Intercept information and leave the backpack plugged in somewhere, thats so much low risk than trying to rob a bank. Watch the communicators tonight at 8 00 eastern on cspan2. Four former chiefs of star, two from the u. S. Joint chiefs and two of the joint staff of Japans Defense Ministry participated in a Panel Discussion friday on the importance and future of the u. S. Japan Military alliance. This is almost two hours. Good afternoon. Im glad to see our audience survived the flash flood warning. Im Michael Green, Senior Vice President for asia and japan here at csis and professor at georgetown. And as the csis host i want to do our usual safety announcement. We survived the flash flood. If for any reason 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 national geographic, which is around the corner, or well go straight down rhode island to st. Matthews. Our expectation is half the people will go to starbucks at du pont circle, but thats the plan. Im going to be very brief because ill have the opportunity to chair a discussion with our very distinguished panel of american and japanese retired senior military leaders. But first i want to turn it over to my friend who has organized this military Statesmen Forum to tell you about its intent, its purpose and a bit about what they achieved. Please, yochi. Thank you, mike. Thank you very much. I would like to First Express my deepest appreciation to csis and especially to dr. Michael green for cohosting this event with my think tank asia pacific initiative. I was here exactly six months ago in an event like this, exactly like this. And the theme was always the same, the u. S. And Japan Alliance in the era of economic competition. It was a preview of one yearlong project with dozens of japanese policy experts at the think tank. And the objective of that project was to identify that geopolitical and geoeconomic risks to japan and u. S. Japan alliance and the possible ways to deal with them. Today, we are here to share some of the takeaways from four days of conference which we just held in washington. Between retired military leaders and active Duty Officers, top active Duty Officers and the government high ranking officials from the u. S. And japan. This is a retreat type policy discussions. And this we have had this military Statesmen Forum for now four years. And dr. Michael green has been extremely supportive from day one. We are very much now in an era of radical uncertainty. And particularly how in reaction to these new heights of that uncertainties we are turning our attention to tried and tested values, institutions and methods. And the u. S. Japan alliance is among one of those tried and tested. And at this military Statesmen 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 asia pacific. Now, one of the areas that we have to really evolve, more effectively, is in the field of economics, more accurately geo economics, increasingly that economic instruments are now used and utilized to achieve that geopolitical gain and objectives. In the area, asia pacific particularly, we are confronted with these challenges, particularly from china. But whether its china or russia or japan, the United States and europe, the trade policy now is increasingly has become to be a center, a center of what, or national strategy. That also reflects represents this new trend of that geoeconomics in where politics how u. S. Japan alliance can and should deal with them. Its a very, very new theme, a challenging theme. Geoeconomics also is employed by some countries to modify or revise and even undercut the international order. They just dont like 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, the Fourth Industrial Revolution based on a. I. , big data and so on. And its implication for that National Security, National Resilience is enormous. So those each strategic challenges that we have to deal with in this years military Statesmen Forum also has addressed those issues. We just could not talk about everything, but we did cyber security, 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 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 the military Statesmen Forum, we have two cochair of the military Statesmen Forum, admiral mike mullen, former chairman of joint chiefs of staff and general oriki, 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 usa. And general iwasaki, 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, yoichi. 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 participants in the military Statesmen Forum who are not on stage right now. Yoichi has, if you know him, in classic form come up with the right idea at the right time. Theres never been anything quite like this military Statesmen Forum in part because on the japanese side there havent been former chiefs of Defense Forces with the authority that these gentlemen had. So there was an opportunity to create this kind of 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 as dr. Funibashi just said is extremely complex. The u. S. Japan alliance was an alliance that we generally for decades managed as a rear area support alliance for contingencies, particularly on the Korean Peninsula we were getting ready for. But now japans on the front lines. The north korean threat we 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 is primarily a rear Area Alliance for president s. Its in the front lines. Thats changed japanese 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 japan is also one of our most important Global Partners now. The alliance for decades we talked about as a global alliance, but i can tell you from my time in the nse beginning a decade ago, when we go into the g7 or g20 meetings, were usually more aligned with japan than any other country including our closest allies. So its more complex. We have less relative money to spend. Japans on the front line. All these point toward more sharing of strategic assessments and the group of distinguished former chiefs of Defense Forces and commanders and so forth are perfect to contribute to that dialogue. Most importantly, msf, military Statesmen Forum, has established itself in washington as a legitimate and important National Security sculptuins in. This was an off the record discussion, but i have permission from the organizers to ask a little bit about the discussion. I wanted to ask each of the admirals and generals on stage, you know, what their make jurjo takeaway was and particularly from this meeting, what is the conclusion, the surprise, the imperative thing