[inaudible conversations] good afternoon, im glad to see our odeons survive the flashflood warnings. My michael green, senior vicepresident for asia and japan and professor at georgetown and as the csis host, i want to do our usual announcement. We survived the flashflood. If we need to evacuate its my responsibility to give you instructions and the general rule is well go out the way you came in and well make our way to either the national geographic, around the corner, or well go straight down rhode island to st. Matthews. Our expectation is half the people we go to starbucks at Dupont Circle but thats the plan. ll be very brief because ill have an opportunities to chair a discussion with our very distinguished panel of american and japanese retired senior military leaders. But i want to turn it over to my friend who has organized this military statesman forum to tell you about its intent, its purpose. Please. Thank you mike, thank you very much. Like to First Express my deepest appreciation to csis and especially to dr. Michael green for cohosting this event. With the think tank, asiapacific initiative. I was here exactly at csi six months ago, and events like this, exactly like this. The theme was always the same. The u. S. Japan alliance in at the year of the economic competition. It was a preview of one yearlong product with dozens of japanese policy experts at the think tank, and our objective of that project was to identify the geopolitical and geoeconomic risks to u. S. Japan alliance, and the possible ways to deal with it. Today, we are here to share some of observations and take away from four days of conference which we just have in washington. Between retired military leaders and active Duty Officers, top active Duty Officers, and the government, high, ranking official, from the u. S. And japan, this is a retreat type discussion and this we have had state forum, for a year and dr. Michael green has been extremely supportive from day one. We are very much now in era of radical instant certainty and particularly how the reaction to these uncertainties. We are turning our attention to a tried and told values, institutions, and and the u. S. Japan alliance is among one of those tried and tested, and at this military statesman forum we have reaffirmed that this tried and tested strategic values and significance of the u. S. Japan alliance, but at the same time we have keenly realized that this alliance has to adapt to a radically changing international environment, particularly in asiapacific. Now, one of the areas that we have to really evolve, more more effectively, is in the field of economics, more accurately, geoeconomics, increasingly that economic instruments are now used and utilized to achieve that geopolitical gain and objectives. In the area of asiapacific particularly, we are confronted with this challenges, particularly from china. But whether its china or russia or japan, the United States and the europe, the trade policy now is increasingly has back to be a center, a center of what, of national strategy. Thatles reflects represents this new trend of that policy of economics, othrill techs, how the u. S. Japan relationship, alliance, should deal with them. Its very, very new theme. A challenging theme. Economics also employed by some countries to modify or revise and even undercut the international order. They just dont leak the rules, a rule based order. They are now challenging that. Cyberspace is increasingly exploited, and even manipulated, not only to undercut compromise that free and fair trade goods and services, but also to damage and undermine the democratic rules, process, and institutions, democracy itself. And we are now also in the midst of that radical technical revolution, fourth industrial revolution, based on ai, big data and so on. And its implications for that National Security, national resilience, is enormous. So those are each strategic challenges that we have to deal with in this years military statements men forum, also has addressed those issues. We just could not talk about everything, but we did cyber cybersecurity, geoeconomics, certainty and north korea, and the others. We got support from active Duty Officers and incumbent government officials is indispensable to enrich the conversation and to make that discussions at msf relevant and meaningful, and we are very much fortunate that we have members from joint chiefs of staff, department of defense, and National Security council from the United States. From japanese side, we have members from the selfDefense Forces, a minister of defense, and the Prime Ministers office. Today we have four members of that military statesman forum. We have two cochair of that military states men forum. Admiral mike mullen, former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and general a former chief of staff of joint staff selfDefense Forces. And all of you know admiral dennis blair, former pacom commander, and dni chief, currently the chairman of the board of Peace Foundation u. S. A. , and general igasaki, former chief of staff, joint staff selfDefense Forces. So we are extremely lucky and privileged to have four of them to share their observations and their suggestions with all of you today. So, i once again would like to express my deep gratitude, to my friend, michael green, for chairing this and moderating this. Thank you. I hope you really enjoy todays discussion. Thank you very much. [applause] thank you,o oichi. Well have a discussion up here on stage and then turn it over to the audience to ask questions, including i hope from some of the par tis pains in the forum who irnot on stage right now. O ichi, if you know him, in classic