[00:12] last month. The head of Nurad and
[00:14] Northcom, the military commands that
[00:17] defend North America, told Congress some
[00:20] of those mysterious drones seen flying
[00:22] inside the United States, may indeed
[00:25] have been spying. He did not say for
[00:28] whom. 60 Minutes has been looking into a
[00:31] series of eerily similar incidents going
[00:33] back years, including those attention
[00:36] getting flyovers in New Jersey recently.
[00:38] In each drones first appeared over
[00:41] restricted military or civilian sites,
[00:44] coming and going, often literally under
[00:47] the radar. The wakeup call came just
[00:50] over a year ago when drones invaded the
[00:52] skies above Langley Air Force Base in
[00:55] Virginia over 17 nights, forcing the
[00:58] relocation of our most advanced fighter
[01:00] jets. Our story starts with an
[01:03] eyewitness and an iPhone.
[01:06] Close around 7:00, I would say, I
[01:08] started seeing these reddish orange
[01:12] flashing lights that were starting to
[01:14] come in from the Virginia Beach area. It
[01:17] began slowly, like one at a time.
[01:20] Jonathan Butner's close encounter with
[01:22] drones came on December 14th, 2023. He
[01:26] was at his family's cabin on the James
[01:28] River in Virginia, about 100 miles south
[01:31] of Washington DC with a commanding view
[01:34] of several military installations across
[01:37] the water. They started really coming in
[01:40] like almost like on a conveyor belt. How
[01:42] many in total? I probably saw upwards of
[01:44] 40 plus. When I first saw that, I was
[01:47] like, th those are going directly over
[01:50] Langley Air Force Base. Langley is one
[01:53] of the most critical air bases on the
[01:55] east
[01:56] [Applause]
[01:57] coast. Home to dozens of F-22 Raptors,
[02:02] the most advanced stealth fighter jets
[02:04] ever built. Butner says from his perch,
[02:08] he has seen it all. I'm very familiar
[02:10] with all the different types of military
[02:12] craft. We have Blackhawks. We have the
[02:14] F-22s. And these were like nothing I've
[02:17] ever seen. Butner took these iPhone
[02:20] videos of the objects coming and going
[02:22] for nearly an hour and a half. These are
[02:25] the only public videos of the drones
[02:27] over Langley. From each other. Yes. He
[02:31] shared this video with the FBI for its
[02:33] investigation. And another Yes. The
[02:36] reports were coming in 20 to 30
[02:39] sightings, same time every evening, 30
[02:41] to 45 minutes after sunset. Retired
[02:44] four-star General Mark Kelly was the
[02:46] highest ranking officer at Langley to
[02:48] witness the swarm. A veteran fighter
[02:51] pilot, Kelly went up to the roof of a
[02:53] squadron headquarters for an
[02:55] unobstructed view of the airborne
[02:57] invaders. So, what did you see? Well,
[03:00] what you saw was different sizes of
[03:02] incursions of aircraft. You saw
[03:05] different altitudes, different air
[03:06] speeds. Some were rather loud, some
[03:08] weren't near as loud. What was the
[03:11] smallest one? What was the largest one?
[03:13] The smallest, you know, you're talking
[03:15] about a commercial size quadcopter. And
[03:18] then the largest ones are probably size
[03:21] what I would call a bass boat or a small
[03:23] car. The size of a small car. H. At the
[03:26] time, General Glenn Van Herk was joint
[03:29] commander of NORAD and Northcom, the
[03:32] military commands that protect North
[03:34] American airspace. He has since retired.
[03:37] I actually provided support in the form
[03:39] of fighters, uh, airborne warning and
[03:41] control platforms,
[03:43] uh, helicopters to try to further
[03:46] categorize what those drones were at the
[03:49] time.
[03:50] 10 months earlier, he ordered an F-22
[03:52] from Langley to shoot down that Chinese
[03:55] spy balloon over the Atlantic after it
[03:57] had sailed across the US. But this time,
[04:00] he found himself ill equipped to
[04:03] respond. NORAD's radar systems designed
[04:06] during the Cold War to detect high
[04:08] alitude air, space, or missile attacks
[04:11] were unable to detect low-flying drones
[04:15] that could be seen with the naked eye.
[04:17] Why don't we just shoot them down?
[04:19] Well, first you have to have the
[04:21] capability to detect, track, identify,
[04:24] make sure it's not a civilian airplane
[04:27] flying around. If you can do that, Bill,
[04:30] then it becomes a safety issue for the
[04:32] American public. Firing missiles in our
[04:36] homeland is not taken lightly. We're not
[04:38] able to track them. We're not able to
[04:42] see where they originate. No, it's a
[04:45] capability gap. Certainly, they can come
[04:48] and go from any direction. The FBI is
[04:50] looking at potential options, but they
[04:53] don't have an answer right now, and
[04:54] there haven't been answers for similar
[04:56] encroachments for more than 5 years.
[04:59] There are multiple UAS in vicinity up
[05:01] Hamilton CPA 100 ft in altitude off the
[05:04] bow. In 2019, naval warships training
[05:07] off the California coast were shadowed
[05:10] for weeks by dozens of drones. We have
[05:13] visual of four probable unidentified
[05:16] drones with course unknown and speed
[05:19] unknown. For years, the Pentagon did
[05:21] little to dispel speculation these
[05:24] images taken with night vision equipment
[05:26] were UFOs, but ship's logs show they
[05:30] were identified as drones at the time.
[05:33] And the Navy suspected they came from
[05:35] this Hong Kong flagged freighter sailing
[05:38] nearby, but couldn't prove it. Since
[05:41] then, the defense news site, the war
[05:43] zone, has documented dozens of drone
[05:46] intrusions at sensitive infrastructure
[05:48] and military installations. In 2019, the
[05:52] Palo Verde nuclear plant in Arizona, the
[05:55] largest power producer in the country.
[05:58] In 2024, an experimental weapons site in
[06:01] Southern California, where defense
[06:03] contractors are building the next
[06:05] generation of stealth bombers. Last
[06:07] December, the Army confirmed 11 drone
[06:10] sightings over the Pikatini Arsenal in
[06:13] northern New Jersey, where advanced
[06:15] weapons are designed and built. What is
[06:18] that? Which ignited a public frenzy with
[06:21] sightings of unidentified flying objects
[06:23] all over the region. New Jersey remains
[06:26] the epicenter of the drone mystery.
[06:29] While much of the country was fixated on
[06:31] New Jersey, another swarm of drones was
[06:34] disrupting operations at an air base in
[06:36] the UK where US nuclear weapons have
[06:39] been stored. Clearly, uh there is a
[06:43] military intelligence aspect of this.
