>> i am nervous.

you'll have to plug me in. >> good afternoon. welcome. thank you all of us joining us here in person as well as all of you turning in from around the world. i am the senior vice president of research programs at the simpson center. it is my great pleasure to welcome you all here today for a very special event. the stimson center is a foreign policy think tank founded in 1989 in washington dc. we promote and pursue international security and shared prosperity through applied research and independent analysis, global engagement, and policy innovation. 2024 is the 35th anniversary of the stimson center and we are marking this occasion with a

year of global exploration together with some of the greatest foreign policy and international security minds today. we are delighted to have as part of the anniversary series a special guest and friend to distant plants and are -- the stimson center, the honorable carlos.org. he has heard many posts in his career as our board chair will outline in the introduction with more than two decades of naval service, secretary del toro has been a commander, a corporate founder, president, and a ceo. somehow, amid all this, secretary del toro managed to serve on the stimson board of directors joining stimson in 2019. with his guidance and counsel do stimson center honed our strategic focus and approach in valuable new ways, in building our strategic supporter base as we took on some of the most complex challenges of our time. in 2021 he was shamelessly

poached from stimson's board for the role of the 78th secretary of the navy. though we grudgingly did let him go, it's our pleasure to welcome secretary del toro to stimson and it is a pleasure to have you with us today marking our 35th anniversary. i will admit, the u.s. navy does have only the 35th anniversary of the stimson center, no small feat for a think tank in washington. the u.s. navy is marking its 250th here next year. i don't know what the traditional gift for a 250th anniversary is. i believe it is called a semicon centennial. we can look that up. i will put it on your list. you have our greatest craze and -- praise and respect, secretary, as you stand at the helm of an institution steeped

in deep tradition and legacy that is constantly exploring how it cani develop and evolve to meet the changes of tomorrow. the honorable del toro will be joined by the stimson center board chair stu sadako it to explore the future of u.s. maritime power for global security, and in addition to her role as a stimson's board chair she serves as the cadmus executive vice chair for public sector strategy, responsible for overseeing the development and execution of the cadmus public sector growth strategy in the u.s. and globally. previously she was president and ceo of nathan associates prior to its acquisition by cadmus and before that she was president of texture tech and a senior vice president at fcic and if you spend about 10 years at a booth m -- booz allen hamilton promoting cross-cultural markets. i know you are eager to hear the conversation ahead. it's my pleasure to introduce

our special guest the honorable carlos toto, the 78 secretary of the u.s. navy in conversation with board chair sue sadako it. >> thank you, rachel, and ralph -- welcome everyone here today. to say it is a pleasure would be an understatement. as rachel said, i had the pleasure to serve on the stimson board with the secretary. it's wonderful to have him back here again with us. needless to say, the stimson center was just one stop on his way to do so much for the country and world. and i want to spend a moment trying to encapsulate his background , which is incredibly .

the secretary was born in havana cuba and they emigrated to the u.s. with his family as refugees in 1962. raised in the hells kitchen neighborhood of new york city he attended public schools and received an appointment to the u.s. naval academy where he earned a bachelors of electrical engineering. secretary del toro was commissioned as the surface warfare officer upon his graduation in 1983. his 22 year naval career included a series of critical appointments and numerous tours of duty at sea where he helped manage the budgets of the dod, department of state, cia, dia, national reconnaissance office, and peace corps. after retiring at the rank of commander secretary del toro founded std technology solutions

inc. in 2004. as the ceo and president he supported the defense program across a host of long-term and immediate issue areas like shipbuilding, ai, cybersecurity, acquisition programs, space systems, health command training. he was sworn in as the 78th sec. of the navy august 9, 2021. secretary del toro holds a masters in national security studies from the naval war college. a masters in national security -- i'm sorry, a masters in space centers engineering from the naval postgraduate school and a masters in legislative affairs from george washington university. it's wonderful to have you home again. >> thank you. it's great to be back. >> great. that was the nice part. we have a lot of ground to cover.

