>> we will be back to where the army was when i came in. my platoon sergeant was a combat veteran. my first sergeant and the battalion commander. then later the brigade commander and everybody else was not. so we've got to maintain that expertise and continue to learn from those lessons as we go forward. one of the challenges in terms of the regional peace is getting the social, cultural familiarization for our troops. i won't say we have mastered that but we recognize the problem and we're working out ways to do it more effectively and hopefully more efficiently. >> three quick thoughts.

maybe this is a debate outside the confines of the panel, but among us, the issue is inhuman. it's coming. it's whether we consider it separate or not. there's not a push to limit that. so in many ways it's a little bit like a religious discussion, but that's the part to me, the success, ironically, of the strategic plan power task force is when the concept is woven into the other partners that are not up here on stage when it's truly woven international strategy. that's where my worry is by putting them in the bucket by the of just land power, we also put a cap on where it can go to next where the need is. to the questions, i'll just say two quick things. one, in the regional alignment, i can say this, our challenge equally is something beyond the

services control, which is that if we wanted to get regional alignment we can't have a yo-yo effect of which regions we care about. a couple years back it was asia, the pivot, three balance, and then what was the news story in my e-mail inbox this morning, defense news middle east to be the focus of qdr. so that's part of the challenge there. i put that on other people's shoulders. second is a comment on, we keep saying our forces. one of the changes in 21st century land power is who is the us here. you can think about this in three ways, three challenges. one is that every place we have deployed and every place we are likely to deploy in the future we will be incredibly relying on private contractor forces.

roughly, if you're doing an external analysis you would say, half of that land force is private military. so we've got to think about how that's woven in. that's true as you are talking about a large-scale operation to a humanitarian disaster relief, you name it. probably in that second is coalition side. again, where ever we are deploying we are bringing coalition partners. the challenge particularly and the length our component is there does seem to be a far more mixed level of capabilities among our coalition level partners so that we don't have some of the ways we are able to work together in the air to me. we have more of a mixed within a landed them in. i believe it at that. folks know what i'm saying. third, to your point about bureaucracy doing its thing, national guard and reserve, and we were seeing right now it comes to army aviation, to send them how we're fighting even a

modest kind of change let alone these bigger changes that are there. when we're talking about us, future plans are, these are three keys that need to be part of that discussion. others were forgot to get how do we keep them from changing. thank you. >> let's take tomorrow. jim over by the far left and then i thank the gentleman here in the third row as well. after jimmy. >> jim, many thanks our panelists today. very interesting presentations. quick question. in looking at the human domain, and i strongly support that, i will assert that you are obviously trying to better assess social cultural environments of the general population as well as the motivations of the adversary. are the fighting for a cause,

fighting for living? will they engage in sacrificial violence? are you looking at how we perturbed the target? because quite frankly, we have magnetic qualities. we attract some people. we rebel others and when we attract some they don't love us for the right reasons. we've got to be cautious about that. we can create winners and losers if we are not careful. as peter has said, what our coalition partner, recipient countries may want isn't what we necessarily think they need. just a quick question on that. secondly, what is the level of interagency involvement or by in in your work? because i don't think this task force want to leave it up to local u.s. ambassador to say, well, here's what we think. that's terribly important obviously for a steady state situations, any abnormal situations. the ambassadors knew it was going to be very important to

what extent are you helping to an interagency consensus? thank you. >> sidney freberg. to ask an obnoxious question, which is my job, and to both the colonel on the spot for a change, the generals can relax for a second, we see an army special operations to star, we see a regular army two star, a marine corps colonel and while colonel skinner be pretty smart guys, there is a question about marine corps' level of commitment and i've seen all sorts of land our events and sessions marine corps delegation is smaller, lower ranking and often quieter. fortunately, not last in this case. i often don't see any army national guard up their involved. arguably, general hix -- there

is a lot of stress and controversy about what the role is in future missions. to you, colonel, why is an '06 enough on this panel, or do wish someone else was here? especially now. and to general hix, how do you bring in the guard and reserve component to this discussion and what their place is in this engagement and forward leaning? >> i'm going to sit quick word and ask the colonel to begin but let me take a little bit of the blame here. because i have primary responsibly for the with these panels have been configured and we chose a date and a time when a marine general was not available, not on purpose, but that's how life works out. as you said, colonel's impact is anything but a shrinking violet i want to take the blame on any kind of issue having to do with representation of u.s. army and