[06:46] Republican Senator Roger Wicker of
[06:48] Mississippi is chairman of the Armed
[06:50] Services Committee that oversees the
[06:52] Pentagon. We talked to him this past
[06:55] December. Do you believe that these
[06:58] drones are a spying system, a spying
[07:02] platform? What would a logical person
[07:04] conclude
[07:07] that that these are spying incursions?
[07:11] And yet I I can tell you I I am privy to
[07:17] to classified briefings at the highest
[07:20] level. I think the Pentagon and the
[07:23] National Security Adviserss are still
[07:25] mystified. Still mystified? Yes. More
[07:29] alarming, with drones overhead, some of
[07:32] the F-22s stationed at Langley were
[07:35] moved to a nearby air base for their own
[07:38] protection. There's a new wartime
[07:40] reality. Drones that can spy can also
[07:43] destroy. Deep inside Russia, advanced
[07:47] aircraft have been destroyed by
[07:49] Ukrainian drones. General Van Herk told
[07:52] us drones could do the same thing here.
[07:55] I have seen video of drones in various
[07:58] sizes flying over uh the F-22 flight
[08:02] line at Langley. What's your reaction to
[08:04] that? They
[08:05] could drop ordinance on them, drop bombs
[08:08] on them. They could crash into them to
[08:10] disable them. Was that a concern?
[08:12] Absolutely. It's a concern. Small UAS or
[08:16] drones can do a myriad of missions.
[08:19] President Biden was informed of the
[08:21] Langley intrusions and meetings were
[08:23] held at the White House to figure out
[08:25] how to bring the drones down, but after
[08:28] 17 nights, the drone visitation stopped.
[08:32] A senior official in the Biden White
[08:34] House later downplayed the incident to
[08:36] 60 Minutes, saying it was likely the
[08:39] work of hobbyists. From what you
[08:42] saw, did you rule out that these might
[08:46] be hobbyists sending these drones up?
[08:49] No. It would be my assessment they
[08:51] weren't hobbyists because of the
[08:53] magnitude of the events, the sizes of
[08:56] some of the drones, and the duration.
[08:58] So, what's going on? Well, I wish I had
[09:01] the answer. It certainly could have a
[09:03] foreign nexus, a threat nexus. They
[09:06] could be doing anything from surveilling
[09:08] critical infrastructure
[09:10] uh just to the point of uh embarrassing
[09:13] us from the fact that they can do this
[09:15] on a day-to-day basis uh and then we're
[09:17] not able to do anything about it. In
[09:20] overseas war zones, the US military has
[09:23] broad authority to bring down menacing
[09:25] drones with gunfire, missiles, and
[09:28] electronic jamming. Here at home, any of
[09:32] those actions would pose a threat to
[09:34] civilians on the ground and in the air.
[09:37] Well, we certainly need new systems to
[09:40] to counter this threat. A year ago,
[09:43] General Gregory Guo, a combat veteran,
[09:46] took control of NORAD and Northcom. He
[09:49] ordered a 90-day assessment of
[09:51] operations and says the drones, or UAVs,
[09:54] at Langley became the centerpiece. We're
[09:57] the most powerful military on the face
[10:00] of the earth and yet drones
[10:04] could fly over a major air force base
[10:09] and we couldn't stop them. How is that
[10:12] possible? Well, I think the uh the
[10:15] threat got ahead of our ability to uh
[10:18] detect and and track the threat. I think
[10:21] all eyes u were rightfully overseas
[10:24] where UAVs were being used on oneway
[10:26] attack to attack US and coalition
[10:30] service members and the threat in the US
[10:34] probably caught us by surprise a little
[10:36] bit as it stands
[10:38] today. Could you detect a swarm of
[10:43] drones flying over or flying into the
[10:46] airspace at at Langley? Could you detect
[10:48] that today?
[10:50] at at at low altitude. Uh probably not
[10:55] with your standard uh FAA or um uh
[11:00] surveillance radars complicating his
[11:02] efforts bureaucracy. When the drones
[11:05] flew outside the perimeter of Langley
[11:08] Air Force Base, other agencies had
[11:10] jurisdiction. The Coast Guard, FAA, FBI,
[11:14] and local police. There was no one
[11:17] agency in charge. So, what did you
[11:19] determine went on at Langley? Well, that
[11:22] that uh that investigation is still
[11:25] ongoing. Uh so, I don't think we know uh
[11:29] entirely what happened. You know, when
[11:31] we hear things from the White House that
[11:32] it's not deemed a threat. It it seems to
[11:36] me that this is alarming. I mean, this
[11:40] is kind of hair on fire time. It it is
[11:42] alarming. And uh I would say that our
[11:46] hair is on fire here in in Northcom in a
[11:48] controlled way and we're moving out
[11:50] extremely quickly. This past November,
[11:53] General Guo was given the authority to
[11:55] cut through the red tape and coordinate
[11:58] counter drone efforts across multiple
[12:00] government agencies. He says new, more
[12:04] sensitive radar systems are being
[12:06] installed at strategic bases and
[12:08] Northcom is developing what it calls
[12:11] flyaway kits with the latest anti- drone
[12:14] technology to be delivered to bases
[12:16] besieged by drones. My goal is inside of
[12:19] a year that we would have uh the flyaway
[12:22] kit capability to augment uh the
[12:24] services and the installations if
[12:26] they're necessary. So within a year,
[12:28] were Langley to happen again, there'd be
[12:32] some ability to respond. That's my goal.
[12:37] His predecessor, Glenn Van Herk, says
[12:39] the Pentagon, White House, and Congress
[12:42] have underestimated this massive
[12:44] vulnerability for far too long. It's
[12:47] been one year since Langley had their
[12:51] drone
[12:51] incursion, and we don't have the
[12:54] policies and laws in place to deal with
[12:56] this. That's not a sense of urgency. Why
[12:58] do you think that is?
[13:01] I think it's because there's a
[13:03] perception that this is fortress
[13:05] America, two oceans on the east and west
[13:08] with friendly nations north and south,
[13:11] and nobody's going to attack our
[13:13] homeland. It's time we move beyond that
[13:15] assumption.
[13:25] Earlier this summer, the Director of
[13:27] National Intelligence and Secretary of
[13:29] Defense released a highly anticipated,
[13:32] unclassified report about something the
[13:34] Pentagon calls unidentified aerial
[13:37] phenomena or UAP, more commonly known as
[13:41] UFOs. The government's grudging
[13:43] acknowledgement of 144 mysterious
[13:46] sightings documented by our military,
[13:49] comes after decades of public denial.
[13:52] But as we first reported in May,
[13:54] whatever is trespassing in our skies and
[13:57] seas poses a serious safety risk to our
[14:00] service men and women as well as our
[14:02] national
[14:04] security. So what you're telling me is
[14:08] that UFOs,
[14:11] unidentified flying objects, are
[14:14] real. Bill, I think we're beyond that
[14:16] already. The government has already
[14:18] stated for the record that they're real.