form, has come um with the right idea at the right time. Theres never been anything quite like this military Statesmen Forum because on the japanese side that have nonbeen chiefs of force with the authority these gentleman have so thats want opportunity to create this forum given the broad not only joint but policy experience of the Senior Officers coming out of the top of the Defense Forces, but theres also more of a demand for this kind of dialogue. The threat environment is extremely complex. U. S. Japan alliance was an alliance we generally for decade managed as a rear area support alliance for contingency, particularly on the Korean Peninsula we were getting ready for and now japan is on the front lines. The north korean great, heard today about another Missile Launch, puts japan on the front line essentially with the north korean threat. And the maritime challenges in the East China Sea and South China Sea from china are also right in japans front yard. So this is no longer an alliance that eight rear area alliance. Its in the front lines. That has changed. Japan politics, policy, strategic thinking, and it means that we on the u. S. Side have really a responsibility to understand how the threat looks and the challenges look up close from japan, and that japan is also one of our most important Global Partners now. The alliance for decade we talk about as a global alliance, like to play from the time in the nse beginning a decade a. , when go into the g7 or g20 meetings we are usually more aligns with japan than any other country, including our closest allies. So its more complex and more comprehensive women have less relative now spend. Japan is on the front lines, always point toward more integration, more jointness, more sharing of strategic assessments and the group of distinguished former chiefs of Defense Forces and pacom commanders are perfect to contribute to that dialogue. Most importantly, msf, the military Statesmen Forum, has establish its itself in washington as a legitimate and important National Security institution because it has a tla, the threeletter acronym. So msf is going to play an Important Role going forward. Lets in the ask some questions of the panel, have dialogue and then open it up. This was an of the record discussion bus i have permission from theers organizers to ask about the discussion. I wanted to ask each of the admirals and jenson stage what their general takeaway was in after the four years of dialogue and this meeting, what is the conclude that surprised the imperatives you took out of the meeting and im going to start with this one. Go right down on this end. And go this way and then do reverse order for the next question. I think when youre called a statesman, thats another word for old guy and im going to take advantage to give a little perspective on the u. S. Military relationship. When i was command ever of a guided missile toy destroy in the mode 198 associations when we were operating with the Japanese Maritime selfdefense force, we were required to leave port separately to make sure that we didnt communicate with the japanese ship until we beyond helicopter range of the coast of japan, because a press helicopter could not would then not be able to see us steaming together and communicating. That was a state of the alliance in the 1980s. In the mid1990s i was involved in some joint planning with japanese selfDefense Forces. I was required to put on a suit, grow my hair a little bit longer, get rid of my shiny black shoes and go in a small delegation into the basement of the old japanese depths Agency Building to dos secret conversations with counterparts in the japanese selfDefense Forces and even our greatest fear was that, again, a leak of these operations. So, to be able to sit in an open forum with cameras and an audience and talk about important issues of the u. S. Japan alliance is just such a maturing of the alliance that weve seen in recent years that i dont think we should lose sight of the progress that has been made, and just in time, too, because the security situation in northeast asia in east asia, and overall in the world, has become much more pressing, much more complicated than it ever has been and the interests of our two countries are exactly aligned in terms of our vision of what we think east asia should look like from the security, the economic, the governance, the values, the point of view, and that imperative has enabled us to be able to talk much more openly and honestly and purely about how we can pool our resources and pool our efforts in order to Work Together towards that kind of an asia. So, what i have seen in the military Statesmen Forum is an unprecedented level of frank discussion. The japanese are famous for their politeness. The americans are famous for their directness. And what that resulted in the past was a lack of serious communication to really talk about points of difference that had to be world around and real understanding of points of convergence that should be emphasized. I would say that in the four years of this military Statesmen Forum, we actually get down to honest appreciation of the constraints on both side, the ambitions on both sides, and then working towards common solutions. In the past four years we have noticed frankly acknowledged areas of divergence. The United States and japan share common objectives on the major issues but were not the same country and we dont live in exactly the same locations and so we dont have exactly the same priorities. So there are differences and these were frankly discussed and talked about those later in this discussion. We dont see russia quite the same way. In the past we have had