"They are vital to us maintaining our capability now and into the future.
In a telephone interview this week as he visited various regional capitals, Admiral Fallon pledged that the United States would "maintain our capabilities in that region of the world in an attempt to make sure that if they opt for military activity there, that is not going to be very useful to them".
"What we do need to make sure is that, as technology changes, we are able to maintain our current capability in this area," a spokesman for Prime Minister David Cameron said, speaking in return for anonymity under departmental rules.
And it's important that we maintain our preparedness and our capability not just our military preparedness and capability, but also our intelligence and security preparedness and capability.
In a prepared statement, Dunford said he provided his best military advice on the issue, and now his focus is "to lead the full integration of women in a manner that maintains our joint warfighting capability, ensures the health and welfare of our people, and optimizes how we leverage talent across the joint force".
"I don't know what's happened with some people in our conference recently, but I'm one of the very few people I think that would agree that -- if you could say, 'Would you rather hollow out the Pentagon or increase taxes?' I would support the latter to make sure that we didn't lose our capability to maintain our superpower status.
This means, for instance, improving capabilities that maintain our military's technological edge and freedom of action," he said.
General Schwartz cited Air Force decisions to place surveillance systems on its long-range bombers and tactical warplanes to make each a provider of valuable battlefield intelligence, as well as maintaining strike capabilities.
Mr Cameron defended the move in a joint news conference with Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, saying it was about maintaining existing capabilities - not introducing new snooping laws.
"We were prevented from bringing in that legislation into the last government because of the coalition with the Liberal Democrats and we are determined to bring that through, because we believe that is necessary to maintain the capabilities for our law enforcement agencies such that they can continue to do the excellent job, day in and day out, of keeping us safe and secure".
The emergency measures were "about restoring and maintaining capabilities that are vital to our national security", the prime minister said, stressing that access to phone and email metadata were integral to the work of the police and intelligence services.
