CNO Keynote Remarks at AFCEA WEST - As Prepared

Good morning, everyone and welcome.
RADM Spicer, thank you for that warm introduction.
Members of Congress, Former Vice Chairman Grady, GEN Smith, Flag and General Officers, active, reserve, and veteran servicemembers, leaders from academia, and industry partners it is absolutely an honor to be with you today.
As the premiere Naval Conference and Exposition on the West Coast, this forum exists for one reason - to address the wide array and increasingly complex network of threats our Sailors may one day face.
Yesterday at the Naval War College, I unveiled our Navy's newest strategic guidance - the United States Navy Fighting Instructions.
This morning, I'd like to give you a clear understanding of that vision - not as theory, but as direction you can act on.

I'd be remiss if I didn't take a moment to acknowledge my predecessors, the ones who bore the weight of this office and the tremendous responsibility to define, develop, and deliver a Navy capable of fighting and winning our Nation's wars.
Greenert's Sailing Directions
Richardson's Design for Maintaining Maritime Superiority
And, our previous two CNOs' Navigation Plans
Each offered the right strategy, at the right time, under the right circumstances.
But, today we find ourselves operating in an era with other Great Powers, an era in which the speed of decision ruthlessly punishes delay.
It's in these complex times that we must evolve our strategy once more rapidly responding to new leadership direction, increasingly sophisticated threats, and systemic industrial base challenges.
But all is not lost.
For the first time in my career, from the Oval Office and Capitol Hill to the halls of the Pentagon and the American people our Nation's leadership is aligned on the enduring importance of delivering a resilient and responsive defense industrial base.
The indicators are clear. President Trump and Secretary Phelan's Golden Fleet Initiative signal that a dominant United States Navy is the world's surest guarantee of peace.
Secretary Phelan means it when he says, and I fully agree, that there is no future fight the Navy isn't in - as an integral part of the main effort.
I take that statement seriously and with every ounce of resolve in my being, I am moving at warp speed to follow through on that guarantee.
Because, as long as I'm CNO I will do anything and everything necessary to ensure we never enter a fair fight and that our country will never lose.
Which is why I am with you today.

In their simplest form, the U.S. Navy Fighting Instructions provide a conceptual framework for modern warfare delivering homeland defense, sustaining our global network of deterrence, and preserving our national prosperity.
It is my overarching guidance that outlines which investments matter most, the asymmetric capabilities we need to forge, and the requisite levels of technical mastery that will enable our Sailors to fight and win across all time horizons.
As such, the U.S. Navy Fighting Instructions is our Navy's answer to the daunting question that will define modern naval warfare for decades to come:
"How do we ensure we can fight and win across the spectrum of conflict, under conditions we cannot entirely predict against adversaries who are increasingly capable, innovative, and aggressive at near parity levels simultaneously in key areas of vital national interest around the world?"

To get after this problem statement, it was important for me to take a step back and to understand what services and capabilities our Navy uniquely provides, and to which stakeholders?
As CNO, I have a lot of jobs, but perhaps at the top of the list is the need to communicate the value proposition of why our Navy matters - to the Joint Force and to the Nation.
I believe that idea shapes the core of any organizational strategy, which comes down to defining, highlighting, and conveying our differentiated value.
So, what is our differentiated value?
From the perspective of the American people:
Our Navy assures homeland defense, delivers global stability and deterrence and safeguards maritime trade - nearly 70% of which moves by sea - that underwrites our prosperity.
From the Joint Force's perspective, we provide seven indispensably unique missions. We deliver:
Sea control and sea denial
Maritime security
Tailored deterrence
Global replenishment across contested environments
Freedom of maneuver
And power projection over the horizon with precision and mass.
The bottom line is this, no other Navy nor any other Joint or Combined Force in the world can do what we do.
Once you understand why our Navy matters, only then can you define what or as I like to call it, the "special sauce" our Navy must deliver.
Which, in turn, is the answer to our problem and by way of the Fighting Instructions takes the form of the core implementation concept - a full-spectrum Hedge Strategy.
As my thinking has evolved over the last several years, it has become pointedly clear to me that our Navy's theoretical approach to combat could no longer be based on capability overmatch, setting a theater with impunity, and winning by mass dominance alone.
Under the constraints of an ever-lowering cost of entry and the proliferation of asymmetric capabilities coupled with simultaneous peer conflicts, the Nation needs a Navy that can hedge tailored solutions aggressively, innovate continuously, fight distributively, and command with clarity across the battlespace.
This Hedge Strategy will be implemented through a set of initiatives, some new and some familiar, that combine to enable a fleet which can learn, adapt, and counter our adversaries.
These include:
Tailored Forces and Tailored Offsets.
Combat Surge Ready (CSR) certifications as part of the Global Maritime Response Plan (GMRP).
An Enhanced Mission Command Framework (EMCF)
The recently released Navy Warfighting Concept and the implementation of a new Navy Deterrence Concept