the u.s. marine corps. on the guard reserve -- [inaudible] >> on the guard and reserve issue, this is a niche i think we want to keep talking about. i will leave it to anybody who wants to comment further. i do think we have a lot more to learn. i'm going to voice one very specific request and suggestion to the broader community which is i think w think we need a den empirical study of what the guard and reserve did in the last decade. as far as i'm aware is not can't be done in what i think is needed. i think we do need some more data to enter into these kinds of debates. not so much for the current round cuts but maybe for the next rounds or the rounds there after if there is such a thing. i wanted to fall into those thoughts but now we could maybe begin with the colonel. >> thank you very much. just to dispel any myths on this, the marine corps is totally involved in the strategic plan part task force. i am now the official marine

member to the strategic plan part task force. agenda was going to be today when i thought this would be in the afternoon. he has a conflict or estimate effect, general paxton was going to sit in on the second panel. but travel pulled him away. the bottom line is, that as a marine corps we are much smaller than the other services, and our people have a lot of commitments, but i can tell you that the commandant of the marine corps is committed to this task force in all aspects and continuing to work in cooperation with the army and special operations forces. i think you will see more marines present at these get-togethers, and high ranking as well. >> any comments on jim's question? >> yeah, i'll take both questions. to answer your first question, yes. we have to look at all aspects,

step outside of our problem and not look at just solely from our perspective. so that collective understanding is part of what we are seeking. but we don't want to do is have another report after another major conflict that says that we ignored the generally correct analytical intelligence that said, here are the social, cultural, political problem you are going to trip over when you enter country x or y or undertake the following action. of course the other funny that we invariably accepted tactical intelligence at face value even though most of the time it was found to be incorrect at the end of the day. so that's one of the underlying lessons i think guides us as we go forward. we have been engaging in the agency and have involved the interagency in a number of our seminars and experiments. to date, we do not yet have

participation in the task force, in part because as general haas nostrum we're still arm-wrestling all of it ourselves. we want to make sure we at least have a common view before we bring in others although we have invited and there is interest from both the navy and air force in providing participation, maybe not permanent but participation in our events. to sydney, first off, i had the honor of having marines as my subordinate units. i would also note from the national guard perspective, how for my unit in afghanistan in the south when i was the only army colonel their were national guard. so i have an appreciation for the capabilities and capacities, and, frankly, the commitments of both our marine and guardsman. i would also note that general paxton was at -- in the fall with the chief and the admiral,

and i think that probably was an exception. probably the first time that's ever happened, to have a panel like that. then the third point i would just make to remind you, sydney, when you are also participating in one of our experiments, and if there other members of the press, we invite you to do the same thing. you remember the general was there, and the front table was special operations, two star, army two star, marine two star. so i would say your perception navy slightly skewed affair. the last point, i had the opportunity to be the mc we had what we call a board of directors meeting with the comment that, the chief and admiral mcraven. i have to tell you, i had a little trepidation going into it but the commitment and unity of thought amongst those three very diverse officers in terms of

their experiences and the services that they have come from was, was very interesting to me. and, frankly, reassuring that we had at the senior levels the issues that we have raised here. they had a clear understanding of why we are doing this, what we must do it and where we have to go. how is the part we still arm-wrestling with. in terms of the last point, national guard, roles and missions, of course where a total force. we can't fight without the guard and reserve. frankly, the united states military writ large can't fight without the guard and reserve. we provide the depth and it turns regardless of what the lead is in that regard. in terms of engagement one of the key things we leave unable is there state partnership capacity program which is a very unique and hugely beneficial tool in our engagement strategy. and all of the theaters, not just say in africa.

>> any final comments? >> if i could just begin to adds the issue of the human domain. two key points. although we have not agreed upon a final definition for it, we are looking at physical, cognitive, information, social, cultural aspects of human behavior, beliefs, perceptions. and getting back to doctor singer's point, we don't want in the long term, looking out to the maturity of this concept for it to be somehow stovepipe within just land power, land domain. the joint forces always seeking to find cross domain synergy and we see the human domain as being able to help in that regard and achieve some of that. and then with regard to the national guard, certainly our national guard forces within the special operations community are

a little different than the rest of the army in that they are the most meter our active duty force. -- mirror. what we change and modify and update within our active force immediately translates into our national guard forces. not that significant separations between active duties, soft, and national guard. >> peter come any comment on this round? >> no. well, quickly. i think the question isn't the valley of the national guard and reserve. it to mark jacobson's earlier point of how organizations change. and, look, we have an active tension right now between the active duty forces and the guard and reserve over a relatively

