Could build for the cost of one of our carriers. Its an interesting statistic, but those missiles are kind of useless without satellite constellations, without isr ground isr status, without an extensive networking system connecting these nodes, without operation centers. There is a certain amount of cost that goes into the delivering of that weapon that gets forgotten about when we do that math. First class hannah nobel. This is a question for dr. Hendricks. You spoke about a submerged arsenal, but if the carriers were to be mixed, what do you propose would replace them, and how would their mission be fulfilled in their absence . So were getting ready to try to field the ohio class replacement. Its coming in with with an estimate of about 6. 6 billion a copy with some estimates up around 7. 2. The original or the four ssgns we have are actually the first four of the original ohio class. Due to treaty limitations, we had to repurpose, so we took them out of service as submarines and we had them carry up to 150 tomahawks apiece. I would suggest that where were at in the 30year bill program, if the navy made a decision to cease construction of the ford class after the ford, then we would convert or build in ssgns, and with the ssbn bill so that we could create submarines that could carry precision strike weapons, conventional precision strike weapons with volume to be able to fill out the arsenal in that manner. Third class daugherty. I understand this comes with political elements as well, but i wish to avoid those. If the United States wished to replicate its 1966 actions of sailing carriers between taiwan and china whats the confidence that the United States would have the same effectiveness of doing so within the next decade . Well, i think there is two questions. There is the capability of doing it . Heck, yeah, we could do that. The question though would it be a smart, geopolitical move to make . One of the reasons in my view that the pla navy has built itself into the force that it is was that 1996 Taiwan Strait issue. I think it was a wakeup call to the pln that we could operate with impunity in their front yard. Could we do it . Yes. Would it be wise . Probably not. There is also another point that you make there which is the time element. Its more likely that we would do it now than in 10 years. Two reasons. One, were going to be in a different place geostrategically at that point in time and physically at that point in time. Theyll also be at a different place at that point in time. Some analysts believe that the problem point of maximum i wont use the word maximum danger because it harkens too much back to the cold war, but china is at a point where they have to get great before they get old. That critical juncture point with them is around the 2025 time point, so if they havent established themselves as a great power in control of their spirit of influence by that time, theyre not going to. It also calls into question the stability of the communist party as the ruling party in china. And so as we get closer to that point, there is going to be a greater sensitivity to the United States operating with impunity in their backyard. As a matter of fact, i think there is an expeditious scale of reaction. Right now were in a stronger position, although theyre gaining. By that point in time theyll be desperate to demonstrate they are the strongest nation in that region and in that particular geographic spot. So that would have higher consequences as we get closer to that time frame. They dont have to the chinese dont have to build a navy thats bigger and better than ours they just have to build a navy thats bigger and better than what we can put in our front yard. Sir, for the alternative that you propose with the submarines, how does that work with the other missions that the carriers and the Carrier Strike group manages, such as the humanitarian effort . Surely our navy is not the only offensive force, which in my understanding of your proposition, thats the primary thing of the subs. So how do you propose that would work, sir . Its funny you use the humanitarian assistance and Disaster Response as pebtpect of this, because indicatorthe carrier is not the ultimate platform to carry out these missions. The ultimate carrier is the amfibs where they have a deck and they can float them into har bores and they have large helicopter fleet that has heavy lifting capability that can move things. One of the things we saw in haiti, in the initial days we could only use the helicopter aspect of the air wing because the runway was out at haiti. It had been knocked out of commission by the earthquake. In fact, the hdr mission is better served by the navys inventory. And one of the things were seeing is the entire inventory is under pressure because of the size of our shipbuilding budget and some of the assets were purchasing within that budget. There are other assets like mobile landing platforms, asfps that can also provide support for asdr missions that are coming in at a much cheaper price and probably a moreau fishl use spaish official use of aspects. Can i talk about economy sir . One of our common heroes is general president eisenhower. I think though we have a slightly different view, and ill speak for jerry for just a second because im allowed to right now. I think jerry really respects president eisenhower because of his view that he economized, that he looked at what we were spending in the military and he achieved economys more bang for the buck and i think he would like to see us do that. We would all like to see that. What i saw from eisenhower was prioritization. The u. S. Air force got 49 of its Defense Budget in 1958. 