Huds hudson senior institute. I am seth cropsey. I hope that you have the monograph thats a subject of our discussion today. And, if you do not, i believe that we still have copies in and out the front desk so by all means pick up a copy on your way out. We are fortunate to have with us today brian mcgraft, this man, my friend and coarthur, former Deputy Director of Hudson Center and managing director of the National Security defense consultant. Also a plane crash to welcome this man. Also, a retired naval officer and defense news best writer. I will offer some thoughts based on our monograph, brian will follow and then the three of us will discuss, well conclude with questions and probably some answers. To the untrained audience, modern Technology May seemed to have eliminated the thought of war that defined premodern battlefields. Victory and historic conflict relied on the coincidence of skills and luck. The great commander thought to place himself in a position to impose his will on a chaotic battlefield in a single moment of genius or a series moment of ye genius. Reaching that moment requires good fortune. Intelligence travels only as fast as a man could run or a horse could ride or pigeon could fly. Victory requires months or if not years of careful planning. Despite technological advancement, confusion still defines the titanic crashes of the 20th century wars. The u. S. Fleet at mid way but strike japans carriers as fast as it does and torpedo bombers would fly. The commanders decision to continue to search for japans Carrier Force and the American Strike groups arrival just as r wings were refueling and rearming played a large role in deciding the issue. Today, however, missiles and jets fly ats of Miles Per Hour or, in the case of hyper sonic weapon weapons, over 100 miles in two minutes. Satellites circle the globe. Advanced radars track dozens of targets in the case of the ageis combat system, hundreds. Lasers are accurate to within feet or sometimes inches. Its tempting to believe that conflict is not mechanical, that any enemy can be found and destroyed without much trouble, that the key to victory is simply building faster and longerrange munitions. Munitions, delivery systems, land based or otherwise, are the key to victory. Its a mistake to think that finding the enemy is any easier than before and to think that the modern u. S. Military can locate and destroy adversaries at will. Contemporary u. S. Surveillance targeting is underequipped for the demands of Great Power Competition, particularly in the western pacific. The u. S. Risks being outpaced in peace time and defeated in war. American sailors face the same difficulty as earnest hemingways aging fisherman. The sea is big and old. Pacific command is responsible for 36 square miles of open ocean in the western pacific alone. Several island chains break up this vastness while civilian ships and aircraft sail and fly between some of the worlds most p populous nations. Moreover, u. S. Forces alongside their regional allies, face the greatest threat to peace and order since the soviet union. Peoples republic of china has spent the past 40 years increasing its material wealth and the last 20 undermining the u. S. Backed Global Economic order. Trying to substitute its own. To one that can project our chinese have developed a military designed to counter american and allied capabilities t relies on Maritime Transport in a region defined by strategic choke points. Any largescale economic zrungss could spark protests and threaten the regimes survival. Thus, any conflict china fights must be short, intense, decisive. General secretary xi jinping worries about a prolonged confrontation with the u. S. And its allies. Thus the Peoples Liberation army possesses capabilities to destroy an adversarys military, while make the u. S. Choose risking carriers or taiwan to china. Deterring chinese ambitions requires a mix of american and allied capabilities. The u. S. Military needs longrange standoff weapons that can penetrate chinese defenses, strike aircraft carriers, range extenders to enable strikes while keeping carriers secure. Air superiority fighters to defend highvalue targets. Subsurface capabilities to infiltrate chinas denial network and Surface Combatants for air defense strike and command and control. These assets have dominated diminished value without enough intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and targeting. China will deploy its missiles on aircraft, ships, submarines and landbased launchers. These are relatively small and in most cases highly mobile targets that will be difficult to detect. The u. S. Must be able to identify these targets efficiently and at range. That is, there must be enough space between forward tools and major fleet formations or longrange bombers to keep the latter out of harms way. Otherwise, the u. S. Must choose between deploying carriers within strike range of chinas longrange missiles, thereby exposing them to risks not run since the second world war. Or backing out of strike range and allowing china to execute the opening stages of its plans unimpeded. Intelligence Surveillance Reconnaissance is of equal importance before conflicts. Chinese geography gives strategic advantages politically in confrontation over taiwan. The u. S. Must rely on supply and communication lines spanning the Pacific Ocean and will only have immediate access to regional reinforcements, china can concentrate forces and reserves much more quickly. Nevertheless, china cannot strike from a standing start. It must concentrate air and Ground Forces across the taiwan strait, increase naval presence and prepare for a surge to disable taiwanese defenses while warding off a u. S. And allied response. With enough warning, the