Of building the russians into this 10foot tall man that they are not today. The russians have also admitted they are increasing their operational tempo. Of the previous head of the russian navy stated in 2015, their submarine activities had increased 50 in 2015 compared to 2014. As part of the study the Team Productivity to travel throughout the region, stopping in uk, sweden, finland and warsaw. We conducted another workshop here in dc. These were ultimately helpful in building out our findings and making sure we were tempering the report conclusion correctly. This is a useful image, actually taken from a study that looked at nato, any submarine more pair, science and Technology Cooperation during the cold war, so there are some things about it that are a bit off, notably the Breakout Group of russian subs from the baltic sea into the north sea. Might not be the operational construct of the day, but this really captures sort of the scope of the problem. For us looking to the north, you can see the two main area concerns in the baltics and then coming out of the peninsula through the g. I. Uk and sort of out into the broader atlantic. What this does not show in what i want to hone in on is the difference in the threat in the way that it has to be addressed in the baltic sea. Of the north atlantic is wide open. There are exportable choke points. And nato used it to its advantage in years past it is unclear how much they can use to their advantage to basically because in increases in russian capabilities, which i will touch on a bit more detail later on. In the baltic sea, its really a very very difficult environment for conducting submarine operations. Its shallow, confined and those that operate small submarines, there are many places to hide and lots of unexploded ordnance left over from world war ii and the cold war. I dont know if anyone saw, but dont during the most recent exercise they were reports of some of the d mining units actually finding world war ii minds in the mud. Summer its a very challenging area to operate in an something that will have to be different between the two basins and something that needs to be remembered and respected. Would we think the russians are up to . Theres a host of activities that have we view our concerning. Probably the most widely reported was that territorial believed to be territorial violation conducted by what most people think is a russian summary and sweden october 2014. There were reports released by the Swedish Ministry of defense that show what looks to be like a periscope inside the plushy zero. The swedes spent roughly a week looking for the submarine and there was no sort of conclusively Public Statement that said this is what it was and this is what we found. Again, another historical they said they were fairly certain he was a russian sub. Also, alarmingly for our Close Friends in the uk dire were Russian Submarines reported operating in close proximity to the home of the British Nuclear deterrent. Those are particularly concerning because the uk with the nimrod any submarine work aircraft, excuse me, had none of that capability. They were forced to reach out to their allies in nato to sort of say we need to get it in and start looking for this submarine important things to remember about these activities, in many ways russian returning to its normal course of operation during the cold war. So, what we perceive now as aggressive is really more of a return to what normalcy was and that was one of the core things we found in studies that theres a pretty big gap between how we perceive the activities and whats actually going on in reality. However, thats not to say that there are not places where russia is actually carrying out aggressive activity. Territorial violation in places such as sweden and finland, activities near a book undersea cable, locking of lanes of undersea cables primarily depending on how you want to refer to it undersea cable and the baltic baltics er provocative and what this shows us is that russia is using its underseas capabilities as part of what we perceive to be a larger course of campaign and allies in partners in europe and also what these have shown is that there is a current lack of capability and capacity amongst partners in the region. This is sort of a snapshot of the russian navy today, looking specifically at its submarine fleets. Its important to know the Russian Submarine fleet is considerably smaller than in the late 1980s and early 1990s. There was about 240 submarines at the end of the cold war. There are roughly 56 and the russian fleet. Looking at the russian fleet is always a challenging thing to do since the because its unclear what is and is not operational in the fleet, so whats russian claims is often not what he can put to see. Russia has been slowly overhauling its matter modern court of Nuclear Power attack submarines. Of that core forces are capable, well trained and very proficient and undersea warfare on the material side, theres a new generation of russian summary of coming out, a new Ballistic Missile submarine, missile powered attack simmering. From what we can tell from opensource reporting, they are fantastic submarines. However, there are not that many of them and they have been subject to extremely difficult determine processes and its unclear how many russia will be able to afford going forward. Want to talk about something thats not talked about a lot and its the russian auxiliary submarine force. Russia operates a small number of very small Nuclear Powered submarines capable of diving, believed to be in excess of several thousand meters. The us used to operate a submarine like this that was called and are one. It was a small deep submergence vessel that was used for research and