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Below is a transcript of his remarks:
VICE ADMIRAL RICHARD HUNT (RET.): If you could all take your seats, we’ll go ahead and bring the CNO virtually. Great. Thank you, everyone. OK, our final event, the keynote event of the day is our CNO. We will wrap up our speakers. I think we’re off to a great start today. And I’m going to go straight in and say: Ladies and gentlemen, it is my great honor to introduce the 32nd Chief of Naval Operation Mike Gilday. And, Admiral, over to you. (Applause.)
ADMIRAL MICHAEL GILDAY: Admiral Hunt, thank you. It’s great to be back at SNA. I wish I were there in person. But nonetheless, it is great to be back. I’ve been a proud member of this organization for over three decades, and every single year this symposium gets better and better. I’d like to just join the chorus and give a quick shout-out of thanks to Bill Erickson, to Julie Howard, the SWO boss, and the rest of the team for your hard work to make this week happen, particularly amidst the pandemic, again. I’d like to thank everybody else for joining in today – our flag and general officers, our government leaders, our partners in industry, and international allies and partners.
But most of all, I would like to welcome the sailors, the Marines, and the Coast Guardsmen who are joining us today from across the fleet. It is always humbling to be in front of this audience, but I am inspired by what you do every single day. Deploying to the far sides of the world in defense of our nation is tough work, but you and your families do it with courage and you do it with poise. Thanks for all you do. It really does matter.
Naval warfare is highly dynamic and it’s always evolving. New concepts and tools drive innovative ways to conceptualize ships, build them, to train their crews, and then to operate and to fight them. New competitors rise and challenge our status quo. Opponents try to maneuver each other – out-maneuver each other, change tactics, modify their approach to sea power in order to gain the upper hand. Importantly, history shows that the Navy that adapted better, that learned faster and improved faster, that gained warfighting advantages over the long haul, in my view, the essential element is fostering a culture that can assess, correct, and innovate better than your opponent. This is the key multiplier for our navy. This is the North Star that we must seek.
Today we once again find ourselves in the breach of strategic competition. China and Russia are rapidly mobilizing their militaries, they’re attempting to undermine our alliances and degrade the free and the open order. The Chinese battle force is the largest in the world, and it is growing. Backed by a robust industrial base and the largest shipbuilding infrastructure in the world, they command a modern fleet of surface combatants, submarines, aircraft carriers, amphibious assault ships, and next-generation fighters. Furthermore, they are strengthening their space capabilities and they’re stockpiling an arsenal of long-range missiles to hold us and our allies and partners at risk.
In October of last year, China tested a hypersonic vehicle that partially circumnavigated the globe. They’re also building next-generation strategic missile submarines and hundreds and hundreds of new missile silos. China is deliberately modernizing for the 21st century and delivering in all domains capabilities that challenge American influence in the Western Pacific and beyond. Our Navy’s role in the joint force and this competition remains clear. America needs a flexible, forward deployed, engaged fleet that keeps the seas open and free, generates credible deterrence at sea, and provides quick response options for U.S. leadership. It needs to be a fleet that can control the seas and that can project power across all domains at a time and place of our choosing.
Balancing the investments that field the future fleet while maintaining a sustainable forward posture that keeps Americans safe and prosperous remains our central challenge. If we were going to accelerate our advantage at sea, we need capabilities with overmatch at scale, the means to maintain, train and equip our forces and sailors with the skills to adapt faster and to learn faster. Which is why a year ago I released our navigation plan to focus our efforts on less talk and more action, on the priorities that matter in this critical decade – a decade which I believe may set the maritime balance of power for the rest of this century.
We’ve put our NavPlan efforts through the wringer by war gaming, conducting exercises like Large-Scale Exercise ’21, Fleet battle problems, unmanned battle problems, and refining the analysis that supports the Joint Staff’s Joint Warfighting Concept and the capabilities that we need to realize distributed maritime operations. At the one-year mark, I am – I can confidently state that the direction that we set with the NavPlan is sound. It contains the right priorities for the decade of urgency, readiness, capabilities, capacity, and our sailors.
Readiness and the sailors who enable it remain my number-one priority. Through the hard work and strong collaboration of leaders across our Navy, we continue to improve readiness in every domain. In the last year, we reduced manning gaps at sea by half, significantly shortened maintenance delays in our shipyards, strengthened a more resilient and responsive supply chain, and developed a robust live, virtual, constructive training environment which is transforming how our Navy trains.
Our surface, undersea, and aviation type commanders, working together with our systems commands and fleet commanders, are at the vanguard of this improvement. They are driving strong OFRP execution and training and implementing or performing the plan in Navy sustainment system improvement methods. This has driven learning and better outcomes in aviation readiness, in submarine operational availability, in depo maintenance performance, and supply chain effectiveness.
The NavPlan has not been gathering dust on a shelf. It has been brought alive with an implementation framework that we call the NIF. It breaks the NavPlan down into 18 focused objectives – crisp North Stars that bring our priorities to life. It builds on the learning we have achieved so far, scaling proven leadership behavior and problem-solving tools to target specific capability improvements in how we shoot, maneuver, defend, and resupply. Enabled by supporting NavPlan objectives in unmanned systems, Overmatch, live virtual constructive, artificial intelligence, and machine learning.
