CNO Remarks at Modern Day Marine (As Prepared)

Good afternoon, everybody.

Charles, thank you for that introduction, and thank you to the Marine Corps Association for having me here today.

To our Marines, Sailors, industry teammates, members of Congress, interagency partners, and all those committed to strengthening our naval services-thank you for what you do.

I'll tell you right up front - it's a little unusual being the only Navy uniform in a room full of Marines.

But I've learned something over the years: if you find yourself surrounded by Marines, you are either exactly where you need to be - or you're about to get voluntold for something.

Either way, it usually works out.

All kidding aside, it's an honor to be here with our brothers and sisters in the Corps.

I have always respected the Marine Corps for its clarity. Marines know their purpose. They know their standards. They know how to move toward the sound of the guns.

That matters right now. Because these are serious times.

The global security environment is becoming more dangerous, more contested, and less predictable. Our adversaries are modernizing. Precision weapons are proliferating. Autonomous systems are expanding. The maritime domain is increasingly central to competition.

And the demand for American naval power continues to rise.

When the Nation needs presence, it calls the naval force. When it needs deterrence, it calls the naval force. When it needs options tonight - not six months from now - it calls the naval force.

That has always been true. What is changing is the pace.

While this room knows all too well - the nature of war, the nature of delivering violence never really changes - but the character of war is evolving quickly. So, we have to evolve quickly too.

Today I want to talk about how the Navy is adapting, why the Marine Corps is indispensable to that effort, and how together we will build the integrated naval force our Nation needs.

Earlier this year I released the Navy Fighting Instructions.

That document begins with a simple premise: Once you understand why our Navy matters, only then can you define what our Navy and Marine Corps team must deliver.

To the Joint Force, we deliver sea control and sea denial. We deliver maritime security. We deliver tailored and credible deterrence. We deliver global replenishment. We deliver freedom of maneuver. We deliver power projection.

To the American people, we help assure homeland defense, preserve global stability, and protect the maritime trade that supports their prosperity.

But let me be crystal clear. The Navy does not deliver that value alone. We deliver it as a Navy-Marine Corps team.

That team is unique in the Joint Force. We can remain forward. We can maneuver sovereignly. We can operate without relying on host-nation basing. We can scale from competition to crisis to conflict. And we can do it from international waters.

That matters.

No one else combines persistent maritime presence with expeditionary forcible-entry capability like the Navy and Marine Corps.

No one else can put a credible combined-arms team over the horizon, sustain it, maneuver it, and employ it on demand.

That is differentiated value.

From well decks to flight decks. From sea lanes to littorals. From deterrence patrols to combat operations. Our services are stronger together than either could ever be apart.

And after 250 years of shared history, shared sacrifice, and shared blood-that remains true today. Frankly, without Marines, there is no complete Navy story.

Now let me talk about how we build the force for this era.

I've said many times: we do not get to build a perfect fleet. You fight with the one you have.

We build with finite resources. Finite time. Finite industrial capacity. And imperfect certainty about the future.

So instead of chasing perfection, we build smart.

That is the logic behind the Golden Fleet Initiative.

The Golden Fleet Initiative is composed of three primary parts with the purpose of delivering the Future Fleet Design:

All-domain general-purpose forces plus Tailored forces plus Tailored offsets.

Those three together improve return on investment, survivability, fungibility, combat effectiveness, and lethality.

Our carriers, submarines, surface combatants, amphibs, aviation, and logistics forces remain foundational. That is our main battle force.

But if every problem gets answered with our most exquisite force, eventually we create inefficiency, strain readiness, and reduce options.

So, we hedge.

The Hedge Strategy is about using our force more intelligently. It's about preserving combat mass while building adaptability. It's about having more arrows in the quiver. It's about giving commanders relevant options instead of binary choices of all or nothing.

The Marine Corps is central to this concept.

Marine Littoral Regiments. Stand-in forces. Expeditionary advanced bases. Distributed sensing. Long-range fires. Forward logistics. These are not side projects. They are core naval warfighting capabilities.

And that is exactly where we need to be headed.

Let me make these ideas practical.

Tailored forces are purpose-built formations configured for a specific mission, region, or contingency.

Not theoretical. Operational. Ready. Relevant.

Maybe that is chokepoint defense. Maybe it is maritime interdiction. Maybe it is crisis response. Maybe it is counter-mine warfare. Maybe it is distributed sea denial.

The point is this: A future combatant commander should never be forced into two bad options - do nothing, or request the most expensive, longest lead time, and largest force package we can generate.

We need a middle game.

That middle game must be scalable, deployable, lethal, and responsive.

And I believe the future ARG/MEU has enormous opportunities here.

We should be asking hard questions:

What can we modularize? What can we certify faster? What capabilities can embark temporarily? How do we tailor Navy and Marine Force packages by theater? How do we integrate unmanned systems with embarked Marines? How do we make an ARG harder to target and easier to employ?

Those are the right questions.

Because our adversaries are moving fast. And if we are honest, bureaucracy can move really slow. So, we need to move with urgency and better risk-taking strategies.

To do this requires the next concept of the Golden Fleet Initiative and that's where tailored offsets fit into the design.

These are scalable, adaptable, lower-cost capabilities that create outsized operational advantage.

They can be attritable. They can be expendable. They can be rapidly iterated. They can absorb risk that we should not place on Sailors and Marines when other options exist.