here we go. i will let people know we won't have time for q&a at the end. get yours -- we will hold a time for q&a at the end. you can submit questions at www .stimson.org/questions. as that of the navy you are responsible for an institution with over 900,000 sailors, marines, reservists and civilian personnel as well as overseeing a budget of more than $210 billion. and what's more, the u.s. navy is marking a major milestone next year, 250 years since its founding. with all these considerations in mind and given your position as secretary, can you outline for

us what you have outlined as the biggest and most pressing priorities for the navy and marine corps and what easy as it greatest opportunities? sec. del toro: thank you for having me. it is a tremendous privilege to serve as the secretary of the navy and served for nearly one million marines, sailors, and civilians i laid in the department of the navy. we have gone from $210 billion to $250 billion. having said that, it is a privilege to lead these great men and women. for the past 6.5 months we have been battling dailyhouthi attacks with over 600 engagements over the past six months. the men and women that served and the red sea are courageously defending our national security interests.

it is a privilege to work on their behalf, to provide them the most capable platforms and most capable personnel to combat commanders around the world. susan: thank you for that. the multifaceted nature of your role now is greater i think than ever before. what i would like to do is focus on different aspects of your role. and then work our way through some of those. let me start with the navy's role in securing economic interests. last september in a speech delivered at the harvard kennedy school you said "history proves that in the long run there has never been a great naval power that was not also a maritime power. a commercial shipbuilding and global shipping power." in 20

23, more than 50% of the world's commercial shipbuilding output came from china. in your opinion, is the u.s. seating commercial naval power at this moment? what are the actions you are taking around this? sec. del toro: we have already conceded commercial shipbuilding capability to the chinese. luckily we have allies in japan and korea that have also invested heavily in the commercial shipbuilding side of the house. but we have not, by any means, conceded our naval power. we have the most powerful navy and marine corps on the face of the earth. in terms of the capabilities we have. in terms of the lethality we can bring anywhere around the globe. we are currently demonstrating that today in the pacific and in the red sea and also in the defense of israel as yet another example. we are the most powerful, capable navy and marine corps team in the world and we don't plan on conceding that.

>> message received. sec. del toro: we are doing it with three guiding principles. one, strengthening maritime dominance in every domain we operate in. space, air, on the surface and subsurface and cyberspace. second is cultivating a culture of war fighting excellence across the entire fleet and training our fighters to be the best they can be while treating them all dignity and respect. third, strengthening our relationships with our stakeholders, with industry, with congress, with the rest of the government, and also, with our allies and partners, more importantly, that are an essential part of our war fighting capability in every region around the world. i often say it's the difference between us and our adversaries. we have plenty of allies, friends, and partners that can cooperate and operate with us

throughout all regions of the world. susan: thank. secretary, i want to spend another second or two on the issue of shipbuilding. a navy, a recent report released by the navy, showed several major shipbuilding programs were behind schedule and over budget. what can be done to ensure navy shipbuilding, which is central to the service's mission, as you said, can get on track? sec. del toro: we need to go to the root causes of the problems and how we got here. look at what happened in the early 1980's when reagan was president. he believed we could leave the core elements of the shipbuilding -- commercial shipbuilding industry to the private sector and he was right. we did leave it to the private sector. regretfully, countries like china took over with cheap labor and were able to build their commercial shipbuilding industry and dominate the market.

i am also thankful to japan and south korea who also invested and are tremendous commercial shipbuilders today. the industry atrophied through the cold war. we shut down many shipyards in the country thinking we would not need them. we became less competitive. now we are at the point where our commercial shipbuilding industry has really suffered and atrophied and we have to rebuild that one step at a time with what i call a national maritime statecraft. because of that, the building of our naval capabilities, our naval ships, has become far more expensive because there are far fewer shipyards that actually build navy ships. we have more public yards to do maintenance on our aircraft and submarines in the navy and two that do nuclear powered work and six essentially shipyards either private sector that builds our submarines, frigates, destroyers, and aircraft carriers. susan: continue on this issue

another moment, some of the delays and challenges you articulated, what is the balance between some domestic dysfunction that might include supply-chain challenges, shortages of skilled labor, versus international interference. what is that balance? what do we do about both sides of that? sec. del toro: apart from the shortage of just having less commercial shipbuilders and shipyards in the country we have been significantly inevitably -- significantly negatively impacted by covid, no question. i think the bigger problem than that is actually lack of blue-collar workers in the country. regretfully, we are a pretty divided country politically. it's time for congress to get together and pass comprehensive immigration reform and increase

