Good evening, everyone! It is wonderful to be here with you at the Army Navy Country Club for this year’s annual meeting of the National Capital Council of the Navy League of the United States.

I would like to thank Commander Tom Callender, President of the National Capital Council, for inviting me to join you for this event. Commander Callender, thank you for your leadership of this organization, as well as for your decades of service in our Navy as a submariner.

Commander Callender also spent several years supporting the development of our Midshipmen at the Naval Academy, whether it was in the classroom as a physics instructor or on the Severn River as an assistant coach of the varsity lightweight rowing team.

Commander Callender, thank you for your commitment to the moral, mental, and physical development of the future leaders of our Navy and Marine Corps.

The sea has always been a vital artery of American prosperity. It has facilitated our economic engine and opportunities and shielded our borders from conflict throughout our history.

The ability of our Navy and Marine Corps today to deter our adversaries, support our allies and partners, and, if necessary, fight and win our nation’s wars is not just a strategic advantage—it is an irreplaceable pillar in maintaining the international rules-based order that underpins security and prosperity around the world.

The Navy League and other organizations like it play a significant role in advocating for our national maritime power and we will need that continued support well into the future.

A ready, combat-credible, forward-deployed fleet is the most potent, flexible, and versatile instrument of military power. It ensures that the seas remain free and open, allowing for the peaceful flow of goods, ideas, and people.

History has proven seapower to be cyclical. We cannot rely on maintaining our maritime power without the necessary national commitment—the future requires continued investment into advanced capabilities and improving our industrial base.

We must continue, together, to provide the nation with a Navy that can deter high-end conflict with a rapidly improving peer competitor and protect the rules-based international order.

Innovation and Shipbuilding Efforts

To that end, we have made significant strides and established new initiatives in the past year—including the Marine Innovation Unit, the Navy’s Disruptive Capabilities Office, our department’s Science and Technology Board, and four weeks ago, the Government Shipbuilder Council.

Four different cabinet departments—Defense, Transportation, Homeland Security, and Commerce—came together to form the G-S-C because we recognize that we need a whole-of-government effort to rebuild our nation’s comprehensive maritime power.

We recognize agility in ship production and design requires developing new, digital tools for our workforce to improve efficiency and capacity.

The future of shipbuilding, maintenance, and repair looks much different than it did when I retired from the Navy twenty years ago—advances in modelling, virtual reality, and artificial intelligence will allow us to reduce costs, optimize systems, and improve collaboration.

To that end, we must develop high-paying, high-skilled “new-collar” jobs that restore America’s manufacturing prowess by combining traditionally blue-collar trades with cutting-edge manufacturing technologies of today.

As we gather here tonight, we have nearly 100 ships under contract and over 50 in construction, including USS Columbia, the future of our ballistic missile and strategic deterrence force and our number one acquisition priority.

We’re building Ford-class carriers, Virginia-class submarines, Constellation-class frigates, San Antonio-class LPDs, and Arleigh Burke-class destroyers.

This year, we commissioned the first Flight III destroyer, USS Jack H. Lucas, which marks an important milestone in that class’s already storied history and represents the most technologically advanced surface combatant ever built.

We continue planning for DDG(X), the future of large surface combatants, as we usher our cruisers into a well and hard-earned retirement.

Future Capabilities and Hybrid Fleet

Additionally, we’ve laid the groundwork for tomorrow’s hybrid fleet. The hybrid fleet isn’t a pipe dream or a nebulous future state written in “somedays.” We’re already operating in and actively preparing the Navy to fight and win in that battlespace—in the Fourth, Fifth, and Seventh Fleet Areas of Operation.

U.S. Fifth Fleet—through Task Force 59—has operated unmanned surface, air, and subsurface vehicles for over 55,000 hours. These platforms can be where our ships cannot, and deliver sustained all-domain awareness.

They prove the Navy can procure and develop off-the-shelf technology quickly, effectively, and efficiently to free our more capable traditional naval forces to conduct more strategic missions—and so we can rapidly deploy manned platforms when keyed by indications from our unmanned force.

During UNITAS 64, we operated seven separate robotic systems on, under, and above the seas, wholly integrated into the exercise’s command and control, and they executed missions alongside traditional forces.

In fact, this summer we deployed four unmanned ships to Japan for the first time—and they participated in Large Scale Exercise and Integrated Battle Problem. Next year, they’ll again participate in RIMPAC.

The work done across both theaters proves that our future hybrid fleet will expand and extend our Navy’s capabilities everywhere we operate.

Through Force Design and the formal activation earlier this year of the Marine Innovation Unit, our Marines, too, are working to identify, develop, and field the operational concepts, strategies, and capabilities our nation needs now and in times of crisis or conflict.

Force Design provides the vision for the future of our Marine Corps in our emerging era of strategic competition with the People’s Republic of China, and represents a transformational effort to bring our Marines back to their core maritime mission as part of our national vision for Maritime Statecraft.

The Marine Innovation Unit and Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory’s Rapid Capabilities Office are working closely with their Navy counterparts in the newly-established Disruptive Capabilities Office and the Naval Innovation center at the Naval Postgraduate School, as well as industry partners to accelerate production and delivery of new capabilities for the Joint Force.