Overall, the NavPlan and the NIF are taking a comprehensive view to our investment strategy and bringing structured accountability, focus, and alignment to advance our warfighting advantage. But despite the momentum that we’re building, we also have to be honest with ourselves. We are not operating to our full potential. Over the last few years, I think we’ve learned some hard truths about ourselves. We have seen too many examples of significant organizational drift, instances of unsatisfactory unit performance, late completion of shipyard maintenance availabilities, and failure to deliver game-changing innovative technologies of concepts at pace.
I see two factors preventing us from reaching our full potential. First, the gap between our most and least capable performers is way too large. There is unacceptable variability in our performance. This variability cuts across different units, organizations, and communities – both at sea and ashore. At the lowest end of the performance spectrum, we see tragic results like the Bonhomme Richard fire, along with 14 other major fire events in the past 12 years, and excessive cost and schedule overruns in key acquisition programs.
Second, the root cause for this performance gap is an outdated approach to institutional learning and problem solving. Essentially, how we share learning and solve problems across the Navy, which has focused too long on instructions, rules, and checklists rather than dynamic learning and innovation. Recent events show us – show us that we, as an institution, have not routinely absorbed lessons in a way that truly endures. When something bad happens, we often deem poor performance as a one-off failure, put short- term adjustments in place, and apply burdensome regulations, guidance, and oversight. We can and need to do better, and apply the lessons learned of our hard-earned experience.
The solution lies in focusing on how we can be more self-assessing and more self-correcting so that we identify problems before they grow into larger, more systemic issues. This evolution is closely aligned to our Navy core values, values that put people squarely at the center of what we do. Put simply, we need to get real, and we need to get better. This is how we are going to tackle these kinds of problems and accelerate our competitive edge.
The good news is that we’re not starting from scratch. We’re the world’s strongest Navy. Operationally in 2021 we executed more than 30,000 steaming days, more than a million flying hours, and 59 maintenance availabilities to protect America, to deter conflict, and keep the sea lanes open and free. We have countless units that demonstrate sustained exceptional performance every single day. And we also have four years of powerful, transformative Navy learning, the Strategic Readiness Review, the Comprehensive Review, Perform to Plan, and Naval Sustainment System, and now the NIF.
We need to institutionalize the leadership behaviors and the problem-solving skills that our strongest units demonstrate, and then scale it across the Navy to unleash the power of our people. To get there, it starts with step one. We need to get real. Every Navy leader must be ruthlessly honest about how they self-assess and understand their unit’s performance. They have to act boldly and accept professional risk. They need to elevate problems, welcome transparency, clearly articulate challenges, and leave their egos at the door.
If our performance is not as good as we thought, we don’t hide behind our assessment or keep it inside the lifelines. We embrace the red as the opportunity to get better. And then we share our understanding with the teams on and off the bench so that they can help get us – so they can help make us better. Our best organizations can tell when they have truly passed the get real test, because they can accurately predict their performance 30 days, three months, six months into the future. They have a strong understanding of their capabilities and their constraints.
The foundational principle of continuous self-assessment applies to every sailor, every civilian, team, and organization in our Navy – regardless of whether you are employing our force, generating readiness, or developing a future force. The ability – our ability – to accurately self-assess is a trait that we consistently see in our highest performing units, both at sea and ashore. It is well understood that if you do not identify our mistakes and recognize opportunity to do better, we merely plateau, and we don’t move beyond mere status quo performance. The critical imperative here is that the self-assessment culture and tools must be widely adapted across our Navy. I expect every sailor to adopt this mindset. Anything less would shortchange our team and our teammates.
Once we’re real with ourselves, we’ll then get better. We must instill in our leaders the idea of being self-correcting and ground ourselves and our teams in the principle of continuous improvement. Every sailor, every civilian, and every teammate needs to be a problem solver. Day in and day out our sailors have to exercise this outlook on the deck plates, finding and fixing small problems before they become larger, more systemic issues. Supervisors independently validate deck plate standards and take action when issues are missed, coaching their teams on proper standards and removing any barriers standing in their way. Through this kind of design, the deck plate owns the performance, and everyone else reinforces, supports, and empowers this ownership.
For those larger, more complex challenges, we have established the problem-solving best practices, which have proven to be effective, based on our four years of learning. These practices include a supporting clarity of accountability. There is a single person held accountable, not an enterprise. Root cause driven insights are key. An emphasis on outcomes over activity and transparency that drives collaboration in barrier removal. These practices are four elements of our Perform to Plan and Naval Sustainment System transformation engines.
Key to implementing these best practices is a learning mindset. This means improvement in team performance, no matter how good we think the team is doing. It means we design experiments to quickly test whether our actions are creating the impact that we expect. And it means we celebrate wins in achieving outcomes, not just in activity. Taking thoughtful risk to get better, especially when learning illuminates why we feel short and provokes insights for the rest of the team.