small change in the grand scheme of things where, and this is changing army aviation, where we can't even transfer a couple of helicopters back and forth. that's the way it is right now. is the question moving forward is when we are talking about these bigger level issues, how we can make that more seamless so that value continues to be the case. and then the second is, again, all those things that jim laid out as problems, the use of force and our ability, actors and magnet, both positive and negative alike, every single thing he said would've applied to the air war campaign in kosovo. that's again, i don't want us to just limit it to land workers. maybe where it is most dire but it also ironically may be where it's least needed cognitively

right now because it's most on the brains of the land forces component, the challenges, the other parts of the. it's not the human side, it's the idea of how do we make this more ultimately joined in the end so the dispute isn't over whether it's this marine or not. it's the fact we should have all the colors, so to speak represented. >> given the talent on this panel of what to do one quick lightning round. i'm going to invite to very short questions and then 60-second wrapup for each panels and then we will swap your from panel one the penalty. [inaudible] >> does this seem like a good opportunity for you to reevaluate the career track and the planned we've got more officers on right now?

we need officers, skill sets. is this a good opportunity to reevaluate what those officers need to do? >> thank you. >> and just to ask whether fighter capabilities is part of land power. cybercom is not represent but the way in which the human domain through digital channels. and which, given whichever way you want that question, how does that impact and organizational construct? >> general, you want to start here and we will work our way down. general haas, start. >> socom has some service like responsibilities, and we are reviewing the management of expertise within the officer corps, certainly our senior noncommissioned officer corps and did aware of how does manage these regional experts that we are developing on a daily basis.

how do we, more importantly, retain them, and then certainly place them in the position where this regional expertise and knowledge that they have developed over their careers as a special operator can contribute to the advice and the planning that we forward up to our national command authority. we don't see radical change in how we are managing our special operations officers and ncos, but we do see, and this task force will help inform that, how do we modify that management of personnel. and, of course, because we are not of service, we look to certainly the services that help us and assist us in that. >> colonel? >> good question. this was a lively debate last

night over dinner, but i just want to emphasize that in the marine corps, the marine is our most important asset, whether he is enlisted or officer. we will closely make sure that we're selecting the right people, training the right people and continued to develop them, pick out the talent for the future success of the marine corps. that's something in the first and foremost on our interactio interactions. >> first i would note to my colleague, pete singer, seamlessness usually comes from a lot of wrestling. so this is not something that's going to happen immediately but i think over time, i can tell you, it took us a long time to get an 11 page paper out because there was a lot of wrestling. but at the end of the day, the three for stars which may be a president signed that piece of paper. >> what's the best way to find? >> it's on the website. we have the ncr reps here with

tim and scott along with mike and they'll be happy to come brief you spin for the c-span audience what is it called? >> strategic land power, winning the clash of wills. >> thank you. spent in terms of talent management, we are an institution of people that are enabled by technology. technology does not define the army any more than does the marine corps. acknowledging our tools to get and to soldiers. same day mr. with our special operations brothers. people are central to what we do. in terms of how we rethink our development of our, particularly our leaders, as we came out of iraq, and particularly now that we are drawing down in afghanistan, we undertook a program called the army profession, which sounds very bland. what we did is we surveyed i think about 44,000 officers, ncos, warrant officers and

soldiers, about what were their views about the united states army and they came back to us and said we have to rebaselining our leadership and talent. we are a profession. we've got to get back to basics. they told us that. this was a bottom-up piece you think is very important because they understood the gravity as you come through this period of reasserting and become reacquainted with your profession. you need knowledge, army doctrine, et cetera. not unlike being a doctor or a lawyer. these are learned behaviors overlong good of time. it's not something that comes to you on the weekend. and so i think that's a key part. the other thing i would say while the army is often accused of being -- i'm an army strategist which is a very unique and small career field, yet the army has decided to promote me and a couple of other

army strategist into the general officer corps. i think it's indicative of the fact the army has changed because that would not have happened before. it's not that we need lots of people with my skill set and experience and assignments, knowledge, et cetera, but we have recognized as an army there are unique capabilities we have to bring forward all the way through the ranks. both enlisted, warrant, and in the officer corps. the last point on cybercom as a mentioned at the beginning, one of the key areas that we are focused on is this convergence of cyber, land, and human, and what does that mean to how we deal with both the human domain, i'll put it in quotation marks for my marine brother here, but also what does that mean in terms of how conflict unfolds, what that means at the tactical level, et cetera. one of the challenges we have levied in our army concept development is the capability to take local action for local

