Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan W. Greenert said the Western Pacific is "priority one" for the Navy, and Hawaii "is a very strategic base."

"I kind of call it the gateway to the Western Pacific," said Greenert, who added that "the strategy is very clear — that we will balance our forces toward the Pacific."

Those elements "are pretty telling as to what our intentions will be," Greenert said.

The Navy’s top uniformed officer, in Hawaii for a change of command today at U.S. Pacific Fleet, spoke to and took questions from more than 500 sailors at a standing-room-only "all hands call" at Pearl Harbor’s Sharkey Theater on Thursday.

He later took media questions. Adm. Patrick Walsh, head of the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, will retire following a 34-year Navy career after he passes the command to Adm. Cecil D. Haney.

Greenert, who became chief of naval operations on Sept. 23, told sailors "we have deficits, we’ve got to deal with it," but he refuted a report that naval deployments would jump to 10 months.

"That’s not the plan," he said. For fiscal 2013 carrier strike group deployments are expected to average 6.5 months, amphibious ready groups seven months, and six months for submarines, Greenert said.

In answer to media questions, Greenert said the Strait of Hormuz, the South China Sea and North Korea are concerns, but at the moment, tensions in the Strait of Hormuz and statements made by Iranian officials are at the top of the list.

Greenert, a past deputy commander of U.S. Pacific Fleet, did say interactions with the Iranian navy have been "courteous, professional."

"They have complied with the international rules of the road, and I’m talking about the Iranian navy, not the Iranian Revolutionary Guard," he said.

The USS Abraham Lincoln and USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier strike groups are in the Middle East. Iran recently warned the United States not to send an aircraft carrier back into the Persian Gulf.

Greenert did not reveal whether one of those strike groups will re-enter the gulf, a standard practice.

"But I will tell you this," he said. "We will not change our planning and our modus operandi in the Arabian Gulf (Persian Gulf or) North Arabian Sea."

Greenert told the sailors that for those in the room, retirement benefits would not change.

"You are in the retirement system that you joined, and that won’t change," he said.

The Defense Department will put together a commission longer term to study retirement, and Greenert said he expects sailors to be surveyed to get input.

Greenert said he doesn’t see "any desire to close" Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard, which he called a "strategic, important shipyard here in the Pacific — which is a focus for this (new defense) strategy."