This does not remove accountability or responsibility for performance from any leader. Instead, it values the transparency that comes through trying to make our teams and commands better every single day. It treasures the learning as well as the outcomes. The teams that are the most lethal in combat are the teams that embrace learning and improvement. We know that. Our Navy will model this belief.
So today is a call to action. I’m asking, I need, we need every sailor, every flag officer, every civilian and every industry partner to start today to adopt a different mindset and to commit to challenging how we exercise leadership daily. Today I released an updated charge of command to provide – to provide a new set of expectations for our commanding officers to be more self-assessing and more self-correcting. It is a clear statement of what I value in our leaders, and what we should expect our teams to embody as the mindset that we need to fight the future fight. I expect our command triads across the Navy to talk about the charge and to get real, and to get better and those get real, get better principles. And I urge our flag officers and senior civilians to do the same.
In the meantime, here’s what I’m going to do to support you. First, we’re going to continue to invest in our leaders. Our Navy education and training will incorporate these get real and get better principles. We will provide Navy leaders with the proven tools and the best practices to better their team and solve their hardest problems. We’re going to start with our flag officers, our SESs, and the command triads, and then expand it to the wardrooms and our chief’s mess. Next, we’re going to reform our talent management system to incentivize and reward leaders who embrace get real, get better. We will promote leaders not just for the outcomes that they achieve, but also for the culture that they create in achieving these outcomes.
And finally, I owe it to you to redesign and improve our organizational structures so that we can be refocused on learning and supporting our sailors. We started with the Navy safety center, which will soon be revamped into the Navy safety command. It’ll be commanded by a post-strike group two-star commander who will report directly to me. That command will evaluate how the entire Navy, from the fleet commander down, manages safety and risk. And it will grade how effectively commands are self-assessing performance. INSURV is our model for this command and how it will perform.
A Learning to Act Board, which we stood up in November, it’s chaired by the vice chief of naval operations and the undersecretary of the Navy, is responsible for driving aspects of the Navy’s institutional learning. They will receive recommendations, evaluate their merit, implement the best ones, and measure their impact through feedback, surveys, and data. Think about what we did after the collisions in ’17 with the Strategic Review and the Comprehensive Review.
Meanwhile, the NavPlan implementation framework will continue to push to improve outcomes in readiness, capability, capacity, and other initiatives to better support our uniform and civilian sailors. Through the NIF, we are seeing – we are seeing the Navy come together to solve some of our toughest problems. We are knocking down stovepipes and we are building connective tissue across the Navy to focus our work, optimizing our resources and maximizing our impact.
To our sailors who are advancing our culture to unleash the power of your critical thinking in ways that we have never done before. Wherever you are today and whatever rank you hold read the charge of command and self-assess. Measure yourself, your team, and your command at modeling those principles. From that self-awareness, self-correct. Put in place thoughtful actions that make you, your team, and our Navy better. Elevate the barriers that are holding you back, no matter how big or how small.
To our partners in Congress and industry and the public, you are essential to our success. We will face obstacles in this journey, and you may hold the key to unlocking our full potential. I commit to sharing our learning and being transparent about our progress. This is the critical decade, our decade, to get real and to get better, to accelerate learning and information advantage so that victory at sea remains assured. Through our forward posture, our continued engagement and integration with allies and partners, and a mindset rooted in get real and get better, we will ensure free and open access to the world’s oceans, and the many benefits that flow with it.
Again, Admiral Hunt, and to the audience that I’m privileged to speak to, I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you today. And I thank you all for everything that you do. I’d be happy to take some questions. (Applause.)
ADM. HUNT: CNO, I thought that assessment and direction and guidance was crystal clear, spot on, and it will have great impact. I applaud you for taking advantage of using SNA as a platform to get that out to the fleet. Very well done, sir.
We have a series of questions forming up. One of the things that I would like to talk about in the beginning – we’ve talked a lot about people, and certainly you just addressed that. I think there have been quite a few positive aspects. One of the things that came up in our flag discussions this morning was that of diversity and where we are going. Could you talk a little bit about your thoughts on where we are in diversity for the United States Navy? I think there’s been some great positives. When I take a look at the female commanding officer on USS Constitution, Abraham Lincoln, those kind of things are impactful, powerful, overdue. But perhaps you could fill in with a couple of your thoughts on where we are and how we are continuing to improve.
ADM. GILDAY: Well, our nation continues to be more diverse. And I think that organizations that don’t embrace that diversity and truly look like the rest of America, and harness the power of that diversity, that every scientific study that’s been done on diversity foot-stomps the power of it. I think you’re going to be left behind by midcentury. I believe that the Navy is – uniquely as a service – is beginning to embrace this in ways that we’re beginning to see outcomes in terms of how we recruit people – how we attract them, first of all, to the front door and then recruit them to join us. And then, importantly, how we manage that talent.
