This comprehensive investigation uncovers the growing challenges posed by mysterious drones and unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs) within US airspace and the vulnerabilities they reveal in national security. The video begins by recounting alarming drone incursions over sensitive military sites across the US—including repeated flyovers at Langley Air Force Base—often evading detection by outdated radar systems. Military officials, intelligence leaders, and lawmakers express concern over the gaps in tracking, coordination among agencies, and the possibility of foreign involvement. The lack of effective countermeasures, bureaucratic hurdles, and the potential destructive capabilities of these drones raise urgent questions about domestic security.

Additionally, the video delves into the US military’s evolving approach toward UAPs, highlighting both historical and recent encounters witnessed by military personnel. It examines the government’s gradual shift from dismissal to cautious investigation, as military pilots and intelligence officers urge for greater transparency and seriousness in analyzing UAP incidents. The discussion underscores the uncertainty and potential threats they represent, whether as advanced foreign technology or unexplained phenomena, necessitating a more coordinated and analytical response from Congress and defense agencies.

Shifting to a global perspective, the video scrutinizes the strategic rivalry between the US and China, focusing on the rapid expansion and modernization of the Chinese Navy and its implications for security in the Indo-Pacific region—particularly regarding Taiwan. Interviews with naval commanders, strategists, and politicians highlight the US Navy’s operational strengths, technological superiority, and persistent challenges in shipbuilding, readiness, and maintaining fleet size. The mounting pressure to innovate, maintain deterrence, and collaborate with allies is set against the backdrop of significant budgetary constraints, shipyard declines, and evolving threats from both manned and unmanned systems.

Main takeaways from the video:

Please remember to turn on the CC button to view the subtitles.

Key Vocabularies and Common Phrases:

1. incursion [ɪnˈkɜːrʒən] - (noun) - An aggressive entrance into a place, often with the intention of taking control or causing disruption, especially by military forces. - Synonyms: (invasion, raid, penetration, attack)

So what did you see? Well, what you saw was different sizes of incursions of aircraft

2. capability gap [ˌkeɪpəˈbɪlɪti ɡæp] - (noun phrase) - An area where existing skills, tools, or technology are inadequate to address a need or threat. - Synonyms: (deficiency, shortfall, inadequacy, weakness)

No, it's a capability gap. Certainly they can come and go from any direction.

3. jurisdiction [ˌdʒʊrɪsˈdɪkʃən] - (noun) - The official power to make legal decisions and judgments, often over a specific area or subject. - Synonyms: (authority, control, administration, power)

Complicating his efforts, Bureaucracy. When the drones flew outside the perimeter of Langley Air Force Base, other agencies had jurisdiction.

4. epicenter [ˈepɪˌsentər] - (noun) - The central or most important place or point in a particular situation or event. - Synonyms: (center, hub, focal point, nucleus)

New Jersey remains the epicenter of the drone mystery.

5. surveillance [sərˈveɪləns] - (noun) - Close observation, especially of a suspected spy or criminal; in military context, systematic observation for information gathering. - Synonyms: (observation, monitoring, watch, scrutiny)

Could you detect a swarm of drones flying over or flying into the airspace at Langley? Could you detect that today at low altitude? Probably not with your standard FAA or surveillance radars

6. anomalous [əˈnɑːmələs] - (adjective) - Deviating from what is standard, normal, or expected. - Synonyms: (irregular, unusual, abnormal, atypical)

The advanced new radar on a nearby ship, the USS Princeton, had detected what operators called multiple anomalous aerial vehicles over the horizon, descending 80,000ft in less than a second on November 14.

7. clandestine [klænˈdɛstɪn] - (adjective) - Kept secret or done secretively, especially for an illicit purpose. - Synonyms: (secret, covert, stealthy, underground)

Well, at a minimum, it'll have a clandestine mine laying capability.

8. deterrence [dɪˈtɜːrəns] - (noun) - The act of preventing an action, especially in military context, by instilling doubt or fear of the consequences. - Synonyms: (prevention, discouragement, inhibition, hindrance)

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?

9. trajectory [trəˈdʒɛktəri] - (noun) - The path followed by a moving object, or metaphorically, the progression or development of something over time. - Synonyms: (course, path, route, progression)

I'm not comfortable with the trajectory. If you look at a map at The Indo Pacific.

10. augment [ɔːɡˈmɛnt] - (verb) - To make something greater by adding to it; increase. - Synonyms: (increase, amplify, enhance, supplement)

My goal is, inside of a year, that we would have the flyaway kit capability to augment the services and the installations if they're necessary.

11. precarious [prɪˈkɛriəs] - (adjective) - Not securely held or in position; dangerously likely to fall or collapse; uncertain. - Synonyms: (unstable, insecure, risky, uncertain)

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.

12. littoral [ˈlɪtərəl] - (adjective) - Related to or situated on the shore of the sea or a lake. - Synonyms: (coastal, shoreline, beachfront, on the coast)

Another example is the littoral combat Ship, or lcs, designed to be a fast all purpose warship for shallow waters.

