Transcript
ADMIRAL MICHAEL MULLEN: So, what about the future? The future, I think -- and Carlos talked about a new era -- I really believe we are in a new era, that we have gone through that membrane, if you will, of what used to be, and we are now looking at severe, significant challenges in the future and leading them clearly is the issue of the extreme radical Islamists, and I think that's going to be around for some time. And we've talked about this being a long war. I think it's going to be -- it is a generational war, and it isn't going to end soon, and we need to stay focused on that and press forward on that.
I've tried to couch the future discussion, and I've looked at it over many months now, is what are we going to do after Iraq? What are we going to do after Afghanistan? And I truly believe we will bring those forces home. I'm not standing here today to predict exactly when that will occur. I think we need to do that very carefully when it does occur. I believe that we cannot have the Middle East and Southwest Asia turn into a cauldron of expanding violence, and somehow we've got to make sure that as we come home that we don't leave it, because I think if we do that it won't be that long before we'll go back.
So, clearly, that's a focus area, but it's not just about that part of the world right now. We've got multiple challenges in many, many domains and many, many theaters. Now, I call the seas the -- one of the terms that we use is "global commons." They're a part of the connective tissues of nations, and we are a maritime nation. I talked -- about 18 months ago I made a speech up in Newport at an international sea power symposium and talked about this idea of a thousand-ship navy; and we had 72 countries represented there, 49 chiefs of navies and coast guards from around the world, and this idea - this concept of a fleet in being that focuses on global partnerships, recognizing common challenges -- has taken on a tremendous amount of both energy and interest and activity throughout the world, more so than I realized that it would, whether it's in the Mediterranean, whether it's Indonesia and Malaysia and that part of the world, or whether it's in Africa.
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