[14:19] I'm not telling you that. The United
[14:20] States government is telling you that
[14:23] Luis Alzando spent 20 years running
[14:25] military intelligence operations
[14:27] worldwide in Afghanistan, the Middle
[14:30] East, and
[14:31] Guantanamo. He hadn't given UFOs a
[14:33] second thought until 2008. That's when
[14:36] he was asked to join something at the
[14:38] Pentagon called the Advanced Aerospace
[14:41] Threat Identification Program or ATIP.
[14:44] The mission of ATIP was quite simple.
[14:46] was to collect and analyze information
[14:49] involving anomalous uh aerial vehicles.
[14:52] What I guess in the vernacular you you
[14:53] call them UFOs. We call them UAPs. You
[14:56] know how this sounds. It sounds nutty,
[14:59] wacky. Look, Bill, I I'm not I'm not
[15:02] telling you that that it doesn't sound
[15:04] wacky. What I'm telling you is real. The
[15:06] question is what is it? What are its
[15:08] intentions? What are its capabilities?
[15:11] Buried away in the Pentagon, ATIP was
[15:13] part of a $22 million program sponsored
[15:17] by then Senate Majority Leader Harry
[15:19] Reid to investigate UFOs. When Alzando
[15:23] took over in 2010, he focused on the
[15:26] national security implications of
[15:28] unidentified aerial phenomena documented
[15:30] by US service members. Imagine a
[15:34] technology that can do 6 to 700 G-forces
[15:37] that can fly at 13,000 miles an hour
[15:40] that uh it can evade radar and that can
[15:43] fly through air and water and possibly
[15:46] space and oh by the way has no obvious
[15:49] signs of propulsions, no wings, no
[15:51] control surfaces and yet still can defy
[15:54] the natural effects of Earth's gravity.
[15:56] That's precisely what we're seeing.
[15:57] Alzando tells us ATIP was a loose-nit
[16:00] mix of scientists, electroloptical
[16:03] engineers, avionics, and intelligence
[16:05] experts, often working part-time. They
[16:08] combed through data and records and
[16:11] analyzed videos like this.
[16:15] [Music]
[16:18] A Navy air crew struggles to lock on to
[16:20] a fastmoving object off the US Atlantic
[16:23] coast in 2015.
[16:25] [Applause]
[16:28] Recently released images may not
[16:30] convince UFO skeptics, but the Pentagon
[16:32] admits it doesn't know what in the world
[16:35] this is, or this or this.
[16:41] So, what do you say to the skeptics?
[16:43] It's refracted
[16:44] light, weather balloons, a rocket being
[16:49] launched, Venus. In some cases, there
[16:52] are are simple explanations for what
[16:54] people are witnessing, but there are
[16:56] some that that are not. We're not just
[16:59] simply jumping to a conclusion that's
[17:01] saying, "Oh, that's a UAP out there."
[17:03] We're going through our due diligence.
[17:05] Is it some sort of new type of cruise
[17:06] missile technology that China has
[17:08] developed? Is it some sort of high
[17:10] altitude balloon that's conducting
[17:12] reconnaissance? Ultimately, when you
[17:14] have exhausted all those what-ifs and
[17:17] you're still left with with the fact
[17:19] that this is in our airspace and it's
[17:21] real, that's when it becomes compelling
[17:24] and that's when it becomes problematic.
[17:27] Former Navy pilot Lieutenant Ryan Graves
[17:29] calls whatever is out there a security
[17:32] risk. He told us his F-18 squadron began
[17:36] seeing UAPs hovering over restricted
[17:39] airspace southeast of Virginia Beach in
[17:42] 2014 when they updated their jet's
[17:44] radar, making it possible to zero in
[17:47] with infrared targeting cameras. So,
[17:50] you're seeing it both with the radar and
[17:52] with the infrared, and that tells you
[17:55] that there is something out there.
[17:57] Pretty hard to spoof that. These
[17:59] photographs were taken in 2019 in the
[18:02] same area. The Pentagon confirms these
[18:05] are images of objects it can't identify.
[18:08] Lieutenant Graves told us pilots
[18:11] training off the Atlantic coast see
[18:13] things like that all the time. Every
[18:16] day. Every day for at least a couple
[18:19] years. Wait a minute. Every day for a
[18:21] couple of years. Mhm. You know, I don't
[18:23] see an exhaust pool. including this one
[18:26] off the coast of Jacksonville, Florida
[18:28] in 2015. Captured on a targeting camera
[18:31] by members of Graves Squadron. If
[18:33] there's another thing, it's rotating.
[18:38] My
[18:39] gosh. They're all going against the
[18:42] wind. The wind's 120 knots
[18:44] west. Dude, you can sort of hear the
[18:47] surprise in their voices. You certainly
[18:48] can. They seem to have broke character a
[18:50] bit. Uh, and we're just kind of amazed
[18:52] at what they were seeing. What do you
[18:54] think when you see something like this?
[18:56] This is a difficult one to explain. You
[18:58] have rotation, you have high altitudes,
[19:01] you have propulsion, right? I don't
[19:03] know. I don't know what it is, frankly.
[19:05] He told us pilots speculate they are one
[19:08] of three things. Secret US technology,
[19:12] an adversary spy vehicle, or something
[19:15] otherworldly.
[19:16] I would say, you know, the highest
[19:18] probability is it's a threat observation
[19:20] program. Could it be Russian or Chinese
[19:23] technology? I don't see why not. Are you
[19:26] alarmed? I I am worried. Uh, frankly,
[19:29] you know, if these were tactical jets
[19:30] from another country that were hanging
[19:32] out up there, it would be a massive
[19:33] issue. But because it looks slightly
[19:35] different, we're not willing to actually
[19:37] look at the problem in the face. Uh,
[19:39] we're we're happy to just ignore the
[19:41] fact that these are out there watching
[19:42] us every day. The government has ignored
[19:45] it, at least publicly, since closing its
[19:47] Project Blue Book investigation in 1969.
[19:51] But that began to change after an
[19:53] incident off Southern California in
[19:55] 2004, which was documented by radar, by
[19:58] camera, and four naval aviators. We
[20:01] spoke to two of them, David Fraver, a
[20:04] graduate of the Top Gun Naval Flight
[20:06] School and commander of the F-18
[20:09] squadron on the USS Nimttz. And flying
[20:11] at his wing, Lieutenant Alex Dietrich,
[20:14] who has never spoken publicly about the
[20:16] encounter. I never wanted to be on
[20:19] national TV. No offense. So why are you
[20:22] doing this? Because I was in a
[20:24] government aircraft because I was on the
[20:27] clock and so I feel a responsibility to
[20:30] to share what I can and it is
[20:32] unclassified.
