Remarks by the Honorable Richard. V. Spencer Secretary of the Navy National Association of Destroyers Veterans Dinner King of Prussia, PA 23 August 2017 Thank you for the introduction Captain Little. I am very pleased to be able to join you and so many of our Tin Can Sailors here tonight. Before I begin it is important to take a moment and think about our Sailors and family members in need this week. Our Sailors are true patriots, volunteers every one, who willingly risk their lives for the cause of freedom and liberty. The John S. McCain collision is tragedy and our Sailors deserve better. That is why Admiral Richardson and I, along with senior leadership within the Department, have and will continue to take aggressive action to determine the root cause of this and other incidents we have seen recently in the Western Pacific. I also want to thank our Singapore and Malaysian partners in this difficult time. When I agreed to accept your invitation to speak with you this evening I decided I should brush up on my knowledge of the Navy s destroyer program! Hailing from the aviation wing of the Marine Corps, being a former PHROG pilot my knowledge was solely based on the book written in your honor. With that knowledge I turned to our latest and longest serving destroyer in commission DDG 51, USS Arleigh Burke. 1
DDG 51 s motto: Built to Fight is said to come from Admiral Burke s remarks at the ship s commissioning. The Admiral, who had been retired for almost thirty years by that point, told the crew This ship is built to fight. You had better know how. Thirty years retired and the man still had plenty of fight left in him! The Arleigh Burkeclass has been patrolling our oceans for a little over a quarter of a century now and I will tell you, they still have a lot of fight left in them. But before we get to that, I d like to talk about yesterday. Yesterday of course was August 22nd, but on the yesterday of 72 years ago, the United States was celebrating. It was August 22nd, 1945; the Empire of Japan had capitulated several days before, ending the Second World War. The formal ceremony wouldn t take place until September 2nd though, and along the way pockets of resistance remained. A Japanese garrison on Mille Atoll in the Marshall Islands was one of those pockets, but on that Wednesday in August, they would be the first to negotiate their surrender and they would do so aboard a destroyer, Destroyer Escort 162, USS Levy. That was the first Japanese surrender at the end of World War II. Because of their capabilities as screening vessels and radar picket ships, destroyers bore a disproportionate share of kamikaze attacks; so maybe in a way it was fitting that the venerable tin cans, which paid such a high cost, would be the first to see the peaceful end their sacrifice had bought. The role that the destroyers played in protecting the Fleet at sea and Marines ashore was nothing short of vital. The pickets they formed at the Battle of Okinawa suffered the worst of the 2
opposition s onslaught but prevented thousands of enemy sorties from reaching their intended targets. Although the effectiveness of the kamikaze can be questioned, the psychological effect on the crews of the destroyers must have been profound. But perhaps it is a testament to the resiliency or maybe more aptly: to the honor, courage and commitment of the Tin Can Sailors, that they remained resolute, holding the line in the face of such terrible attack. The heroes of World War II and the Tin Can Navy are a magnificent example of how important People are to the Navy. Their legacy, and yours, as heroes, has charted the course for today s warrior they are following in your wake. I thank you for the service you have given to our nation and the example that you have set. I also thank your organization for supporting our veterans and the important work that you do in preserving history. History shows us that People have been, are, and will be, the Navy s greatest resource. I am committed to fostering the creation and improvement of our policies, practices and training with our People in mind. We must capitalize on our best talent today, ensure that we retain that talent long term, and find ways to continue to recruit the best talent for the mission of tomorrow. From the Tin Can Sailors of Taffy 3 and Marines landing on Iwo Jima to the Tin Can Sailor aboard USS John Finn and Marines in Task Force Al Asad conducting advise-and-assist missions the Navy and Marine Corps Team, their families and their civilian teammates have never failed our Nation and they never will. However, I believe that leadership has been failing them through such actions as the Budget Control Act and Continuing Resolutions. Due to their determination and patriotism, our 3
