Previous IFPA-Fletcher Conferences
The 34th IFPA-Fletcher
Conference on
National Security Strategy and Policy:
Security Planning
and Military Transformation
December
2-3, 2003
U.S. Chamber of
Commerce Building
Lafayette Square, 1615 H Street, NW
Washington, D.C.
Address by Vice Admiral Thomas J. Barrett, USCG, Vice Commandant, U.S. Coast Guard
Introduction by Dr. Jacquelyn K. Davis, Executive Vice President, Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis
Thanks Jackie and Dr. Pfaltzgraff. I appreciate the opportunity to be here. And I think although we're a relatively smaller service with a bit of a unique character, both military and civil authorities, I think you're going to hear some of the same things out of me, in the same lanes that you've just heard from the two service chiefs next to me.
I thought what I'd do is not answer your question immediately, Jackie, but talk a little bit about our mindset with respect to what we're transforming toward what we think the goal is here, what's the outcome we're driving to, and the context we're coming from. This is not new to any of you, and as I said, you've just heard it. But I think it's worth repeating a few things.
First, as is apparent, the context we're in is a global war on terrorism. And I think that's important to emphasize. It's not just an issue for the United States. It's an issue that breaks out and is breaking out in many countries, in many places in the world. And many of these nations confront the same challenges we do. General Hagee talked about the areas of instability. We deal on a daily basis with illegal migrant issues, coming up into the United States primarily through the Caribbean or the eastern Pacific. But they're moving into Europe, too, from North Africa. These are issues not just for the United States, in terms of how we see things. It's a global problem, and I think that's important, certainly in our world, because it adds a critical international dimension to everything we do, and every approach we take.
Secondly, I wouldn't forget that the folks we're dealing with, whether it's al-Qaeda or other terrorists, are strategic actors and thinkers. They think strategically, and I think we have to be adept at that as well. They're quick to adapt their methods. They're quick to shift their focus. And we have to be able to respond to that. Certainly in the maritime spectrum, that's one of the concerns we have. But I would not lose sight of that. This threat is operating at multiple levels, including the strategic level for the United States.
Third thing, I think, from our perspective is, a lot of things going on in the world, we think, are connected, or potentially connected, or potentially the threat vectors intersect. And by that, I mean terrorists. I mean illegal migrants. I mean counter-drug. I mean arms smuggling. A whole range of activities that, again, are confronted around the world, that are vectors for people to exploit, whether they're moving people or weapons; it’s a difficult paradigm. If you can move drugs, you can move other stuff. A lot moves in commerce. That's another vector for us, commerce. A lot of the threats we're talking about can move in the commercial world, and commercial shipping world. I'll come back to that in a minute. I don't think you can segregate and separate all these things going on into containers or baskets, and take them on independently. I think you've got to be sensitive to the connections between them.
And some things that may be a little outside some of those vectors, even. We're thinking about environmental issues, for example. We used to worry, and we still do worry, about major environmental risks from a safety concern. Now we have to factor security into our approach to environmental risks. Environment can be a threat. All these different things, we think fit together.
Where does that leave us? What are we trying to achieve here? From a Coast Guard perspective, in the Department of Homeland Security-- And there is a huge benefit to us, to moving in that department, and it's simply that we're better aligned with people in HLS that are in the security business. We probably had 40% alignment with other agencies when in the Department of Transportation. It's probably 60 to 70% with an intense focus on security in the Department we're in. That's a context for us. We're looking at being able to support the nation's needs for homeland defense, homeland security, and at the same time, watch our other, non-homeland-security missions. We do search and rescue every day around our coast. Even it has implications for homeland security. Our response standard along the coast of the United States is to put an asset on scene within two hours, whether it's a surface asset or an aircraft. That's a pretty unique capability, if you can put the asset on scene for search and rescue out to 50 miles, you can put it there for other reasons. And we're looking at how to leverage that. But that's a context we're coming from.
What lanes are we looking in where we think we need to operate better? Well, the goal here is to reduce the security risk to this nation, and particularly for us, obviously, in the maritime. That has certain implications. We work closely with the other services, the Navy particularly. You're going to hear from CNO here in a few minutes. But we're working hard to get a better awareness of what's going on our waters, particularly along our coast and elsewhere. We need better visibility of what's moving on, over, under the waters. And a lot of it's moving in commerce, and that's a problem. There's a tremendous amount of shipping, large and small, that moves in and out of this country every day, and we need better visibility on it, because of what it can carry, because of who's on the ships, because of the risk of using ships as weapons. Admiral Clark has talked about the need for a maritime NORAD. No matter how you couch it, we need better maritime domain awareness. One of our goals with respect to transformation is to build and obtain and leverage better awareness of what's moving on the water that poses a risk to this country.