[20:35] It was November 2004 and the USS Nimtt's
[20:38] carrier strike group was training about
[20:41] 100 miles southwest of San Diego. For a
[20:44] week, the advanced new radar on a nearby
[20:47] ship, the USS Princeton, had detected
[20:49] what operators called multiple anomalous
[20:52] aerial vehicles over the horizon,
[20:55] descending 80,000 ft in less than a
[20:57] second.
[21:00] On November 14th, Fraver and Dietrich,
[21:02] each with a weapon system officer in the
[21:05] back seat, were diverted to
[21:07] investigate. They found an area of roing
[21:10] white water the size of a 737 in an
[21:14] otherwise calm blue sea. So, as we're
[21:17] looking at this, her backseater says,
[21:20] "Hey, Skipper, do you?" And about that
[21:23] got out. I said, "Dude, do you do you
[21:25] see that thing down there?" And we saw
[21:27] this little white tic-tac- looking
[21:29] object and it's just kind of moving
[21:31] above the white water area. As Dietrich
[21:33] circled above, Fraver went in for a
[21:36] closer look. Sort of spiraling down. The
[21:39] tic tac still pointing north south. It
[21:41] goes and just turns abruptly and starts
[21:44] mirroring me. So, as I'm coming down, it
[21:46] starts coming up. So, it's it's
[21:48] mimicking your moves. Yeah. It was aware
[21:50] we were there. He said it was about the
[21:52] size of his F-18 with no markings, no
[21:55] wings, no exhaust plumes. I want to see
[21:58] how close I can get. So I go like this
[22:00] and it's climbing still and when it gets
[22:03] right in front of me, it just
[22:04] disappears. Disappears. Disappears like
[22:07] gone. It had sped off. What are you
[22:10] thinking? So your your mind tries to
[22:13] make sense of it. I'm going to
[22:14] categorize this as maybe a helicopter or
[22:17] maybe a drone. And when it disappeared,
[22:20] I mean, it was just Did your back
[22:22] seaters see this, too? Yeah. Oh, yeah.
[22:24] There was four of us in the airplanes
[22:26] literally watching this thing for
[22:28] roughly about 5 minutes. Seconds later,
[22:30] the Princeton reacquired the target 60
[22:33] miles away. Another crew managed to
[22:36] briefly lock on to it with a targeting
[22:38] camera before it zipped off again. You
[22:41] know, I think that over beers, we've
[22:43] sort of said, "Hey, man, if I saw this
[22:46] solo, I don't know that I would have
[22:48] come back and said anything because it
[22:49] sounds so crazy when I say it." You
[22:52] understand that reaction? I do. I've had
[22:55] some people tell me, you know, when you
[22:56] say that, you can sound crazy. And I'll
[22:58] be hon.
[23:05] Yes. Oh, there's there's definitely
[23:07] something that I don't know who's
[23:09] building it, who's got the technology,
[23:11] who's got the brains, but there's
[23:12] there's something out there that was
[23:15] better than our airplane. The air crew
[23:18] filed reports. Then, like the mysterious
[23:21] flying object, the Nimtts encountered
[23:24] disappeared. Nothing was said or done
[23:26] officially for five years until Lou
[23:29] Alzando came across the story and
[23:32] investigated. We spend millions of
[23:34] dollars in training these these pilots
[23:37] and they are seeing something that they
[23:38] can't explain. Furthermore, that
[23:41] information is being backed up on
[23:42] electrooptical data like gun camera
[23:44] footage and by radar data. Now, to me,
[23:47] that's compelling. Inside the Pentagon,
[23:49] his findings were met with skepticism.
[23:52] AIP's funding was eliminated in 2012.
[23:55] But Alzando says he and a handful of
[23:58] others kept the mission alive until
[24:00] finally frustrated, he quit the Pentagon
[24:03] in 2017, but not before getting these
[24:07] three videos declassified. And then
[24:10] things took a stranger turn. I tried to
[24:13] help my colleague Lu Alzando elevate the
[24:15] issue in the department and actually get
[24:16] it to the Secretary of Defense.
[24:18] Christopher Melon served as deputy
[24:20] assistant secretary of defense for
[24:22] intelligence for presidents Clinton and
[24:24] George W. Bush and had access to top
[24:27] secret government programs. So it's not
[24:29] us. That's one thing we know. We know
[24:32] that. I can say that with a very high
[24:33] degree of confidence in part because of
[24:35] the positions I held in the department
[24:37] and I know the process. Melon says he
[24:40] grew concerned nothing was being done
[24:42] about UAPs. So he decided to do
[24:46] something. In 2017, as a private
[24:48] citizen, he surreptitiously acquired the
[24:51] three Navy videos had declassified and
[24:55] leaked them to the New York Times. It's
[24:58] bizarre and unfortunate that someone
[25:01] like myself has to do something like
[25:03] that to get a national security issue
[25:05] like this on the agenda. He joined
[25:07] forces with now civilian Lou Alzando and
[25:10] they started to tell their story to
[25:12] anybody who would listen to newspapers,
[25:15] the History Channel, to members of
[25:17] Congress. We knew and understood that
[25:19] you had to go to the public, get the
[25:21] public interested to get Congress
[25:22] interested to then circle back to the
[25:24] defense department and get them to start
[25:26] taking a look at it. And now it is. Last
[25:30] year, the Pentagon resurrected ATIP.
[25:33] It's now called the UAP Task Force.
[25:36] Service members now are encouraged to
[25:38] report strange encounters, and the
[25:41] Senate wants answers. Anything that
[25:43] enters an airspace that's not supposed
[25:45] to be there is a threat. After receiving
[25:48] classified briefings on UAPs, Senator
[25:51] Marco Rubio called for a detailed
[25:53] analysis. This past December, while he
[25:56] was still head of the intelligence
[25:58] committee, he asked the director of
[26:00] national intelligence and the Pentagon
[26:02] to present Congress an unclassified
[26:05] report by next month. This is a bizarre
[26:08] issue. The Pentagon and other branches
[26:10] of the military have a long history of
[26:12] sort of dismissing this. What makes you
[26:15] think that this time is going to be
[26:16] different? I mean, we're going to find
[26:18] out when we get that report. You know,
[26:20] there's a stigma on Capitol Hill. I
[26:21] mean, some of my colleagues are very
[26:23] interested in this topic and some kind
[26:25] of, you know, giggle when when you bring
[26:27] it up, but I I I don't think we can
[26:29] allow the stigma to keep us from having
[26:31] an answer to very fundamental question.
[26:32] What do you want us to do about this? I
[26:35] want us to take it seriously and have a
[26:36] process to take it seriously. I want us
[26:38] to have a process to analyze the data
[26:40] every time it comes in. That there be a
[26:42] place where this is cataloged and
[26:43] constantly analyzed until we get some
[26:45] answers. Maybe it has a very simple
[26:47] answer.
[26:49] Um, maybe it doesn't.
