25:15
To the acquisition professionals of our Navy and Marine Corps team, hello. My name is William Mchan. Acting Secretary Chao appointed me to perform the duties of Assistant Secretary of the Navy for research, development, and acquisition. It is my honor to serve. More importantly, it is a profound responsibility. One that I now share with you. President Trump has given us a clear mission to restore peace through strength by rebuilding our military. To that end, Secretary Heck said has called the acquisition enterprise to recognize our profession for what it truly is, a core war-fighting capability. Because as he said, we will determine whether we win our next war.
Either we deliver or we fail. It's literally life or death. Let those words sink in. Understand the gravity of this moment. Now, this work is not for everyone. I understand that, and that's okay. But for those willing to step up, know this, I stand right beside you. In the words of President Theodore Roosevelt, our place is in the arena, dedicated to this worthy cause. Soon, I'll provide more details on our strategy. But let's begin with this. Si vis pacem, para bellum. If you want peace, prepare for war.
This ancient Roman adage is as true today as it was 2,000 years ago. And so, we will prepare. At Secretary Chao's direction, RD&A will immediately implement our top three priorities. First, we will rebuild our Navy and Marine Corps for 21st century warfare. We will deliver the Golden Fleet. We will fix our broken shipbuilding programs, accelerate ship and munitions delivery schedules, and compress maintenance timelines. At the same time, we will develop and field the fleet of the future with the manned and unmanned platforms and advanced capabilities we need to win tomorrow's high-end fight. By rapidly integrating new technologies into our forces, we will ensure our sailors and Marines maintain the technological supremacy we need to deter
and if necessary to defeat our potential adversaries. Second, we will revitalize our industrial base. I'm not talking about fattening up the shrinking number of contractors. I'm talking about competition, innovation, and resiliency. We will attract private capital to compete for the capabilities and the capacity we need. We will out-innovate, out-iterate, and out-scale our potential adversaries. This is how we move our maritime and munitions industrial base to a wartime footing. It should not take 8 years to build a ship or 3 years to build a missile. And soon, it won't. Finally, we will fundamentally transform the Navy acquisition system.
I'm talking about the government. We cannot deliver on our first two priorities without changing the way we do business. This starts with leadership. We will not simply promote the next most senior available candidate. Instead, we will identify and promote the next generation of acquisition and engineering pioneers like Hyman Rickover, Wayne Meyer, and Arleigh Burke. These great leaders were not heir apparents. In fact, they were renegades. But they understood how new technologies could transform the battlefield, and they stopped at nothing to ensure our warfighters had them. And so will we.
We will abandon the DC crystal palaces and the labyrinth of bureaucratic paper pushers. We will roll up our sleeves and return to the waterfront. We will organize for success around smaller teams, and we will implement lasting reforms. Achieving President Trump's mission will not be easy. But we are in this together. You, my fellow acquisition teammates, must act as though the fate of the free world depends on you. Because it does. Now, let's get to work.