We need a stronger security regime, and we're building toward that, and it has a number of aspects. But in reality, it's driven by the fact that it has an international character. We have ships coming into this country every day from many different nations. They're flagged. You've heard the term, "flags of convenience." Very few American flag ships. But the oversight of those vessels, the oversight of the ports they come from, the oversight of the cargo, is a huge issue. And we need a better regime, if you will, to address them, and to be able to control, to control to the degree we want, to the degree that the national command authorities want, anything moving in and out or along our coast. And that's a significant challenge. Better awareness of what's moving out there, a stronger regime to control it, drives us toward more operational presence, and a better response presence. And again, moving to Homeland Security, one of the goals, clearly, is to get a better national response plan, a better national incident management system, to be able to pull together all the capabilities this nation has in whatever department of government they're located, to respond to the nation’s needs.
That's stage-setting. What I want to talk about with respect to transformation is where we think it needs to occur, and where we're working. We see four lanes, if you will, or baskets, that we're trying to work transformation in. The first one is authorities. The Coast Guard blends military and civil authorities, but so does the rest of the world. And when you talk about the water, there are overlapping jurisdictions. There are international implications. There are international activities with flag states. So, the first lane we're looking for transformation in is authorities. Last year, last December, the International Maritime Organization adopted ISPS, which you may know, the International Ship Port Facility Security code. It strengthens the regimes for security with respect to shipping, ports, and port facilities. That's a significant step forward. It was brought forward in a year because we need a stronger maritime security regime.
Some of your speakers talked about the President's proliferation security initiatives. We're talking about bilateral agreements, agreements with other countries to step up our ability in partnership, to leverage military force where needed to reduce the risk, or take down weapons of mass destruction. But the whole international authorities piece is a significant one. It works in the area of the law of the sea. It works in the area of port state control. And we're trying to transform our ability to leverage that. Congress is active in this area. Last year, they passed the Maritime Transportation and Security Act, which will more tightly regulate shipping, ports, and port facilities in this country. And we will be ready. We've issued regulations on that. We'll be executing across next summer.
In reality, what that enforcement means is we, as a port state control authority, are going to be on top of a lot more shipping that comes into this country. And frankly, if it doesn't meet the ISPS code and the US domestic legislation, the Maritime Transportation Security Act, we're going to be turning away shipping, or we're going to be holding it up while we run additional checks on it. That's a significant, significant issue. Shipping works on velocity. Business runs on velocity. They want to move cargo. They want to move it quickly. They don't want interruptions. At the same time, we've got to make it more secure. That whole authority piece is one lane where we're working transformation aggressively, domestically and internationally.
Capability is our second transformation lane. We need better capabilities. I already mentioned we need better awareness. You've heard the term C4ISR. We need to know better what's going on out there. A major recapitalization for the Coast Guard is our Deepwater systems procurement. We're looking to recapitalize our ships, our aircraft, and our command and control systems over an extended period of time. But the command and control, the C4ISR, the interoperability, the interconnectivity piece, is crucial to that project. It's a systems approach and a lot of our transformation build-out is directed at being able to have a better understanding, a better capability to know what's going on out there.
We recently moved into the intelligence community. Again, what's the goal here? We're transforming our service to become a full partner of the intelligence community, to put what we can put as a service on the table, but to leverage the capabilities that intelligence brings to the missions we have. We operate jointly with the Navy at the Intelligence Coordination Center. That partnership has been in place for a couple years. We're transforming how we approach the intelligence business, how we partner with other organizations, what we bring to the table. We need better awareness, and that's an ongoing effort.
A third area we're transforming or working to transform is our capacity. We've got to work our capability piece, but also, there's a capacity issue. And I think all the services face this challenge. We always have. We can never full up all our missions at the same time on the same day. We are a surge organization. We take a lot of pride in our ability to move our assets, and our very capable people, against the highest threat we face at a given point in time. We are constantly balancing our ability to do counter-drug, counter-terrorism, search and rescue, migrant interdiction, and the other missions that are on our plate on a daily basis. But given the risks, the very high risks, even low probability, but high risk, of the war on terrorism, we need more capacity. And Congress and the administrative have been very supportive, giving us that capacity to transform our ability to operate in the coastal zones. We're adding patrol boats. And we're adding, uniquely, airborne use of force. We pioneered that in the drug war. The ability to stop go-fasts from our helicopters. That's an interesting capability, and it has interesting implications, and we're looking to expand that capability to other areas. But bottom line is, authority, capability, capacity, all three things are areas where we need to transform our ability to operate and reduce risk.