[26:53] A few weeks after our story aired, the
[26:55] director of national intelligence
[26:57] released an unclassified report saying
[27:00] UAP probably lack a single explanation,
[27:03] but that some quote appear to
[27:05] demonstrate advanced technology meriting
[27:08] further analysis.
[27:19] The United States Navy helped secure
[27:21] victory in two world wars and the Cold
[27:24] War. Today, the Navy remains a
[27:26] formidable fighting force. But even
[27:28] officers within the service have
[27:30] questioned its readiness. While the US
[27:32] spent 20 years fighting land wars in
[27:35] Iraq and Afghanistan, the Pentagon
[27:37] watched China, its greatest geopolitical
[27:40] rival of the 21st century, build the
[27:43] largest navy in the world. China has
[27:46] threatened to use that navy to invade
[27:48] Taiwan, an important American ally. As
[27:51] tensions with China continue to rise, we
[27:54] wanted to know more about the current
[27:56] state of the US Navy, how it's trying to
[27:58] deter China. And as we first reported in
[28:01] March, preparing for the possibility of
[28:04] war,
[28:08] the Navy's always on alert. Onethird of
[28:11] the Navy is always deployed and
[28:14] operating at all times. The Navy's
[28:16] mustering right now about 300 ships and
[28:19] there are about 100 ships at sea right
[28:21] now all around the globe. Admiral Samuel
[28:24] Paparro commands the USPacific Fleet,
[28:27] whose 200 ships and 150,000 sailors and
[28:31] civilians make up 60% of the entire US
[28:34] Navy. We met him in February on the
[28:37] aircraft carrier USS Nimmits, deployed
[28:40] near the US territory of Guam, southeast
[28:43] of Taiwan and the People's Republic of
[28:45] China or PRC. You've been operating as a
[28:48] naval officer for 40 years. How has
[28:51] operating in the Western Pacific
[28:53] changed? In the early 2000s, the PRC
[28:56] Navy mustered about 37 vessels. Today,
[29:00] they're mustering 350 vessels. In March,
[29:04] China's new foreign minister, Chin Gong,
[29:07] delivered a stern warning to the US. He
[29:10] said that if Washington does not change
[29:12] course in its stance towards China,
[29:15] conflict and confrontation is
[29:17] inevitable.
[29:18] This past August, when then Speaker of
[29:20] the House Nancy Pelosi became the most
[29:23] senior US political figure to visit
[29:25] Taiwan in 25 years, China called it a
[29:28] blatant
[29:30] provocation. The People's Liberation
[29:32] Army fired ballistic missiles into the
[29:35] sea around Taiwan and encircled the
[29:37] island with aircraft and warships. So,
[29:40] are Chinese warships now operating
[29:43] closer to Taiwan after Nancy Pelosy's
[29:45] visit? Yes.
[29:48] The best guess anyone has about China's
[29:51] ultimate intentions for Taiwan comes
[29:53] from the CIA. According to its
[29:55] intelligence assessment, China's
[29:57] President Xi Jinping has ordered the
[30:00] People's Liberation Army to be prepared
[30:02] to take back the island by force by
[30:05] 2027. And if China invades Taiwan, what
[30:09] will the US Navy do? It's a decision of
[30:12] the President of the United States and a
[30:13] decision of the Congress. It's our duty
[30:16] to be ready for that. But the bulk of
[30:20] the United States Navy will be deployed
[30:23] rapidly to the Western Pacific to come
[30:26] to the aid of Taiwan if the order comes
[30:29] to aid Taiwan in thwarting that
[30:32] invasion. Is the US Navy ready? We're
[30:34] ready. Yes. Uh I'll never admit to being
[30:39] ready enough. Yes. President Biden has
[30:42] declared four times, including on 60
[30:44] Minutes, that the US military would
[30:47] defend Taiwan, which is a democracy and
[30:50] the world's leading producer of advanced
[30:52] microchips. 604. To reach the USS
[30:56] Nimmitz, we first traveled to America's
[30:58] westernmost territory, the island of
[31:01] Guam in the middle of the Pacific.
[31:04] Guam was taken by Imperial Japan two
[31:07] days after the attack on Pearl Harbor in
[31:10] 1941. US Marines recaptured it two and a
[31:13] half years later. And the island about
[31:15] the size of Chicago became an
[31:17] indispensable strategic foothold in the
[31:20] Western Pacific as it remains
[31:22] today. From Guam, we boarded a Navy C2
[31:26] Greyhound. The Cold War era transport
[31:28] plane takes people and supplies back and
[31:30] forth from land to the carrier.
[31:35] It was a short flight to the ship and an
[31:39] even shorter landing.
[31:43] Incredible. First COD landing. Yes. Oh,
[31:46] very nice. Certain operations before
[31:48] Admiral Paparo rose to lead the Pacific
[31:51] Fleet. He flew jets and graduated from
[31:54] the school known as Top Gun. When you
[31:56] talk about ships, what's the most
[31:58] powerful in the US Navy? It's an
[32:00] aircraft carrier and its airwing is
[32:03] capable of 150 strike or air-to-air
[32:06] sorties per day with uh at its surge
[32:09] levels the ability to deliver 900
[32:12] precision guided munitions every day and
[32:16] reloadable every night. So even though
[32:19] China now has the largest navy in the
[32:21] world, they don't have anything like
[32:23] this in terms of aircraft carriers. They
[32:25] do not. but they're working towards it
[32:27] and they have they have two operational
[32:29] aircraft carriers right now. That's
[32:31] China's two dieselfueled carriers to the
[32:34] US's 11 nuclearpowered ones that can
[32:37] carry a total of about a thousand attack
[32:40] aircraft, more than the navies of every
[32:42] other nation on Earth combined. I'll
[32:45] tell you this, we are here to stay right
[32:48] in the South China Sea and in this part
[32:49] of the world. And I think that's the
[32:51] message that we really want to convey to
[32:53] not only China but the entire world. We
[32:56] will sail wherever international law
[32:58] allows.
[32:59] Lieutenant Commander David Ash flies an
[33:01] FA18.
[33:05] Do you get briefed on China's growing
[33:08] military threat and the progress that
[33:12] their navy is making? Absolutely. Yeah,
[33:15] absolutely we do and they are making
[33:16] great progress in a lot of key areas of
[33:19] the Chinese. the Chinese are from a
[33:20] military standpoint. This video from
[33:23] weapons systems officer Lieutenant
[33:25] Commander Matthew Carlton shows his FA18
[33:29] strafing ground targets with a machine
[33:31] gun on a US weapons range near
[33:36] Guam. The pilots on the Nimmits also
[33:39] conduct air-to-air combat or dog
[33:41] fighting drills daily.