13. lethal [ˈliːθəl] - (adjective) - Able to cause or likely to cause death; deadly. - Synonyms: (deadly, fatal, mortal, dangerous)

...while the Navy of the People's Republic of China, or prc, grows larger and more lethal by the year.

14. stigma [ˈstɪɡmə] - (noun) - A mark of disgrace associated with a particular circumstance, quality, or person. - Synonyms: (shame, disgrace, dishonor, taint)

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 you, when you bring it up.

15. foothold [ˈfʊthoʊld] - (noun) - A secure position from which further progress may be made. - Synonyms: (base, anchorage, stronghold, support)

...the island, about the size of Chicago became an indispensable strategic foothold in the Western Pacific as it remains today.

Unexplained drones, UFOs and the state of the Navy - 60 Minutes Full Episodes

Last month, the head of NORAD 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 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 wake up 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 o', clock, 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 14, 2023. He was at his family's cabin on the James river in Virginia, about 100 miles south of Washington D.C. 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, those are going directly over Langley Air Force Base. Langley is one of the most critical air bases on the east coast, home to dozens of F22 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 F22s, 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. They're 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 airspeeds. 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. At the time, General Glenn VanHerk 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, airborne warning and control platforms, helicopters, to try to further categorize what those drones were at the time. Ten months earlier, he ordered an F22 from Langley to shoot down that Chinese spy balloon over the Atlantic after it had sailed across the US And. But this time, he found himself ill equipped to respond. NORAD's radar systems, designed during the Cold War to detect high altitude 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 five years. There are multiple UAS in vicinity up on Hamilton. CPA, 100ft 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. Four probable unidentified drones with course unknown. And 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 Picatinny 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 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 can tell you I am privy to classified briefings at the highest level. I think the Pentagon and the National Security Advisors are still mystified. Still mystified? Yes. More alarming. With drones overhead, some of the F22s 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 VanHerck told us drones could do the same thing here. I have seen video of drones in various sizes flying over the F22 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 just to the point of embarrassing us from the fact that they can do this on a day to day basis and they were 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 counter this threat. A year ago, General Gregory Guyot, 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 threat got ahead of our ability to detect and track the threat. I think all eyes were rightfully overseas where UAVs were being used on one way 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 Langley? Could you detect that today at low altitude? Probably not with your standard FAA or 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, that investigation is still ongoing. So I don't think we know entirely what happened. You know, when we hear things from the White House that it's not deemed a threat, it seems to me that this is alarming. I mean, this is kind of hair on fire time. It is alarming. And I would say that our hair is on fire here in Northcom in a controlled way and we're moving out extremely quickly. This past November, General Guillaume 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 the flyaway kit capability to augment 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 Vanherk, 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 acknowledgment 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 servicemen 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 Elizondo 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 AATIP was quite simple. It was to collect and analyze information involving anomalous aerial vehicles. What? I guess in the vernacular you call them UFOs, we call them UAPs. You know how this sounds? It sounds nutty, wacky. Look, Bill, I'm not telling you that it doesn't sound wacky. What I'm telling you, it's real. The question is, what is it? What are its intentions? What are its capabilities? Buried away in the Pentagon, AATIP was part of a $22 million program sponsored by then Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to investigate UFOs. When Elizondo 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 six to 700g forces, that can fly at 13,000 miles an hour, that 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. Elizondo tells us AATIP was a loose knit mix of scientists, electro optical engineers, avionics and intelligence experts. Often working part time, they combed through data and records and analyzed videos like this. A Navy air crew struggles to lock onto a fast moving object off the US Atlantic coast in 2015. 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 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 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 Lt. Ryan Graves calls whatever is out there a security risk. He told us his F18 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. Lt. 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? You know, I don't see an exhaust plume, including this one off the coast of Jacksonville, Florida in 2015, captured on a targeting camera by members of Graves squadron. It's rotating. My gosh, they're all going against the wind. The wind's 120 knots. You can sort of hear the surprise in their voices. You certainly can. They seem to have broke character a bit and were 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's 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 am worried, 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. 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 Fravor, a graduate of the Top Gun Naval Flight School and commander of the F18 squadron on the USS Nimitz. 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 share what I can. And it is unclassified. It was November 2004, and the USS Nimitz 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 80,000ft in less than a second on November 14, Fravor and Dietrich, each with a weapons system officer in the backseat, were diverted to investigate. They found an area of roiling whitewater 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 whitewater area. As Dietrich circled above, Fravor went in for a closer look. Sort of spiraling down the Tic Tac still point 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 mimicking your moves? Yeah, it was aware we were there. He said it was about the size of his F18 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. 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 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 Backseaters see this too? Yeah. Oh, yeah. There was four of us in the airplanes literally watching this thing for roughly about five minutes. Seconds later, the Princeton reacquired the target 60 miles away. Another crew managed to briefly lock onto it with a targeting camera before it zipped off again. You know, I think that over years 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. You've had some people tell me, you know, when you say that, you can sound crazy. And I'll be. I'm not a UFO guy, but from what I hear, you guys saying, there's something. 