Empowering Our People

While we take pride in our ships, submarines, and aircraft, the true strength of our Navy is our people. Our workforce—Sailor, Marine, and civilian; active and reserve—represents the full spectrum of 330 million Americans and come from every state and innumerable countries globally.

As we continue building a culture of warfighting excellence, our Sailors and Marines will remain the backbone of the Department of the Navy. They are not only warfighters but diplomats, educators, and leaders.

We owe it to those Sailors and Marines to provide them with support from the top of the mast to the keel to ensure they and their families are ready and resilient.

Every Sailor, Marine, and civilian in our department deserves an environment where they feel valued, respected, and empowered to reach their full potential. We must recognize that our health and well-being, both physical and mental, is mission-critical.

Deterring Adversaries and Current Operations

As we tackle the challenges that come with maintaining a ready and resilient Fleet and Force, we remain locked in an era of strategic competition with the People’s Republic of China, Russia’s illegal war of aggression continues in Ukraine, Iran threatening global shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, and we continue to fight against violent extremist organizations.

The PRC remains our pacing challenge and continues to behave provocatively and unsafely across the Indo-Pacific region, but especially in the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea.

While we do not seek confrontation, we will continue to pursue a free and open Indo-Pacific.

We will continue to fly, sail, and operate wherever international law allows.

We strive to uphold the rights, freedoms, and lawful uses of the sea for the benefit of all countries and embrace all like-minded partners doing the same. We are committed to responding to aggression and illegal activities with our allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific, the Arabian Gulf, and Europe to ensure freedom of navigation globally.

This fall, our ships—especially the Ford and Eisenhower Strike Groups, and their surface escorts—have proven indispensable to our national strategy and defending American interests around the world.

Three destroyers have shot down missiles and armed drones launched by Houthi rebels in Yemen over the Red Sea and prevented the seizure of a commercial vessel by Somali pirates.

USS Thomas Hudner, USS Carney, and USS Mason each performed with exemplary skill and professionalism—they prove that we stand ready to defend our interests and protect our allies in the Red Sea and around the world.

We will continue to work with our allies and partners to counter the threats we face—and we will not hesitate to use force when necessary to protect our ships and our personnel.

We operate forward so everyone else can, too.

AUKUS and Strategic Partnerships

The Department of the Navy is a global maritime power, but we cannot face these challenges alone. Our allies and partners around the world are the key to our shared security and prosperity.

They are our greatest asymmetric strength and a true force multiplier.

We continue to work to enhance strategic partnerships. We will always engage and welcome friends in plans, exercises, and operations wherever we operate.

This year, we have continued developing our AUKUS trilateral strategic agreement with our Australian and British allies. We've seen Australia pledge $368 billion to the partnership, a portion of which will go into the U.S. submarine industrial base.

We identified Pearl Harbor as the lead maintenance activity for the Submarine Rotational Force - West as part of the agreement. A joint Australian-American team will conduct maintenance on American submarines to help Australia develop the necessary skills to operate and maintain nuclear-powered submarines.

We saw the first port visit since the announcement of the optimal pathway of an American submarine to Western Australia: the USS North Carolina to HMAS Stirling. Next year, Royal Navy submarines will begin making port calls as well.

We saw the first Australians graduate from nuclear power school, the first step in learning to operate nuclear-powered submarines. Early next year, they will finish training and report to American submarines to continue developing these necessary, highly technical, skills.

This August marked the 50th anniversary of the All-Volunteer force. Service to our country and service in the armed forces is central to who we are as a country and fundamental to our democracy.

Every Sailor and Marine serving today chose to raise their right hand and swear an oath to defend the Constitution, just as I did on induction day at the Naval Academy in 1979 and six times in my 44 years since.

We remain the strongest Navy in the world through our dedication to service.

Our Sailors and Marines have faced and overcome countless challenges in the past 248 years, from fighting the world’s greatest naval power during the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812 in our nation’s infancy, to then-Lieutenant John D. Bulkeley evacuating General Douglas MacArthur from Corregidor or today’s environment of strategic competition.

I proudly remember my time in command of USS Bulkeley as part of the great tradition of service.

In the “Laws of the Navy,” an early 19th century poem by a royal navy officer, the fifth law begins “Upon the strength of one link in the cable dependeth the might of the chain.” We should all endeavor to remember all those who came before—we are stronger for all the previous links.

Vice Admiral Bulkeley is one of my previous links.

Many of you know that I immigrated from Cuba at 10 months old when my father was given 48 hours to leave the country. What you may not know is that around the same time, Vice Admiral Bulkeley was in command of Naval Station Guantanamo Bay – he was the CO that ordered the installation of desalination plants to make the base self-sufficient.

Vice Admiral Bulkeley said, about his experiences in World War II, “You engage, you fight, you win. That is the reputation of our Navy, then and in the future.”

That is the reputation of our Department now, still, 70 years later. It must remain our reputation throughout the next decade and into the mid-21st century.

May God continue to bless our country with fair winds and following seas.  Thank you.