Examples include:

Unmanned surface vessels for sensing, screening, deception, and strike support.

Unmanned underwater vehicles for mine warfare and undersea awareness.

Autonomous logistics systems.

Counter-drone interceptors.

Distributed sensor networks.

These systems are not here to replace warfighters. They are here to extend warfighters' lethality.

They create reach. They create mass. They create time. They create dilemmas for the enemy.

And I want to be direct on something. The Navy and Marine Corps should not be independently building two versions of the same autonomous future.

Where requirements overlap, we should converge. Where standards matter, we should align. Where speed matters, we should integrate.

The Department has real opportunity right now to move faster than legacy acquisition models would suggest. But only if we stay disciplined and connected.

To our industry teammates, hear me clearly:

I do not need another flawless slide deck. I need capability that works in saltwater. I need systems that can survive jamming. I need payloads that can be maintained by operators. I need software that updates quickly over the air. I need platforms that can deploy now - not in some mythical future block upgrade.

The battlefield grades on performance, not marketing.

And when we get autonomy right, it will amplify both our Sailors and Marines in ways we are only beginning to imagine and appreciate.

But none of that works without readiness. At the center of Blue-Green integration are our amphibious ships.

These ships matter. They are maneuver space. They are sovereign access. They are command-and-control nodes. They are aviation platforms. They are logistics hubs. They are afloat staging bases. They are crisis response platforms. And when required, they are how Marine combat power gets delivered where it matters, when it matters.

They are the connective tissue between how we deliver the full suite of combined Navy and Marine Corps combat power.

The Commandant has been clear and consistent on the importance of sustaining amphibious presence - and he is right.

A credible 3.0 ARG/MEU presence matters. It matters to deterrence. It matters to competition. It matters to crisis response. It matters to campaign credibility with allies and partners. And it matters because once a crisis starts, generating naval presence from home station is always harder than sustaining it forward.

I support this objective fully.

But I will also level with you. We do not get there through slogans. We do not get there by simply restating requirements. We do not get there through problem admiration.

We get there through maintenance performance. We get there through trained crews. We get there through parts on the shelf. We get there through shipyard throughput. We get there through industrial workforce capacity. We get there through disciplined force generation.

Readiness is math. Readiness is leadership. Readiness is accountability.

Today we have enough ships on paper to suggest capacity, but paper readiness does not deploy. A ship in extended maintenance does not count the same as a ship underway. A ship waiting on long-lead material does not deter. A ship short on certifications does not respond.

That is why this challenge requires honesty.

For too long, amphibious readiness has absorbed the cumulative effects of aging systems, deferred maintenance, supply-chain friction, workforce shortages, and a high operational tempo. Any one of those factors is manageable. Taken together, they become corrosive.

So, we are attacking the problem directly - attacking this problem together.

That is why we established the Amphibious Force Readiness Board. Its purpose is simple:

Increase operational availability.

Reduce maintenance delays.

Prioritize modernization that actually improves readiness.

Improve accountability across the enterprise.

Better synchronize Navy and Marine Corps demand signals.

And, generate more usable presence from the force we already have.

This is not a study group. It's an action body.

We are looking at every lever available to us - public yards, private yards, contracting timelines, class maintenance planning, spare parts forecasting, training pipelines, deployment sequencing, and where force generation models need to evolve.

Because if the current model is not producing the readiness we need, then the model needs to change.

I have said before that responsiveness must become our standard. That applies here too.

We cannot accept a force generation system that is optimized for process but underdelivers on combat credibility. We need a system that gets combat-ready amphibs to commanders when needed.

We are already seeing encouraging indicators. Some of our West Coast ships are making real gains. The East Coast is pushing hard as well. Frankly, a little healthy competition between coasts is not a bad thing.

But we are not declaring victory early. This will take sustained pressure and leadership from the Pentagon to the Commanding Officers on the waterfront.

And let me make one final point on amphibs.

These ships should never be discussed as niche platforms. They are strategic platforms. They give the President options short of escalation. They reassure allies. They complicate adversary planning. They put Marines where others cannot go. They preserve freedom of maneuver in contested spaces.

That is strategic value.

So, when we talk amphibious readiness, we are not talking about administrative metrics. We are talking about warfighting advantage.

An unavailable ship does not deter. A delayed ship does not respond. A hollow ship does not fight.

We understand that. And we are going to stay after it.

Let me close with four thoughts.

First, flexibility is now a requirement. Not a luxury. The force that adapts fastest will hold the initiative.

Second, integration beats optimization. If every organization optimizes only for itself, the joint force becomes slower and weaker. But when we align around mission outcomes, everybody wins.

Third, urgency matters. We are not preparing for some distant competition. We are living in it right now. The decisions we make over the next few years on readiness, munitions, autonomy, force design, maintenance, and training will shape maritime power for decades.

Fourth - and most important - people remain our decisive advantage.

I have seen Sailors and Marines solve impossible problems. I have seen chiefs, gunnery sergeants, lieutenants, and captains outperform the most elegant plans ever written. I have seen deckplate innovation beat bureaucracy every time.

That gives me confidence.

Because hardware matters. Concepts matter. Budgets matter. But people matter most.

And when I look at this Navy-Marine Corps team, I like our chances.

The American people expect us to preserve peace through strength. They expect us to deter aggression. They expect us to fight and win if called.

They deserve nothing less.

Thank you for your service, thank you for your partnership, and I look forward to your questions.