other tasks. We dont operate it anymore. It had to be replaced. Of the difference being that the russians in their ingenuity figured out a way to make a small deep submergence vehicle with a converted pullet Ballistic Missile submarine, which is what the graphic shows here. One can only you can imagine what a clandestine deployable Emergency Vehicle could be used for and how its pretty scary when you start thinking about some of the types of missions it could be used for. We thought this was something important to highlights and probably the shadowy part of the russian undersea apparatus. Not operated by the navy, but a separate branch of the industry of defense. When you look at it, its a something one has to keep in the back of their mind. Would we think the russian navy is going . There are clear challenges. The sanctions as a result of their activity in the ukraine has hurt them especially in their terms of weston electronics, machine tooling. Their shipyard will likely face a falloff in train personnel sometime in the near future, simply because of demographic issues in the sort of a lack of funding through the 1990s and early 2000s. I refer to as the postsoviet naval platform having encountered problems, decades Long Development and production delays. However, and this is a key part to remember is what they do have is very good. Of the new submarines are technically excellent and head of the Naval Warfare center had a model of the new one bill in his office was so impressed with it. This is something we will have to monitor. In the baltic and for the diesel powered submarine fleet, its a bit more clear. They are prioritizing their Nuclear Powered boats and they have this struggle with building newer diesel boats, but what they do have again, is modern and well increasingly wellmaintained and the personnel behind it are generally pretty good. Moving on to nato. Comes as no surprise that capabilities nato did not think it would be involved in sort of Territorial Defense and highend war fighting in all of this it was looking more at afghanistan, Stability Operations in those type of activities. That shows as the types and kinds of equipment being purchased. With that said, there is a solid core of submarines within nato and other capabilities have fallen further than that. That said, there are promising sides of recapitalizations in places such as sweden, france and the uk. Longer turn, there are additional opportunities in places such as spain, poland and then looking further into the mid 2020s its likely both france and germany will consider how they replace their asw aircraft. Based on the shortcomings, sort of encountering the russian threat and what were our recommendations. So, they have fallen into three categories with the first being what were the organizational changes that we believe needed to be made. Sort of counter russian activities. There is a gap or wedge in the baltic sea. The two most important and most capable Baltic Sea States finland and sweden arent in nato and have a historic neutrality has to be respected or got the same time, they are subject to the same sort of course of action as nato members and the baltics er. Bridging that gap and finding a way that both respects their sovereignty and has a greater interoperability is capable of moving forward. Its like a across the baltic sea gap in particular. Thats not a problem that is this particularly specific and nato has that with for several years. Theres always been a lack of regular highintensity exercises. For these reasons we recommended the following. The Maritime Strategy is not been updated since 2011 and relax a different world and should likely be revised. Without that nato cooperation was an interesting route to take to bridge the baltic sea gap. Understanding that that is probably a first step and there are other things going on such as that enhance opportunity partnership, supportive agreements that have been signed between sweden and finland that will go east and beyond and help close that gap further. Greeting a nato center of lex excellent for asw and sort of greeting a common playbook for theater asw and that is sort of the outgrowth of that sinner and can also help drive there are several centers in nato that looks at issues that touch asw weathers the center for operations combined to Shallow Waters, shallow minds center of excellence excellent. That can help drive cohesion between those. Aligning the nato framework nations on the maritime groups sort of gives those a backbone that can help drive those. Information sharing again, and an object in training. One of the key things about submarine warfare and anyone that has done it will to you it requires constant training. Its a proficiency that has to be built and maintained. Is something we have to have done over the past 15 years and something that will need to have again. It will not come back quickly. On the capability side, the shortcomings that we identified in the study we believe are the results of different Investment Patterns that have created a sort of mismatch capability level across the life theres a need to level to the greatest of the possible and where possible create synergy across the lines. One country is investing more in one type of system and another is something thats complementary. There are aging systems and a general lack of capacity. The big three in terms of asw harking abilities maritime control aircraft, submarine, future networking that allows you to drive information between submerged and surface platforms, integrating land attack weapons, a little bit outside the precise scope of the study but sort of folded into some of the other research that the Security Program has been doing more broadly, we believe that is a powerful