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00:00We spoke to Admiral Darrell Caldwell. He's the Chief of Naval Operations about the state of the
00:04alliance. He's America's highest ranking naval officer and he says he's not worried. Is NATO
00:09where it needs to be at this time for you to be able to have those conversations and make that
00:13a
00:13reality? Are you concerned about the viability of that alliance? I'm not concerned with it. I just
00:17had them all here for INR, you know, just had a, you know, a five eyes luncheon. Then I had
00:22a broad
00:23group with a lot of other NATO partners. They're committed. They understand it. You know, there's
00:27sometimes a political level and a mill to mill level, but the Navy to Navy is rock solid. We
00:33understand exactly what we need to do to work well together as an alliance. And I don't have any
00:39concern with that. This idea of shifting more responsibility to them. I think they welcome
00:45it. I think it's needed. It gives me more options with my Navy to do things where only things that
00:50I can do, Christina, there's only certain things that the United States Navy can do, you know,
00:56because of our capability mismatch, even over our alliances. And I need to be able to have the
01:01options and the degrees of freedom to apply my force to the problem sets. If I'm spending a lot
01:07of time doing things that other nations could actually quite do just as well as me, then that's
01:11the way we grow together to accomplish the things we need to do as allies and partners.
01:16Let me ask you about one of those capabilities, because in 2006, the Navy decommissioned a bunch of
01:23aging Avenger class minesweepers and kind of shifted a lot of that capacity over to NATO,
01:28which sounds like it works until NATO doesn't want to get involved in a conflict, which is what we saw
01:33in Iran. So how are you addressing that? How do you compensate for that lack of capability?
01:38Well, one of the most challenging things you can do, and this is why it's so effective,
01:41is counter mine warfare. You know, you're actually, you know, doing mine warfare and getting rid of
01:46mines in a contested environment. It's hard to do because...
01:50Why is it so hard? It does seem like it's, from a layperson's perspective, it does seem like it's
01:55harder than I would assume.
01:56Yeah, well, you know, even in the Strait of Hormuz, which, you know, in some places may be like seven
02:00miles across, you know, seven miles of ocean, you know, and you put these things on the bottom,
02:06tethered to the bottom, you know, without some exquisite intelligence, you're not sure exactly
02:10where they are. Trying to find that's a bit of a needle in a haystack, even for our capabilities.
02:15And so, you know, we have some exquisite autonomous kit that goes and does that.
02:21These traditional Avenger class had a way to do that. We've had some helicopter, you know,
02:26capabilities that do that through pulling, you know, some detection system through the water.
02:31And then, but we're shifting, we're really going more toward unmanned capability to find and
02:36neutralize mines. And so I think that's another piece that's going to have a huge knee in the curve
02:41as we evolve these unmanned capabilities. And I'll also be able to do that better in a contested
02:47environment because I don't have to have a manned platform in the battle space, in the actual weapon
02:52engagement zone while I am demining if I have unmanned undersea vehicles doing it. And so that's
02:58where we need to get to.
03:00I want to ask you a really stupid question. How real is that threat? Because we've been covering
03:04this conflict, especially given that we're Bloomberg day in, day out, shipping, tracking it.
03:08We hear over and over again about these mines. I can't think of a single incident of one going
03:12off, striking a ship. Is there any chance that they're not there?
03:16There's no chance they're not there.
03:18Okay. Do you have any kind of idea of the scope?
03:20I do. And, you know, some of that gets into some classified intelligence. So I won't go into
03:25how we know and the numbers, but I can tell you mines are there. I can tell you that most
03:30of that
03:31is really shaping operations for the Iranians. You know, the goal there is to force shipping into their
03:36side of the actual Strait of Hormuz. That's their goal. You know, because they have this vision
03:41that one day they'll charge to transit an international strait. You know, as well as I
03:45do, that's a red line, not just for the United States, for any country. We do not pay to go
03:50through international straits. And so that's something they aspire. And that's a sticky point
03:54in the negotiation. And, and, uh, but that's, that's the idea of their mining effort there.
03:58As we watch conflicts elsewhere, especially the war in Ukraine and the kind of asymmetric
04:02warfare they've been able to do with these cheap drones, is the Navy where it needs to be on
04:07autonomous weapons, on drone warfare, on doing exactly what you just said, smaller, cheaper
04:12ways to combat some of these threats without having to fire, you know, a Patriot or that every
04:16time you need to take something out. No, we're not. Uh, we're not where I want to be. You know,
04:21we're in a, we're in a place where, um, we are growing quickly there. Uh, I get this question quite
04:26a
04:26bit. And for me, I have to think about not only the autonomy I can build, which I can spend
04:31money on
04:31that and go do that, but I have to have a sound deployment model. See, unlike launching autonomy
04:36from land, like Ukraine's use case, I have to do that by carrying that across the ocean. So if I
04:42carry that across, you know, a large Pacific ocean, I've got to have the motherships, if you will,
04:47ready with that type of autonomy in it to actually utilize that effectively because I'm not launching
04:52that from land. So this concept of how I deploy with that kid is something we're working very heavily
04:57on. So we're investing. And so, and it's also a bit, we're a bit stovepipe currently by domain.
05:02So we're strong with that. So we are very good with unmanned undersea vehicles. We've been doing,
05:08I'm a submarine officer, been doing that forever. Okay. We're really good at unmanned aerial vehicles.
05:13We've been flying drones around forever and we're now coming into our own on what we call medium
05:18unmanned surface vehicles that can carry containerized payloads. It could be missile systems. It could be,
05:23you know, sonar systems. It could be deception capabilities, all these things. We're probably
05:30more behind there. And these are ships that are about 120 feet long. They're completely autonomous.
