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