Admiral Velez is doing a masterful job, amidst the pandemic, in exceeding our recruiting goals and attracting a more diverse force into the Navy. A lot of this is being done electronically. Electronically… It’s being done virtually because we’ve been challenged, you know, with the typical storefront enterprise of recruiting offices. And he is – he has done a bunch of different experiments – some of it in the gaming community, for example. Some of it’s worked out well, some of it has not. We’ve learned from it. He’s adjusted and reattacked.
With respect to managing talent, which is a really important – really important part here, right? Obviously, the pyramid gets more narrow as you get more senior. And how are we going to make sure that we have diversity with respect to experience, diversity with respect to gender, race, et cetera? How do we make sure that we’re taking full advantage of all that as we – as we manage talent? It takes a really dynamic process to do that. The vice chief and I are still in the process of meeting with every community leader in the Navy to take us through their best practices for talent management of officers and enlisted. Think E-4 through E-6, and really think big about – for the officers, O-3 to O-6, to get people at that point where they can be most competitive, a diverse, competitive pool, whether it’s the chief’s mess or whether it’s the flag mess – whether it’s the chief’s mess or the flag wardroom.
Once you get people into that flag mess, flag wardroom and the chief’s mess, it becomes a little bit easier to manage that talent. But making sure that you’re giving people opportunity, giving the Navy the opportunity to get the most out of the talent that we have, is really what we’re working on. So again, first, it’s focusing on new and innovative ways to attract and recruit, and then to manage the talent. And it is part of getting real and getting better. It’s not just talking about it. It’s actually rolling up our sleeves. It’s experimenting. It’s being hard on ourselves in terms of taking a look at what’s working and what’s not. And one of the great things about this is you can actually use data to your advantage in measuring your progress. I’ll pause there, Admiral.
ADM. HUNT: Great. Another question: How does get real, get better apply to technology, modernization, and innovation?
ADM. GILDAY: Yeah. Really good – really good question. So if you take a look at the 18 areas of the NavPlan or the NIF that we’re sighted on, right? And these are – these are capabilities, things that we want to deliver in this decade. Some of them are getting after performance-based problems, right? And examples of those – and you’ll have – you’ll have forums this week to speak to it – might be private shipyard performance, public shipyard performance, supply chain management.
It might be examples of areas where we know that we’re deficient, where we’re taking a look at what the problems are, what the root causes of those problems are, what the North Star goal ought to be in terms of what right looks like, what the objective is, what are our goals over a two-to-five-year span that we want to shoot for so that we can set the conditions to meet that objective? That’s all part of what we’re – that’s all part of what we’re trying to – what we’re trying to do.
Could you go back and repeat that question one more time? I lost my train of thought.
ADM. HUNT: Certainly, sir. How does get real, get better apply to technology, modernization, and innovation?
ADM. GILDAY: Yeah. So I just described – I just described how you get after – how the NIF – how we try to get after performance-based problems through identifying root causes, through breaking down barriers, right, through leveraging those attributes that give us – that give us traction or create progress quickly. When we talk about innovative areas like AI and ML, we talk about unmanned, we talk about the naval operational architecture for Project Overmatch, those are innovative areas where you’re really takin the Admiral Meyer approach, the Aegis approach, of build a little, test a little, learn a lot. And so that’s a different kind of process with respect to get real and get better, because it really is evolutionary. Right? You’re building the plane as you’re flying it. Overmatch is a really good example of doing spirals that will give us a joint tactical grid at the strike group level in 2023, and then we’ll scale it fleetwide after that.
I hope that answered your question.
ADM. HUNT: I think that’s very good. Thank you, sir.
One of the systems questions that has come up is that of hypersonic weapons, how we deal with them and perhaps, more importantly, what we are doing in our development of that capability, fielding timelines, expected impact on CONOPS, that sort of thing. I know you’re very interested in that. Can you address some of your concerns and focuses and how industry can help in this regard?
ADM. GILDAY: Yeah, so a timely question. I was just down in Huntsville, Alabama, last Thursday visiting a couple of companies that are neck deep in this problem set and really, to their credit, making substantial investment on their own to really, on behalf of us, to put us in a position where I think we’re going to be very successful.
Right now we’re working hand in glove with the Army. They’ll field a system first in 2023 and then our goal is to field hypersonics on Zumwalt in 2025 and then on Virginia class submarines in 2028.
Hypersonics – or Conventional Prompt Strike is the name of our program – has actually – has met or exceeded every benchmark and milestone over the past couple years. It’s a very healthy program. One of the things that I’m very concerned about right now, and I’ll actually testify tomorrow in front of the defense appropriations committee, is about the potential for a yearlong CR and what that will do to us in a decade of urgency with programs like hypersonics. It will significantly slow us down. It will break faith with the industrial base and it will break faith with some of our sailors as well who are preparing themselves to operate those systems. There are small companies out there that are grinding out – they’re working seven days a week, some of them 24 hours a day, to grind these new technologies. And we’re potentially going to leave them in the lurch in 2022 and I really hope that we avoid that. But I am an optimist about where we’re heading with hypersonics. Every single test has gone extremely well. The partnership with the Army – you know, when you’re talking to people on the production floor, you know, whether you’re talking to – (laughs) – whether you’re talking to somebody in Army uniform or a Navy uniform, I mean, they’re part of the same team. It’s a very inspiring visit to a place like Huntsville, and I tell you, I’d be remiss if I didn’t say that industry’s been an absolutely key part of that team in design, in development, in testing, and ultimately in production.
