joint force command norfolk here in the united states again it is my honor to welcome general mark milley sir the podium yours thanks woody uh for those remarks i appreciate it and uh and woody and i worked together uh for many many years in previous assignments uh and we're blessed with your leadership he's only got a couple months left uh before he retires but today uh is a great day for him because we're declaring flc of jfc norfolk and this is an amazing legacy woody for you not just for nato not just for all those presents but for you personally uh and i want to thank uh woody uh i won't be at his retirement unfortunately um i may be at my mom before that but who knows so i i want to thank woody though publicly um and i want to thank him for uh so many decades of great service in the united states navy combat aviator a tremendous combat record and just a tremendous sailor uh varsity wrestler back in back in the day with simanski and i'm told that he whipped samanski pretty hard on many many times if colin kill reigns out there in the audience somewhere symansky and and he said they could take you down to colin so i want to thank you woody for your exceptional service over so many years so thank you and i would like to give a little shout out to the kiersarge and the crew the the captain what a great ship uh what a great crew what a great example of the power of the united states navy uh well done to all of you guys and the congresswoman laureate right here in front of me asks tough questions by the way all the time i pins my ears against the wall on many many topics hopefully i give you somewhat decent answers but i got to tell you she's a stalwart representative for the navy and a stalwart representative of norfolk and really fights hard for all things navy all things norfolk all things virginia so thank you very much for what you do for our country and your 20 years of service in navy and thanks also for senator warner's reps and senate kings reps also two great fighters for the navy two great fighters for norfolk on two great fighters for virginia so thank you guys for representing the centers down here appreciate it greatly i want to take a minute here to talk about a couple of topics first of all is this command jfc norfolk today is the day we're declaring full operational capability this has been three years in the making 18 months ago or so we did ioc initial operating capability uh and it's the mission of this command to fight the battle of the atlantic in the event of armed conflict think about that for a minute and it is the only nato joint command that is on u.s soil this is the command woody or his successors will be the admirals in charge of a battle for the atlantic and if you know your history of no world war ii you know how important that was uh i would tell you that the survival of nato the success or failure in combat in a future war will largely depend on a war in europe would largely depend on the success or failure of this command and success of failure of the battle of the atlantic so this is a really important day and that's why i wanted to make a point of coming down here i love woody but it wasn't just to come down to say hello to woody it was really to come down and celebrate this command and get it off on the right foot and i want to thank all of our nato allies and partners that are here today we've got 21 nations represented in this command many of whom are represented today so this is really critically important to the national security of the united states and uh to the nato alliance i also wanted to come down and just tip my hat a little bit to norfolk uh norfolk is the home of uh the largest naval uh fleet uh in the world and it's a symbol it's a reality but it's also a symbol it's a symbol of naval power uh and the united states is a maritime nation i'm a native of the boston area uh my mother and father were both served in the navy my mother out of the hospital in seattle during war two my dad was a navy corpsman at at kwajalein atoll and saipan and tinian and iwo jima with the fourth marine division now this country is a naval power this country's security depends very much so on the united states navy on the skills the knowledge the attributes the combat capabilities of the united states navy and i can speak think of no better place to represent that than right here in norfolk so thank you uh for the opportunity uh to be here in my view and it's only one man's view and i could be wrong for sure but in my view the the world uh is entering a period of potential instability as some nations not all but some and clearly terrorist groups and perhaps some rogue actors are seeking to undermine and challenge the existing international order and they seek to weaken the system of cooperation and collective security that has been in existence for some time the dynamic nature of today's current environment is counterbalanced by an order that was put in place 76 years ago at the end of world war ii and there are very few people alive today that are living memory of that war it was the bloodiest war in human history there were almost 7 000 marines killed in action 21 000 japanese killed in action on the island of iwo jima where my dad landed and that was only in 19 days in the short period of 31 years from 1914 to 1945 world wars 1 and 2 were fought among the great powers of the day and 150 million people 150 million around the world were killed in the conduct of great power war in world war one for example from september to november 1918 in just six weeks american expeditionary forces fought at the battle of musargon the biggest battle in american history and 26 000 u.s soldiers and marines were killed in six weeks twenty six thousand twenty six years later at the height of world war two in only eight weeks from june to august 1944 americans hit the beaches at normandy with our allies and they went on to liberate paris in that campaign the normandy campaign 37 000 allied soldiers were killed in action and the total from both sides was almost half a million in eight weeks four hundred and twenty five thousand soldiers killed or wounded in just eight weeks at the same time on the other side of the world in the central pacific we took saipan and then tinian and we took guam all as part of the great marianas turkey shoot the marianas campaign another 26 thousand u.s
