Navy Conversations with the Country

I really want to attend one of these. I know some of you already have plans to attend these, and yes I'm very interested in copies of any openly distributed materials. Most important though, presentation matters.

Senior Officers from the U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Coast Guard will present the new maritime strategy known as "A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower" to more than 150 community leaders from Houston at the Houston Branch Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas Jan 24, at 9:00 a.m. CST. They will discuss how U.S. seapower benefits the people of Houston and maintains the American way of life.

U.S. Coast Guard Admiral Thad W. Allen, Commandant, United States Coast Guard, will offer a keynote address at 12:30 p.m. CST followed by questions and answers.

Houston is first stop of 2008 in a series of national "Conversations with the Country," that bring together a wide cross-section of American society to openly discuss the future roles of the Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard in protecting the homeland and working with global partners to prevent war.

It goes on, then the press release has this strange addition.

The new strategy provides for the right balance of forces to conduct traditional combat missions, but also raises the prevention of war to a level equal to the conduct of war.

The second part I get, the first part... am I missing something? I'm pretty sure there is no force balance discussion in the Maritime Strategy. In Congress? Sure. On blogs? All the time. In fact you can go just about any forum online where the Navy is discussed and find a conversation on force balance and structure. However, no where in the strategy is there a discussion that "provides for the right balance of forces". I seem to recall the absence of that aspect in the Maritime Strategy drew considerable criticism.

Perception matters. This press statement implies the existing plans for "balance of forces" is right, which is odd considering we have been observing Adm. Roughead calling 313 ships the low number of ships he wants in the fleet, the implication being that even the Navy doesn't believe the "balance of forces" as it exists today matches the strategy.

Is the Navy going to discuss strategy, or force structure? Both would be interesting discussions, but the horse goes before the cart if I'm not mistaken.