In its most rudimentary form, the Hedge Strategy accepts fiscal, industrial, and operational realities.
It balances cost-effective, scalable, risk-worthy mass with the most advanced multi-mission platforms we can build and sustain while taking stock in the likelihood of pacing scenarios and the severity of risk that's attached.
When you consider the unique capabilities our Navy already provides, you'll notice hedges are prevalent in almost everything we do:
Our Navy Special Forces and Special Operators, less than two percent of our forces, are our Nation's hedge against low intensity and irregular warfare threats.
Our Ballistic Missile Submarines and E-6B Mercuries, less than six percent of the Navy, is our hedge against nuclear conflict and strategic attack.
And when crisis erupts or conflict breaks out, the Navy is the Joint Force's ultimate hedge - able to move fast, stay forward, and deliver sovereign options from the sea.
Hedge Strategy is a means of thoughtfully bringing the full weight of our maritime forces to bear providing relevant capabilities for every situation, while ensuring the credibility and efficacy of our differentiated value persists.
However, building a Fleet to cover every pressing scenario is not only cost and risk prohibitive but a disservice to the taxpayer and less effective operationally.
What Hedge Strategy avoids is a brittle, single-purpose force that is either over-built for the high-end fight and under-used day-to-day or optimized for low end crisis and overmatched when it counts.
By design, the Hedge Strategy is intended to be a force multiplier to our general-purpose forces working in concert with the Sailors and platforms of our traditionally manned fleet.
And I fully acknowledge the need for a bigger Fleet.
The President and the Secretary of the Navy share that same sentiment - as evidenced by the recent announcement of the Golden Fleet initiatives.
But, the challenge becomes determining where to snap the chalk line, how much of each force element is truly enough?
That is what Hedge Strategy aims to do.
It buys down risk in some areas, shifts risk to others, but in the end it unabashedly embraces risk to tip the scales in our advantage.

To achieve this end, we must buy, field, and posture, ready capabilities Tailored Forces and Tailored Offsets to address specific situations that are too consequential to ignore but too unlikely to drive our overall fleet design.
As a whole, Tailored Forces and Tailored Offsets are scalable formations that manage risk, expand mass, force multiply, improve response options, and preserve our combat advantage.
Tailored Forces are the composite packaging of Tailored Offsets certified to address specific missions, in particular regions.
They include general purpose units from the main battle force - surface combatants, patrol aircraft, and submarines - for deployment and command and control.
Whether it's conducting anti-submarine warfare in the North Atlantic, clandestine mine warfare across critical chokepoints, or supporting fires off the coasts of foreign shores, tailored forces with tailored certifications will allow our Navy to hedge against the likelihood of any threat without constraining our force design around a single pressing scenario.
Tailored Offsets are systems and platforms that are the easiest to adapt and combine.
They are capabilities like:
Attritable and easily replenishable USVs
MUSVs designed for scouting, screening, and striking
UUVs for water space denial, survey, and mine warfare
And low-cost, high-volume interceptors for counter-drone defense
Together, these tailored capabilities will amplify and complement the main battle force through lethal outputs that are scalable, deployable, adaptable, and cost-effective.
It's in this line of effort where I expect you, our industry partners - traditional and non-traditional vendors alike - to move fast, iterate aggressively, and help us scale these packages at speed.

While Hedge Strategy focuses on a small set of high-consequence, low-probability scenarios, we must also be able to field a fleet that can be a first responder to emerging crises, wherever they occur.
Working together in concert, every tailored capability and every Navy platform will be enabled by and enablers to each other.
That's where Global Maritime Response Plan and Combat Surge Ready comes into play.
On any given day, the Navy balances ships that are either deployed, in critical maintenance, or progressing through the various cycles of our force generation model.
Global Maritime Response Plan is a way to ensure that the ships in the workup and sustainment phases of force generation can readily flow into conflict.
As defined through a series of Response Conditions, GMRP ties force generation to indications and warnings of adversary behavior, ultimately hedging our bets against deterrence shortfalls while denying adversary opportunism.
Actively engaged with GMRP is our structure to provide emergent response options for the President through our Combat Surge Ready forces.
CSR is a level of readiness and formal designation for Tailored Forces, where each respective Type Commander has certified that a crew and their platform are ready to fight - proving that they can shoot, maneuver, communicate, and defend as the tactical environment and acceptable levels of risk demand.
CSR is what actually optimizes the OFRP.