we must do that you took out of the meeting . And im going to start admiral burr on this end. Then we will do reverse order for the next question. Well, i think when you are called a statesmen, thats another word for old guy. And im going to take a little bit 5d vantaadvantage to give a perspective on u. S. Japan military relationship in my time. When i was the commander of a guided missile destroyer in the mid 1980s, when we were operating with the Japanese Maritime selfdefense force, we were required to leave port separately to make sure that we didnt commune daicate with the japanese ship until we were 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 the state of the alliance in the 1980s. In the mid 1990s, 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 lon r longer, get rid of my shiny black shoes and go in a small delegation into the basement of the old Japanese DefenseAgency Building in order to do some secret conversations with counterparts in the japanese selfDefense Forces and our greatest fear was of a press 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 we have seen in recent years that i dont think we should lose sight of the progress thats 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 values point of view. And that imperative has enabled us to be able to talk much more openly and honestly and freely about how we can pool our resources and we can pool our efforts in order to Work Together towards that kind of 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. Directness. And what that resulted to in the past was a lack of serious communication to really talk about points of difference that had to be worked around and the real understanding points of convergence that should be exercised. I would say in the four years of the military states forum, we actually get down to the honest appreciations of the constraints on both sides, the ambitions on both sides and then working towards, working towards common solutions. In the past four years, we have noticed, and frankly acknowledged, areas of convergence that the United States and japan share, common objectives on the major issues, but we are not the same country. And we dont live in the exact same locations so we dont have the same priority. So there are differences that we will discuss later in these discussion. We dont see russia quite the same way. We dont in the past, have had different interests with china. There are economic issues, which are different among the United States and china, between the United States and japan and our relations with china. And inevitably at the highest level of economic approaches and major security economic approaches that 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, i think, come up with ways to go forward, which the event passed back to those of the jobs we used to have. And another rule is to try to be helpful to those we used to have rather than making their lives difficult. And i think we have been successful in that area. So let me stop there as far as the overall progress. And we will discuss the specific issues. I know later. Thank you. I would only comment, this is the third forum for me, two of them here and one in tokyo last year. And, i guess, reemphasize what admiral blair said in terms of just in time. And i have also experienced the same evolution that admiral blair has over time in terms of our overall relationship. Always allies, but certainly constrained. And what i really admire about what Prime Minister abe is doing now is looking for a way to have japan represented in the 21st century security environment. And that is an end to both move in that direction and then to empower his retired Senior Officers to have some of that discussion. And very, i mean, specifically, he and i were in the same job at the same time, and, in particular, during the fukushima tomadaci 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 years later. So it was very easy to commit to it. Ed aa admiral blair talked about the issues we have discussed in detail and im sure well come to those. But i have 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, the forces in south korea when i was chairman as well. And starting last year and again this year, weve worked to try to create some version of a trilateral view set with rock views as well as japan and the United States. And this year we had a former chief of defense there, general june, who contributed greatly for example. And then for my perspective, when i try to understand the problem, i really do want to try to listen to the perspective from, who i am with, what are your concerns . How do you hear things . And this is a forum that has afforded us a great opportunity to listen to our good friends so that we can understand the chances and then try to move forward together. So its its been more robust this year than last year than the year before that. And i think it will continue to be, in what i think, most of us in this room would understand or believe. Its an extraordinarily time right now of uncertainty, geopolitical uncertainty, geoeconomic uncertainty, and in that uncertainty, one of my beliefs is that you need good friends. And we have one in japan. Thank you. General orecki is going to speak in foreign english so you may want to take a second to get to your channel. Two is japanese and three is russian. Let me turn to general orecki. The other interesting thing about the timing of the forum is it began at a time when the japan selfDefense Forces in Public Opinion polls in japan emerged as the most trusted institution in japan. Thats the postjapan, its quite remarkable. So the role of military statesmen, and the idea of military statesmen in japan is very new, at least post war era. And they have an idea to train this debate and it is new and timely. Translator thank you for that introduction. My name is oriki. So we are switching from english to japanese. So this is not a weakness from japanese people not learning english, but we do have a very strong alliance. I want to say that. So we just concluded our post forum. And ive been attended this from the first forum. Between the United States and japan, we rotate the location between tokyo and washington, d. C. And so that means that last year, japan hosted one forum in tokyo. So mr. Mullen talked 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 opinion exchanges and also transanalysis. So with him, i really experienced that kind of sharing of information. But now we are coming here as representatives from the Unit