effect and not be relied on what is currently a principally strategic on that comes out of washington and the approval process gets consumed inside the national security council. so you don't act at the speed of war in cyberspace as your opponents are. it used to be said it was easy to kill people and spend money in iraq. i would say the same thing is, it's easy to take kinetic action against people operating in cyberspace than it is to take cyber action in cyberspace that i shall has a better and more enduring effect right now. and debate these of that is capability, not authorities. new tools. you will have new ways of operating. so that's one of the areas we're focused on. >> if there is a human domain battle, to me it's this last question, this issue around the

talent within the forces today and tomorrow, and how do you recruit, more importantly retain it. you can think about the challenges in this space that are somewhat uncomfortable, and they should be uncomfortable in a change. if they weren't you couldn't say the forces are at a transition point. one, for example, is the issue of how do you build up talent in areas that frankly haven't gotten the attention over the last couple generations? i'm interested in tactical air and missile defense where we may be going through a shift in the 21st century where there will be threats at the tactical level that we have in effect hollowed out some of our capability with online forces because the assumption the air force could control for all of them, talking about, for example, proliferation of small uavs, short-range missiles and the like.

that's a career field questions as well, how do you get, it's not just how to build out the force, how do i get top people within and give them opportunities. we have the multiple services up here represented, but they have very different approaches to promoting below the zone, or not. essentially how you reward meritocracy. army does, right now marine corps doesn't promote below the zone. just a fact. so how do we deal with that, becomes more of a challenge when the force isn't growing in size, or rather shrinking in size but how do those top talent and may not have the promotional opportunities if they have had previous in the core, how do you keep them in? another link to the cyber question which is again both in your area unlike missile defense, it's sexy but would not yet established with a long-term career tracks are for people in that space. and even more so you have retention problems because of just frankly a great paying the jobs are outside of it, and

maybe the opportunity to be more operational if you're outside the military because problems that the general mentioned here. another way of putting it this is, or thinking about history, young officers today will be going through the same kind of questions that patent and john k. hair did about 100 year's ago. patton was someone who loves force calvary. john k. hair did as well. both went to west point. patent joe to go into the tank corps and it's a good thing for america that he did. for joy he languished at sort of junior and midcareer ranks for the next two decades. john k. hair stayed within the force calvary and goes all the way up to a two star general. and ultimately he was arguing to congress as late as 1939 not one more horse while i give up for a thing. with the same kind of question with emerging officer corps

today which is to tell issues not just size, it's also how to find that out and put them in the best places to make sure they stay within the best places. fortunately, to end on, it's a great thing that we have inquisitive minded two star generals today rather than some of the, were not going to get beat -- repeats the mistakes of the past and that's a difference of the attitudes which at the end of the day the attitude is the most important thing. >> thank you. please, as was water very quickly, join me in thanking these panelists. [applause] [inaudible conversations]

>> [inaudible conversations] we are going to roll right into the next panel.

>> [inaudible conversations] >> so one of the fantastic aspects of this topic, which links back to the choir ending point of the last panel is the human capital issue here is not a problem. we have a wealth of expertise such but rather than having an eight person panel. we have a second, breaking into this conversation into two parts. we've got some great folks here. first, we have h.r. mcmaster who let all definitions of the terms is a true warrior scholar. in 1984 graduate of west point, gone on to serve his nation in places that ranged from iraq, i

should mention in multiple decades there, as well as afghanistan and elsewhere. a lengthy list of accommodation including the silver star. star. is also know as one of the top thinkers in the field, starting with his ph.d dissertation dereliction of duty which is required reading for anyone in this space. and continuing to be an active writer are connected to the question part we will speak to this. is present at the command of the center for excellence at fort benning but he deserves congratulations on some recent news, defense secretary hagel announced the nomination of four officers for promotion to lieutenant general last week, including h.r. will become deputy commander of the army capabilities integration center. next we've got michael hamlin the yard and the last panel will now be able to unleash them you in a different role. is senior fellow with is at the center for 21st century intelligence and also director of research at foreign policy program at brookings.