05:35We're going to deploy with one of those with the Theodore Roosevelt strike group here soon.
05:40And we're, you know, the first one that's going with a complete unmanned surface vehicle. But more
05:45importantly, it's how we packaged unmanned to actually go complete a full mission is what I'm trying
05:51to do. So we're not just in our respective domains, but we package this like we do in the joint
05:56force
05:56to solve a real mission problem. What is the biggest national security threat for America?
06:02Well, you know, that's, uh, it varies based on how I kind of answer that question. But, you know,
06:08um, one of the reasons we have a strong sea-based, uh, nuclear deterrent is of course, strategic,
06:14you know, threats from, from, you know, Russia or China or anyone else who has a nuclear weapon.
06:18You know, we have a machine here in the United States that relies on continuity of government,
06:23continuity of operations, continuity of decision-making that falls apart if you're under strategic
06:28attack. And so the way you, you ha only way you can really prevent that currently is through a
06:34strong deterrent force. And that's why, you know, our USS Columbia district of Columbia, uh,
06:39replacement submarine for Ohio is so vital that we keep that on time and on track. So that's,
06:44you know, from a physical destruction and, and, uh, and damage to our, our way of life here,
06:50of course, but you know, cyber is, you know, we've, we've seen things done in cyberspace that
06:55are significant. Space is a place that I'm more and more concerned with. And then as a Navy,
07:00I'm always concerned that anything that stops the flow of commerce, anything that's in the sea
07:05lanes of communication, undersea cables, right? You know, 90% of our commerce still goes by sea.
07:12That's where the big super tankers are carrying everything from Amazon. We talked about earlier
07:16and places like that. We have to keep those open. The choke points free,
07:20all these sea lanes open and make sure our undersea infrastructure is protected.
07:24Uh, I was reading a report by the U S Naval Institute that said Russia's presence in the
07:29Arctic was once superior, uh, but it's dulled military edge partially due to the conflict in
07:34Ukraine, uh, is giving the U S and its NATO allies, allies, an opportunity to reframe Arctic
07:39strategy. That's going to require a lot of cooperation from NATO, but is that something
07:45that the U S needs to focus more on? Yes, we have, I call it an Arctic blindness and it's
07:49kind of
07:49out of sight, out of mind. Nobody understands it. You're talking trillions of dollars of rare earth,
07:54natural gas and oil in that region. And, uh, people are going to try to, you know, lay claim to
08:01that. Uh, Russia wants us to basically stay out of that area. This Northern sea route, which is opening
08:06more and more, you know, each year it gets a little more open. Uh, they want to control that
08:11very, just like what we talked about. I could see them actually wanting to charge transiting that
08:15it, it basically runs along their border side of the Arctic, but it's international. So that's
08:20never going to happen again, but it does take partnerships, Christina. You know, I look at it
08:24kind of three ways if I could number one, it's about presence. You have to be in the battle space
08:29because the environmental conditions there are tough. And so when you're above the Arctic circle in the
08:33Arctic region, you know, communication systems, temperature, weather, marginalized zone, ice
08:39kills, all that, you gotta know how to operate in that. Number two, that takes capabilities that
08:43United States has. And, uh, we, you know, need to work as a team of people in the Arctic council,
08:49which are all NATO nations. Now, with the exception of Russia, extremely important. And that is the last
08:54part is the partnerships there. We cannot be there all the time. So we need better data fusion,
08:59more integration, more, uh, domain awareness of what's going on there. And then at our timing
09:05and tempo, we decide to deploy our forces to actually help out. That's, that's kind of the
09:10ideal state. I did just hold a, uh, an event, um, yesterday with a bunch of countries on this very
09:16topic. I think we're all on like mining of what we need to do there. I'm going forward. The
09:20Arctic is going to only grow in importance. Before I let you go, approximately 20% of the Navy
09:26is women, uh, same with about the same for commissioned officers. About 40% of the Navy
09:30is comprised of members of ethnic or racial minority groups. Do you think women and naval
09:35officers of color have the same, uh, opportunity for advancement in the Navy as they did even five,
09:4010 years ago? Absolutely. Absolutely. I, there is no question they do. They just, you know, there's
09:46a, the strongest in my career, uh, structure for meritocracy there's ever been. I serve with so
09:53many incredible females, a server, so many incredible minorities. And I think it's a great
09:58time to join the Navy and there could not be more opportunity for all people who want to serve.
10:02You don't have any concerns about when they look at some of these higher ranking individuals who've
10:06had their commissions removed or been knocked down and replaced with other individuals in the last
10:09year or so about what that's going to mean to women and people of color as they think, well,
10:14maybe I can have a career in the Navy. I don't, I do not. I think those that really look
10:17and
10:18understand, you know, what they're need to do to succeed in our armed forces, uh, are rising to
10:23the occasion every single day. And, uh, I could not be more proud of them. All right. Next 250
10:29years, where do you see the U S Navy? Do you think we're going to be around? And what do
10:32you think
10:32the Navy is going to be? The Navy will only grow in importance over the next 250 years. Uh, you
10:37know,
10:37we are never going to be away from the oceans. Most of the people live near the ocean. All of
10:41our
10:42commerce goes via the ocean. There's never going to be any magic beans. It's going to change that in a
10:46long, long time. And so the Navy's got a long history here. Now I can't predict what the
10:51technologies that'll be in place. That'll be kind of helping us with the character of warfare,
10:56but the nature of warfare really never changes. And, uh, and I don't think the next 250 years
11:01will be any different. Admiral, thank you so much as an army brat. I think I'm legally acquired to say
11:06go army beat Navy, but it's still really nice to have you here. You know that I'm required to say
11:09go Navy beat army. Thank you, sir. Have a great day. You're welcome. Thank you, Christina.