Thank you very much and good afternoon to all. It’s a tremendous honor to join you again this year.

First, I'd like to thank Admiral Daly and General Lawrence, the organizers, and the sponsors for hosting, planning and supporting this consortium of great minds.

I’d also like to take a solemn moment recognize the passing of Admiral Dick Macke who was laid to rest at the Punchbowl last week here in Hawaii. He was such a pioneer in this critical enterprise that AFCEA cultivates.

I think the richness and the most powerful part of our conversation today will be the questions and answers, but I would like to just prime the pump a little bit with what we've been up to over the last year.

Last year, I shared with you the Pacific Fleet operational design and threats that we face in the Indo-Pacific.

This year I want to focus on naval, joint, and combined partner operations. As the largest force in our Nation’s front line against revisionist actors, U.S. Pacific Fleet meets this great responsibility with strength, resolve and confidence.

Together with our joint and combined partner operations, we are positioned to deny and defend - across all domains - any attempts to break the peace accorded by the rules based international order.

Just a few reflections on 2022 to prime the pump for questions.

Naval forces maintained persistent presence in the First Island Chain and affirmed freedom of the seas by conducting relentless Taiwan Strait transits and freedom of navigation operations.

We cultivated our most important alliances and partnerships and demonstrated unmatched combat power throughout the region.

During VALIANT SHIELD 22, we executed innovative warfighting concepts by fusing manned and unmanned capabilities, bringing to bear warfighting advancements that make us an even more lethal fighting force.

In KAMANDAG, PACFLEET and MARFORPAC/FMF units worked closely with Philippine Navy and Marine Corps for seamless interoperability in complex expeditionary operations from critical terrain.

Rim of the Pacific, the world's premier combined maritime exercise, included an awe-inspiring 25 nations working together to foster the multinational cooperation and trust that is critical to building confident and capable partners. RIMPAC represented another successful milestone for regional solidarity to safeguard a free and open Indo-Pacific and our ability to outthink and outpace our adversaries.

Numerous Fleet and shore commands achieved remarkable results enhancing our force posture forward and improving our combat effectiveness.

Just a few examples of this include:

USS ZUMWALT embarked on extended operations to the Western Pacific for the first time; displaying its unique, game-changing combat capabilities. I commend the entire team for thoughtfully managing risks and executing a creative training and certification program that accelerated the employment of this formidable capital ship.

During SWARM-EX, we executed portions of the newly developed PACFLT Ship Wartime Repair and Maintenance CONOPS and demonstrated emergency battle damage repair techniques in a simulated combat environment. This will greatly enhance our operational reach and wartime resiliency.

USS PORTLAND completed a series of solid-state laser tests, unlocking the enormous potential of this emerging weapon system.

Fleet Information Warfare Command Pacific commenced operations as a flag-led Task Force responsible for planning, coordinating, and unleashing the myriad of information warfare capabilities needed to achieve decision superiority to dominate our adversaries in all domains.

Seabees, Expeditionary Warfare teams, and Littoral Combat Ships proved to be key elements in enhancing our stature throughout the Indo-Pacific and Oceania. They continue to lead the way in operationalizing our Pacific territories in the Northern Marianas and other strategic locales to enable distributed maritime and expeditionary operations. Combining mission accomplishment with compassionate civic assistance, our Seabees started construction on a new school in Vietnam that is desperately needed by the local community.

This initiative, while seemingly small, reinforces our strategic position as a regional partner of choice and symbolizes the virtues which motivates each of us in uniform to serve.

Naval forces participated in many important bilateral and multilateral exercises: COBRA GOLD, BALIKATAN, MALABAR, BERSAMA WARRIOR, KEEN SWORD, Combined Afloat Readiness And Training (CARAT), and SEA DRAGON - just to name a few.

Our alliances and partnerships are gaining even more momentum and are critical to a secure and prosperous Indo-Pacific.

On the maintenance and readiness front, USS RONALD REAGAN, USS RUSHMORE, USS HOWARD, USS BENFOLD, USS MILIUS, USS SHILOH, and USS HIGGINS completed availabilities on time and on plan – an operational milestone for keeping these critical assets on track and in the fight.

Our team completed the enhancement of the graving dock at Naval Base San Diego in time to support USS STETHEM emergent docking during a period when all other regional docks were occupied.

We made significant investment to increase spare parts supporting AEGIS weapons systems onboard 22 CRUDES leading to increased self-sustainability at sea and significant reduction of off-ship parts request. In fact, 348 over the past 18 months.

Working with industry partners, we made notable progress in developing ways to improve munitions production throughput and improving our forward rearming capabilities needed to support our most stressing operational requirements.

We exercised warship rearm capability demonstrations in CONUS and overseas using a forward expeditionary team in Stirling, Australia to load Tomahawks on a U.S. submarine.

The force reflects the innovation, intensity and enthusiasm of our Nation, as reflected in the tremendous accomplishments of so many of our service members and civilians this year.

