“The hearing will come to order. Good morning.  Today the subcommittee meets in open session to explore future naval capabilities and force structure.  Today’s hearing is rather unique for this subcommittee.  We typically are addressing the budget request directly, or conducting oversight on troubled programs.  Today we have the opportunity to discuss alternate visions of the roles and missions of the U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps with a distinguished panel of witnesses.

 “Today’s witnesses have not been hand-picked to present any particular position on force structure requirements.  The subcommittee has been particularly careful to not guide or steer the witnesses’ testimony.  Our panel was selected by their expertise in strategic analysis along with widespread admiration for their pervious published work.  In fact, until I read their prepared testimony prior to this hearing I had no idea what any of them might say.

 “And that is exactly the type of hearing that the Ranking Member and I wanted to have.  Sometimes I feel that we get too focused here in Congress on budget requests and specific acquisition programs and fail to stand back and look at the big picture to verify that the overall strategy of the Navy supports the nation’s needs. 

 “Our Navy has evolved over the years to compliment the national strategy, and this was true long before we used terms like ‘national strategy.’ Our first Navy was a commerce protection force, not a global power force, President Teddy Roosevelt and the Great White Fleet brought our nation into preeminence on the world stage as a naval power, a power that was centered on battleships, World War II changed the view of Seapower to the carrier battle group and the dominance of air power, and who knows what the next 30 years will bring. 

 “I hope our witnesses will share their views on the future force and the challenges that force may face.

 “The fact of the matter however is that within a few weeks the Department of Defense will send over the budget request with a detailed plan for the construction of naval vessels and aircraft.  This subcommittee will need to analyze that request in a short period of time and make recommendations to the full committee and then the House for acceptance or modification.  That is why a hearing such as this is so useful; listening to varying opinions always helps the final decision process.

 “We have a very distinguished panel with us today.  Mr. O’Rourke is no stranger to this subcommittee and we routinely rely on his counsel during our yearly budget deliberations.  Dr. Thompson from the Lexington Institute is widely regarded as an expert in naval affairs and he has published extensively on maritime topics.  RADM Houley is a retired submarine officer who has commanded at the Ship, Squadron, and Group level along with tours in the Pentagon crafting Naval strategy.  I recommend his recent article in the U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings magazine for a detailed analysis of naval roles and missions, Dr. Barnett is a widely published author and speaker, who led a transformation in Pentagon thinking with his first book ‘The Pentagon’s New Map; War and Peace in the 21st Century.’

 “I would like to thank all the witness for appearing with a special thanks to Dr. Barnett for coming from out of town.

 “I look forward to the discussion today.  Without objection it is the Chairs opinion that due to the broad topic today and the probability that the witnesses will have slightly different viewpoints the subcommittee should relax the normal rules for questioning and allow dialogue between Members and allow follow up questions from any Member present, without the loss of time. 

 “I would now like to recognize my friend from Missouri, the Ranking Member of this subcommittee, Congressman Todd Akin.”