the amount of legal immigration we allow into the country. increase the amount of work visa problem -- programs authorized for blue-collar workers to come from other nations and do work here as it has existed since the founding of our government. it's a good think the economy is as strong as it is with unemployment as low as it is in so many states across the country. we have to open up the to get a bit on legal immigration to allow blue-collar workers to come here and or divert enormous resources into retraining individuals so they can work in our shipyards and be employed by the types of trade open to shipyard workers. we at the department of the navy and department of defense are committed to that. in the next five years we will pump in $15 billion of investment into the simmering industrial base alone. an additional $15 billion of

investment into the surface industrial base. these are measures we are trying to take to work with industry to bring production rates up to where they need to be so we can build more naval capability and at the same time hold the government efforts around the national maritime statecraft so we can reinvigorate commercial shipbuilding and get us to a better place. susan: what about the other side of the equation? what about china's predatory practices? what are the actions on going now? sec. del toro: they have been able to dominate the commercial shipbuilding industry worldwide because of unfair practices. there is a lawsuit or play now being considered by the u.s. trade representative to take a look at the unfair market practices of china when it comes to commercial shipbuilding. this is vital to what i believe would be the continuous revitalization of our economy. if we can get to a place where

we can contribute to commercial shipbuilding in the country it can help the economy and bring more american jobs to the country. i have gone around the water south korea, japan, and other nations and encouraged them to invest in americans. to come here and open up subsidiaries of their shipbuilding industries under the u.s.. there are numerous small and midsized shipyards around the country that could use that capital infusion and create more american jobs here to help with the bill. with both our naval capability and commercial shipbuilding capability. susan: let's turn to the navy's role in the indo pacific. just a small topic to address. i want to talk about emerging challenges and opportunities. in this context you visited the western pacific, specifically yokohama japan and south korea to tour shipyards over there. you noted we have much to learn

from the shipyards. what specifically did you see that you would like the u.s. to put into practice and how do you hope to engage japan and south korea in the future? >> japan and south korea are two of our most important allies and partners. agreements moving forward for mutual collaboration among the three of us is exciting in the end of pacific. when you see allies and partners working together as closely as we are in the indo pacific, we just had a naval operation exercise where we operated with japan in the philippines as well. now we have another major exercise taking place off the southern coast of the philippines. these are all very exciting measures.

can i travel to japan and south korea, i was impressed by the amazing amount of capital investment they made in their own shipyards and in the quality of life and quality of service to their shipyard workers outside the yards. they build hospitals, schools, and entertainment facilities for their own shipyards for workers to want to stay there. their retention rates are very high. they have made major investments in the digitization of the shipyard. they know at any one time if you change something on one side of the yard what will be the impact on delivering the ship on time and on budget. those are things we could export to the u.s. for both private and public shipyards. susan: do you think it is possible coproduction be an option going forward? sec. del toro: it can be in some

ways. there are abilities for us to build certain modules overseas. we do this in the aircraft industry for example. in india we are building aircraft and flying them in the u.s.. there are opportunities we can pursue and we need to remain open mind is about those to increase production rates of our ships and aircraft. susan: thank you. you mentioned global supply chains earlier. both in terms of vulnerabilities and opportunities for more resilience and durability. 90% of our globally traded goods go by c. -- by sea. sec. del toro: how many of you get amazon packages at home? the rest of you are lying.

the first and last leg of the journey may come from my truck but the metal leg comes to you because of the u.s. navy and navies of three democratic nations well lines of communications open for free trade as we are currently trying to do in the red sea. susan: maritime trading volumes are expected to triple by 2050. it's not going in and cash anywhere. sec. del toro: there are also fiber-optic cables on the seabed important to the global economy. susan: what steps is the navy taking to shore up maritime trade to ensure that our ports can support this increasing demand? sec. del toro: we are trying to

strengthen maritime dominance in all domains we operate in and we are trying to grow the navy and making it as capable as possible also by retiring some legacy systems we have that no longer meet the high end threat we have faced today and by developing a stronger, more capable, more lethal navy that we hope to get to that will then protect the lanes of communication in the mediterranean and red sea. and to our partners in ukraine and around the black sea ensuring increased grain shipments are actually coming out of the box he to feed the world. susan: and i know your suppliers are key partners in this. sec. del toro: we provide increased advanced procurement to allow small and medium-sized businesses to be properly financed to support their prime contractors as well. i am a big supporter of the small business community.