specializes in u.s. defense strategy in american foreign policy. he is by far the most prolific writer in this space, including his most recent book, healing the wounded giant, maintained military preeminence while cutting the defense budget. and if that wasn't enough has an upcoming book in may titled strategic reassurance, u.s.-china relations in the 21st century. and, finally, we're joined by the chair of the brookings institution government study program where he serves as a senior fellow. he's a former policy adviser to president clinton and a variety of presidential candidates. but most importantly for this discussion is an expert on domestic policy and political campaigns and elections. so what i would like to kick us off if i would just go down the road. h.r., you have a very important article recently entitled the pipe dream of easy war. when you look at the trends out

there, but even more so the discussion that we heard both in the first panel but more broadly, out there in sort of the media, what concerns you the most? and then how do you connect those concerned to not merely the discussion of the day on the sides, but more so the form and function of land forces? >> thanks. it's a real privilege to be here amongst so many friends who have lent clarity i think toward thinking about national defense which i think is immensely important, special in a period of diminishing resources. what concerns me the most is really that we will engage in wishful thinking that's motivated mainly i budget constraints. obviously, as a military officer here, our job is to do the best we can with whatever we're provided. you get the army, that the people of willing to pay for and it's our job to do our best with

it. what i'm concerned is really the emergence of four fallacies about the nature of future armed conflicts that anything could set this up with difficulty in the future, either by not having the right balance across our joint forces, land, aerospace, see, cyber capabilities as a part of any department of effort, multinational efforts. these fallacies give us easy solutions to the complex problems of future war. the first of these you might call the return of the revolution in military affairs. it's like a vampire. it comes back every 10 years or so but it's the thinking that advances in communications and information, collection capabilities, decision munitions and the robotics and so forth have fundamentally changed the nature of war and warfare, and, therefore, war can mainly be won through the application of firepower onto land from the aerospace and maritime domains. while these are tremendously important capability, they are

not a strategy because the things that were talked about on first panel. the second fallacy i would say you might call it a "zero dark thirty" fallacy. is nois that really all we neede tremendous and capable special operation forces that will conduct raids against discrete targets and essentially we can solve the problem of future world with something global swat team to go after any leaders. again, and immensely important capability, but not really a strategy that can work when applied to the complex problem of future war. the third thing i would call, i would call it the merlin parkins are mutual of omaha files. for those of us old enough to remember, marlon perkins hosted mutual of omaha's wild kingdom but he never got dirty down with wildlife. it was jim. jim would go down and do all the hard fighting. we will just go out on other armies to do our fighting for us. all we need is an advisory

capability. an incredibly important capability but not in and of itself a solution to the problem of future war. the fourth thing that bothers me i think is this id you can opt out. this is really a narcissistic approach to the problem of war, warfare that really, that we can just decide ourselves and it doesn't give any agency to our enemies, which i think is dangerous, and, of course, we would i think engage in that wishful thinking at our own peril. so the degree to which these fallacies gain traction, we risk i think decisions that would've imbalance our forces and not give us the kind of capabilities we need to prevent conflict, to deter conflict, to respond to crises. and then and really which was the army to do i think what we need the army to be able to do is provide that kind of deterrent, to enhance regional and global security and

stability, to send a clear message to our potential enemies and adversaries that it is not in their interest to take action that threatens our republic or our allies or our vital interests. and then i think we have to be prepared to respond. we have to respond as part of a joint multinational force, and in a part -- interdepartmental effort that integrates all the efforts of international power to defeat any organizations and get us sustained outcomes consistent with our vital interest. those are the capabilities we need to build into our future force. we are working very hard on that now. we are consolidating the hard won lessons of 13 years of war and also making this grouted projection into the future to identify really based on emerging technological capability, some the things you talked about, emerging threats, capabilities and then shifts in geopolitics. our forces will be ready across our doctrine, how we're going to

fight our organizations. we're modifying them to be even more capable. training which has improved i think a measurably in the last 13 years, and then a real emphasis on which he mentioned which is development and education. despite what you hear in the news about -- is an exciting time to serve in our armed because where in this key transitional period, analogous to the transitional period between world war i and world war ii. >> mike, i wanted to be exact same question in terms of the trends out there and how you're looking at it as it connects to size and form and let you react. >> thanks, peter. the main thing i would drive at this juncture in terms of what a we've got and where i think we need to be motivated, i think we need to maintain what i would describe as credible imagination. what i mean by that is thinking about scenarios that could happen that are not far-fetched, but still require a low bit of

