UNCLASSIFIED// ROUTINE R 211219Z FEB 20 MID510000956222U FM SECNAV WASHINGTON DC TO ALNAV INFO SECNAV WASHINGTON DC CNO WASHINGTON DC CMC WASHINGTON DC BT UNCLAS ALNAV 020/20 MSGID/GENADMIN/SECNAV WASHINGTON DC/-/FEB// SUBJ/SECNAV VECTOR 12// RMKS/1. Last week, I was honored to attend the funeral of General Paul X. Kelley, the 28th Commandant of the Marine Corps, held at Arlington National Cemetery. During the ceremony our current Commandant, General David Berger, told a compelling story about the virtue of strategic vision when coupled with principled determination. In his remarks, General Berger relayed how passionately Commandant Kelley advocated for the V-22 Osprey aircraft, and how his forceful defense of the program prevailed despite concerted attempts to kill it. General Kelley understood that the Osprey would provide for the type of inherent flexibility that would be necessary for success in the future. Although he could not be certain what that future might hold, he was confident that the increased speed, range, and adaptability of the Osprey would be critical. Recently, we learned how General Kelley’s foresight paid dividends decades into the future as Marines were able to respond quickly to the threats against the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. As General Berger explained, the superior agility of the Osprey was the main reason why the Embassy and associated Green Zone could be critically reinforced by our Marine forces quickly and when most needed. He praised General Kelley for his creativity and courageous vision, but most importantly for his grit in fighting for the operational agility he knew must define the Marines who would be called to serve well beyond his tenure as Commandant Marines who had not yet been born. Those lessons matter more than ever today, as we think about the kind of Navy and Marine Corps team we are currently designing for OUR OWN unpredictable future. Just like General Kelley, we can never know the exact parameters of every capability we may need 5, 10, or 20 years from now. But we DO know that our future naval force must include these attributes: a. More platforms that are lethal, and many that are less exquisite; b. Increased agility and Joint interoperability; c. Greater Navy-Marine Corps integration from strategic to tactical; d. Much longer-range conventional strike capacity and numbers; e. Continued, increased undersea dominance for the long run; f. Ability to win the competition for information every day, and... g. Resilience to fight and prevail when information is denied; h. Finally, a force that is affordable, planned within the budget we have, not the one we wish we had. 2. In Vector 6, I discussed my desire to accelerate our path to a naval force structure of 355 Plus ships within 10 years. I am still committed to this goal. Our recently completed Integrated Naval Force Structure Assessment (INFSA) provides us with a North Star in terms of the direction we must embark in shipbuilding, ship extensions, and new ship development. We will continually iterate and refine this force structure over time as it is informed through analysis, joint plans, war gaming, and experimentation. What has become obvious is that we cannot afford to build or sustain this 355-Plus structure, or something approaching it, within 10 years if we don’t first take a hard budgetary look at ourselves to determine what we can do without as we reimagine the future design of a more agile integrated naval force. That's why I have directed the Department of the Navy (DON) to conduct a Stem to Stern (S2S) Review over the next 45 days. During this effort, we will engage in an intense, purposeful sprint to find savings that we can reinvest to fill the budget gap that is currently inhibiting our ability to grow a ready and capable force for the future. Next week I will join the Naval Service Chiefs on Capitol Hill, defending the President’s Budget for Fiscal Year (FY) 21. The budget asks the taxpayers, through their representatives in the Congress, for $207.1 billion for the DON for FY21. Admittedly, this is a staggering amount of money. Yet even so, it unfortunately slows the growth of force structure building (i.e., more ships) in order to reinvest in current readiness and lethality. This means we made deliberate choices to increase operations and maintenance funding, acquire more weapons, spare parts, and fund long overdue and desperately needed shipyard repairs. No one is more unhappy about the fact that we are slowing our growth to 355 ships with this budget submission than I am, but I also know that the tough choices that were made will ensure that our Fleet is more ready than they have been since the attacks of 9/11. As Secretary of the Navy, I will not support a budget that produces a Navy and Marine Corps team that cannot fully defend itself. The safety of our Sailors and Marines should always be our highest priority and we should never compromise on that due to budget constraints. In the end, this budget submission is centrally about our Marines, Sailors, and their families. The resulting increased availability of parts, readiness enablers, weapons and ammunition, and maintenance capacity will better allow our people to do their jobs, defend themselves and their shipmates if they must, and return home safely and on time. Beyond this current budget, we now have a mandate, much like General Kelley, to build upon our own strategic vision with principled determination. As we conduct our DON S2S Review, we will also begin the work of assessing and iterating our INFSA, and develop a budget-informed plan to achieve a 355-Plus ship Navy within 10 years starting in FY22. You will be hearing more about this plan as it evolves. In the meantime, remember that just like in the case of the Osprey, the decisions we make today, and the bureaucratic fights which we may need to take on to defend them, will have profound effects upon the Navy and Marine Corps team we ask to go in harms way in the decades ahead. In this work, we must never, ever give up the ship! Go Navy and Marine Corps, and as always, Beat Army! 3. SECNAV Vectors are released each Friday to the entire DON. Previous Vectors can be viewed https://navylive.dodlive.mil/2020/01/02/secnav- vectors/. 4. Released by the Honorable Thomas B. Modly, Acting Secretary of the Navy.// BT #0001 NNNN UNCLASSIFIED//