And the last-- I mentioned four. The last piece is the partnership piece, and that's probably the most important, and provides the most leverage. We refer, and historically, we've used the term joint to mean inter-service interoperability. And the services all have come remarkably far. And General Hagee had a terrific example of that here a few minutes ago. But I would suggest to you that “joint,” in the global war on terrorism, really needs to extend beyond that, and include some of these other words we've had. Combined is one of them. Interagency is another. We operate on a regular basis with the FBI, with Customs, with the Drug Enforcement Administration, and not just in the United States, but also overseas. We need to be able to talk with, work with, and partner with them on a regular basis.
Our international partners are crucial to our success. We need their support, whether it's flag state management or operational partnerships on a daily basis. You may or may not know this, but on a regular basis in the drug war, we partner with Great Britain, we partner with the Dutch, we partner with France, in terms of counter-drug activities in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific. The Netherlands is very strong down there. All these types of things have to be extended to the global war on terrorism.
And the last piece for us, again, a very significant one, is our state and local partners. The jurisdictional boundaries in the ports, along our waterways, crosses state and local interests, moves offshore of course, out to federal. We have to be able to operate with all of them. You're not going to be successful deterring, preventing, or responding to an incident in your port unless you can talk to the other agencies, unless you can talk effectively to the other military services, and unless you can execute effectively in a combined manner.
And so those four things-- the authorities, the capabilities, the capacity, and then the partnerships-- we think are the areas where transformation is necessary, in a focused and measured way, to reduce the risks to this nation on the maritime. And that's what we're working hard about. Admiral Collins uses the term, “maritime power.” If you think about it, all those things blend together and reflect the nation's maritime power. CNO, we have the world's greatest Navy. We project naval power around the globe, and we do that exceptionally well. But in reality, because of the commercial interests, because of the international implications, because of the way business is done, maritime power has to blend civil as well as military authority and power if we're going to be successful.
So, those are the lanes we're working across. We're trying to build better “maritime power” to reduce our risks, and transform in those kind of lanes. And I'll just leave it at that. Thanks.
Dr. Davis: Thank you very much, Admiral Barrett.
Questions and Answers
Audience: James Kitfield (?) from National Journal magazine. I'd like the chiefs to address the issue of end strength in transformation. As we all know, this force was not sized recently. It was sized in the 1990s. And it was not sized for a global war on terrorism. Intuition would tell you that now that we're in Afghanistan, in Iraq, we need a bigger force, because these are new contingencies that we were not planning on. We're told that we probably don't need a bigger force, because this transformation has allowed us to do things with smaller forces, and so the joint staff is now reworking the war plans. If you're in Iraq, and you see how stressed the Army is, it seems to me that that's not a transformational mission. The stability operations are manpower intensive. Is this force big enough, basically, for the contingencies it's facing now? And is transformation really a way out of confronting the fact that this force is very, very stretched thin right now.Dr. Davis: Who would like to begin? General Schoomaker?
General Schoomaker: If I understand the tenor of your question, you're speaking to the end strength issue, whether the force is large enough to do all of the kind of things that we're doing right now. And I can speak for the Army. I think Vern had it exactly right. I think that transformation is going to give us capabilities that is going to allow us to use our people smarter. But we have a more immediate problem right now. I'll call it kind of, in the Army here, the fundamental question. We have over a million people in the Army, active guard and reserve. We can't reach a million. And the big challenge that I've got, resource-wise, is paying for more people, exactly what Vern was talking about, and putting them into a bankrupt structure, and then end up having to pay for that with the top line pressures in the future that you heard from over here on the left, on my left.
So, one of the major things that we're doing right now is mining the structure that we have, and aligning it, and getting it balanced so that we can get access to the force structure we're paying for, and making sure it's ready and available to us. And we're doing pretty well. There is no commander in Iraq or Afghanistan that is asking for more people. That is, it's not a bumper sticker that this is true. And we constantly are in dialogue about what the requirements are over there, and there's nobody that's asking for a bigger force over there. They feel they have the force that's required. My problem is the persistence, and how do we generate this force over a long period of time? And quite frankly, we're working that very well. We may end up coming up having to ask for more force structure, or for increased end strength. But I am not prepared at this time to give up on the fact that we're making quite a bit of headway right now, in terms of the balance, and getting access to what we have. So, it's an open question. And it's a good question, but I think you're jumping to huge conclusions, that the answer is just supplying more soldiers to the battlefield. It's not the issue.
