CNO Remarks at Sea Air Space

Good afternoon, everyone-and welcome.
Mike, thank you for that kind introduction.
It is great to be back for this year's Sea-Air-Space, our nation's premier maritime exposition.
And let me begin by welcoming all of you in the audience-whether you are in uniform or in a suit Flag and General Officers, Senior Executive leaders, industry partners, innovators, and leaders from academia.

It is an honor to be surrounded by the people who matter most to the future of American seapower.
I also want to thank the entire Navy League team for bringing together this extraordinary event. Because that is what this room represents.
The people who design combat power.
The people who build combat power.
And the Sailors who take combat power forward into the fight.

There are not many places where that full ecosystem comes together in one room. This is more than a conference. It is a gathering of a tribe - a tribe that is like no other in the world.
A tribe designed to defend, protect, and sustain our nation's prosperity and vital interest around the world.

And that matters-because the challenges we face today demand more than incremental improvement. They demand that we rethink how we generate combat power as a system.
The tyranny of threats across the globe.
The brittleness of our industrial base.
The speed and adaptability of our adversaries.
These are not isolated problems. They are system-level challenges-and they require system-level solutions.

And let me be clear: If we try to solve them with the same processes, the same timelines, and the same assumptions that got us here we will lose our advantage.

Over the past several months, I have been on a campaign to communicate the U.S. Navy Fighting Instructions. Many of you have heard me talk about where we are going. Today, I want to talk about how we are going to get there. Because we have moved past the point of intellectual alignment.

We are now in a phase of ruthless execution and uncompromising accountability. Because in today's environment, speed of decision and execution are not a luxury. They're a warfighting requirement.

The way we are doing that-the way we are building a Navy that can fight and win under those instructions-is through the Golden Fleet Initiative.
The Golden Fleet Initiative is not a collection of platforms. It's a warfighting system. A Fleet design. A new naval paradigm. And it represents a fundamental shift in how we think about naval combat power.

It is designed to generate mass, lethality, and adaptability at scale.

This Future Fleet integrates a high-low mix of crewed and uncrewed platforms-from USVs and UUVs to frigates, destroyers, submarines, battleships, amphibious ships, and carriers into tailored force packages enhanced by tailored offsets that answer the Combatant Commanders' call for solutions to their key operational problems.

All enabled by advanced manufacturing, artificial intelligence, directed energy, and containerized capabilities. Because the era of platform-centric thinking is over.

Combat power is now defined by how fast we can integrate, adapt, and deliver effects.
On the low-end side, attritable and rapidly manufactured unmanned systems will expand our Fleet's reach and lethality-improving sensing, screening, deception, and strike.

On the high-end side, our main battle force-Flight III destroyers, Columbia-class submarines, carriers, and next-generation combatants-will command the fight, deliver maximum payloads, and punch harder than the sum of their weight class.

Simply put: The Golden Fleet Initiative designs our combined forces to connect our Foundry to our Fleet and our Fleet to how we Fight.

It creates a continuous engine that can produce, adapt, and employ combat power faster than any adversary - levering the hedge strategy in order to optimize our Navy.

It helps solve our hardest operational problems: Problems like distributed sensing and scouting - counter-targeting - massing and synchronizing precision fires - establishing sea denial and sea control with world class maritime domain awareness - and even supporting new and innovative ways to tackle contested logistics.
It's how we generate enough combat mass not just to compete-but to culminate in a fight and win decisively with mass where it matters and with low-risk options when we need them.
Perhaps, most important - it's how we preserve the Navy's differentiated value: Projecting sovereign, decisive combat power from the sea-globally, persistently, and on our terms.
For too long, we optimized platforms. The Golden Fleet Initiative is designed to optimize naval combat power.

Let me show you what that looks like in practice.

The best place to begin is with a real-world example.

Because theory is meaningless until it survives contact with reality.

Over the last several months, our Joint and combined forces have been engaged in sustained operations against the Iranian regime and its proxies.