ADM. HUNT: Could you fill in a little bit on directed energy capability and where we are with that? I know we’ve got lasers at sea right now. Any thought on microwave? Railgun appears to be at least on hold for a bit.
ADM. GILDAY: So one of our NavPlan problem sets is taking a look at terminal defense, and so taking a look at all that together and not just stovepiping it, both kinetic and non-kinetic means of doing it. The North Star and some of the, you know, the underlying kind of connective tissue of those programs are classified so I can’t get into them in detail. But we are doing extensive testing with microwave. Right now we’ve got a ship that’s actually deployed that’s got a laser system on it that we actually used in Fifth Fleet. We actually had the authorities – got the authorities from the secretary of defense to use it in Fifth Fleet. We’ll do more testing as that amphib comes home to San Diego here over the coming weeks. Microwave technology: We’re very bullish on that as well.
I’m optimistic – I would tell you that in terms of power generation, in terms of laser-focus, we still have challenges that we’re working through. But I think that the future requires a heavy focus on these types of systems for terminal defense, from an affordability perspective but also just to be able to effectively deal with what we could see in terms of large missile salvos from an opponent.
ADM. HUNT: We just finished our surface review by Vice Admiral Kitchener, Admiral Schlise. They gave us a pretty good rundown of where we were going and where DDG(X) is heading. In your mind, I presume that directed energy, artificial intelligence, all that – all the new cutting-edge technologies are a part of that. That requires adaptability, the right margins. Do you think we have a good enough understanding to get the right guidance to make effective requirements to generate a ship in the future?
ADM. GILDAY: So I think DDG(X) will probably be the most complex ship that we put in the water. That’s kind of an obvious statement, I guess, but I think it’s going to be a very close teaming with industry in the design of that ship. It’s going to be a Navy lead, but industry has to be part of it. In fact, we have the major shipbuilders working with us right now on the elements of DDG(X). As everybody in the audience is aware, we’re tapped out in terms of what we can put on a DDG 51, and so we need to look to that next hull, where it will be a new hull form but will leverage existing systems, but again, building in the margin, as you said, to be able to be flexible and adaptable as new stuff comes online.
ADM. HUNT: We had Admiral Locklear do kind of a pre-presentation yesterday that a lot of people watched with interest, both virtually and in person, and one of the things that he talked about, obviously focusing on the Pacific, Indo-Pacific, was that of partnerships.
ADM. GILDAY: Yeah.
ADM. HUNT: You know, give me your thoughts on partnerships, where we are, and in particular for China, you know, mitigating risk there. I know you’ve been actively involved in some of that. If you could give us a little bit of your history in that area.
ADM. GILDAY: Yeah. So the administration has put allies and partners at the fore. They’ve put diplomacy at the fore. You can see that going on this week in Europe with respect to the Russia-Ukraine issue. But with respect to allies and partners, I’ll just give you a couple of examples. So the French: The French served as a CTF 50 and under the TACON of the Fifth Fleet. In the next month, they’ll do the same thing in the Med under Sixth Fleet. Is there potential to do that in Seventh Fleet? I sure as heck hope so. I meet with my counterpart here in Washington at the end of the month. He’s always looking for ways to push the envelope. And I’ll tell you what, if anybody ever gets a chance to go on Charles de Gaulle, when you go on that carrier, you walk away – you know that is a working aircraft carrier. It is extremely impressive in terms of what they can do in terms of capability, and they’ve got the KA-BAR in the mouth. They’re a terrific, terrific partner.
I can say the same thing, of course, about the Brits. We work very closely with them day in and day out in nearly every warfare area and across nearly every domain. The Australians and AUKUS is – you know, you see the potential there. It’s a stroke of strategic brilliance with respect to that agreement and where we’re headed with them to hopefully give them their own capability to not only operate nuclear-powered submarines but to actually build them and sustain them with their own crews.
The Japanese, the South Koreans – terrific, strong partners again. The Norwegians, the Danes, the Dutch – I just – I could probably go on and on and on. But I’m talking to my counterparts nearly every week and we’re talking about substantive things, substantive things that we can do together. And we’re really trying to press the envelope in terms of high-end warfighting and not just, you know – we’re well beyond just doing photo access. So it’s key to us, particularly I think in the Pacific and against China, which will be an all-domain transregional problem – that is an all-domain transregional problem set for us. And so we don’t have enough ships to go around and so we’re relying on allies and partners.
I just spent five days in India. They’re an up-and-coming partner in many different areas. It’s the most time that I’ve spent in any country since I’ve been in the job and they are very eager to work more closely with us. You saw we did a big exercise with them with the Quad here just two months ago.