__: If I might, I addressed this briefly, but let me tell you the things that we're doing. We did a pilot, a pilot called sea swap, that would keep our ship on station, rotate our people. Buys more capability if we don't have to pay for the transit every time. We're going to end up leaving a ship over there two years, and see what we learn. That's going on now. We're on our third rotation.
I've got another pilot going on called optimum manning, figuring out how we can inject technology into the process, and reduce the size of the crew. We will apply those in the next submission, across the whole force, because it's been very successful. DDX, that we will build, instead of having a 500-person crew, will have a crew of between 100 and 125 people. Technology will allow us to do that. Those are changing the ways we do things some, but also the application of technology. But the biggest savings will come to us when we learn how to do things smarter, and we revolutionize our processes, and run the business end of this thing more effectively.
So, I'm going after less end strength, but I'm doing it with a very clear objective in the strategy. That's where I'm going to get the resources to recapitalize. Jackie said, "Is transformation modernization? Is it--" Well, you know, it might be modernization. But certainly, here's one of the things I've come to believe, that if you miss the opportunity, when you are modernizing, because you're getting rid of old stuff and getting new stuff, when you buy that new stuff, it's going to be set in the structure, for 30, to an aircraft carrier, for 50 years. And so it is vital that we think through the transformational process as we are going through the modernization process. And in my case, I am actively pursuing less end strength.
Dr. Davis: Next question? Right here. Oh, come on. This is your chance. There's one back there.
Audience: Ed Rowney (?), retired lieutenant general. I want to follow up on that last question. I did not get an adequate answer, and I want to pursue it a bit. This is mostly to General Schoomaker. Given that you're transforming, and having lighter and more mobile forces, and can possibly do this with a few fewer people, given that the reserves need to change, and more regular Army people need to have those missions of medics and engineers and whatnot for reconstruction problems, given that the National Guard has to reorient its mission from overseas to more home security, I wonder, and I want to ask the question, can you possibly do this with not only the possibility, but the probability, that you're going to have to not only stay in Iraq, but have more Iraqis, can you possibly do this with anything less than 50 to 100,000 more troops on the ground?
Certainly, we should save money. Certainly, I applaud all the things that Admiral Clark said. But, you know, we've spent 6, 7, 10% of our gross national product before. We're now spending 2.9%. We're in the fight of our lives for this war on terrorism. Certainly we can afford more than 2.9%. So, I'm going to just pursue this question, just to be a pain in the neck. Can you possibly do this without fewer than 50 to 100,000 Marines and Army troops on the ground.
General Schoomaker: General Rowney, you're talking about on the ground in Iraq?
Audience: No, I'm not talking about on the ground in Iraq. I'm not going to contest the question of the soldiers saying they don't need more forces. Sometimes I wonder about that. I thought, you know, that we should have had a little more forces going in, because you had to have some contingencies. And the force, the division couldn't get in. So, I happen to believe that we didn't have enough.
Let's wipe all that out. Let's agree with the commanders in the field that they don't need more. But I'm saying, we're going to have to stay there. And right now, the reserves are hurting. The Army is hurting, on moving back and forth. The National Guard has to have a homeland mission. I see a need to persist in Iraq. I see a need for planning against future Iraqis. I don't know whether it's going to be Syria, or Iran, or North Korea. There's certainly going to be more before we finish this war on terrorism. Therefore, I say, let's do all these other things, but let's not believe that we're going to be able to do this without more Marines and Army boots on the ground for the future.
Dr. Davis: Generals Hagee, Schoomaker, do you have a follow-up comment?
__: I would actually follow up from what Pete said. He made very good points there. But the way I look at the battlefield is, what we're doing right now, is this what we're going to be doing five or 10 years from now? In other words, have we arrived at a point where we're going to have forces, as General Schoomaker talked about, spread throughout the world, the Sinai, Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan? If we are, then I think the answer might be that we do in fact need an end strength increase, just as General Schoomaker mentioned. But if we're not, if this is a spike, even though that spike might be a year or so, my professional opinion is that right now we do not need an end strength increase, if in fact it is a spike. And that is-- I think this is what the Chief of Staff of the Army talked about-- that is what we are looking at right now, and that's what we're trying to look at into the future, and make a good call on that.
