During a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing last week, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) spoke about the threat to aircraft carriers posed by PRC's developing technologies.
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00:00Thanks, Mr. Chairman. Thank you both for your service. Admiral, I want to ask you some questions
00:10based on your extraordinarily impressive experience as an aviator as well as combatant commander.
00:22We're building new aircraft carriers at huge expense. Are you concerned about their
00:29vulnerability in light of the increased Chinese capabilities that you mentioned in your testimony?
00:35AI, cyber, hypersonic missiles. My guess is the everyday American sees an aircraft carrier as a
00:45huge sitting duck out there in the middle of the Pacific. Are you concerned? It's a moving duck with
00:52the ability to defend itself. Unique among airfields as a mobile capability. It is not
00:59uniquely vulnerable, but it is uniquely valuable. And the PRC seeing that value have made it a focus
01:11because they have every other fixed land-based targeting complete. Its value lay in the enormous
01:23variety and the enormous mass of fires. And so it is not more uniquely vulnerable to the PRC. It is more
01:34uniquely threatening to the PRC, which is why they're working so hard to strike it. And I hear people
01:42say, well, in war games we lose these aircraft carriers. The war games must have a terrible
01:47paparo simulator because I'm going to put them into harm's way judiciously and when they can strike.
01:54And it will be my job to return those aircraft carriers to their home bases after they have done
02:00their duty. So I am no more concerned about aircraft carriers than I am about destroyers, submarines,
02:06squadrons, wings, battalions, regiments. But those fires are the mass of fires that they bring are absolutely
02:16unique step-level change above any other particular single unit. And you pay me to find ways to protect
02:28those aircraft carriers along with everything else that's in the joint force. For every one air-to-surface
02:35missile, for every one maritime-oriented missile, there are eight others that are designed to strike land
02:46targets. And so, you know, I note that, you know, this topic comes up frequently, but you have my
02:54opinion on it, is that instead of, you know, instead of waxing into a culture of, well, we should give up
03:02on this capability, no, we should do something about it. And we are doing something about it, and that is
03:08well included in my integrated priorities list that I've presented to the committee.
03:13I think that answer is extremely compelling, and thank you for it.
03:21Turning to submarines and asking the same question in a different form. Are submarines more vulnerable
03:30today than, say, three years ago, five years ago, because of those advanced detection and
03:38countermeasures that the Chinese or other adversaries could mount?
03:43The PRC is growing in their capability on anti-submarine warfare, which I would expect
03:49them to do. I respect them for doing it. They are more vulnerable than they've been before,
03:54and that equally confers the responsibility for the command to take the steps that gain more margin.
04:01I mean, the United States has a generational lead on submarine, on undersea warfare, and it remains
04:09critical, absolutely one of my highest priorities. The introduction of quantum computing could well
04:18enhance the PRC's ability to flood the zone and to target submarines and to take that away. They're pushing
04:27sensors into the sea to find them. They're working very hard to find them, and they're working very hard
04:33to counter them. I have an equal duty to protect those and to preserve the unusual, the outsized combat
04:40capability of those submarines. And I take a similar view of refusing to quit on a unique capability.
04:49And on that front, if I leave the space between the surface and the Karman line, our adversaries
04:56are going to flood that space with capability and become even more effective against our submarine force.
05:03Well, I thank you for both of those answers, which again, I find very persuasive. We can't quit on
05:09those weapons platforms. We just need to make them more capable and stronger. And I look forward to
05:16working with you on that mission. Thank you very much, Admiral. Thank you both for your service.