47 . He prioritized, right . Id like to see some of that prioritization go on today and thats an argument i would love to have about what capability and set of capabilities should be prioritized within the big mix. So where jerry talks a lot about economy, im going to talk about priority. Eisenhowers contribution was that he moved the needle in a direction that the country needed for its security requirements. Id like to see that happen now and i think if that debate happened in a headsup atmosphere of integrity, cpal would win. I think weve exhausted these questions, so ill open the floor up to questions from the audience. Jerry bryan great conversation there. So jerry you made some great arguments about cost. I can get this many or hire replacements for one class. Its great from a cost perspective, but what do you really think of about, okay, how many higher replacement sgns do i really need to provide the same capabilities . The Aircraft Carrier while it may be somewhat, you know, suspect, you guys say how vulnerable it is but it can deliver an immense nothing compares to the amount of ordinance it can load. The submarine, im all about undersea warfare and bringing back the sgns in the next generation, but have you really looked at not just cost but capabilities . Ill take two points here. One is about the delivery of ordinance. One of the things that shocked me when i began my analysis on this, which i did back in 2009 was how much ordinance we actually dropped. The number actually surprised me. It was around 14,000 pieces of ordinance over 14 years. At least thats based on repurchase rates on how much we were spending to buy that ordinance back into the inventory. So when we talk about dropping ordinance, and that took into account everything you know, from missiles to bombs, et cetera. The amount of ordinance that we look at may be actually lower than what you think, and were also entering an era of precision strike where were not dropping, you know 10 bombs or 20 bombs to take out a bridge. In fact, were dropping one because of our ability to get at that target. So i think thank you to sort of step back and look at what is the volume plan that you have to have have, in the war plans how many are you looking at and you go from there. As far as what you buy back is a critical question. The cno testified in front of the congress and said if we were going to fulfill all the demands of the cocoms we needed a navy that was 450 ships. 450 ships . Were at 286, 289 right now. We havent seen 400 since, oh when bush won, i think. 92 . Yeah, 92. So if we have to get going and live within our cost constraints, then we have to find tradeoffs that allow us to get platforms. Why do we need 450 ships . Most of it is naval presence. Its to show that the americans dont have resolve. You need a balanced force that has both a highend capability as well as a lowend presence capability. So when i brought up those numbers, when we talk about 24 lcs, yeah, i know everyone likes to kick around lcs, its a great red, white and blue flag and its got a gun on it. In some missions thats what i need. How do i find the assets to do that . I think, quite frankly, in my own analysis i come up with a portion of about 350 ships we need. And if we did tradeoffs right now, quite frankly we build two berks a year. If we build one berk a year and took the remainder of 1. 2 billion per year, we could make more ships at the high end. We need to make sure we preserve that in a war time capability submarines and otherwise, and we have to find a way to get us to those higher numbers in the fleet to uphold american interest. Secretary gates used to refer to thinking in the pentagon as last waritis. The discussion of how many bombs we dropped in the last 14 years is interesting, except we were bombing places in which the amount of bombs sort of exceeded the number of lucrative targets, if you will. There is not a whole lot to bombing in afghanistan. I read the papers. Great power of dynamics, great power of politics great power of conflicts. It was back in the news. I agree we entered a time with one bomb one target. Thats great. Those kinds of conflicts, mass still matters. Im concerned about our industrial bases ability to produce to that mass. Were going to have we will obviously use precision weapons but there are a lot of targets. There will we have a lot more weapons. On the ships well have to have places to store them. This is one of the great tradeoffs between an amphib a big deck amphib and an Aircraft Carrier. An Aircraft Carrier has 23 times the amount of magazine space than an lha has. 23 times. Thats a lot of bombs. And in a big war, a lot of bombs matter. So follow up on that last waritis, next waritis thing. One of the Lessons Learned to come out of this, if you look for an example of a profile you would need in an antiwaritis program, youre looking at about 10,000. You would launch, go up hit the big wing. You would go up and have to be on station when you come back. So we made a decision in the midst of this that we were going to invest in a capability that was going to increase our sorting capacity within the fleet by 33 , going from about 120 to 160 sorties a day. We paid almost twice as much for the Aircraft Carrier to get me 33 increase in sortie capability, but what did we see when we had to launch range, sort Sortie Missions of about 40 missiles a day. By the time you would launch, tank, penetrate come back the air wing is not going to fly that many missions. So why did we pay the premium for that for that high density warfare environment . I think there is some math we have to go back and look at going forward. You used the word symbology. I assume what were talking about is the utility of this asset in peacetime to reassure or just send another message of this persuasion. But im curious putting aside the utility carrier of peace time, this concept of an sngn or sngnx, what role does that have during peace time or this gray zone where it could go hot when its inherently not supposed to be seen by our allies or not be seen by our competitors . Its stealthy its underwater we dont know its there. What role could it play to the carrier in peace time or the crisis . We didnt spend the money we spent to buy a peace time asset, we bought a war time asset. In peace time i use these things, in fact, i use them a lot. In fact, im burning them out. Because were keeping them out there deployed for longer and longer periods of time. But what is the value we assigned to that . Again, ill give to you that i assigned the value of 100 to the Aircraft Carrier. When it shows up it makes a difference like nothing else out there. Everyone notices. But let me ask you, then what is a value you assigned to other assets in the fleet . Does a berk carry