Sir, as you know, you cannot stand up a division overnight. It takes a couple of years to stand up that division. We stand up that division, and we find out that, in fact, two, three, four years from now, we don't need that division, because it was in fact a spike. Have we, in fact, used the resources of this nation correctly?
__: I think I also owe you a little bit on this. You know, if we were unconstrained, and had no issue in that regard, obviously, we could build a force where there was no risk. Then we ask ourselves, can you recruit and retain the force that we're talking about, at that level? If you take a look at what we have right now, you know, we are operating-- Right now, the reserve component's under a thing called partial mobilization. It's not PSRC. This is not the typical thing that we've operated under in the past. This is partial mobilization. This gives the President and the Secretary of Defense access to one million people in a reserve component for two years. One million people for two years. And we are not anywhere near that level of commitment.
Right now we have mobilized, counting the next mobilization, about 40% of the reserve component. So, I can tell you that it's not only possible and feasible to continue this level of operation with the force we have, but that if we can get access to a lot of the force right now, because of the way it's structured, and bring it into the thing, that we'll get much better use out of the force that we're paying for, which we are not getting right now, we haven't gotten for years, and we need to fix. It's time to quit thinking the old way on this. And if we can't do that, then we are going to have to go, and we're going to have to spend a premium on the most expensive element, and then worry about whether or not we can recruit and retain that large a force. So, I think I owe it to the people, the Army, and to my boss to do the very best we can to figure out what we can do with what we have before we get into this other question. Because the other question is not going to solve our problem for us right now.
Dr. Davis: Next question, in the back first.
Audience: ...[inaudible] the National Emergency Response and Rescue Training Center. My question really is for General Schoomaker, although I expect it pertains to the other panel members as well. There is a perception that our reserve component is fairly heavily committed at this point. Because of the nature of the business, many of those men and women are also our firefighters, policemen, EMS techs, Hazmat folks. And so their deployments not only have a personal impact, but also a very real impact on local jurisdictions' preparedness. So my question is, in the transformation, are we looking at ways in which we can minimize the impacts and the commitment of our reserve component?
__: Well, again, that's probably a question that's more germane to the Army. We realize that. I mean, I was just with the 30th Brigade, and a high school principal was one of the sergeant majors that was there. There were about seven state troopers in one company that I was with. There are county sheriffs, and firefighters, just like you talk about. But, you know, we mobilize who signed up, and who we have in that structure. And the reality is, when we do mobilize them, they come out of the communities. And you're exactly right. These are exactly the same kinds of people. So, I guess the bigger question is, is the construct that we have for the United States Army, which was designed to fight and win the Cold War, and to mobilize and expand, still a viable construct?
Because when we call up units, we don't ask how many principals are here, and how many state troopers, and how many prison wardens, and all that. We call up soldiers, and that's what shows up. And I don't know another way around that right now. So if we're going to escape that issue, it's a whole new question, in my view. You're exactly right. That's exactly what occurs right now, and they serve very well, and they're very proud of what they're doing.
Dr. Davis: There's a question right here.
Audience: Jason Sherman (?) from Defense News. My question is for General McNabb and General Schoomaker. Admiral Clark and General Hagee outlined a broad vision for where they'd like to take their services, with this notion of a sea base. Would the two of you be willing to endorse their vision, particularly the joint aspect of it, and say what role you see for your respective services in this sea base?
Lt. General McNabb: Well, if you ask us if we endorse, we obviously do. I think it's a great concept, and they are going to be betting on the Air Force support as needed. And I think that there's no question that this is the kind of thing that is, they come forward with that vision. We will look at how we need to support that vision for the employment of their forces.
One of the things that I think, and it kind of gets to maybe this end strength issue that you all talked a little bit-- One of the things that you can see is, if we have to surge, and spin the dollars for a surge force, it becomes cost prohibitive. But one of the things that we can do by working together with capability type packages, instead of talking about platforms, we talk about, what capabilities do we bring? What you can end up doing is often the combatant commander's packages of capabilities that will allow us to take care of each other's surges, and perhaps mitigate it. Where the Air Force might be surging and needs help, the naval and Marine forces come to fruition. Sometimes it would be a combination of air and Army forces coming together to say, "Hey, combatant commander, you need this."