Sailors and Marines have and will continue to do more with less. Their diligence, attention to duty and commitment to putting the nation and their teammates above themselves has not been reciprocated in all instances. We cannot stifle their can do spirit in the least, but I also do not want to indicate we are taking it for granted. It s not the Secretary of the Navy, nor the Department of Defense, nor Congress that is bearing the brunt of this current situation. Rather, it is the Sailors, Marines, our citizen soldiers in the Reserves and their families who are squarely shouldering the burden. All the while, there is a growing demand within the private sector to employ Sailors and Marines which puts more pressure on retention. The Navy must boost its efforts to compete with Corporate America and focus on delivering exceptional educational opportunities and professional challenges in order to keep this high performing Navy/Marine Corps team in place. We must work to find the resources and the solutions necessary to make the Navy a preferred career. But in keeping up with our need to recruit, retain, and keep the best and brightest, the Navy must ensure that we continue to live up to the legacy of the Tin Can Sailors of yesteryear. Our Sailors and Marines are entrusted with the tools of war, tools that are built to fight ; but in addition to knowing how to fight as Admiral Burke admonished, they must hold themselves to the highest ethical standards. There can be no moral ambiguity among the ranks, we must always be prepared to make the right choice on and off duty when we wear the uniform and after we take it off for the last time. 4
But People alone do not equate to Capability, and it is Capability that allows the Navy to win wars, preserve peace, and provide security. Our Capabilities come from People who are well trained to employ the equipment entrusted to them. And so, because of our People and our current equipment, our Capabilities currently exceed those of any other nation, but the advantage is shrinking while our readiness suffers; I am committed to working with Congress to fund readiness and to build out the capacity of our Navy. Let me take pause here and state that as we step out to reset readiness and to build a 355 ship Navy, we the Navy realize that this effort will be a significant undertaking, involving large amounts of materiel and human resources. I look forward to working with our suppliers as partners in order to achieve our goal. While the Navy will continue to develop our requirements for various assets that are needed, we must also strive to bring rigor to that process in order to be a responsible client and stewards of taxpayer dollars. We look to our supplier community to provide us robust solutions to address our requirements. The partnership construct is based upon shared risk producing shared benefit. We are operating in unique times and we must work together to support security for the nation, our interests and our allies. But looking back again to the War in the Pacific: beyond its People, one of the strongest advantages the United States Navy enjoyed over the Imperial Japanese was a capability gap. While both were fairly evenly matched at the beginning of the war, by 1943 the U.S. had secured a clear qualitative advantage that would grow into a quantitative advantage by 1944. 5
The important addition of radar and fire-control systems to ships even as small as tin cans cannot be understated. In the aftermath of Pearl Harbor, when the Capabilities of the Navy took a hit, it was American resolve, enterprise and industry that restored those capabilities. Today we plan to do the same by focusing our efforts on training, modernization and maintenance in order to achieve the highest state of readiness and enhanced lethality. Today s Tin Can Sailor is already making strides along this path. For example, just last week in Point Loma, California, Vice Admiral Tom Rowden the SWO Boss hosted our Surface Warfare Officer Summit. It brought together some of the best in the community to discuss emergent topics in the Surface Warfare realm. They discussed the latest modernization effort to the operational and organizational principles of our Surface Warfare community, the Surface Force Strategy. Central to the strategy is the concept of Distributed Lethality, composed of three tenets. The first is that we must increase the offensive lethality of all warships we need to equip our ships with the tools necessary to fight and defeat highly capable adversaries. The second is that we must distribute our offensive capability geographically by spreading the combat power of the fleet, our surface combatants will be able to hold targets at risk from multiple angles. The final tenant is to give ships the right mix of resources to persist in a fight by upgrading the defensive capabilities of our ships against all forms of attack, both real-world and cyber, and evolving tactics, we will ensure our assets are able to take a punch but still keep fighting. 6