[33:45] How aggressive has China become in the
[33:48] air? aggressive. And uh just some
[33:50] examples include unsafe, unprofessional
[33:53] intercepts where they move within single
[33:56] digits of feet of other aircraft,
[33:58] flashing the weapons that they have on
[34:00] board to the air crew of the other
[34:01] aircraft, operating in international
[34:03] airspace, maneuvering their aircraft in
[34:06] such a way that denies the the ability
[34:09] to turn in one direction. If they're
[34:11] safe and professional, then there's no
[34:14] problem. Everybody has the right to fly
[34:18] and sail wherever international law
[34:20] dictates. But the Chinese are pushing
[34:22] that. They are pushing it. China's
[34:25] increasingly aggressive moves in the
[34:27] Western Pacific, encroaching on
[34:29] territory, illegal fishing, and building
[34:32] bases in the middle of the South China
[34:34] Sea have pushed nations like Japan and
[34:37] the Philippines to forge closer military
[34:40] ties to the US. And earlier this year,
[34:43] Britain, the US, and Australia signed a
[34:47] landmark deal to jointly develop
[34:49] nuclearpowered attack submarines to
[34:51] patrol the
[34:53] Pacific. This is how China and Taiwan
[34:56] appear on most maps. This is how the
[34:59] Chinese Communist Party sees the Western
[35:01] Pacific, including the South and East
[35:04] China seas from Beijing. Taiwan is the
[35:07] fulcrum in what China's leaders call the
[35:10] first island chain. a constellation of
[35:13] US allies that stretches across its
[35:15] entire coast. Control of Taiwan is the
[35:19] strategic key to unlocking direct access
[35:22] to the Pacific and the seal lanes where
[35:25] about 50% of the world's commerce gets
[35:28] transported. China has accused the
[35:31] United States of trying to contain them.
[35:34] What do you say to China? I would say uh
[35:37] do you need to be contained? Are you
[35:40] expanding? Are you an expansionist
[35:42] power? To a very great extent, the
[35:44] United States was the champion for
[35:47] China's
[35:49] rise. And in no way are we seeking to
[35:53] contain China. What we are seeking for
[35:57] them to play by the rules. China's Navy,
[36:00] a branch of the People's Liberation
[36:02] Army, is now the world's largest. China
[36:05] is also using its 9,000mi coastline to
[36:09] rewrite the rules of fighting at sea. As
[36:12] these images from Chinese state media
[36:15] show, its military has invested heavily
[36:18] in long range precisiong guided weapons
[36:20] like the DF-21 and DF-26 that can be
[36:24] used to target ships.
[36:28] China's People's Liberation Army Rocket
[36:31] Force calls them carrier killers and has
[36:34] practiced shooting them at mock-ups of
[36:36] American ships in the desert that look a
[36:38] lot like the Nimmits. Since the United
[36:40] States has been operating in the Western
[36:43] Pacific, China's backyard, they've been
[36:46] developing missiles to attack our
[36:49] assets, haven't they? Specific missiles.
[36:51] Absolutely. Yes. First, I'll
[36:53] say the United States is also a Western
[36:56] Pacific nation. So, it's not it's not
[36:58] China's backyard. It's, you know, it is
[37:02] a free and open Indo-Pacific that
[37:05] encompasses numerous partners and treaty
[37:08] allies. And yes, we have seen them
[37:11] greatly enhance their power projection
[37:13] capability. How much do you worry about
[37:15] the PLA rocket force? I worry, you know,
[37:17] I'd be a fool to not worry about. And of
[37:19] course, I worry about the the LA rocket
[37:21] force. Of course, I work every single
[37:24] day to develop the tactics and the
[37:26] techniques and the procedures to counter
[37:27] it and to continue to develop the
[37:30] systems that can also defend uh against
[37:32] them. About how far are we from mainland
[37:35] China? 1500 nautical miles. They can hit
[37:37] us. Yes, they can. If they've got the
[37:40] targeting in
[37:41] place, they could hit this aircraft
[37:43] carrier. If I don't want to be hit,
[37:46] there's something I can do about it. US
[37:48] Navy planners aren't just plotting how
[37:50] to evade China's rocket force, but also
[37:53] how they could effectively fight
[37:55] back. From the vicinity of Guam, none of
[37:59] the aircraft on this ship has the range
[38:01] to approach Taiwan without refueling in
[38:04] the air.
[38:06] Ships like the US destroyer Wayne E
[38:09] Meyer, part of the Nimtt strike group,
[38:11] would need to sail much closer towards
[38:13] China to fire their missiles at any
[38:16] force invading Taiwan. One naval scholar
[38:20] we spoke to likened it to a boxing match
[38:23] in which a fighter, in this case
[38:26] China, has much longer arms than their
[38:29] potential opponent, the US. I'll give
[38:32] you a lot of examples where a shorter
[38:34] fighter was able to prevail over a long
[38:37] firearm fighter by being on their toes
[38:40] by maneuvering and we can also stick and
[38:44] move uh while we're developing those
[38:47] those longer range weapons. There is
[38:50] another area of modern naval warfare
[38:52] where the US had a head start and
[38:54] retains a deep advantage over China. I
[38:57] just noticed out of the corner of my eye
[38:59] this this is a 688 class of Los Angeles
[39:01] class attack submarine. This is the most
[39:04] capable submarine on the planet. You
[39:06] know with the exception of the Virginia
[39:08] class, our newer class of submarines.
[39:11] The exact number is classified, but our
[39:14] best estimate is that there are about a
[39:15] dozen nuclearpowered fast attack
[39:17] submarines patrolling the Pacific at any
[39:20] time. They are difficult to detect and
[39:23] track, something China is trying to
[39:25] solve. How much more advanced is US
[39:29] submarine technology than Chinese
[39:32] capability? A generation. Generation.
[39:34] And u by a generation think 10 or 20
[39:38] years. But broadly, I don't really talk
[39:40] in depth about submarine capabilities.
[39:42] It's the silent service. Since Nancy
[39:44] Pelos's visit to Taiwan, China's
[39:47] military leaders have themselves been
[39:49] mostly silent and ignored efforts by the
[39:52] US military to keep the lines of
[39:54] communication open, even when a Chinese
[39:57] spy balloon breached American airspace
[39:59] and was shot down by the US. If the US
[40:03] and Chinese militaries can't communicate
[40:06] over a Chinese spy balloon, then what's
[40:09] going to happen when there's a real
[40:10] crisis in the South China Sea or with
[40:13] Taiwan? We'll hope that they'll answer
[40:15] the
[40:17] phone else we'll do our very best
[40:21] assessment based on the things that they
[40:23] say in open source and based on their
[40:25] behavior to define their intentions and
[40:29] we'll act accordingly.
[40:30] Doesn't that make the situation even
[40:33] more dangerous if US and Chinese
[40:36] militaries are not talking? Yes.