this past week alone the department of the navy pumped in over a half billion dollars into the small business competitive market. we have increased the number of business is now doing business with the navy. we have added 600 new businesses last year alone to the supply chain. so we can get to a better place, be more competitive in the future, and hopefully bring down the prices of some goods and products. susan: we have talked a bit about economics. let's turn to environmental security. the navy obviously has critical facilities around the world, all of which are on or near the post. these areas are particularly vulnerable to the impact of climate change. as of 2021 the navy maintained 82 primary activity stations, bases in 10 regions around the world including activities in hawaii, guam, the northern mary honest, and indo pacific.

arguably, the navy might be the one service with the most recent to be concerned about climate change. and obviously, have a vested interest in mitigating end. sec. del toro: it has been a top priority not just for me but the entire enterprise. i came in 2.5 years ago to both the navy and marine corps. on the marine corps side, we are striving to make the naval academy net energy installation by doing all sorts of innovated -- innovative installations of solar panels and other advanced technology to help get us there. it's incredibly important. environmental readiness equals combat readiness. most of our bases are by the sea . a rise in sea levels is a threat to our ability to deploy and to combat ready.

so, we have to impose mitigating investments basically across the entire enterprise to help both for installation readiness as well as operational readiness too. we are investing a lot of money on technology that go on our ships and aircraft to minimize the amount of fuel we use to be in a better place when it comes to overall climate readiness altogether and also making investments with allies and partners. at blue oceana, the pacific, for example, countries, papua new guinea, fiji, we are actually exporting a climate dashboard we have developed to help senior leaders in these nations. they don't have a lot of resources to use the dashboard to make the best decisions possible with the resources they do have. that's another example of how we are working with our allies and partners to get to a better place.

susan: thank you. recently you had representatives at the our ocean conference in greece. that was centered around national strategies to build coastal resilience. one of the topics, i believe, that came up there is unreported fishing, also known as i you you. -- iuu. why is this critical? sec. del toro: it's incredibly important. i attended

these small nations depend on, for their fragile economy in many cases and how many of you got to the galapagos islands, you have not gone recently and you better hurry up because illegal fishing has a very negative impact on that very fragile ecosystem in the galapagos islands. it is what example. we would not have the islands and the many species on the islands for our grandchildren and great grand total to enjoy and flourish. that is another example, we are being proactive with their allies and partners when it comes to unmanned technologies,

we are employees around the world, we exported them to the forest trees and this is a fleet that sailed around 24 hours a day and they do not have sailors, the pull out a report, they would not get in trouble. they are employing them in south america for three purposes. to counter illegal drugs coming from the maritime into the southern border and illegal flow of arms moving down into central and south america and eventually get illegal fishing around in south america, allow your allies and partners to join in this experimentation with their own platforms as they develop their own countries to treat them as equals and peers and we are all engaging as allies and partners to defeat this really difficult challenge that they have in

their extended economic zones. >> we have spoken, you have spoken directly and indirectly about the end of pacific. turn to that region for a more as a traditional security perspective right now. i would say what is keeping you awake at night in that region? i do not think we have time for all of the things that are keeping you awake right now. how can we increase maritime corporation and the capabilities? to support peace in this region? sec. del toro: it is to support peace. we want a peaceful, open, free indo pacific and we have to strive to achieve a sustainable relationship with china and any other adversaries out there that want to do differently. we want to be able to pursue the norms of international behavior

that includes the free passage of trade and ships and airplanes wherever they are allowed to do so. that is what we strive to do and again, the relationships with our allies and partners and anyone else who wants to come to the table with us to work together to solve these difficult issues is extremely important. respecting the sovereignty of those nations because the philippines and the japanese, vietnam who are contesting islands with china, they believe them to be their own for example. we have to be there with our allies and partners and be there to defend them when called upon and support them and work collectively with all of these nations. who would have imagined that five years ago we would be operating and engaging with the japanese and south koreans and the philippines? along with australia and new zealand and many other nations in the pacific, all as one with common interests in mind and we hope that we work with china and

any other nation out there who wants to work with us and i think it is important for us to have increased communications as we are having now the naval conference going on in china and i hope it is being productive and i encourage that we have more of these engagements and in the past with china who has not wanted to engage and communicate with us, i am pleased and our secretary of defense is pleased. we will be having conversations with their defense minister as well. these are all i think positive signs that we can get to a better place in our relationships moving forward so that we can maintain a free and open end of pacific for the economies of all nations -- indo pacific for all economies of all nations. as a combat veteran, i can tell you that. our responsibility is called upon to be as ready as possible and when, if necessary. we do not want that, we want a peaceful coexistence so that the economies of all nations can