What you are seeing is not just naval power. It's the early expression of the Golden Fleet design.
Distributed forces. Persistent presence. Continuous application of combat power across multiple domains. And, at the center of that fight is the United States Navy Sailor.
Nineteen-year-old technicians loading ordnance. Twenty-six-year-old Officers of the Deck navigating dangerous waters. Chiefs leading from the deckplates.

Countless sorties from FORD and LINCOLN. Courageous transits and effective blockade operations in hostile waters from our Destroyers. Marines and Sailors operating together in combined arms aboard TRIPOLI. And, Submariners locked and loaded below the waves.
Their actions reflect the enduring fighting spirit of our Navy. And I could not be prouder to serve alongside them.

Several weeks ago, after the initial strikes, the Joint Force needed covert naval options-and fast. Not a six-month deployment cycle. Not a full strike group.

They needed decisive combat power quickly. And the window was closing.

So, we gave them one of the nation's greatest strategic assets. We took a submarine operating in the Indo-Pacific, ran it through a tailored training and certification package, surged it west, and repositioned it into the Indian Ocean.
Within days-not months-she was in the fight.
Integrated. Ready. Lethal. Sinking an Iranian warship and executing precision strike missions only the Navy could provide within this time frame.
That was not improvisation. That's differentiated value. That was a glimpse of the future force. That is speed. That is reach. That is lethality. And we did not succeed in that moment because we had more platforms. We succeeded because we adapted faster than the problem.
That is Golden Fleet in action. A tailored force. A reconfigurable force. A force where payloads-not just more platforms-define combat power.
A force that gives commanders options at operational speed. And here is the part that matters most for this audience: Industry made that possible.

Your systems. Your designs. Your innovation.
You are our teammates who turn presence into combat power. Because in today's fight, advantage does not go to the side with the most platforms. It goes to the side that adapts fastest. Speed of sensing. Speed of decision. Speed of adaptation.
If we are slow to adapt, we will be outpaced before we are outgunned.

That is why Hedge Strategy and Tailored Forces sit at the heart of our Fighting Instructions.
The Fighting Instructions are not a strategy document. They are a demand signal. A demand for faster innovation. Faster fielding. Faster integration. And faster adaptation of lethal combat power.

From the Foundry to the Fleet and into the Fight - the Golden Fleet Initiative is not built for one scenario. It is built to adapt across the full spectrum of conflict. Across multiple theaters. Against multiple adversaries.

The question is no longer: What is the right platform? The question is: How do we adapt, generate and certify the right composition of naval combat power faster than the adversary can respond?

That is what Tailored Forces do. They allow us to assemble force packages for specific operational problems. From sea control in contested littorals. To long-range precision fires. To counter-targeting enemy networks. To distributed sensing. To contested logistics.

All executed under an Enhanced Mission Command Framework designed to delegate autonomy to the most suitable level that can sense, synthesize, and action the battlespace more effectively based on the assessed tactical situation and acceptable level of risk.
Tailored forces combine survivable high-end platforms agile command nodes and low-cost attritable systems. Integrated through autonomy, AI, and modular and containerized payloads.
This is how Golden Fleet creates combat mass. Concentrated mass. Distributed mass. Resilient mass. Reconfigurable mass. Mass that imposes dilemmas on the adversary's decision calculus.
And for industry, this is your signal: Build systems that integrate. Build systems that scale. Build systems that sustain in contact. And, build them fast.

If your system cannot plug into a Tailored Force package with Tailored Offsets designed with a sustainable concept of deployment not just employment - then it's not relevant to the fight we are preparing for within the Fighting Instructions' new paradigm.

With that in mind, here is where I need everyone in this room to lean in. If we are serious about the Golden Fleet Initiative, then the Foundry must deliver differently.

Because the Foundry is not just building and sustaining platforms. It's about generating combat capability at speed and at scale.

Right now, our biggest constraint is not technology it's integration and adoption by the Fleet.
It's about the total risk we accept when a system or capability arrives incomplete, unintegrated, and not ready to fight as a system of systems with strong support across DOTMLPF.