So I know I probably left partners out. There’s the Canadians. But we’re blessed with some really great ones. And I just tell you that they’re eager to work with us. We want to be the partner of choice. Admiral Cooper is about to do the biggest unmanned exercise that’s ever been done in the world in another month, and 75 percent of the unmanned capabilities that he’ll test are from allies and partners. His Task Force 59 is catching fire over there in Fifth Fleet with respect to attracting allies and partners, both in the coalition maritime force and beyond.
I’ll pause there, Rick. I know that was quite a rant.
ADM. HUNT: Yeah. No, terrific comments.
Question from a current midshipman: What are the most important human elements that the Navy will need the most from its officers and enlisted personnel in future years in future conflicts, future possible conflicts?
ADM. GILDAY: You know, I’d ask you to go – I’d ask you to pull the charge of command down that I just signed out recently and just issued today to the Navy. I talk about professional competency and I talk about another pillar that is critically important: character and integrity. Those are timeless. But they’re so, so fundamental. I mean, every day when you wake up, you know, your starting point ought to be professional competency. Right? And in terms of – you know, in terms of your character, how foundational that is as a leader to one who’s trusted, respected, and followed? And then, in this charge of command I tried to bring alive that idea of the learning culture that we need to commit ourselves to in order to make ourselves the best navy – continue to make ourselves the best navy in the world, because as I – you know, in my prepared remarks, if I didn’t say it strongly enough, I really fundamentally believe that the asymmetric advantage of the U.S. Navy continues to be its people. You know, you think about the power of our – (inaudible). For every retired officer out there, that has not changed; it’s fundamentally part of our success, you know, those strong time-tested leadership principles.
So I just invite you to take a look at the charge of command, and what I’m really trying to do is I’m trying to highlight in a simple, concise kind of way what I think is most important.
ADM. HUNT: Very good.
China is building ships at a remarkable rate right now. Are we building the right ships at the right rate with the right capabilities, or do we need to modify what we’re doing, perhaps take advantage of an asymmetric opportunity? Again, is industry supporting appropriately not just building what we’ve always built but kind of looking into the future and delivering capacity with adaptability?
ADM. GILDAY: Yeah, I give industry a pretty high grade. You know, in years past, we used to talk about, you know, the Navy’s requirements and industry adapting to our requirements. Industry’s doing some pretty innovative stuff and actually taking some risks. When I meet with industry leaders and learn about what they’re working on, I’m all ears because it’s stuff that we haven’t even thought of yet, in ways that they’re integrating capabilities that far exceed anything that we’ve even tested yet. So would I like a bigger Navy? Yeah, you bet, and, you know, I talked about – my priority is having change. It’s been the strategic seaborne deterrence; it’s been Columbia; it’s been readiness and then capability/modernization, and then capacity at an affordable rate. But I really want to make a shift here and I’d really like to stop saying “at an affordable rate.” I’d really like to have the top line do – have a bigger Navy. I think we need a bigger Navy. I think that the NDS that’s going to be released here shortly will again bring that idea alive that our pacing threat really is – really does come to the fore in the maritime, that the gray zone competition – it’s in the global commons. Right? And so the Navy’s – the Navy just – we just don’t need to be out there; we need to be in the way, and we can be so in numbers. But the capacity – a derivative of capacity is capabilities – right? – particularly as we continue to refine the concept of DMO or how we’re going to fight. We need that capacity. And so we can’t just keep on saying it’s all about the capabilities. It’s about the capacity that bring those capabilities as well.
And so I hope and continue – will chip away at the message that we do need a bigger, better Navy. I do think that if we take a look at the NDAA, which was just signed by the president, if we take a look at the marks in the ’22 budget – I know some of you follow that stuff closely – I’m encouraged by what I see, what I read, what I hear from the Hill in terms of support for naval forces, both the Navy and the Marine Corps.
ADM. HUNT: That’s great. You know, you’ve brought up the National Defense Strategy, soon to be published or released. Can you give us any insights on impact on how that may change Navy composition or missions? Or do you think we’re pretty rock solid and it supports what we do traditionally?
ADM. GILDAY: Yeah, I think what you’ll find, particularly – people have talked about integrated deterrence, which is the cornerstone of it, and in terms of the joint force, it really does mean being out there forward, on point in a day-to-day campaigning kind of way, that the Navy and the Marine Corps are uniquely suited to do, in my opinion. I tend to be a bit parochial but that’s what they pay me – (laughs) – that’s what they pay me to be.
ADM. HUNT: (Laughs.)
ADM. GILDAY: Right?
ADM. HUNT: But I truly believe it. And you know, I don’t go to a tank session where we’re not talking about naval forces and we’re not talking – you know, I did a VTC today with a COCOM to talk about the Navy. So these – I’m having these conversations all the time about what we bring, what we bring to bear on a day-to-day basis. It’s valued out there. I know that most of you are not surprised by that statement and would expect me to say that, but it’s true. So I think that the NDS will actually reinforce where we’re headed as a navy.