So, I look at the vision of the Navy, the sea basing, when they brief that, to the programmers and the op steps (?), one of the things that became very clear is that our role in that is absolutely essential as well. And now the part is, how do we fold into that? That's the part that we were talking about the future of joint ops. I mean, it's great to see where they're going, and then we can say, "Hey, what else can we do for you? How could we make it even better?" And I think those relationships are really there. It's really going to make a big difference.
General Schoomaker: I think-- In fact, Vern and I talked about this ...[inaudible] Not only do I subscribe to it now, and support it. I have for years. And I'll just go back. I was on the mission to go into Iran and rescue the hostages, 1980, one of the ground force commanders there. We used sea basing as part of that construct. When we went to Grenada, I was on that mission 1983. We used sea basing as part of that construct. When we did Haiti, we used sea basing. I had my jessodiff (?) headquarters on the aircraft carrier America, with 64 Army and Air Force and Marine helicopters abroad that ship as a central element of what we did. We had a maritime construct involved in Just Cause, when we did that.
You know, I am a joint officer, and have been since 1987, that happens to be in the Army. And this is not a big stretch, as far as I'm concerned. I think it's a hugely important domain, and if we're going to move an Army to war with campaign qualities, and even in an expeditionary sense, the way you're going to move it fastest is by sea, and augment it with airlift for the kinds of things that you need early in the deal. But I mean, this is a domain and a dimension that is absolutely essential.
And I'd just like to go a step further here. You know, a lot of people think that Desert Storm was a joint operation on the thing, going back to one of Vern's things here. You know what it really was? It was joint de-confliction. That's what Desert Storm was, joint de-confliction. The war we just fought in Iraq was joint interoperability. Where we need to go in the joint world is to joint interdependence, where we trade some of our capability for other people's ability to deliver. That's where we need to be going.
Dr. Davis: Yes, sir. Right here.
Audience: Rick Middle (?) with the "Dallas Morning News." General Schoomaker, I wasn't going to ask this question, but your enthusiasm for sea basing tempts me. What role might the V-22 play in the Army's future? Are you considering that aircraft, particularly since you participated in the mission that inspired the Marine Corps to develop it?
General Schoomaker: Well, the Army right now does not have any role with the V-22. As you know, I commanded US special operations command, and as you know, special operations command is committed to 50 CB-22s for its thing. The reality is, that kind of capability allows you to move at C-130 speeds and C-130 distances. It's huge, in terms of what it means for battlefield mobility and agility. And I think the Marine Corps, when it gets the V-22, is going to find itself able to operate, as we discussed this morning, you know, in the old sea echelon concept.
When I went to the amphibious warfare school for a year with the Marine Corps to get educated on amphibious warfare, we learned the sea echelon concept. Well, you can't survive that concept anymore. You've got to be further out over the horizon. You've got to be able to close that distance. You've got to go deeper, beyond the old force beachhead line, to do the kind of things you've got to do. B-22 will do that. I think we'll be informed in the Army by that technology. I think we'll see some opportunity there. And, you know, just go back to Afghanistan. You know, when SOFF was inserted in Afghanistan, those were 900 mile legs by helicopter. That is four air refuelings each direction, to put teams in. V-22 will do it with less refuelings, and at twice the speed on the deal.
And so I think it's a huge dimension, and I think it's something the Army is going to get informed about. And quite frankly, I think part of what we're looking at is transformation of Army aviation, and we're going to have to look at those kind of speeds and distances. That is not to say that we have active interest, or doing anything right now with the V-22, but I think we're going to be quite informed in terms of what that means. And if we are joint interoperable, and we've got a partner here that's got a hell of a lot of them, we just might end up finding ourselves riding them some time, you know? By the way, you know, he also owns 51% of the C-130 tankers.
Audience: ...[inaudible]
General Schoomaker: Well, there's nothing to pin down.
Audience: But it sounds like you're saying that you do see a V-22 in the Army's future.
General Schoomaker: I did not say that. We're talking about capability here. And I think we'll be informed by that kind of speed and range. And if it makes sense, we may go that in direction. But there is nobody right now that's thinking about buying a V-22 for the Army. I want to see what they do with it, and I want to see what SOFF does with it, and I want to see what's beyond it. There's a dimension beyond that. It's like V-22 capability with a CH-47 size box, or a C-130 size box on it, tilt rotor. You've seen that, the advanced tactical transport.
Dr. Davis: Unfortunately, I see many hands now rising to ask questions, but the chiefs have to get back to the building. And it remains for us to thank them for taking their precious time to be with us today.