exist in coexistence. susan: hopefully as you articulate there is an opportunity now more than ever to create some more sustainable approaches. sec. del toro: i hope so. susan: i would be negligent if i do not ask a question about the marine corps. i do not want them against me. well done. [applause] as we know, the marine core are a critical factor in u.s. maritime strategy in the indo pacific and elsewhere and historically, the role of the marines to protect power at sea and that sure and we are seeing these twin imperatives in terms of need and criticality. while the marines a traditional mission has arguably never been more relevant, the institution is undergoing some major

transformations to evolve, meet the challenges of today or tomorrow. what do you think are some of the greatest opportunities for the u.s. marine corps going forward in the future? sec. del toro: it has set the standard for innovation and transformation and the department of defense, the things they have done over the course of the past five years before i got here are truly to be respected in so many different ways and have for 20 years of a more traditional mission, fighting wars in afghanistan and iraq and looking for the bad guys and so forth, to be able to ship the way that they have -- shift in the way that they have and more importantly our joint forces across the entire indo pacific has been extraordinary. they have made some changes and the capabilities they actually purchased, they acquire, their commitment to essentially medium-range fires and actually providing reconnaissance and counter reconnaissance, it is all about the operations across

the entire pacific and i had the opportunity a month ago. it was a honor to go to palau and meet with the president and i'm so thankful to the government for the cope agreement. he actually took the tour we lost marines in a battle and there is an area where extracting from the jungle, the old airfield, 6000 feet of air field so that we can actually conduct expeditionary advances waste operations and inductor strategies as well as the marine corps and bringing these long-range fires or to any island around the indo pacific. we are providing them the heavy lift that they need in terms of ships to be able to transport marines over long distances as well as the smaller craft for them to be able to do enter island operations as well.

i am supportive of their strategies that they are doing and we are behind it, congress is fully behind it as well and i think they are moving in the direction that they need to be able to make the biggest contribution to the joint war fighting experience. i took my oaths of office in front of all of our marines who served in afghanistan and iraq for many many decades and i also was on the uss volusia. and a rack and another major announcement coming out of modern-day marine conference, you can find out what the major announcement will be. susan: a little hook. exactly. great accomplishments and transition and evolution, what gaps do you think remain? what would be the priority? sec. del toro: in my opinion,

because of the strength of the economy that this administration has contributed to these past three years basically, unemployment is extremely low throughout the united states and if you look at historically unemployment has been high, recruiting has been easing, our unemployment has been low and recruiting has been a challenge and i'm not hoping for a bad economy, and with the economy to stay as strong as it is but we face some challenges. the marines in this case are really set up and made their mark and they meet their recruiting goals and requirements but it is tough and it has been tough on the navy side and across the department as well. that is great. that is one out to a call to service when you think of everyone helping the armed services recruit. if there is anybody here who would like to join the navy and marine corps, i would like to take the oath of office.

we do need all americans to actually help in this endeavor and that is one of the gaps i think we face today as a nation and trying to recruit more people to the department. susan: you mentioned the white house recently hosted a significant japan state visit as well as the philippine and u.s. summit. coming on the back of these meetings, what does the navy stand to gain in terms of potential maritime benefits of a strong bilateral and trilateral cooperation? sec. del toro: it is becoming the much more interoperable with regards to our marine forces working together and her navy is working together and when you look at the decisions made out of the last gathering, their commitment to buy additional capabilities which provides long-range antiship cruise missiles, capabilities, for a

strong ally like japan to have that capability off of their shores is really a significant thought and they have bought our asian weapon systems in the past, destroyers, destroyer like aircraft carrier capabilities too so that they can owned or operate -- interoperate. so our forces can actually operate together when called upon in operations and in conflict that really makes a huge difference and that work needs to be done now in times of peace. susan: one last question before i open it up for q and a from the floor. this one, again you mentioned earlier, the secretary around piracy by nonstate actors, last year we saw iran backed