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 Nimitz encounter disappeared. Nothing was said or done officially for five years until Lou Elizondo 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 electro optical data, like gun camera footage and fire radar data. Now, to me, that's compelling. Inside the Pentagon, his findings were met with skepticism. AATIP's funding was eliminated in 2012, but Elizondo 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 Lou Elizondo elevate the issue in the department and actually get it to the Secretary of Defense. Christopher Mellon 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. Mellon 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 Elizondo 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 Elizondo. 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 aatip. 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 you, when you bring it up. But I don't think we can allow the stigma to keep us from having an answer to a 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, 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 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 U.S. 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. One third 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 Paparo commands the U.S. pacific Fleet, whose 200 ships and 150,000 sailors and civilians make up 60% of the entire U.S. navy. We met him in February on the aircraft carrier USS Navy Nimitz 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. China's new Foreign Minister, Qin Gong, delivered a stern warning to the U.S. 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 Pelosi'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 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 U.S. navy ready? We're ready. Yes. 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 Nimitz, 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. A 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 God landing. Yes. Oh great. 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 air wing is capable of 150 strike or air to air sorties per day with 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 diesel fueled carriers to the US's 11 nuclear powered ones that can carry a total of about a third 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. The Chinese, the Chinese are from a military standpoint. This video from weapons systems officer Lieutenant Commander Matthew Carleton shows his F A18 strafing ground targets with a machine gun on a US weapons range near Guam. The pilots on the Nimitz also conduct air to air combat or dogfighting drills daily. How aggressive has China become in the air? Aggressive and 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 of the other aircraft, operating in international airspace, maneuvering their aircraft in such a way that denies 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 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 nuclear powered 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 sea 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, 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, but 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 9,000mile coastline to, to rewrite the rules of fighting at sea. As these images from Chinese state media show. Its military has invested heavily in long range precision guided weapons like the DF21 and DF26 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 mockups of American ships in the desert that look a lot like the Nimitz. 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, of course I worry about the PLA 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, develop the systems that can also defend 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 and 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 Nimitz 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 U.S. i'll give you a lot of examples where a shorter fighter was able to prevail over a long armed fighter by being on their toes, by maneuvering. And we can also stick and move while we're developing 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 is a 688 class A Los Angeles class attack submarine. This is the most capable submarine on the planet 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 nuclear powered 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 by 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 Pelosi'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, if we 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 divine their intentions and will 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 other satellites that enable precision 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 clear eyed about the costs that we're potentially incurring. There are about 5,000Americans on board the Nimitz. 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 Si Pacha and Parabellum, 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 U.S. navy and its readiness. 60 Minutes spent months talking to current and former naval officers, military strategists, and politicians about the state of the U.S. 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 Paparo, about this on our visit earlier this year to the USS Nimitz, the oldest aircraft carrier in the Navy. We call it the Decade of Concern. We've seen a tenfold 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 a quality 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 at The Indo Pacific. 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 Indo Pacific. 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. An Annapolis 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 in the Cold War. Both Mike Gallagher and Elaine Lauria have lobbied for government money for the shipyards in or near their districts. But they say this is less about jobs and more about national security. 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 vis a vis 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 Zumwalt. 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 littoral combat Ship, or lcs, designed to be a fast all purpose warship for shallow waters. $30 billion later, the program ran aground 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 shipbuilding. 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 Gilday at the Pentagon. He is the Chief of Naval Operations and is responsible for building, maintaining and equipping the entire U.S. navy. Is the Navy in crisis? No, the Navy's 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 that's not blind confidence. We are concerned with the trajectory that China is on, with China's behavior. But we are in a good position right now. 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're using that to force other nations 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 shipbuilding mistakes of the last 20 years? I think one of the things that we learned was that we need to have the design well in place before we begin bending metal. And so we are going back to the past, to what we did in the 80s and the 90s. 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 shipbuilding 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 shipbuilding 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 shipbuilding 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 on a day to day basis to build ships. One of those yards is run by Huntington Ingalls Industries, which built the state of the art new Ford class aircraft carrier after controlled explosions in 2012 to prove it could withstand combat. The Ford got closer to deployment six 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 Gilday 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 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 Gilday is talking about the orca, an extra large unmanned undersea vehicle. Can you say what it will do or is that classified? Well, at a minimum, it'll have a clandestine mine laying capability. So it'll be done in a way that is very secretive, but very effective. But the GAO reports that it's already a quarter of a billion dollars over budget and three years behind schedule. That particular platform is behind schedule. It's the first of a kind when it delivers ICA very high return on investment from that particular platform because. Because it will be among the most lethal and stealthy platforms 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 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.

TECHNOLOGY, GLOBAL, LEADERSHIP, DRONES, NATIONAL SECURITY, US NAVY, 60 MINUTES