During RIMPAC, the Peruvian corvette BAP GUISE suffered an engine room fire resulting in serious casualties. The C3F team leading RIMPAC flawlessly coordinated rescue assets from Peru, France, and the United States to quickly get the injured Sailors to the right treatment facility, thereby saving lives.

Throughout PACIFIC PARTNERSHIP, 3rd Fleet, 7th Fleet, Logistics Group Western Pacific, and many others planned, manned, trained, equipped, and executed USNS Mercy's highly successful deployment to the Western Pacific. It was truly inspiring to witness the Mercy crew's motivation and investment in their ship and the mission - which took the world's largest floating hospital and world's 8th largest hospital - forward to enhance security through naval diplomacy.

The USS RONALD REAGAN, USS CARL VINSON, and USS ABRAHAM LINCOLN Carrier Strike Groups, USS AMERICA, USS MAKIN ISLAND, and USS TRIPOLI ARG/MEUs demonstrated maximum flexibility and resoluteness while providing an enduring backstop of deterrence.

Operating at the tip of the spear, our friends and adversaries took notice as these Strike Groups integrated with our partners and the Joint Force to provide on-call, overwhelming combat power. Their presence reminded the entire world that the United States remains a steadfast Pacific power.

I don’t have to tell this group that we're living in consequential times. A period of intense competition and high stakes.

If you are within earshot of my voice right now, you must know that you're indispensable in our ability to deter that conflict, and if necessary, to fight and win it.

We seek to deter Russia from continued aggression.

We seek to deter the DPRK from threatening its neighbors and the international community with nuclear weapons. We seek a denuclearized Korean Peninsula.

And our pacing and strategic challenge, we seek to deter any PRC attempt to remake the order to its own proprietary advantage or resolve disagreements or arrangements by force or coercion.

We cannot normalize this intentional maligned behavior by the PRC and the Chinese Communist Party, which we see in the form of territorial aggression against its neighbors – including:

• Consistently failing to adhere to COLREGS with unprofessional and unsafe behavior at sea.
• Just days ago, China Coast Guard using a military-grade laser to try to disrupt a Philippine Coast Guard ship from delivering food and supplies to personnel aboard the Philippine Navy vessel BRP Sierra Madre near the Second Thomas Shoal.
• This report follows last week’s. China coast guard vessels accompanied by boats belonging to China’s maritime militia created a blockade around the Second Thomas Shoal.
• A PLAN vessel illuminated an Australian P-8 with a military-grade laser about this time last year.
• The PRC continues to coerce and pressurize the waters and skies surrounding the Senkaku Islands and continues military actions along the line of effective control.
• And in just the past few months, the PLA has conducted a series of military measures around Taiwan, including several warships essentially encircling Taiwan while many aircraft crossed the centerline, and the PLA conducted ballistic missiles launches north, south, east, and west of Taiwan simultaneously.

What message are they sending that indicates a peaceful unification with Taiwan?

What message do these actions send to their neighbors and the international community, when these behaviors are in contradiction of nations that respect the rule of law and international norms?

Theirs actions are driving our allies and partners to strengthen their own defenses and to increase interoperability with like-minded partners who share common values and common interests. And we do no ask any friends or neighbors to pick sides.

So, this is not about containing PRC economic and military growth. It’s about ensuring that we as free and sovereign nations ensure their actions and behaviors do not disrupt the peace and stability of the region, or the international rules based order that has lifted 60% of the world out of poverty since the Second World War and lifts 160,000 human beings out of poverty each and every single day.

So with this, we turn to all of us in this room and in this conference.

I am looking for your assistance to harness American’s unparalleled, innovative spirit.

To unlock your creativity to develop systems that complement, extend, and bolster our current combat advantages.

It is our duty to provide a clear set of problem statements up front and for industry to bring solutions.

This year the process will address four problems:

• Defeat adversary amphibious force in a contested environment by fielding cost-effective lethal asymmetric capabilities.
• Develop agile, resilient, and secure joint and coalition fires network and architecture.
• Deliver maritime intra-theater logistics (fuel, munitions, food, repair parts, etc.) to sustain combat operations across the Joint force in a highly-contested environment.
• Develop tactical-level electronic warfare and cyber capabilities to reduce risk to current forces.

To move this forward this year, we will conduct a cycle of studies, exercises, experiments, and war games—underpinned by intellectually honest assessments. We will get real with ourselves. We will show our bad news, and we will action it.

We are increasing trilateral and multilateral operations and exercises with partners in Japan, Republic of Korea, and Australia - to name a few.

We are building upon lessons and subsequent technical development from Integrated Battle Problem 21.1

Integrated Battle Problem 23.1 will be here in San Diego on May this year.

Integrated Battle Problem 23.2 will consist of a series of experiments connected to our upcoming Manned and Unmanned Deployment to the 7th Fleet.

Integrated Battle Problem 23.3 will carry these initiatives to Australia as part of our AUKUS alliance.

Next year, Integrated Battle Problem 24.1 will take place in the early spring and this cycle will conclude with RIMPAC and Valiant Shield 24.

With that, I’d like to open up the floor to any question, on any topic that anyone would like to ask. My deepest thanks.