Now let me shift to the question that ties all of this together: how do we command and control the fight?
My priorities of Foundry, Fleet, and Fight are not abstract ideas - they are a warfighting system. And in the next conflict, that system will be tested under pressure, at speed, and under fire.
Communications will be disrupted. Space and cyber will be under attack. The enemy will try to fracture our kill chains, slow our decisions, and isolate our forces.
In that kind of fight, we can't afford a Navy that waits for permission.
The only way to fight effectively is to ensure that every force element - at every level - can sense, synthesize, decide, and act fast enough with confidence to achieve Commander's Intent.
That's why, to fight at the timing, tempo, and synchronization demanded by the Hedge Strategy, the Navy will implement an Enhanced Mission Command Framework.
Mission command cannot be something we fall back on when networks fail. Mission command must be how we prepare, practice, and fight - all the time.
So instead of rigid hierarchies and constant reach-back, we will build a Fleet that operates through empowered, self-organizing teams - commanders who understand the mission, own the intent, and act with disciplined initiative.
Enhanced Mission Command gives us a clear way to delegate decision authority across the force - matching autonomy to capability, and authority to the demands of the tactical situation.
It will ensure we are ready - not for the last war, but for the one that is coming.

In order to hedge appropriately, this strategy must indeed be guided by authoritative naval concepts.
Last month, I formally signed into action a Navy Warfighting Concept - the Navy's overarching warfighting approach tied inextricably to the Joint Warfighting Concept.
It tells commanders how we intend to fight, where we will accept risk, and where we will not.
It conveys a proactive approach that uses the global maritime maneuver space to gain and exploit sea control while imposing sea denial.
But if you look at the global disposition of our forces, although warfighting is what we are designed to do, it accounts for only a fraction, I argue 10%, of our day-to-day operations.
We have the Navy Warfighting Concept which defines what and how we fight, but importantly, we need a Navy Deterrence Concept that defines who and how we deter.
Because deterrence activities dominate the preponderance of what our forces do day-to-day around the world.
The question is, what's the ROI of our campaigning efforts? Is it working? How do we know? What are the metrics for success?
As the world's premiere maritime force, we must be eyes wide open and acknowledge that deterrence is an infinite game, it's a concept that to work, must live continuously in the minds of our adversaries and in turn, allow us to shape their behavior to cause a desired effect.
The Navy Deterrence Concept will explicitly define who we're deterring and from what specifically we're preventing them from doing.
It will help us decide where to posture forces, what they should do to shape behavior, and how we need to tune the intelligence community for the feedback necessary to assess our activities.
Bottom Line - the Navy Deterrence Concept is my way of formalizing a deterrence kill chain, defining escalation dominance, and codifying it into doctrine.

Ladies and gentlemen, on my first day in office, I released three priorities: the Foundry, the Fleet, and the way we Fight.
They expound upon Secretary Phelan's priorities and emphasize the need to view everything we do through an operational lens.
Between the Secretary, the Commandant, and myself - I want to be crystal clear that there is no daylight between our shields. We are working in lockstep to deliver the Navy our Nation Needs.
Underpinned by the Foundry, the Fleet, and the way we Fight, the United States Navy Fighting Instructions will guide us to a more enduring end-state, taking us from the "as-is" where capability drives strategy to our final destination, where strategy drives our force design, our tailored force packages, and an investment trajectory to make every dollar count.
At the center of this vision will always be the United States Navy Sailor. They are our most enduring strategic advantage and the heartbeat of our world-class Navy.
Every policy we produce, every change we implement, and every strategy we employ revolves around these priorities.
They are the ultimate link within every kill-chain, which guides everything we do and serve as the bedrock of my guidance.

As I begin to close, let me leave you with this.
Admiral Hyman G. Rickover, the Father of the Nuclear Navy once said and I quote: "The great end of life is not knowledge, but action."
He believed that our duty was to act as if the fate of the world depended on us - to live for the future, not for our own comfort or success.
And, with our Battle-Ready Sailors leading the way, there is no challenge too great or goal out of reach that our Navy won't meet.
That's exactly what these Fighting Instructions aim to do, providing our Sailors with a new way to think about our challenges, and a new way to leverage the asymmetric advantages, capabilities, and structures to fight and win today, tomorrow, and into an uncertain future.
But the Navy can't accomplish this alone. From our joint and combined forces across the globe to our industry partners at home, every one of us has a critical part to play.
The U.S. Navy Fighting Instructions aren't just guidance for the Fleet - they are a clear and bright demand signal to our industry and allied partners about the capabilities we must build, scale, and sustain.
As Admiral Rickover reminded us, the future belongs to those who act.
Our Navy requires it. Our Nation demands it. And for the American people, we will follow through - with urgency, discipline, and results.
Thank you.