I think there’s a couple of other key elements that are coming together as well. We’re at end game for the Nuclear Posture Review. We’re at end game for the Missile Defense Review. We’re at end game for the National Defense Strategy. And to follow that, would be the National Military Strategy. And then as a Navy we’re thinking about our next turn on a strategy as well, but it needs to be informed by that other body of work. We can’t lead that. I think that we’re in a good place in terms of the force structure assessments that we’ve done, that we’ve briefed extensively on the Hill, that we’ve talked to industry about, to try and give the best set of headlights that we can in terms of where we want to head as a Navy. Now, having said that, the CR puts a wrinkle or dims those headlights in terms of giving industry high confidence in what they’re going to be able to expect from us from a budget. And so that will be part of the message tomorrow is the effect of CRs on an industrial base in terms of budgets that are unpredictable and not sustainable.
ADM. HUNT: Change topics here a little bit. Cyber resilience may be one of the most important attributes in our future ships and systems in the ships. Recognizing the classified nature of that subject, what can you say about our progress and ability to fight through cyber attack?
ADM. GILDAY: Yeah, so I’ll just say – I’ll just begin with ashore, first of all. So we’ve essentially, through an effort that we call flank speed, have moved nearly everybody from legacy infrastructure into the cloud. That will be complete for the Navy by the end of ’22. So it puts us in a cloud, in an integrated cloud-based environment that’s a lot better defended. It’s a lot more homogeneous, but it’s also a lot better defended with the latest technology. I’ll tell you that a key aspect of Overmatch and that effort to deliver a joint – a Navy operational architecture and ultimately – which will be the bedrock of the Joint Tactical Grid as part of JADC2 is the resilience piece. And so our vision is that every single ship essentially would have its own tactical cloud. So if we’re going to operate in the distributed matter – in a distributed manner and – for significant periods of time, potentially unplugged – right? – or operating alone under the kind of a concept of mission command, those tactical clouds that get updated through those data lakes back in CONUS and through their own organic sensors or the sensors of a strike group will then rely on microprocessing applications. And we are trying to adopt best industry practices in terms of how we update those applications in a DevSecOps environment with the fleet so that we can deliver capability as quickly as possible.
That was – I know that wasn’t as eloquent as you probably – (laughs) – wanted to hear in terms of where we’re going, but I think we’ve got a pretty good way ahead. In terms of our weapons systems, as you’re probably aware, and Admiral Galinis will probably speak to later on in a panel this week, is we’ve stood up an element at NAVSEA and the other SYSCOMs that deal specifically with cyber resiliency. Now we’re baking that into our ships, into our systems as we field them, as we design them.
A question on COVID: So COVID is very impacting; it seems to be going up instead of being contained, but perhaps at a less lethal level. Thoughts on how Navy is managing that impact at sea, ashore, and perhaps even industry supporting the Navy?
ADM. GILDAY: Yeah, thanks for the question. So after the Theodore Roosevelt, we made a determination that our guidance to our commanding officers was insufficient, that we really needed to be much more detailed, that we had to consult with scientists and environmental experts to make sure that we were leveraging the best technology, the best ideas out there in terms of how we could effectively operate as a fighting force in a contained environment during a pandemic. We’re able to continue to deploy through ’20 and ’21 the – in terms of the vaccine, as you know, the Navy’s leading the way. We’re at 98.9 percent in terms of those that have been vaccinated. And so there’s a – for our deployers, there’s a bit of an incentive there in terms of being able to actually go on a port visit. 2020 was a dismal year in terms of port visits. We did nothing but, you know, really pure liberty. And so we’re beyond that now as we have ships that are fully vaccinated.
I’m going to issue updated guidance – the Navy will issue updated guidance I think by early next week that will leverage the new scientific data that’s been released by the CDC, which particularly takes advantage of those that have been immunized and those that have been boosted.
I think we’re doing really well. But the real silver lining in the whole COVID problem, I believe, was the power of individual sailors. You know, I can do as many videos as I want; that makes me feel good. I can put out as much guidance – I can flood the Net with guidance. But at the end of the day, particularly in those days before we had the vaccine available, we were counting on sailors; they were actually following the rules to ROM by the book. Right? When they’re on the ship, to move up on the starboard side and go stern on the port side, to eat in segregated manner so we could physically distance, to wear masks, to wipe down their equipment. Right? And so they were taking individual responsibility as seamen and as third class petty officers to really lead the way and do that kind of stuff, and what was, for me, uplifting was that they were also keeping sailors to the left and to the right accountable to do the same thing. There’s no way – and I mean no way – that we would be able to operate forward as we have for the past two years without that kind of behavior by our sailors. And that’s exactly the kind of behavior that we ought to value, that we ought to reward, and that we ought to celebrate in forums like this.
ADM. HUNT: I have a question from our French naval attaché; it kind of goes to the partnership piece that we talked about earlier. But it goes into the area of, talk about the value of interoperability between global navies, you know, like-minded navies, for common exercise and the ability to operate together when necessary. Do we focus on that enough? Do we take that into consideration? Or do we operate independently as United States? Your thoughts and guidance on that.
