CNO APEX Defense Keynote as Prepared

US Navy

Washington D.C.

Speech by Adm. Daryl Caudle

Presented on 27 January 2026

Date Published 27 January 2026

Good morning, everyone and welcome. Thanks Bryan for that kind introduction. I’m absolutely thrilled to kick-off the second annual APEX Defense forum an event that unites not only our warfighters and industry leaders, but connects our acquisition, startup, and business professionals from across the globe.

Before I begin, let me take a moment to give a quick word of thanks to our hosts, The Hudson Institute and Clarion Defence for putting together another fantastic event. From what I can see, you have an exciting agenda with real bite over the next few days.

Whether it’s panels on contested logistics, advancing the integration of autonomous systems, or countering the proliferation of next generation threats these problem sets are aligned to and designed to address our Department’s most consequential problems. Your candid conversations and participation throughout each of these panels will be key to sustaining the future of our Nation’s competitive edge.

Which is exactly what I want to discuss with you today offering this group with an inside look of what our naval forces must get right to fight and win across the spectrum of conflict.

Ladies and Gentlemen, today we find ourselves operating in an era with other Great Powers, but perhaps just as concerning, with many more asymmetric and asynchronous threats that make the geopolitical situation the most complex in my career. It’s an era defined by unprecedented technological advances, where our competitors and ever evolving adversaries are innovating at the speed of emerging threats.

And, it’s in this unforgiving environment that indecisiveness, lack of focus, and poor performance are ruthlessly punished. The bottom line is that the global security environment is changing and our pacing threats around the world coupled with an ever lowering of the cost of entry continue to evolve in sophistication, reach, and lethality.

Whether it’s by way of grey-zone tactics, the militarization of foreign industrial bases, or the integration of volatile state and non-state actors the United States Navy must similarly adapt our theory of victory for each of these existential threats. And, while all these factors continue to shape the strategic laydown of the Fleet, we are facing our own rip currents at home.

The once formidable American industrial base that enabled our forces to simultaneously sweep across theaters during WWII continues to lag well below demand and, in my opinion, creativity and vision. Years of deferred maintenance and investments have reduced our shipyards, munition factories, and installations to hollow shells of their original capacity and scale.

Indeed, if America is to remain a superpower, we must remain a seapower and there is no doubt that our Navy’s power is inextricably tied to our Nation’s power. I am cleared eyed when I say that there is no future fight that the Navy is not part of the main effort.

It’s in this respect of relentless preparation that our Navy must rapidly evolve our strategy – focusing our efforts towards reinvigorating the Foundry, where total force readiness is forged and leverage our Navy’s differentiated value as the world’s premiere maritime force.

There can be no compromises when I say that our Nation demands a lethal, resilient, and all-domain Fleet that can swiftly respond to emerging crises, diffuse asymmetric threats, and engage in a wide variety of missions as the forefront of America’s national defense.

Together, these factors and more have sharpened my focus and driven me to move urgently toward executing my vision. Over the next few weeks, I will be unveiling the U.S. Navy Fighting Instructions – the Navy’s newest strategic guidance to the Fleet.

In their simplest form, the Fighting Instructions are a transformational framework that will guide future Navy investments, strategic priorities, and policy decisions well into the 21st century. It’s our overarching guidance that outlines which investments matter most, the asymmetric capabilities we need to forge, and the requisite levels of technical mastery which will enable our Sailors to fight and win across all time horizons.

Underpinned by my priorities of Foundry, Fleet, and Fight the Fighting Instructions are designed to deliver homeland defense, sustain our global network of deterrence, and preserve our national prosperity. As such, the Fighting Instructions is our Navy’s answer to a simple but daunting question, which is:

“How do we ensure we can fight and win across the spectrum of conflict, under conditions we cannot entirely predict against adversaries who are increasingly capable, innovative, and aggressive?”

At the center of this guidance, and the answer to this problem statement, is the implementation of a full-spectrum Hedge Strategy. Now, I’d be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge our moderator, Bryan Clark and the tremendous work he’s done with his teammates with the Hudson Institute, which strongly influenced this strategy.

And for my fellow submariners in the audience: yes, I copied his homework and yes, this is a classic case of a “chooch” – a slang term that means – take someone’s great idea, make a few improvements, scale a few ideas, and call it your own.

In its most rudimentary form, Hedge Strategy accepts fiscal, industrial, and operational realities—and still demands a Navy that is lethal, agile, responsive, and flexible. It balances cost-effective, scalable, risk-worthy mass with the most advanced multi-mission platforms we can build and sustain while taking stock in the likelihood of pacing scenarios and the severity of risk that’s attached.

While the Hedge Strategy may be novel on its own, the concept of a hedge is not. When you consider the unique capabilities our Navy already provides, you’ll notice hedges are prevalent in almost everything we do.

Consider the following examples: Our Navy SEALs, Special Forces, and Special Operators are our Nation’s hedge against low intensity and irregular warfare threats. Our Ballistic Missile Submarines and E-6B Mercuries, the pinnacle of our Nation’s nuclear triad, is our Navy’s hedge against nuclear conflict and strategic attack. Our global network of Allies and partners are our enduring hedge when our resources and presence are constrained.

And when crisis erupts or conflict breaks out, the Navy is the Joint Force’s ultimate hedge – able to move fast, stay forward, and deliver sovereign options from the sea.

Earlier this month, our forces proved instrumental in the execution of Operation Absolute Resolve. While this was executed primarily by the Army Special Forces, the Navy had an outsized role to play allowing SOF teams to insert swiftly, seize decisively, and recover expeditiously from our platforms postured out at sea. No other service in the world could offer the same level of mobility and expeditionary capabilities that made that mission a success.