Similar to the way that the Navy of World War II adjusted its training and equipment to remain lethal in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor by moving from the battleship as the centerpiece of the battle group to the aircraft carrier today s Surface community is committed to modernizing its training and tactics in addition to its equipment. Getting back to today s tin can the Arleigh Burke-class and the amount of fight that is in them makes the Destroyer a critical component of the Navy s Capabilities. Today s Arleigh Burke-class destroyers have Integrated Air and Missile Defense radar that provide advanced detection and reaction capabilities against modern air threats, including ballistic missiles. Their all-steel construction create a survivable platform that can carry a mix of 90 guided missiles for long range strike and defensive capabilities, while still being capable of achieving over 30 knots in open seas. These ships are certainly built to fight. We need these destroyers and more like them to be forward, visible and ready. Getting to the Navy s assessed need of 355 ships will be impossible without the Arleigh Burkeclass. But we re also going to need additional small surface combatants. We need to get our next generation Frigates and Littoral Combat Ship mix right. Both offer a lot of opportunity to enhance our Capabilities but we have to make sure we re going about the Process with a focus on value and results. In light of evolving maritime threats and our philosophy of Distributed Lethality, we see the need for a full complement of small surface combatants, including a Frigate with improved survivability and lethality. 7
We are currently defining the requirements for this Next Generation Frigate to improve its ability to operate in a more contested environment than the LCS. The combined capabilities of Next Generation Frigates with LCSs will free up our large surface combatants to focus on their primary missions. We are also committed to leveraging Fleet-wide commonality of combat system elements wherever possible to deliver capability and flexibility in the most cost effective manner. When it comes to LCS, right now we have eight in commissioned service with another delivered and awaiting commissioning. Twenty more are in various stages of construction and in fiscal year 18 we are requesting two more, which will be our 30th and 31st. These ships will provide antisubmarine warfare, mine countermeasure operations and surface warfare capabilities in littoral waters and beyond with speed and flexibility. I ll be heading down to Mobile, Alabama for the christening of the USS Charleston on Saturday to celebrate a milestone in the birth of the ship. We must doggedly pursue efficiency, adopt and implement new ideas and leverage best practices to positively affect and support the mission of today and tomorrow. Current fiscal reality, coupled with our responsibility to the American taxpayer demands that we refine our Processes to maximize efficiency while always supporting the warfighter. We must focus on speed, value, results and partnerships in the pursuit of improved Processes. Speed combined with cutting red tape will help us reduce waste. Aiming to find the best value in our entire decision making process provides the best mix of assets to our People. 8
Developing the correct metrics in order to quantify our results is simply smart business. And partnerships, especially with the industrial base, will exploit efficiencies in our hunt for effective production and application of technological advancements. Once again the Navy of the Tin Can Sailor can be an example for us. Following America s entry into World War 2, Processes certainly changed. The speed at which new technological innovations and weapons systems were developed was nothing short of astounding. Partnerships with industry and allies kicked production into high gear and gave the U.S. Navy a clear advantage over the enemy. People. Capabilities. Processes. The inherent excellence and value of all three of these were integral to the Navy that won the War in the Pacific and the same must be said of the Navy of today and tomorrow. For too long, we have been distracted from our core calling of readiness and lethality. As Secretary of the Navy, I am making excellence in our People, Capabilities and Processes my priorities. By weighing every decision I make with these three priorities in mind, I aim to bring our focus back onto readiness and lethality and I am asking every member of the Department of the Navy to do the same. I would also like to ask you, as friends of the Navy and proud Tin Can Sailors, to join me in the fight to fully restore readiness and lethality to our Navy and Marine Corps. We need the financial uncertainty and disruption caused by the Budget Control Act and sequestration to end. I implore you to write your Senator and Representative to end the constraints of the BCA on our military and therefore allow Congress the ability to fully fund the department s budget request. 9
But tonight, I also ask that you be encouraged. Be encouraged because the spirit of the Tin Can Sailor is alive and well. It is alive and well in this room and it is alive and well around the world. Today s Tin Can Sailor is forward deployed, standing the watch alongside their brothers and sisters in the finest Navy and Marine Corps the world has ever known. Their commitment to us is unshakeable; I pray that ours is the same. 10