On the security side, the importance of Congressional support to the U.S. Department of Defense is hard to overstate. It has enabled us to fully resource our strategy, without artificial constraints created by budget pressures.
Equally as important, we are aligned across the Department of Defense – the single largest employer in the United States. The more than three million men and women of our Department are singularly aligned behind this strategy; not just on my staff, but also in the Services, the Joint Staff, and the Combatant Commands.
We are undertaking a significant modernization effort which is underpinned by innovation, experimentation, and new technology that will allow us to combat new threats, strengthen our alliances, and build new partnerships by allowing us to communicate and share at speed.
This is a massive effort：the United States is the world’s largest economy, and the defense budget is 60 percent of our discretionary spending. Our government is devoting significant resources to this mission. And our geographical focus, the priority theater of our strategy is right here, in the Indo－Pacific.
This represents an enormous opportunity for our allies and partners. The United States is rapidly developing the technologies critical to deterring and defeating the threats of the future. Partners who pursue interoperability with us as part of a regional security network will be able to access much of these technologies and benefit from the compounding effects of U.S. investments and progress.
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