signaling tool to other elements of the russian cores and strategy. Lastly, leveraging nonmilitary platforms for acoustic intelligence collection is sort of a interesting idea of how one might use Oceanographic Research vessels in the crisis situation to reinforce your existing platform. Lastly, posture changes. Theres only two took the first is something we would like to see, but politically challenging. The russians should be specific about this in the early 2000 the norwegian deemed previous Submarine Base in northern norway to be surplus went through the process of divesting of it, put it on sale on the norwegian version of ebay and was bought by a private investor who then leased it to a russian deepsea exploration firm with ties to gasp wrong, which raises some concerns among people in the submarine Warfare Community about what the russians are doing here given the current climate there have been rumblings about the russians being kicked out. Its a useful facility. The us had rotational visits of there in years past during the cold war. For countries that wish to participate in any sort of asw activity in the. Is particularly to conduct resupplied other repair type of work. Second, using the former Naval Air Station to which is currently also the International Airport to as a support facility for maritime aircraft activities in the g. I. Uk. So, that is something that is currently happening on a us bases and has been funded through the european reassurance initiative, and we would like to see that moving forward other nations who are interested in participating rotate through their. It also gives an opportunity for them to operate with other nato allies, build interoperability and rebuild some of those funny mental skills which i talked about earlier that really require constant training in order to maintain. That is sort of what we did and what we found. If youre interested in reading a copy of the report, not just the abridged one we handed out, you can go to the website and with that we will take a 22nd break to mike at the panelist and turn it over to our panelist. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] i think we are good to go. Sorry about that. Im directing the international Security Program and i want to thank lisa and andrew pour that great briefing overview of the study. As we said, there are short versions out there, but if you forgive this terrible pun i will like to see the guide on this issue there is a full report available online, which i encourage you to look at. You have heard an overview of how csi s has looked at the issue in and we wanted to bring you some independent experts with their take on this issue and im pleased to have a panel before us. To my immediate left is olga oliker, who directs our Russia Program here took her Research Research has been focused on military Political Economic and social Development Countries in transition particularly focused on russia, ukraine and central asia. Prior to joining csi s she held a number of senior positions at the rand corporation, most recently as director of land center. To her left is steve mccarthy, the minister of defense at the British Embassy here in washington. Steve is responsible for all aspects of the uk us defense relationships and previously served among many other positions as director of International Security policy in the uk ministry of defense. Finally, in the end we have brined car, senior fellow at the center for strategic and budgetary assessments and prior to joining in 2013 brian was special assistant to chief Naval Operations and director of the Commander Action Group and he has previously served until 2007 in the navy. We wanted to bring to you today sort of a range of respected perspectives from looking at russia to partner capabilities and have a little bit of a conversation about where we think this panel thinks this issue is going and how serious the challenges. I will start with you to get your perspective. You have seen the briefing and you actually helped us in shaping it. I would love to get your sense of whats you think the russians objectives are with regard to the development of its naval and subsurface capabilities. Also, the extent to which that is manifesting itself in the activity we havent seen in northern europe. I would like to begin by saying this is really an excellent support and i recommend reading this report. My only trouble is with the title in the sense that we its not warfare; rightfax is preparation, deterrence, activities which are dangerous, but not actually warfare and i think its an interesting thing to think about. When you are looking to deter, when you are looking respond to another nation, what are you doing because it would make you more effective and what are you doing for various Political Goals and i think that is important when looking at russia. And i think also as the report very clearly and enters a review suggested what are the challenges and looking at Russian Military developing today is that there is a study in contrast, which supported range of narratives. I could tell you a story about how incredibly good russian capabilities are. Improving system with pockets of and that submarines are one of the pockets of accomplishments but small pockets. I think its important to the naveis not the priority for the russian federation. We can talk about naval priorities but we have to remember that the navy has only started getting resources recently because the military as a whole has done more resourcing. Its a trickledown effect. To they get around to supplying the navy when they have taken care of everything else. So, having said that. What do i think the most important thing for the navy wasnt actually that important for the russians as a whole