This, in combination with the countless lessons I learned at US Fleet Forces, is why I have created and began to implement what I'm calling the Fleet Introduction Operating System-or FIOS for short.
Let me be clear: This is new. This is how we change the way this Navy builds and fights.
Under FIOS, when the Navy receives a new capability, subsequent updates and upgrades should be as seamless as updating an app on your phone.

That means common interface standards. It means modularity. Open architecture. Virtualization with digital twins. Familiar look and feel. Modern training content that matches the style of what we are doing in the Career Training Continuum-built in from day one. Sustainment designed before steel is bent.
FIOS is how we end the era where the Fleet is the integration lab. If a capability shows up, it's ready to fight. Day one.

Alongside that, we are driving a new Containerized Capability Campaign Plan.

Containerization allows us to decouple payloads from platforms. To rapidly reconfigure forces. To tailor capability to mission. To scale effects across the entire Fleet.

This is how we emphasize payloads over platforms in practice. It turns every platform into a potential combat node. And every payload into a scalable weapon.

If it fits in a container, I want it and I should be able to fight anywhere in the world with it across many, many platforms. At speed. At scale.
That is how the Foundry fuels the Fleet.

So, here's my ask from everyone in the room. Stop bringing me concepts that only work in isolation. That don't have the full concept of deployment baked into the design. That have not been developed with a FIOS mindset across the DOTMLPF spectrum.

Bring me capabilities that work on arrival. Integrated. Scalable. Modular or containerized. Developed with modern training and implementation products with a sustain tail. Concepts that are ready to fight - not from a PowerPoint OV-1 but in a way that naval combat power is generated, integrated into the Fleet Design and delivered - worldwide.
Because we are not just building and fielding platforms. We are building and implementing the Golden Fleet Initiative.

Therefore, everything we field must contribute to that ecosystem, that mindset, that integrated lethality from the viewpoint of both the Commander and the Sailor.

When we do build for modularity, build for interoperability, and build for the entire lifecycle - the FIOS concept comes alive and we fully realize the speed advantage we are seeking from acquisition reform to the waterfront to the deployed effects in our global battlespaces.
And through all of this, never forget who this is for. Every system we build. Every capability we field. Ultimately - it lands in the hands of a Sailor.
A Sailor who has to trust it. A Sailor who has to fight with it. So, if it is not ready for them-it's not ready. Period.

I'll close with this. Admiral Arleigh Burke reminded us that the instruments of war exist to preserve peace. Today, I would add: The side that innovates, adapts, fields, and sustains fastest controls the fight.

And naturally, the side that controls the fight controls the outcome. If we are not moving faster than the problem-We are already behind it.
The Fighting Instructions are clear and provide immense opportunity for everyone in this room.
Now it is on all of us to deliver capability at the speed of relevance and put it in the hands of our Sailors so they can be ready to fight on day one.
For industry partners: You are not just suppliers. You are force multipliers. Our teammates in arms.
For our Sailors: Every capability we field must give you options, reach, and advantage with the confidence you need to achieve mastery.
For the Navy: The Golden Fleet Initiative optimized by the Hedge Strategy, underwritten and empowered by Tailored Forces with Tailored Offsets, and executed through the FIOS concept is where we must go.

This is a new way of thinking - a new way of warfighting. A new way of aligning what we build with how we fight.

If we get this right-We deliver more than a better Navy. We deliver a Navy that can adapt faster than the fight itself.

A fleet that generates combat mass at scale. A fleet that absorbs shock and still prevails. A fleet that deters by being unquestionably ready - with credible deterrence built on escalation dominance at our timing and tempo.

That is our differentiated value to the Nation.
So, when you leave this room today, carry this with you: Every system you design. Every solution you develop. And, every capability you field must be built to integrate, scale, and sustain at speed with the Sailor in mind.

If it cannot do that-It is not ready. But if it can-You are part of something special, something unique something that gives our Sailors the edge in every fight, every mission, every time.
That is the essence of the Fighting Instructions.
That is Foundry-Fleet-Fight in practice.
That is how we translate innovation into operational advantage-At speed. At scale. On demand.

And that is how we ensure our Navy-and our Joint Force-remain dominant. Ready for any challenge. Capable of preserving peace through strength.

Thank you.