[40:39] Several sources within the Pentagon tell
[40:42] 60 Minutes that if China invaded Taiwan,
[40:45] it could very well kick off in outer
[40:47] space with both sides targeting the
[40:49] others satellites that enable precisiong
[40:52] guided weaponry. Cyber attacks on
[40:54] American cities and the sabotage of
[40:57] ports on the west coast of the US
[40:59] mainland could follow. One recent
[41:02] non-classified war game had the US
[41:04] prevailing but losing 20 ships including
[41:07] two carriers. Does that sound about
[41:10] right? That is a plausible outcome. I
[41:13] can imagine a more pessimistic outcome
[41:16] and I can imagine a more optimistic
[41:18] outcome. We should be cleareyed about
[41:21] the costs that we're potentially
[41:24] incurring.
[41:25] There are about 5,000 Americans on board
[41:28] the Nimtts. The ship is nearly half a
[41:31] century old. Given the Navy's current
[41:34] needs in the Pacific, and because
[41:36] there's fuel left in its nuclear
[41:38] reactors, the carrier's life at sea is
[41:41] going to be extended. Is it your hope
[41:44] that the power of the US Navy, the force
[41:47] posture of the US Navy will deter a
[41:51] Chinese invasion of Taiwan? It's not my
[41:53] hope. It's my duty in conjunction with
[41:56] allies and partners to deliver
[41:58] intolerable costs to anybody that would
[42:01] upend the order in violation of the
[42:03] nation's security or in violation of the
[42:05] nation's interests. the saying which is
[42:08] see PC paravevel which is if you want
[42:11] peace prepare for war. Since our story
[42:15] first aired in March, China has
[42:17] intensified its aggressive military
[42:19] tactics in the Western Pacific. In June,
[42:22] a Chinese warship nearly collided with a
[42:25] US destroyer in the Taiwan Strait. When
[42:28] we return, critical questions about the
[42:31] state of the US Navy and its readiness.
[42:42] 60 Minutes spent months talking to
[42:45] current and former naval officers,
[42:47] military strategists, and politicians
[42:49] about the state of the US Navy. One
[42:52] common thread in our reporting is
[42:54] unease, both about the size of the US
[42:57] fleet and its readiness to fight. The
[43:00] Navy ships are being retired faster than
[43:02] they're getting replaced. While the Navy
[43:05] of the People's Republic of China or PRC
[43:08] grows larger and more lethal by the
[43:10] year, we first asked the commander of
[43:13] the US Pacific Fleet, Admiral Samuel
[43:15] Paparro, about this on our visit earlier
[43:18] this year to the USS Nimttz, the oldest
[43:21] aircraft carrier in the Navy.
[43:24] We call it the decade of concern. We've
[43:27] seen a t-fold increase in the size of
[43:32] the PRC Navy. Technically speaking, the
[43:35] Chinese now have the largest navy in the
[43:38] world in terms of number of ships.
[43:40] Correct. Do the numbers matter? Yes. As
[43:43] the saying goes, quantity has equality
[43:45] all its own. At some point, are they
[43:48] going to reach numbers that we can't
[43:51] prevail over? I'm not comfortable with
[43:53] the trajectory. If you look at a map of
[43:55] the Indoacific, one thing becomes clear.
[43:58] There's a lot of water on that map. And
[44:00] so ours has to be a maritime strategy.
[44:04] Republican Mike Gallagher and Democrat
[44:06] Elaine Lauria served together on the
[44:08] House Armed Services Committee in the
[44:10] last Congress. What is it about the US
[44:13] Navy that has allowed the two of you to
[44:15] find common cause? I think we share a
[44:17] sense of the urgency of the moment. We
[44:19] see increasing threats from China in
[44:22] particular in the Indoacific. We feel
[44:24] like we're not moving fast enough to
[44:25] build a bigger navy. Congressman
[44:28] Gallagher is a Marine veteran who
[44:30] represents Green Bay, Wisconsin. He
[44:32] chairs the new House Committee on China.
[44:35] He's concerned that under the Navy's
[44:37] current plan, the fleet will shrink to
[44:40] about 280 ships by 2027, the same year
[44:44] the CIA says China has set for having
[44:47] the capability to take Taiwan by force.
[44:50] So, we will be weakest when our enemy is
[44:52] potentially strongest. China's increased
[44:54] rhetoric and potential aggression
[44:56] against Taiwan. We're going to have to
[44:58] be ready to respond today with the
[44:59] forces we have today. Former
[45:02] Congresswoman Elaine Lauria represented
[45:04] Virginia Beach until this past January.
[45:07] Anapapolis graduate, Lauria had a
[45:10] 20-year naval career before being
[45:12] elected to Congress. What would you say
[45:14] the state of the US Navy is today? I
[45:17] think the Navy has not received the
[45:18] attention and resources that it needs
[45:20] over two decades. I mean, I served on
[45:22] six different ships. Every single one of
[45:23] those ships was either built during or a
[45:26] product of the fleet that was built um
[45:29] in the Cold War. Both Mike Gallagher and
[45:32] Elaine Lauria have lobbyed for
[45:34] government money for the shipyards in or
[45:36] near their districts, but they say this
[45:38] is less about jobs and more about
[45:40] national security. Yeah, if we don't get
[45:42] this right, all of these other things
[45:44] we're doing in Congress ultimately that
[45:45] might not matter. If you think about
[45:46] what a coherent grand strategy visa v
[45:48] China would be, hard power would be the
[45:50] most important part of that and the Navy
[45:52] would be the most important component of
[45:53] your hard power investments.
[45:56] Over the last two decades, the Navy
[45:58] spent $55 billion on two investments
[46:02] that did not pan out. The first was a
[46:05] class of destroyers known as the
[46:07] Zoomwalt. The futuristic fighting ships
[46:10] were supposed to revolutionize naval
[46:13] warfare. 32 were ordered, but only three
[46:16] were ever launched. The cost of each
[46:19] ship, by one estimate, was upwards of 8
[46:22] billion, making them the three most
[46:25] expensive destroyers ever put to sea.
[46:30] Another example is the latoral combat
[46:32] ship or LCS designed to be a fast
[46:35] all-purpose warship for shallow
[46:38] waters. $30 billion later, the program
[46:41] ran a ground after structural defects
[46:44] and engine trouble. Within the Navy, the
[46:47] LCS earned the unfortunate nickname
[46:50] little crappy ship. The Navy's last few
[46:53] decades have been described as a lost
[46:56] generation of ship building. Is that
[46:57] overly dramatic? I don't think so. We're
[47:01] still struggling to build ships on time,
[47:04] on budget, and that's something we
[47:05] absolutely need to fix going forward.