u. S. Can increase the quest of a chinese offensive. Even two submarines plus an aircraft from japan and Pacific Carrier groups could make a real difference. But obtaining this Early Warning requires longterm surveillance. The u. S. Needs isrt feedback if it hopes to shape the pacific battlefield and execute its strategy of deterrence by denial. Specifically, it needs constant information on assets and possessions within 200 miles of the chinese coastline along with eyes on chinas air bases and ports in the eastern military district. Important to note that similar thinking applies to Chinese Forces in the south chinese state. The u. S. Requires constantly surveillance of pla navy south seas fleet ships and the Company Aircraft or amphibious units moving from ports in Southern China toward both the disputed islands and malaca and mamba straits. China itself has recognized the importance of isrt. Until a decade ago, Chinese Military remained largely backward, lal lacked funding, did not rigorously simulate combat operations. Most of its aircraft did not fly at night. Still, china has steadily developed its antisatellite capabilities since the 1980s, staging a series of public tests from 2007 to 2018 and incorporating its antisatellite capabilities, research into a space program. Satellite capabilities are critical. Not only do they provide they also serve as critical communication between communication notes, rather, between u. S. Forces and multiple theaters. Chinese strike would disrupt u. S. Operations globally while undermining american isrt, specifically in the western specific. With the range and staying power needed to operate chinese movements. This impedes the u. S. To shape the battlefield, in the end to win a war. Open source analises cannot take over its counterparts. Still u. S. Marichltstime isrt has become so who will owed out that the lack of coordination is evident. U. S. Irt is comprised of aircraft, surface and sub surface sensors and landbased sensors equipped with radio frequency, lightbased, electromagnetic and sound ranging tools, but neither the navy nor the department of defense have made enough effort to centralize the procurement, deployment and assessment of isrt architecture infrastructure. Thus, i think its fair to say that no one really knows what the navys isrt requirements in the western pacific actually are. By extension, no one really knows how current isrt capabilities actually relate to quantifiable u. S. Requirements. Im not making a new observation here, but a fleet without eyes cannot fight. Several policy steps should be taken to overhaul the u. S. s western isrt. For one, the navy should bound attempt to define the problem. Congress should provide funding for the navy to conduct a detailed, classified study of specific isrt capabilities and requirements. This would allow navy to develop targeted quickfix responses to capability gaps, as it would properly plan future acquisitions. Indeed i think every u. S. Armed services in every major theater should conduct a similar review. Certain stop gap measures can boost current capability shortfalls. The navys acquisition of mq 4c triet an, uavs will boost isrt capabilities by providing commanders with a high endurance, long loiter time, Information Collection platform. But full Operational Capability isnt expected until 2023. In the interim, the Defense Department could retask u. S. Air force and q9 reaper uavs from Central Command and deploy them to the pacific in a similar role to the mq 4c. Those who answer or might object that we should not impoverish one strategic theater to benefit another are right. Both cent com and indo pact com are essential. Mq 4 machine c fleet feasible proposition since the mq 4c program has only just reached initial Operational Capability. In the immediate term, the stingray should serve as an unmanned platform, converting the uclass, unmanned carrier launch and Strike Program to the c bars, the carrier based refueling Aerial Refueling system was an intelligent organizational choice. The navy has lacked a carrier air wing, organic range extender since the early 2000s. Since the retirement of the a6 and f14, carrier wing shrunk. Any strikes will require an aircraft that fills the mq 25s role. By expanding its Mission Profile to include isrt would both increase u. S. Navy capabilities and, i believe, avoid extreme costs. Designers could emphasize long range rather than stealth or speed thereby avoiding the difficulties that the uclass program encountered. And ironic characteristic of strategy, i will close my remarks here. Its cyclical nature. Thought to be obsolete are revived to the same deadly effect as before their initial decline. Think about the scout plane that fell out of practice with battleships. The navy should consider revival this concept, developing median altitude like the mq 4c or mq9 that can be deployed or recovered by u. S. Forces sbatants. This would increase u. S. Irt coverage while making use of Hypersonic Weapons more feasible. These spotter uavs could direct munitions toward their targets while the destroyer or cruiser launching the missile or whatever launching the missile would remain out of strike range. The u. S. Must coordinate redundant and capabilities with its allies, particularly japan. The Japan Selfdefense forces are sophisticated. Theyre highly competent. But the ground force still receives most of the funding while Maritime Forces have not developed robust isrt capabilities or assets that would survive a massive chinese strike. The suggestions of hudsons isrt report apply equally to the defense of japan and ill leave it at that for the time being. Ryan, the podium is yours. Thank you, sir. Good afternoon, mp. Its nice to see some Friendly Faces in the