value . If so what is it . Stipulate what that is. If its. 2 on a scale of 1 to 100, give me that value and allow me to take that math in the peace time environment to figure out what is the most effective and efficient method to demonstrate naval presence . My daughters are constantly watching matt geo Something Like this. No one watches the History Channel in my house. So there was a thing on about the grizzly bear and the moderator made the point that the most dangerous avoided animal in the woods is the baby grizzly bear. Every other animal in the woods will avoid the baby grizzly bear. Why . Because they dont know where the mother bear is. The ssgn and the threat that it brings can be the mother bear. Right now the mother bear is seshd by served by the carrier. But we can transition that threat to other platforms and make sure everyone understands that if you harass and molest that platform, you have to deal with somebody else behind you. There are other capabilities that can be brought to bear. Whatever the way, my sense is that no other platform has as much weight across the spectrum of presence deterrence or some have great war value ssns specifically, great war value, little presence, some de deterrence. The Aircraft Carrier, a lot in all three. University of oxford, primarily a question for commander mcgrath. You, in your remarks, you mentioned you believe that complaints about or believing the problem is in the air wing obviates the carrier. But i believe we have that backward. If the air wing is the weapon of the carrier, then the shape of the air wing ought to determine the nature of the carrier. We can certainly hypothesize a radical change in the nature of the air wing with unmanned warfare and a potential to create a new kind of air wing. My question for you is can you justify a supercarrier, nuclear supercarrier, given a new kind of airway. What about from heel all the way up from the power plant to the placement of the bridge to everything that makes a supercarrier a supercarrier can you justify with this air wing and might we be radically briefing here . Thats a great question. As to the deeper aspects of Aircraft Carrier design im a history major. But i can tell you that the demonstrated ability of that platform to evolve, to accept the evolution of the air wing the design that went into ford specifically to give it the ability to bring on new generations of aircraft unmanned aircraft, heavier aircraft. I think the electromagnetic launching system is all about generating variable loads to be able to shoot a lot of different size aircraft but especially heavier aircraft. The demonstrated history of the platform i could give you the evidence that we have before us. The evidence we have before us is that the platform has accepted aircraft designed to fly off of it. If you want to design an aircraft that needs a 5,000foot runway to take off and is too brittle for a cat shot an Aircraft Carrier is not the right platform to carry it. As for the ability of that ford class platform to accept a new generation of unmanned carrierlaunched airborne strike and surveillance vehicles, irrespective of how they come out, i think the easy answer is if you design if you come into the competition with an option that cant be shot off the ford, you wont win. Youre dead on arrival. Weve got time for two more succinct questions and two more succinct answers. First im a former naval person, and im honored to count both of you debaters as friends and colleagues of mine and i congratulate both of them on superb performances tonight. I guess my questions go to jerry. Regarding the vulnerability of the supercarrier it strikes me that you discount what can be done by deception. I dont want to go there right now. But what i did want to crow about just a bit, and that is the cost issue that you raise. And it seems that rather than the carrier, you would default to a submerged strike capability. And one pays a high premium to submerge anything. And thats probably why the u. S. Navy has decided not to go forward with the replacement for the ohio ssgn because of cost, i believe. So my question to you is this. Given the cost premium that one pays to submerge anything especially something thats going to launch why would you want to do that in a submerged platform rather than a surface platform . Im not talking now about necessarily a supercarrier but there are other surface assets in which one could place strike assets and distribute those across a wide range and probably get at the vulnerability issue youre talking about. So the question is this. Why submerge if youre not going to put strike assets if youre not going to emphasize a carrier for your strike platform, why would you want to submerge it . Ill try to give you a succinct answer. I used the ssgn because its the most prominent example of strike platforms that are out there that we currently see. There is actually a range of capabilities. There are unmanned, towed, submerged capabilities, there are semisubmersibles that have been looked at that operate in neert seizure the near surface region that could be purchased because they dont have the sub costs that go into that. The reason i look into that environment is because we have a clear, specific limitations on flexibility. So how would you address that . Could you suggest some of the limitations . Hitting a moving target. The flexibility of having a pilot in the aircraft to assess to be directed by someone on the ground, the basics of tactical support in air power. So we began to do target recognition capabilities back in the 1980s that looked at both mobile and unmobile platforms. There is also offboard capabilities that can come into play. Uabs clearly do not go out and just fly themselves all waitthe way there. There is often a man in the loop. Yes, communications can be disrupted, but were looking at linkages that build those things back and forth. The fact of the matter is the United States has demonstrated in an era of renovation that it can come up with a technological solution to solve these types of problems, and theyre already at work in that industry. Well, i want to once again thank captain henderson and commander mcgrath for an enlightening performance and discussio