[47:07] This past March, we spoke with Admiral
[47:09] Mike Gilde at the Pentagon. He is the
[47:11] chief of naval operations and is
[47:14] responsible for building, maintaining,
[47:16] and equipping the entire US Navy. Is the
[47:19] Navy in crisis? No, the Navy is not in
[47:22] crisis. The Navy is out on point every
[47:26] single day. Is it being outpaced by
[47:28] China? No. Our Navy is still in a
[47:31] position to prevail, but um that's not
[47:34] blind confidence. We are concerned with
[47:36] the trajectory that China's on with
[47:38] China's behavior, but we are in a good
[47:41] position right now uh if we did ever get
[47:43] into a fight against them. How would you
[47:45] describe what China has been able to do
[47:48] militarily over the last 20 years? The
[47:51] most alarming thing is the growth of not
[47:53] only their conventional forces but also
[47:55] their strategic nuclear forces, their
[47:57] cyber capability, their space capability
[48:00] and how they are using that to force
[48:03] other nations uh navies out of certain
[48:06] areas in the South China Sea. Instead of
[48:08] recognizing international law, they want
[48:11] to control where those goods flow and
[48:13] how. What lessons did the US Navy learn
[48:17] from some of the ship building mistakes
[48:19] of the last 20 years? I think one of the
[48:21] things that we learned uh was that we
[48:23] need to uh have the design well in place
[48:26] before we begin bending metal. And so we
[48:29] are going back uh to the past to what we
[48:32] did in the 80s and the '9s. The Navy has
[48:35] the lead. There is a tendency among the
[48:38] great powers to look at each other's
[48:40] naval buildups with deep suspicion.
[48:42] Toshi Yoshihara of the Center for
[48:45] Strategic and Budgetary Assessments may
[48:48] know more than any scholar in the West
[48:50] about China's Navy. China will have
[48:52] about 440 ships by 2030 and that's
[48:56] according to the Pentagon. Why is China
[48:59] able to build more warships more quickly
[49:02] than the US? China has clearly invested
[49:05] in this defense industrial
[49:06] infrastructure to produce these ships,
[49:09] which allows them to produce multiple
[49:11] ships simultaneously, essentially
[49:13] outbuilding many of the Western navies
[49:16] combined. China's Navy piggybacks on a
[49:19] booming commercial ship building
[49:20] industry kept afloat by generous state
[49:23] subsidies, inexpensive materials, and
[49:26] cheap labor. In the United States, it's
[49:29] a different story. After the Cold War
[49:32] ended, the ship building industry
[49:34] consolidated and many of the yards where
[49:36] ships were both built and maintained
[49:39] closed down. What do you see when you
[49:41] see China's ship building program? It's
[49:43] very robust. Do we have enough
[49:44] shipyards? No. I wish that we had more
[49:47] commercial shipyards. Over my career,
[49:49] we've gone from more than 30 shipyards
[49:51] down to about seven that we rely upon a
[49:54] day-to-day basis to build ships. One of
[49:56] those yards is run by Huntington Les
[49:59] Industries, which built the
[50:01] state-of-the-art new Ford class aircraft
[50:07] carrier. After controlled explosions in
[50:10] 2021 to prove it could withstand combat,
[50:14] the Ford got closer to deployment, 6
[50:17] years late and billions of dollars over
[50:19] budget. The Navy's not just struggling
[50:22] to build new ships on time. According to
[50:25] the Government Accountability Office, or
[50:27] GAO, there's a multi-year backlog
[50:30] repairing the ships in the fleet. Our
[50:33] maintenance backlog is one of the
[50:35] primary things that I'm working on to
[50:37] correct. So, just three years ago, we
[50:40] had 7700 delay days. That is extra days
[50:45] in a shipyard by ships when they weren't
[50:47] operational. We have cut that down to
[50:50] 3,000. We are not satisfied. Maintenance
[50:53] delays mean sailors can't come home
[50:56] because the ship that's supposed to
[50:57] replace them is not ready. It means
[51:00] longer deployments. It means away from
[51:02] your family more. That's a big strain on
[51:04] the workforce. The more ships that we
[51:06] can have available to send at sea
[51:09] alleviates many of those problems that
[51:11] you pointed out. Sailors join the Navy
[51:13] to see the world. And so it's my job to
[51:17] make sure that those maintenance delays
[51:19] go to zero and we can get those ships to
[51:21] sea as quickly as possible. In the last
[51:23] year alone, at least 10 sailors assigned
[51:26] to ships undergoing maintenance or
[51:28] working at maintenance facilities have
[51:30] died by suicide. It is a problem that
[51:34] we're taking very, very seriously. And
[51:37] down to every leader in our Navy,
[51:39] everybody has a responsibility to look
[51:41] out for each other, take care of each
[51:43] other. There is no wrong door to knock
[51:45] on when you need help. Admiral Gilde
[51:48] says the US Navy's main advantage over
[51:50] China is America's sailors. His goal is
[51:53] to modernize the US fleet and have those
[51:56] sailors serving alongside hundreds of
[51:59] unmanned vessels by 2045. I think
[52:02] unmanned is the future. And so I think
[52:04] that uh some 40% of our fleet in the
[52:07] future I believe is going to be
[52:08] unmanned. Are these like underwater
[52:10] drones? Some of them are highly capable,
[52:13] capable of delivering mines and perhaps
[52:16] other types of weapons. Admiral Gilde is
[52:18] talking about the Orca, an extra-large
[52:21] unmanned undersea vehicle. Can you say
[52:24] what it will do or is that classified?
[52:26] Well, uh, at a minimum, it'll have a
[52:28] clandestine mine laying capability. So,
[52:30] it'll be done in a way that is very
[52:32] secretive, uh, but very effective. But
[52:35] the GAO reports that it's already a
[52:39] quarter of a billion dollars over budget
[52:41] and three years behind schedule. Uh that
[52:44] particular platform is behind schedule.
[52:47] It's the first of a kind. When it
[52:49] delivers, I see a very high return on
[52:51] investment from that particular platform
[52:54] because because uh it will be among the
[52:57] most lethal and stealthy platforms uh in
[53:01] the arsenal of the US military. The
[53:03] Navy's total budget request for fiscal
[53:06] year 2024 is over a quarter of a
[53:10] trillion dollars, an 11 billion increase
[53:13] from last year. The focus is on China.
[53:17] The US defense posture is viewed as
[53:20] aggressive by the Chinese. The foreign
[53:22] minister just said, "Look, stop the
[53:24] containment. This may lead to conflict."
[53:27] Perhaps the Chinese minister doesn't
[53:29] like the fact that the US Navy is
[53:32] operating in collaboration with dozens
[53:35] of navies around the world to ensure
[53:37] that the Maritime Commons remains free
[53:40] and open for all nations. The Chinese
[53:44] want to dictate those terms and so they
[53:46] don't like our presence, but our
[53:48] presence is not intended to be
[53:50] provocative. It's intended to assure and
[53:53] to reassure allies and partners around
[53:55] the world that those sea lanes do remain
[53:57] open. The global economy literally
[54:00] floats on seawater.