audience. Im not sure you all understand just how fortunate you are today to be here, because you get to see david lauder with his hair combed, his beard trimmed and in a suit and tie. Thats like a unicorn sighting here in washington, d. C. Thank you for the invitation, seth. Its good to be here. I also want to thank the third silent member of the writing team, a gentleman named Harrison Tran, who happens to be one of the most deeply insightful operations analysts that i know. He did all the math because seth and i dont do math. Why did we do this study . What caused it . Someone just asked me that the other day. Actually, somebody in the navy just asked me that the other day. A couple of things. Number one, there was a 2018 ndaa, National Defense authorization act that directed the navy to do Something Like this a study of its isr t sufficiency, specifically one of the things that they asked for was that the study include operations in a satellitedenied environment, which i thought was interesting. To me it seemed if the congress were asking the navy to do such a study, smart people in congress were worried that there wasnt work being done. And so we watched, seth and i. I remember communicating, when that language came out in the ndaa. We watched and we didnt see much coming out into the press. We didnt see much attention being given to it. So we decided we would give some attention to it. Another reason to do this study was the National Security strategy that came out in the early months i think it was january 2018 had a very big idea in it. And that very big idea was that the United States posture would move from that of deterrence by punishment to deterrence by denial. These are very different ways of attempting to deter conventionally. In the one, the aggressor attains some level of success in their objectives, and that the threat of being pounded into submission by the calvary coming over the horizon is thought to be enough to dissuade them. The other is deterrence by denial in which forces that are present are sufficiently lethal and capable to keep the opponent from the aggression in the first place. Because when you look at the geography of the region were looking at in the western pacific, because there are so many possible targets of aggression so close to the chinese mainland where so much force could be marshalled in so little time, this decision by the Trump Administration to change the nations conventional deterrence posture, i think, was a very, very smart one. But it levies requirements. The force thats in the neighborhood has to be better. It has to be stronger. It has to have more weapons and it has to have more isr. And it has to have more networks that link all of that together. There is a missile isr mismatch in the navy right now. In the january 2015 issue of proceedings, the three admirals in charge of the navy Service Force then vice admiral rodan, rear admirals wrote an article of where they put together this idea of distribute d fality. Under the section where they were suggesting things they needed to operationalize this concept, they write persistent, organic Intelligence Surveillance isr and data relay is something they need. Quote, an important aspect is the ability to confidently conduct dispersed operations apart from centralized command and control networks, local combat networks are essential to achieving local battle awareness. Those networks need to be more capable than those existing today, must be persistent in a satellite. Whether current vertical takeoff, Unmanned Aerial Systems have the persistence necessary to support dispersed offensive operations remains to be seen. By that, they meant shipboard helicopters. But the potential for them to augment networking should be examined. The ability of hunter killers action groups to launch and recover fixed wing or partially fixed wing uavs will be pivotal in advancing this role. It was evident from that article for almost five years ago that the three guys in charge of Surface Warfare in the navy believed there was an isr problem. They believed it enough to put it in proceedings and make sure everybody read it. As a young man, i did a lot of cruz missile certifications when i was on active duty. You would have a bunch of experts from organizations that would come on board and in two d days of very intense simulation determined the degree to which you were able to employ surfacetosurface weapons. We used to have a weapon called a tasm, antiship missile. It had a range of 200 miles. I remember going through these certifications discussing the employment of this weapon both with the teams and when we would sit around on our ship, thinking about what would happen if we ever got tasm. The bottom line was, the weapons range greatly outstripped our ability to understand what we were targeting. And because once you it was a fire and forget weapon. The area of uncertainty of the target grew as this subsonic weapon moved down range. We got rid of tasm for many reasons. Some of it associated with arms control treaties, but i think one of the reasons that the navy didnt fight harder to keep it was it was very difficult to employ. We just didnt have the situational awareness, the isr t to match the range. Now im looking at a navy that has tomahawk block 4, maritime strike tomahawk with ranges at nearly 1,000 miles. Looking at the sm6 in a surfacetosurface mode with unclassified discussions of ranges over 200 miles. Weve spent the money we need to get the weapons we need out there. The question in my mind was, do we have the isr to support those weapons . And in my gut feeling was no. And i convinced seth that that was a no. Then we wanted to get after this. So we got Harrison Tran and started to think about it. Some of the things we thoug