mental stretching to come up with, like, for example, afghanistan 2001. who would have predicted it? and yet we did and we still are there. some people would say we never, should've done that very few people have said in the early years. this was a war that became a war of necessity. at the time we didn't anticipate it. what i want to do is get away from saying anything or you can make up, i could fabricate a tom clancy, may he rest in peace, is somehow validate i don't want to invite people to suggest we should prepare just these ground forces anywhere and everywhere. thank god in my mind for example, just be provocative, thank god the king -- the ukraine crisis did not use these tools, and i hope it won't. that should raise some pretty interesting and tough questions about whether ukraine and georgia should ever be parts of nato. at least under the current formulation. i'm trying to be provocative in

the sense there are some senators we need to be very careful about or rule out as possible future concerns for the u.s. army and marine corps. but there are a lot of other scenarios that i can imagine that could involve u.s. ground forces. it's very hard for anyone in uniform or in common to talk about them because they require some degree of political and delicate mr. kyl give a couple of brief examples and then wrap up. what if india and pakistan, heaven for become wound up in war again? potential income to the verge of nuclear war? this could happen. just five years ago terrorists out of pakistan attacked mumbai and i do think india which are the same restraint if that happened again. may be a nuclear weapon even gets popped off against the others air bases that are closest to the border and all of a sudden pakistan is worth about a general indian invasion and the very narrow country. what does the world do in that situation? let them fight it out? i don't think so but i hope not. help india and pakistan would be willing to ask for help. not in a vision by the were

against one or the other perhaps some kind of a trusteeship for kashmir. let's say kashmir was the catalyst and after certain breed of trusteeship there's a referendum by kashmir on their future. or let's say in nuclear talks in iran do not go well and we do wind up using force to strike some of the iranian nuclear facility to do we think that's the end of the story? a lot of people seem to say yes, iran will have to bomb some hotel someplace to show that it's still tough but after that, events. i'm not so sure. unit interdicted of pro-long semi-cold, semi hot version and persian gulf in which case american battalions and brigades with some our allies along the persian gulf may seem like very prudent investments and deterrence. we can go into any of these in more detail and a lot of others. syria, a case in point as well because no one wants to be there now. do we think we don't let this place blow up indefinitely? some kind of internet peace

keeping force, i think it's a distinct possibility. we've got to keep these kinds of credible imagination scenarios in mind as we think about the future of our ground forces. >> bill, and i left off one key part of your background. specifically for sydney. he served in the marine corps as well. more important to this panel come to specialize in domestic politics, and so when you do these discussions that we had in panel one and then just now on some of the scenarios that mike is laying out, where is the american public on this? and how should that way in? >> well, thanks much, peter, for the question and to both of you for this most unexpected invitation to be on this panel. i have to say when i walked into the briefing room this morning, the sun came through the window

and glinted off the brass in the room, just about blinded me. i had what i can only describe as an admiral stockdale milcon for those of you who remember the 1992 presidential campaign. you know, what the heck am i doing in this room at this time? but then it occurred to me that i had one thing to contribute to the conversation. i think that setting aside how words are parsed, the idea of the human domain is and ought to be at the very center of our considerations. the most important human domain is the u.s. home front. that domain dwarfs everything else that we have heard. why is that? well, you've already heard

quoted the classic definition of war as a clash of wills. each side trying to impose its will on the other. will in the democracy has to dimensions. one of which is military. i'm not worried about that. the will of the u.s. military has never been broken and will never be broken. i'm utterly confident of that, but there's also a political dimension of will, and that is a different matter altogether. we did not achieve our objective, whatever you think of them, in vietnam because, quite frankly, the other side broke our will to continue the fight. and we can pretty much specify when that happened. and in preparation for this panel, i read a land power

fairest to finish a very interesting article, you know, with a short paragraph on land power, the foundation of pax americana. and i said wait a minute. we are not wrong and we never will be wrong. and one indication of that is that time matters. world war ii, our combat participation in world war ii from beginning to end lasted three years and eight months. we have been in armed conflict now for almost 12 and a half years. the american people will never sustain political support for conflict that lasts that long. in wars in the american democracy, time matters. time is a critical constraint on a viable strategy.

never imagined that time is our friend when it comes to armed conflict. and all of this goes to the question of what the american people are thinking right now. they think that the wars in afghanistan and iraq have not been worth it, that those wars failed their rough and ready definition of a cost-benefit test. and furthermore, they are less and less convinced that we ought to bear any burden, pay any price, to maintain our current global role. americans are all in favor of robust economic engagement with the world, but the question of whether we should maintain a forward leaning role in the world as a global guarantor of this, that and the other thing is very much up for grabs. and a sign of that is what's happening on the fiscal front.