And, no matter the scenario, our differentiated value the unique set of skills we provide to our Nation and Joint Force allows us to be in any hemisphere, full-up round and ready to go, in a matter of days.

So, Hedge Strategy is a means of thoughtfully bringing the full weight of our maritime forces to bear providing relevant capabilities for every situation while ensuring the credibility and efficacy of our differentiated value persists.

But, building a Fleet to cover every pressing scenario is not only cost and risk prohibitive but a disservice to the taxpayer and less effective operationally. In our rich 250-year history, seldom have we built, designed, and generated a force that was employed exactly as we intended. If history has taught us anything, it’s that forces designed for high-end warfare are most likely to be employed for low-end confrontation.

As the uniformed leader of our Navy, if I design a fleet solely around a narrow contingency, I am scope locking myself to an incredibly specific problem statement that’s non-transferable to any other part of the world or other potential futures.

And that, in its very essence, is contradictory to what makes our naval forces so valuable because at the end of the day, we provide intrinsically flexible and credible options to our decision makers we plug and play into a variety of different missions and we are ruthlessly adaptable to whatever demand signals the world throws our way.

Consider both ends of the spectrum. Whether you build a Navy for high consequence, low probability or low consequence, high probability scenarios in either case you’re left with an over or undersubscribed force that’s sub-optimized to address specific use cases which may never come to bear.

From my perspective, to truly guarantee our longevity as the world’s leading superpower, we must build an all-domain force capable of fighting any adversary, any place, and any time.

The only way to achieve this end state is by creating a repeatable process that is built around our standard model while leveraging modular, scalable, and adaptable units of high and lower-grade capabilities that can be tailored and respond decisively to any number of scenarios.

What Hedge Strategy avoids is a brittle, single-purpose force that is either over-built for the high-end fight and under-used day-to-day or optimized for low end crisis and overmatched when it counts. This isn’t a one size fits all approach. By design, Hedge Strategy is intended to be a force multiplier to our general-purpose forces working in concert with the Sailors and platforms of our traditionally manned fleet.

And I fully acknowledge the need for a bigger Fleet. You’ve no doubt seen that the President shares that same sentiment – and he is moving at Flank speed with the Secretary to get Golden Fleet designed, built, and into the fight.

But, the challenge becomes determining where to snap the chalk line how much of each force element is truly enough? This is what the Hedge Strategy aims to answer. It buys down risk in some areas, shifts risk to others but in the end it unabashedly embraces risk to tip the scales in our advantage.

To achieve this end, Hedge Strategy will be implemented through a series of initiatives, some new and some familiar, to enable a fleet that can learn, adapt, and seize the initiative.

Initiatives like: Global Maritime Response Plan and Combat Surge Ready defining a level of readiness for our battle force throughout the various stages of our force generation cycle. The Navy Warfighting Concept and new Navy Deterrence Concept codifying not only what and how we fight but importantly, who and how we deter. Because deterrence activities dominate the preponderance of what our forces do day-to-day around the world. The question is what’s the ROI of our campaigning efforts? And, finally the implementation of Tailored Forces and Tailored Offsets how we operationalize and bring this strategy to bear.

You’ll see more on each of these when the Fighting Instructions are formally released but as I start to wrap up, I’d like to touch briefly on the concept of tailored force packages. As a whole, Tailored Forces and Tailored Offsets are scalable formations that manage risk, expand mass, force multiply, improve response options, and preserve our combat advantage.

Part of implementing Hedge means buying, fielding, and posturing ready capabilities Tailored Forces and Tailored Offsets that address specific situations that are too consequential to ignore but too unlikely to drive our overall fleet design. As such, the concept of Tailored Forces and Tailored Offsets – groupings of manned and unmanned platforms, robotic and autonomous systems, and logistic nodes – will be fundamental to operationalizing the Hedge Strategy.

Tailored Forces are the customized ensembles of general purpose forces and the composite packaging of Tailored Offsets certified to address specific missions in particular regions. For example, Tailored Forces include general purpose units like surface combatants or patrol aircraft certified for specific missions out of their normal deployment cycle.

Whether it’s conducting anti-submarine warfare in the North Atlantic near the GIUK gap conducting clandestine mine warfare across critical chokepoints like the Straits of Hormuz or supporting fires in a Taiwan Strait scenario tailored forces will allow our Navy to hedge against the likelihood of any threat, in any theater, without constraining our force design around a single pressing scenario or entrenched force generation process.

Tailored Offsets are systems and platforms that are the easiest to adapt and combine in ways that address these high-consequence, lower probability situations. They are capabilities like: Attritable and easily replenishable USVs, MUSVs designed for scouting, screening, and striking, UUVs for area and water space denial or countering mines, and, low-cost, high-volume interceptors for counter-drone defense.

Together, these tailored capabilities will amplify and complement the main battle force through lethal outputs that are scalable, deployable, adaptable, and cost-effective by nature.

As I begin to close, let me end with this. Hedge Strategy isn’t just a prescriptive effort it’s an enduring approach to fielding a relevant fleet – across all domains – in an ever dynamic and increasingly challenging environment against the backdrop of unpredictable threat vectors.

But at the end of the day, platforms and capabilities don’t win wars our people do, and I truly believe that in any scenario, our Sailors will remain our greatest competitive advantage. That is exactly what these Fighting Instructions and the Hedge Strategy aim to do providing our Sailors with the asymmetric advantages, capabilities, and structures to fight decisively and if necessary win with overwhelming success.

Again, thank you for inviting me to engage this critical group of intellectual minds. The work you do here matters not just for our Navy, but for our Nation and our American people we all have a part to play. My sleeves are rolled up yours should be too. Thank you.