militants attacking merchant ships, a cargo vessel came under attack from the houthis and iran has been blamed for recent drone attacks on shipping. how does the navy look to address some of these root causes? how do we approach this in a different way from naval defense against state sanction maritime activity? sec. del toro: our mission in the department of defense and the navy to be combat ready. the problem lies in diplomacy. he has come in many cases all roads lead back to iran, there is no doubt about that. we need a diplomatic solution in gaza for example. and so, our job is to deter and for the past 6.5 months you are at the marine corps, it has been battling back daily houthi

attacks. we have been able to save lives of our own sailors and marines who have been able to save the lives of innocent merchant mariners who basically are the ones who carry out and execute this peaceful trade globally. it is having a negative impact on the countries of egypt for example and other surrounding countries and trade going through the suez canal that has to go around the cape for example. it is terrorism of the worst kind and very similar to what use to take place when the navy was first started by john adams and the first secretary of the navy. there remains our mission today and i would like to think that over the course of the 6.5 years and months that any marine corps really has proven their worth and their return of investment on american taxpayers and what they have invested in our strong maritime power. susan: that is a great time to

turn to the audience and get some questions. i will remind everyone that we do not have much time, if you can please be very succinct and your questions and go from there. sec. del toro: i apologize, i have a significant meeting i have to go back to but i am leaving here with the most powerful individual in the department of the navy, mike, who will remain and answer any questions i cannot get to. susan: there you go! [laughter] let us go over here. >> we got some details on the potential cost savings that could result from a multi-ship buyout of the ships that are scheduled to be fit up, i am wondering if there are any concrete plans for putting those ships on contract and can you give us the timeline going into that? sec. del toro: you will see

something here very soon and i will not get into the details of negotiations with the actual shipyard, but in the case of the amphibious multiyear procurement which i think you are referring to, we hope to be able to take the four ship buy. with the leds and others that is at play here, to be able to negotiate a low price as we possibly can, you'll see something come out of this in a couple of weeks at the most. multi-ship and multiyear procurements in the right numbers are a powerful tool to save the american taxpayer dollar. we strive to do that with our service ships and our air cap carriers -- aircraft carriers. if we were to purchase two aircraft carriers again, we would save millions of american taxpayer dollars by doing so. we will do the same thing for

these ships as well. susan: thank you. yes sir? >> thank you, my question is regarding the methods to bring down the delays on the current ship such as the engineering class models, what are the methods that the navy plans on to bring down these delays and also for the frigates themselves with the design problems that are going on because of the ever-changing -- sec. del toro: what company are you from? >> american enterprise institute. sec. del toro: let me answer the question concerning the frigate. they have had real retention problems at the shipyards. we are trying to provide them additional incentives to pay their workers so that they get actually -- so that they stay for longer periods of time. we have sent a big team from 15 design engineers from naval sea systems command, basically you

live and work side-by-side with wisconsin to accelerate the amount of times or in my eyes the amount of times and necessary to get to the final design of the frigates so they can go to the production work a lot faster and we are doing some things internally in the navy behind more contract specialists and trying to ensure that when we sent ships into availabilities to complete the planning of it, six months in advance makes a huge difference in terms of finishing the nation in its ability on time. we need more young people from universities to come and join our civilian workforce. it is a great thing to serve the government, it is satisfying beyond all measures at the things you learn are extraordinary and when you get older you can go into the private sector and make more money. if you change your mind, you can come an marine -- become an marine. you can shorten the time lines

that were advertised a few weeks ago. susan: up in front? >> i am from the court corporation. one of our most wonderful things is to have the secretary that also has founded and run a business here and you understand the pain points of procurement all too well. my question is -- sec. del toro: my dark secret! >> we have noticed a change in the demand signals from the straight services to systems integration and product development, the work that is coming along, signals for unmanned systems and acceleration of r&d projects to be put into production. many of the traditional legacy contracts or more staff and services based. is there any discussion to try to evolve the procurement vehicles now to better match the

efforts of navy is pursuing? sec. del toro: we are trying to put in a lot of innovative thoughts and processes in place. as the secretary, i have stood up to the district of capability's office to tackle this issue of the long amount of time it takes to acquire products to the commercial marketplace. i often reflect on since the 1980's, the innovation actually took place in government. since then, most of it has come from the private sector and this is an example of that. we have to get better at acquiring and embracing commercial technologies the best that we can and applying them to our requirements in the military and to be able to contact them out a lot quicker. we are trying to do the best that we can and be as innovative as we can. the marine corps innovative units and in troy, new york, we stand up to the navy's centers.