because of the republican position on taxes, and the democratic position on entitlements, we have stabilized the budget for the short term by cutting the only other portion of the budget that's left, namely, discretionary spending. military spending right now is a little under 4% of gdp. over the next 10 years, according to the cbo, it is on track to decline to 2.6% of gdp. that's what it's going. i don't know anybody who is comfortable with the idea that we can carry out our defense and our global responsibilities with 2.6% of gdp. that is where we are heading and that is a political question. one last point. there are political reasons behind many of the fallacies that h.r. mcmaster put on the

table. naval power is pretty clean. airpower, the way it is now conducted by the united states, is very clean from the standpoint of the american people. you can help to do it without incurring a single casualty. land power is dirty. and the worst phrase in american politics right now is boots on the ground. and we are, this will be my final comment, we are in a period which to those with historical memories reminds me of the immediate post-vietnam period in 1973 to it took us a better part of a decade to get over the psychological and political consequences. and if i'm right, that's where we are after 12 and a half years

of war in the middle east. and it seems to me realistic thinking about our defense future ought to take the sentiments of the american people into account. if you don't like them, figure out how to challenge them and change them. >> i can't let that pass without giving you to the opportunity to respond. so why don't we just go back down the road, mike spent i will just say two quick things. it's a very nice analysis, hard to disagree. i would say, however, if 13 years ago i said to you, bill, we are about to get attacked in new york and then as a result we will spend 13 years in counterinsurgency warfare, i wonder how many people in your profession or i would've predicted that would be sustainable. americans don't like it but they have stuck with it. that gets to my second point on afghanistan, which is which is headed residential race over year ago. both candidates decide to leave the issue untouched becaus becai think as large because i think is largely confirms what your saying but it puts it in a different perspective. neither one of them want to be the cut and run candidate but

also neither saw any political hay to be made by talking positive about the war. that may be a reflection of where the american public is. in other words, most of us don't have family engaged. most of us only have limited, direct investment and what that means is the political leaders at least for that war and for managing the broader war on terror have a little bit of space to do things that they think are needed for the national security of the united states, and they shouldn't talk themselves out of the willingness to do some very modest things. because of his conviction the public has already jumped off the shoe. the public is tolerated. it doesn't like it but i would say at least for the war we're in now and for the small operations around the world, the public is prepared to do what does. i would caution politicians not to go so for us to think we got to pull out of everything in order to please the public when something bad happens as result of our disengagement. >> can we mix it up, peter? >> you get a chance to respond spent i was going to say this is

what brookings is so important i think it's important to have this dialogue with the american people, the representatives in congress and so forth but i think really it is the sort of narcissistic approach that would take to war and warfare that doesn't allow americans oftentimes to understand what is at stake broadly in terms of national security or what's at stake in any particular conflict like that in afghanistan. how many here today even, there's a group that's engage in national security affairs, to name the three main taliban groups in afghanistan who are fighting in afghanistan, what their goals are, what their strategy is, and why different all civilized peoples. probably nobody. not nobody here but very few good name the enemy. we don't really even talk about threats, innings, adversaries and so we don't understand what is at stake. i think and understand, realistic understanding of what are the threats to national and international security and what

sort of forced do we need to be able to deter those threats and respond to crises in our national interest are threaten threatened. and so i think what you hear and, in a dialogue, the for fallacies i mentioned, but it's largely based on the collective really for me continuities in war and warfare which we neglect at our own peril. it's been talked to in the previous panel and today. the first is war is an extension of politics. actually it's from this political competition is where violent conflict emerges from that violent political competition. what we can to do though is simplify war and to look only at military means first of all. but then only look at targeting any organization. targeting equals tactics equals operations equals strategy equals policy. i think when we're debating about what to do in syria, debating whether or not to shoot cruise missiles and how many to shoot really wasn't a very

useful debate to have because really it masked what was most important of which is to understand the nature of that conflict, the degree to which our vital interests were at stake there and he american concerns are at stake. and then what can be done broadly in that conflict. the second is what we talked about, the human domain, and really war is profound human. i think what's different about threats that are emerging to national security today is these threats are emerging from the least and thus was places in the world were as in the past we were concerned really only with the most industrialized places in the world. what that means is will have a lot less warning about the nature of future conflict. we saw that with the mass murder attacks on her own country on september 11, and so we need joint forces that are able to respond quickly that are ready to respond quickly to those threats because of a number of factors. the fact these threats come from state as well as nonstate