ADM. GILDAY: Yeah, I tell you, there’s very little we do now without allies and partners. I mean, they’re out there – when I take a look at my ops-intel brief every day, I’m seeing our ships next to allies and partners working together, rowing together. Where we really want to go beyond interoperability is interchangeability. A good example of that – thanks for teeing it up by our French shipmate – is the fact that Charles de Gaulle was Task Force 50 and they’re going to operate under the TACON of Sixth Fleet. And so when they were Task Force 50, as an example, they were filling a carrier gap that we couldn’t fill. And so how cool was that? That’s exactly what our goal ought to be with our high-end allies and partners. That’s where we want them. That’s where we want them operating.
In terms of the French, I’ll also say this: We are going to lead the way with them as allies in terms of fourth- and fifth-gen integration, in terms of our air wings. And so I look forward to the Gerald R. Ford getting out there, deploying, operating with our allies and partners, doing some stuff with the French. We’re sharing emails and AAG technology with them off of the Ford-class carriers. I’m telling you, we’re doing some pretty cool stuff with high-end allies and partners that’s doubling down on trust. We’re putting our money where our mouth is in terms of value and what they do and what they bring to the fight. And then operationally, we’re trying – we’re leveraging and we’re thankful to have them as teammates.
ADM. HUNT: Very good. One last question, then I’ll let you make closing comments, as desired.
What will the shipbuilding plan look like one year, FYDP, a true 30-year plan? Will it inform the budget submission?
ADM. GILDAY: Yeah, so it’s going to reflect the budget submission inside the FYDP. Right? There will be no surprises there. I think one of the things that we’d like to do with the shipbuilding plan is show what the art of the possible is based on different funding profiles. And so the law of the land is 355. I know that our analysis has shown that we need way more than 355. But for me, 355’s a great target right now when every day I’m grateful to have 296. And so I think the shipbuilding plan – it will be intended – this will be the secretary of the Navy’s plan by law. The NDAA dictated that. And I – you know, he’ll be talking to you in a couple days but he’s a pretty aggressive guy. He’s extremely bullish. He’s extremely high on where we are and where we’re going as a navy. He’s been publicly very supportive of a larger navy. He’s sighted on growth and capacity. He’s fighting for that, the Hill every day. He was with congressmen this weekend doing that kind of hard work. And so yeah, I think that the shipbuilding plan is going to try. Our goal is to provide industry with a set of headlights, realistic headlights, but what the art of the possible is should we see additional funding.
ADM. HUNT: Excellent. Thank you, sir.
Your closing comments.
ADM. GILDAY: You know what? How about if I take another question? That might be valuable in just restating what I’ve already said.
ADM. HUNT: (Laughs.) All right.
ADM. GILDAY: So how about you – let’s have another one.
ADM. HUNT: Let me scroll through here. I am going to – ah, one coming in, I think. A question goes back to frigates. So this one is one we’ve heard before. It’s, why buy new frigates if the lighter, cheaper Aegis destroyer is available? So I guess that’s thoughts on what, you know, I’m certainly focused on. (Laughter.)
ADM. GILDAY: You’re doing a great job.
So we want to buy both. OK?
ADM. HUNT: Want to buy both.
ADM. GILDAY: And so we’re optimizing the capacity industrial base. I’d love to be able to buy as many ships as they can generate, but it’s got to be a navy we can afford. Right? And so that’s always been my message with respect to, you know, readiness and modernization and capacity. It’s going to be a navy that we can sustain.
When I take a look at – gaps at sea is a really good example. And so a year ago, the fleet master chief at Fleet Forces in front of this same forum talked about over 10,000 gaps at sea. We’re below 3,000 now, and that’s across a total number of billets. It’s up there at about 145,000. And so we have spent a lot of money and a lot of effort to drive down those gaps – right? – to fill storerooms with supplies, with spare parts, and we’re still not satisfied where we are – to fund ammunition – right? – so that we’re sending ships on deployment with an adequate load-out. Those are the things that, you know, we have to be able to sustain, and I get back to, you know, capacity – or capability’s a derivative of capacity but you’ve got to fund the wholeness. And you know, just in a conversation this morning – the secretary of Navy is sighted on the readiness piece and he is not interested in fielding a hollow force.
ADM. HUNT: Very good. Well, CNO, I know you have an extremely busy schedule. You’re on the Hill tomorrow and I think perhaps the day after that. We all here greatly appreciate your insight, your guidance. It’s going to create quite a bit of discussion as we go forward this week. And I look forward to our next discussion. Thank you very much. (Applause.)
ADM. GILDAY: Yes, and I just say that I am so proud of the surface Navy, not just because I’m a surface warfare officer but you think about where we’ve come from those dark days of 2017. I still pray for those sailors that we lost, every single day, but my goodness, we have made institutional – we’ve made institutional change in the community and such a great way and something that I’m very, very proud of. And so for those that are doing the hard work down on the deck plates every single day, thank you. Thank you for sustaining it. Thank you for not giving up in the path that we’re on and for believing in in where we’re headed and that tomorrow’s going to be a better day. So I thank all of you for supporting our great Navy and God bless you all. Thank you for the opportunity. (Applause.)
ADM. HUNT: Thank you very much, CNO.
Adm. Mike Gilday
11 January 2022
13 January 2022
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