although they are already in motion, the building will come in a couple of years. to work closer with the private sector, and invite them in earlier and our requirements definitions, this could all be done before the information hits the street. beforehand, i am encouraging a lot more engagement with industry. you point out the sector experience which i am equally as thankful to my 22 years of being enable operation experience. i may be one of the first to actually overseeing the construction of a ship. it helps me move the navy forward. it is still not easy. it takes a lot of concerted effort especially when you are building massive multibillion-dollar capital ships and aircraft carriers and submarines. i think the problem we have a simple, they are complicated and it takes a lot of effort on the

part of good people and government and industry working together as one team to affect change. susan: one question we received online from nicholas from the u.s. naval college. sec. del toro: i also graduated from the navy were college! a historian tells you these things. i have no idea. susan: a good piece of information. does a strategy based on maritime state cap require that we change our mental map of the world and to think of transoceanic regions across the major waterways? for instance how east africa, middle east, and south asia increasingly form an integrated region in terms of trade and prosperity? sec. del toro: my waters are getting smarter -- watchers are getting smarter! this is why i have been vested

in a military education, we need to send our best and brightest young officers while they are still lieutenant at commanders and lt. col.'s to our primary educational institutions like the navy were college and -- war college to not just think along regional lines that are shared by regional commanders, but how we can actually walk across the atlantic between the eastern coast of central and south america and the west coast of africa that have so many economic interests that tie in together. yes, the short answer is yes, we need to think more along those lines and i expect to read his thesis once he graduates from the war college. track me down! i want to have a conversation with you. susan: one more quick question, we are almost out of time.

>> great to see you again, i am from the stimson center. following on to the mental map question we have been following the newer movements that are p.r.c. led in southeast asia, such as the land bridge that goes across the new canal and connects to the gulf of thailand. chinese warships, how is the navy working with partners and allies to ensure that the status quo might not be changed? or towards constructively addressing changes? sec. del toro: we need to strive towards peaceful coexistence. i'm not saying that other nations should not be trading with china or economic relations with china, they should, we do, we have to find a sustainable relationship with china moving forward. we have to ensure that it is not just being done for nefarious

reasons. the national security of the united states, national security interest of the united states, the national security and economic interest of our allies and partners as well too. that is what we strive for. if you have it figured out, my personnel leads between engagement, we need to be forward and engaged and conversing with her allies and partners. with our potential adversaries. hopefully through diplomacy so that we can actually avoid conflict and war in the future. i think that is a strategy that president biden is trying to build towards and in every part of the world and i think that is where we will support them on every endeavor. susan: time remaining is short. i have one final question. very quickly. i would like to end where we started with the upcoming

250 years of impact of the navy. you mentioned the first secretary of the navy appointed by john adams was in 1798. what would he think of our navy today? what advice would? he provide in that context, how do you juggle all of the priorities you have? sec. del toro: i have a loving wife, we have been married 40 years and she is extraordinary. the last question, perhaps, but look, i think the cemetery would be proud of what we have built today. -- secretary would be part of what we have built today. we look at the u.s. constitution, when it was built, it was at the bleeding edge of innovation and technology, old ironside, cannonballs, it was constructed in such a way

because it was a naval architecture and the materials we used to construct a ship, the cannonballs were ineffective basically. there lies the beauty of even innovation and technology then. it is all about innovation and technology. asymmetrically, how can we make our fleet that much more capable, that much more modern, we may not be able to just build an endless number of ships but the ones we are building, let us make them so powerful people will still lean on them and our investments in cyberspace, cybersecurity, that space as well too which has a symmetric impact on our adversaries' ability to wage war and we do not talk about that but that leans heavily in those areas as well too. i would argue that the secretary would be quite happy with where we are today with our aircraft

carriers. we have 89 ships under construction in the united states, i'm not sure that you would be able to fathom. we have challenges? of course we do. it was environmental and less technical. we will overcome those with the right spirit and my cup is always half-full and i'm confident we will be able to meet the national defense requirements the president has called us to meet. susan: i think all of you for being with us today and join me -- i thank you all of you for being with us today and help me in thanking the secretary. [applause] thank you. [indiscernible]