1/19/2024 0 Comments Keynote address![]() ![]() While DoD always has an imperative to innovate, there’s no mistaking why that imperative has taken on more urgency in recent years.īecause the main strategic competitor we face today is different from the rival we faced during the Cold War - a rival who was relatively slow and lumbering, compared to the PRC of the present.Īnd while America shed blood and treasure over 20 years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the PRC worked with focus and determination to build a modern military, carefully crafting it to blunt the operational advantages we’ve enjoyed for decades.īut the one advantage they can never blunt, steal, or copy, no matter how hard they try - because it’s embedded in our people - is American ingenuity: our ability to innovate, change the game, and in the military sphere, to imagine, create, and master the future character of warfare.Īnd not only militarily. Those words - warfighter, deliver, speed, and scale - are at the core of how Secretary Austin and I have sought to drive innovation throughout the Defense Department, especially in this enduring era of strategic competition with the PRC. So they can deter aggression, and win if called to fight. There’s a reason we call them warfighters: because for most of this century, many of them have indeed been fighting wars.Īnd while I’m glad to say that they, and we, are not at war today, we cannot forget that all of them, are still counting on all of us, to deliver safe and reliable, combat-credible capabilities at speed and scale. Today - as speeches and panels give way to networking breaks and receptions - on another Pacific shore, American soldiers in Washington State are training to maneuver and fire the Army’s latest long-range hypersonic weapon.Īnd as part of a global force, with global responsibilities, their fellow servicemembers are deployed around the world - from NATO’s eastern frontier, to the Strait of Hormuz, to sub-Saharan Africa, and beyond. airmen and guardians are on watch in the skies and into space, ensuring those domains too stay free of conflict, enabling commerce and information to freely flow around the world. Today - as we enjoy this air-conditioned ballroom - on bases from Guam to Okinawa to Korea to Hawaii to Alaska, U.S. sailors and Marines are steaming through the western Pacific, alongside close allies like Australia and Japan, collectively upholding our commitment to the security and stability that enables a free, open, peaceful and prosperous Indo-Pacific. defense community, these shocks are a reminder that just as hundreds of DoD personnel have been actively engaged in the ongoing response in Hawaii, right now - as we take respite from late-summer heat and humidity - U.S. ![]() ![]() ![]() And let me also extend my sympathy to the people of Hawaii: for the deaths of so many in Maui and for those who’ve lost homes, communities, livelihoods, and everything they’ve known.įor the U.S. I also want to convey my prayers for those Marines who were injured, for their families, and for their caregivers. Thank you, Mac, for the introduction thank you David for the invitation and both of you, for your many years of service and leadership and support for the Defense Department.īefore I go on, I want to acknowledge the tragic MV-22 accident in Darwin, Australia and express my condolences to the families who’ve lost loved ones. ![]()
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