actors, and the extension of military capabilities previously associated only with nation states to some of these nonstate actors. these are particularly destructive weapons that pose a threat to us and also from nation states in the form of long range ballistic missiles, weapons of mass destruction we could talk more about that later. the third thing we neglect in terms of continuity is that war is uncertain but this goes to michael's point. our record in predicting the next fight is perfect. it's zero. we've never been able to do it. so one of the immortal things i think is to understand broadly what the potential threat to our and into balanced joined forces against to deter conflict. i would say to william, we have had extended commitments and have been successful. i think korea is an example of that. and so obviously we want wars to be fast, cheap, efficient and quick but based on the nature of the war it may take longer than we would like.

the war doesn't have to maintain, it has huge number of long period of time with a large number of casualties. i think extended commitments of land forces as part of joint forces to regional security like that to south korea is an example of an important aspect of land power. finally, the fourth continuity that we neglect i think is that war is a contest of wills. i agree with william. this is an important aspect of really public understanding war and warfare. and, of course, it's important i think for especially civilian leaders i think to have a discussion, academic leaders, think tanks. our role in the military is to give our best advice, but not to cross the line between advice and advocacy. nobody likes generals to make the fencepost decisions or decisions in wartime. we need to give our best advice. i think we can highlight what the stakes are, describe the nature of our enemies and fighting in wars like in afghanistan and the connection

between the taliban groups, groups associate with al-qaeda and al-qaeda central and so forth. but really it's going to be for others, for you guys to help educate the public about the enduring nature of war and warfare, threats to national security and then will we have to maintain in terms of our capabilities to deter and respond to conflict. >> can i ask one follow-up question and give bill the last response before we opened it up. in many ways you wear two hats, because you are also a historian. so you've laid out these series of continuity. you're just with specialized in the parallel that bill just made to the vietnam period. i would argue there are two different, i want to get a response to them, in terms of that period. one, the scale of the threat. so as bad as these three taliban

groups and even of al-qaeda, however want to say, because it's not industrialized, because it's not the state, what you can do, and more important, the way the american public interprets it, is suddenly different than the cold war, the red army, the soviet union and the like. that's one. do we see continuity? the second is what your work was going on, the profession of arms. a different interaction between the american public and its military and operation is shaped by the fact we go from a conscript forced to a truly professional force. do yo you you see those as contr these aren't new kind of disconnect and how do they manifest themselves be? i think there are both continuities and changes in the nature of the threats with which we are contending. i think that what has changed is the importance of nonstate

actors, transnational organizations, and i think really what it takes often times is an effort to defeat those organizations in context of multinational operations. because these are groups that operate where the writ of the legitimate state is very weak. and so it's important for i think land forces to be able to operate as part of a multinational effort. i think mali is an example, what a land forces compel land forces had responded to this kind of threats. so they respond in such a way as to defeat an enemy organization and then get to some sort of a sustainable outcome internal to the country, and then also the head of the multinational forces and so forth. i think you see other uses of land power that in recent months even, in central africa republic

for example, that also demonstrate the need for us to be able to intervene effectively where there's large-scale communal conflict. i think what these conflicts have in common, if you go, different obviously but in syria, in iraq with return of large-scale communal conflicts, in yemen, for example, in northern nigeria, in central african republican the recent operations in mali, what you have in common age of a communal conflict in which committees are pitted against each other in a struggle for power and survival. then you have outsiders who come in and portray themselves as patrons and protectors of one of the aggrieved party. they advance their interest by trying to establish control over territory and people through intimidation, coercion, and perpetuating that communal conflict. i think this is an element of each of these complex, and others as well. the only way to really cope with

it effectively is to break that cycle of violence and then to do with the human dimension of war, to understand the tribal, sectarian and ethnic often time dynamics. and then to mediate some sort of outcome there that is sustainable and remove support for these extremes, whether it's the islamic revolution guards corps of iran and their proxies, hezbollah in syria, or if it's isis for example, on the other side and then to get to some sort of sustainable outcome. you can't do that without land forces. you can't do it. and so i think that is an element of discontinuity may be where these conflicts i think more often a place is our vital interests at risk and we have to be adept at coping with those. i do also see an element of continuity with those wars of the past because i do not think we can write off threats from nationstates and capable fielded

forces of nationstates. ..