “blue water” Navy. There remains in the international relations discipline, a belief that the world is searching for a definable “system,” to which we can shape our military and our other institutions. But in the Department of the Navy, I believe we are past the uncertainty phase, and are well-tailored for what is the norm for our business… the regional instability we can expect in the foreseeable future. What we have shaped, through our naval expeditionary forces, is, I believe, diplomacy with real impact, every day, in so many forums around the world; and we do it not just with “gunboats” and the potential violence they can unleash… we do it with our Sailors, our Marines, our civilians and our active and daily engagement, from peacekeeping to crisis response, from evacuation of embassies to counter-narcotics, from naval exercises to disaster assistance. In short, we are involved, from A to Z, from the Arabian Gulf to the former Zaire, and everywhere in between, across the spectrum of conflict and peacetime interaction. I will describe how our technology and people relate to our engagement strategy and have led our Navy and Marine Corps into a readiness posture that makes our engagement policy potent and effective. You may begin to notice in the descriptions that follow how I relate our military decisions to business practices. This strategy stems from both my professional background and experience, first as a naval submarine officer, then as a businessman. And, as a function of the revolution in government and business affairs. First, Technology… you cannot be part of modern American life, and certainly not part of a leadership program like this one, without the realization that staying at the leading edge of technology is critical to business success. The Navy department is no different. We have embraced the latest technologies and embarked on programs that will keep us at the leading edge as we acquire new equipment and train our people. Technology will help us define the battlefield of the future, and shape it to our advantage. We are exploring the possibilities of information warfare and ensuring our sea-based forces will be “network-centric,” that is, fully-interconnected and tied into the command and control matrix to dominate any battlespace from over the horizon. One of our recent exercises illustrates this effort well. Live imagery of a simulated target generated by a Navy Seal team on the ground was transmitted to a satellite, then to a command ship, and finally, directly to the cockpit of a F/A-18 Hornet strike aircraft, inbound to the target. Following the strike, that same aircraft was able to relay its own nearly-live images of the target it had just destroyed, back to the command ship for assessment. Our focus on technology contributes to the policy of engagement by making our forces smarter and more adaptable, allowing our people to concentrate on the nuances of expanding the many international naval partnerships that are evolving. Additionally, much of the technology we have embraced is being researched, produced and marketed through international cooperation, thereby enhancing our global business and military relationships. Do not misunderstand me, all of our improvements do not have to come from new technologies. During the heat of the Space Race in the 1960’s, NASA decided it needed a ball point pen to write in the zero gravity confines of its space capsules. After considerable research and development, the Astronaut Pen was developed at a cost of $241M to U.S. taxpayers. The pen worked well, and enjoyed some modest success as a novelty item back here on earth. The Soviet Union, faced with the same problem… used a pencil. Use of existing, off-the-shelf technologies and common sense solutions are more important than ever, today in these austere fiscal times. This brings me to our most important constant… our people. As Secretary of the Navy, I spend as much time as I can visiting with our people who stand watch all over the globe. I am so impressed with their dedication and enthusiasm. If we had to choose but one group of Americans to interact with people around the world, I would choose America’s Sailors and Marines. They are, after all, an outstanding representation of the diversity of our Nation that is at the heart of our strength, and that our foreign policy’s strategy of engagement seeks to showcase. Through port visits, naval exercises, exchange programs, negotiations and many other forums, our leadership is proud and eager to showcase them, at every opportunity, as ambassadors of freedom and democracy. We are actively working to take our Sailors and Marines to an even higher level on this front as well. Just one way we are doing this is through leadership training at all levels, to maintain what we call the “warrior’s edge.” We are not trying to create warriors strictly in the traditional sense. Rather, we are preparing them to dominate the battlespace across the spectrum of possibilities for the future - from the brutal realities of combat, to the high-tech virtual reality of information warfare. Most importantly, the Sailors and Marines we are proud to showcase today embody our Navy and Marine Corps’ core values, which we have maintained for 222 years… honor, courage, and commitment. Finally our readiness… the commodity resulting from the combination of our people and our technology, and the essential ingredient to the effectiveness of our sea services. The Navy- Marine Corps team is the force-multiplier for our Nation’s national command authority. We have been described as America’s “911” force, and the familiar Presidential question during any crisis, “Where is the nearest carrier?” has been joined by the question, “Where is the nearest Amphibious Ready Group.” Our forward-deployed naval expeditionary forces have proven themselves time and time again, from reacting to the crises in the Arabian Gulf, to the numerous evacuations of embassies in troubled states of Europe and Africa. As we like to say, our big deck ships are four and a half acres of prime American real estate, where and when we need them in the world. We have had to be “ready” a great deal, of late. In fact, since the end of the Cold War, the Navy-Marine Corps team has been called upon to protect America’s interests on the average of once every 5 weeks - a rate three times greater than before 1990. As I speak to you today, our assets in the Arabian Gulf are poised to respond to Iraq’s latest nuclear, chemical and biological weapons violations. This is a powerful example of our peak readiness, and our commitment to regional stability. Because we are ready, and because we are forward-deployed, the Navy is engaged daily with our friends and allies, exchanging Sailors and Marines, conducting port visits, and showing the flag, in many different forums… again, our President’s very essence of engagement, across the board. It is through our commitment to technology, readiness, and most importantly, our people, that the Navy and Marine Corps team proudly contributes to the U.S. foreign policy of worldwide engagement… as well as a good ol’ fashioned reliance on George Kennan’s “quiet armed force in the background.” Before I close, I would like to call your attention to the Navy and Marine Corps brochures you received this morning. Our Navy and Marine Corps are looking for young men and women like you… to take leadership roles, fly the world’s most advanced aircraft, and command the ships and submarines of the future. Our college fund and scholarship programs also present outstanding opportunities. I encourage you to call your local recruiter, listed in the back of the pamphlet, when you get home. I want to see you out in our Fleet in the future. I speak from experience, when I say the Navy is a great place to start. In closing, let me say that your invitation to me today speaks well of your own active engagement in our Nation’s foreign policy. One school of thought in International Relations says that peace and cooperation are produced by creating complexity and interdependence between nations, at all levels of society. I believe that the Navy and Marine Corps are part of that impressive level of engagement our Nation has undertaken. Thank you for your invitation and your warm welcome. I wish you the best of luck in all of your future endeavors and professional pursuits. In proud naval tradition, I wish each one of you “fair winds and following seas.” God bless you… God bless our Navy-Marine Corps team… and God bless America. -USN- 12 6