casualties in the same period that normandy was going on at the same time in the southwest pacific we fought in burma and papua new guinea all in the summer of 1944. in those intense eight weeks american soldiers sailors airmen marines coast guardsmen we suffered over two hundred and ten thousand casualties with fifty seven thousand paying the ultimate sacrifice in eight weeks and that doesn't include the hundreds of thousands of allies hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians that were killed in europe the eastern front in china and other theaters that is the butcher's bill of great power war that's what this international order that's been in existence for seven and a half decades is designed to prevent that's what jfc norfolk is all about it's to prevent that outcome today we use terms like strategic competition and great power war and conversations and classrooms and testimonies in articles and newspapers and it comes off of our lips so easily but not so for the greatest generation two years ago i had an opportunity to attend the anniversary of the normandy landings and i was talking to several of the veterans there and asked one of them simply what is your lesson from world war ii and i was chief of staff at the army at the time and i was expecting him to tell me some sort of tactic or technique or procedure what is your great lesson for those of us in uniform today your lesson of world war ii he looked up to me and tears came to his eyes and he said general never let it happen again never let it happen again in 1945 people throughout the world said never again so they set up processes and policies and laws organizations that today we commonly referred to as the international order and the goal is to prevent another great power war it was little over 72 years ago when nato was formed to provide collective security for like-minded countries in the western hemisphere and without question nato has been the most successful military alliance in human history and nato is still very much a vital and critical part of our regional security framework and indeed our global security framework in fact in my view it's the linchpin that holds together the period of great power peace that we are now enjoying twice before in west european history that i'm aware of we have had two other international orders the first followed the 30 years war from 1648 to 1750 based on the treaty of westphalia and the second followed the napoleonic wars and lasted from 1815 to 1914 it was known as the concert of europe they were established in order to prevent great power war across the continent and both lasted 100 years and we are now in the 76th year of the current international order and i can tell you at least from my point of view that order is under intense and growing stress nations non-state actors sponsors of terrorism cyber criminals are all the backdrop of the current security environment and in this context there is another factor we are experiencing the change a significant change in the character of war not just the nature of war which is really about politics and friction and fog and that's the nature of war but i'm talking about the character of war how we fight the organizations we fight with the technology that we use the last fundamental change we had in the character of war really occurs probably between world wars 1 and world wars 2 where we get the introduction of mechanization and tanks and track vehicles for ground forces we get the introduction of the airplane so you get naval air power you get air forces you get the advent of the aircraft carrier and you combine that with some communication advances that led to wireless communications the introduction of the radio which made possible command and control from great distance and all of those things and there were many many more technologies that put in combination they changed the fundamental character of war and every country the united states and japan and germany and russia and britain and france and all the countries had access to all of those technologies and they combined them in different ways to do different things every one of them had a different tactic a different technique a different organization and they trained their leaders differently but one of those countries germany combine those technologies and the german way of war and combine them to organizations and leader development in such a way that nazi germany was able to overrun western europe in 18 months other countries combined it in different ways and they didn't have success and i would tell you that the same thing is happening right this minute as we speak as we sit here on the cure surge there's a whole set of technologies that are driving fundamental change and if we united states military and we nato as an alliance do not adapt and adopt these technologies if we don't get their firstness with the mostest and we don't put the pedal to the metal and do this right over the next 10 or 15 years we are condemning a future generation to what happened 76 years ago consider precision munitions in combination with a ubiquitous isr capability where we can now see and map and sense the world around us like at no time in human history we can shoot at ranges never before known sometimes it's actually beyond comprehension to think about some of this add to that artificial intelligence which is an incredibly powerful technology and the information capabilities that come with it the speed of decision making the man machine interface think today of robotics and what that's going to mean to the navy to nato to air forces and ground forces in the very very near future and we're not even talking yet about biotechnology human engineering miniaturization 3d printing there's about 40 or 50 technologies that are all converging very very rapidly in the very near future 5 10 15 years and it's going to have a fundamental impact on the conduct of war and we are right in the middle of it those technologies are available to every country in the world today there's nothing particularly secret about many of them and i would argue that the country that masters those technologies combines them with their doctrine develops their leadership to take maximum advantage of them is likely going to have significant and perhaps even decisive advantage at the beginning of the next war and in fact that may be as long as the war lasts so mastering the change in the character of war is most likely going to be the most important thing that we do as a professional military over the next 10 to 15 years and in addition to that with the american military we have to do it as an alliance and we're going to succeed or fail as a nation with our allies and partners because the united states does not fight wars alone we have an incredible network of allies and partners around the world and it's one of the great strengths that our country has and nato is a board to thwart those who are seeking to undermine the security of our alliance who are seeking to undermine the global order real capabilities and demonstrable military strength are at the very heart of deterrence and that's what jfc norfolk is all about and we as an alliance are stronger together than we are individually and all of us should be confident in our collective ability to ensure that whether it's in the caribbean or up in the arctic or across the atlantic ocean whether it's in space or cyberspace whether it's at sea or undersea or or on the land or in the air nato is still the most powerful alliance in the world and the united states is still the most powerful and capable military in the world the challenge to us is we have to keep it that way we have to maintain the readiness of the present we have to modernize for the future we are ready right now those who think we are not are mistaken and any adversary that seeks to challenge the united states military resolve will do well to respect this military and our alliance in nato but the challenge is really going to be in the future in the not too distant future and that's where our focus needs to be so thank you all for being here and thank you for participating in jfc norfolk and getting them off the ground because this is representative of what is going to be needed in the future to maintain the deterrence maintain great power peace and prevent great power war thank you very much thanks again chairman the atlantic is clearly at the core of our collective priorities
2021-07-23