different interests with china. There are Economic Issues which are different among between the United States and china and between the United States and japan and our relationships with china, and inevitably the highest level, Major Economic approaches and major security approaches overlap. So, there have been those differences but rather than being joked over or papered over, they are addressed in this forum and we have been able to issue think, come up with ways to go forward, which we have then passed back to our those who have the jobs we used to have, and one of our rules is to be helpful to those who have the jobs we used to have rather than making their lives more difficult and i think we have been successful in that area. So, let me stop there. Mike, as far as the overall progress and well discuss these issues i know later. Thank you. Would only comment this is the third forum for me two here and then one in tokyo last year, and i guess reemphasize what admiral blair said in terms of just in time. And ive also experienced the same evolution that admiral blair has over times in terms of our overall relationship. Awful allies but sent always allies but certainly constrained and what i admire about what Prime Minister abe is doing now is looking for a way to have japan represented in the 21st 21st century security environment, and that is and both to move in that direction and then to empower his retired Senior Officers to have some of that discussion and very i even some, specifically orikisan is here. We were in the same job at the same time, and in particular during the fukushima disaster, and it was actually it was validation, i think, of the alliance. The way that we were able to support instantly support not just the selfDefense Forces but the people of japan, and by virtue of that experience, the friendship and respect that we developed for each other, this forum came along a couple of years later. So it was very easy to commit to it. Admiral blair talked about the issues we have discussed in broad detail and im sure well come to some of those. Ive also watched the discussion mature, very similar to the relationship. One of the individuals in the audience today is general skip sharp. Skip was the commander of the forces in south korea when i was chairman as well, and starting last year and again this year, we have worked to try to create some version of a trilateral view with with rock views and as well as japan and the United States and this year we had a former chief of defense there, general jun, who contributed greatly, for example, and then from my perspective, when i tried to understand the problem, i really do want to try to listen, toe the perspective from who im with. What are your concerns . How do you hear things . This is a forum that afforded us a great opportunity to listen to our good friend so that we can understand the challenges and then try move forward together. So, its been more robust this year than last year, than the year before that. And i think it will continue to be and what i think most of news this room would understand or believe that its an extraordinary time right now of uncertainty, geopolitical uncertainty, geoeconomic uncertainty, and in that uncertainty, one of me beliefs is you need good friends, and we have one in japan. Thank you. Theyre going to speak in japanese. I dont know which channel is english. Two is english. And try is russian. [laughter] let me turn to general orichi. The other interesting thing about the timing of the forum it began at a time when japan selfDefense Forces in the Public Opinion polls in japan was the most trusts institution in japan. Remarkable. The role of senior military statesmen and in japan the idea of military statesmen is very knew, or at least they have a role in helping to frame this debate is new and timely. So,. Thank you for the introduction, my name is were switching from english to japanese. This i not a weakness from japan people not learning english but we do have a very Strong Alliance itch want to say that. So we just concluded our fourth msf forum, and then ive been attending this from the first forum, between the United States and japan. We rotate the location between tokyo and washington, dc, and so that means that last year, japan hosted one forum in tokyo. So mr. Mullen talk about this earlier. So i was when i was in active duty we had a similar job and similar timing. Since then, we have been working on exchanges and also transanalysis. So with him i really experienced that kind of sharing of information. For now, we are coming here as representatives from the United States and also japan. Thought that we had really good communication but through this kind of forum i experienced that there was a gap and theres something that we need to address, and then, again, from first forum to fourth forum, were developing really good communication and also good information sharing, and then i think were becoming together regarding what needs to be said to have really good communication. For our forum i want to say my personal impressions. First off, of course, South China Sea and other various Security Issues are there, but our topic was about socioeconomics, and so what kind of economic implications are there to Security Issues, so dr. Green talk about north korea and there are not only military options okay, let me back up here. So, there are certain things the would want from china or the relationship to russia. There are some options, including sanctions, and so those are prospectives that we talk about. And also theres one belt, one road initiative, in china. So when we look at that initiative, that often is very much integrated