and are blocking information access. it is worse than that. now i will give you a different scenario which is, name a company, an organization or an institution founded before 1994

that today wants to see the internet in everyone's hand as available as low cost as with as much information into the hands of peep as possible? think about it. i mean 1994 is ground zero. that is when the mosaic browser was invented. those companies that were all founded before then, organization, institutions, governments, they take the internet. it is disruptive to their markets. they may have social media strategies and use internet in e-commerce but they want to put the genie back in the bottle. look at the nsa revelations. what does that tell you about power trying to control information? if you look at companies after 1994, let's before 1994, bi, before internet and after 1994, ai, after internet. the mower closer ground zero,

i.e., google, you more information want to spread. google had a mission, do no evil. however the further and further away they have gotten from 1994 they had to turn themselves into a pretzel and no longer are able to do no evil because of two major reasons. one is the guys who got started before 1994 are now, getting smart and are trying to crush the, everybody that came in the ai period and government regulation is pushing back and market forces like wall street are demanding quarterly returns that show companies are making money in the ai side. they have themselves into pretzels, they take our data ton monetize it and average person who wants information is getting screwed. where do we all fit in? let me ask you this question. how many of you read the terms of service all the way through all the way to the end before

you pressed tab and downloaded that app to your computer or phone today? one person. we're having massive debate about openness of internet and net neutrality and we're not participating in that conversation. you know whose fault that is? ours. we're letting politicians and corporations that have huge pools of money dictate the future. so van's right, but i'm sorry that his strategy is going to fail because we're not, we are not intermediating and disrupting politics. that's the problem. we, we want the open internet to disrupt politics but it is not going to work that way. you have to have an open democracy so the by-product is an open internet. the open internet is not going to create an open democracy. >> joe, you asked about -- [applause] you asked about the right playbook here. any economist would say that the right economic playbook tore this period, in the short term

is actually really, really straightforward. it is even easy to remember. all you have got to keep in mind ei, eio. do the old mcdonald theme song in your head over and over. that is classic econ playbook. education, immigration, infrastructure and also a little port of a force fit, original research, basic research into fundamental technologies. we're doing a lousy job at most elements of eieio playbook. we talked a little bit about education. i couldn't agree more. andrew mentioned infrastructure, broadband. the american society of civil engineers gives our current infrastructure a d-plus. this is america. this is a first-world country. what are we doing with a d-plus level infrastructure? this makes absolutely no sense from a basic economic perspective. so one of the things that frustrates me, maybe the econ 101 playbook will not be

sufficient to change the direction and get us out of some unpleasant situations we're in. it is absolutely necessary though and we're not doing a lot of it right now. >> good question for scott, the one person that served as a member of congress, we've seen, we're currently sort of fighting about how much to cut government budget. and all the things he just said are pretty expensive. so how, if we do want to make those investments how is our political system and can our political system actually get us there? >> i think it requires people to get involved and to make the case to their elected officials that's what they want. i was listening to andrew talk about this does anyone think that the world was different in the 1920s or 30s when general electric and consolidated edison controlled the electric supply. it is too expensive to run electricity to rural warren county where we live up in state

new york? absolutely not. it was exact same story. the debate went on and cot government give them money. they probably said yes, the government gives them money and we'll do it. what did the government decided to do? they decided to borrow money and make an investment they didn't give it to the large corporations they built rural electric cooperatives. to keep the cost down. they were not-for-profit but keep the costs down so forever they would have lower cost access unbelievable technology. how much more education can you get with lights after dark when you've been working on your farm. this is revolutionary change. the folks in the cities were ahead and folks in my area of rural up state new york were not getting the same dynamics. all the. yeah, it's a decision but it can be done. it is not impossible. you can overcome the selective interests that are fighting

against it and you can also come up with a better solution than giving the money to corporations. >> can i jump in on that for a second? because the issue that got started on, immigration reform seems a classic case you were talking about. majority of immigration reform, it passed one house of congress yet we don't have it yet. can you give us a quick explanation of why not? >> i can. you've got something called the hastert rule which was established when hastert was the speaker of the house said unless a majority of the republicans wanted a bill to go to the floor it would not go to the floor. immigration go to the floor of the house today it would pass. minority of republicans with majority of democrats but they won't let the bill come to the floor. that means there has to be a mart jeff republicans called by people in that irdistricts not tweeting, nation booking them, getting people locally, business

owners and others who believe immigration reform is the best move forward to get that hastert rule broken and get the bill to the floor. >> does that make sense to you? >> that is big part of it. when you have a split congress you need a majority of the republicans in the house and majority of the democrats in the senate to be pushing the same thing at the same time. that doesn't explain it pass it five years ago with democrats on both side. reality there was less public support for it five years ago. the other big thing going on around i think so people understand, immigration reform, sounds simple, right. we all know what that means? you know exactly what it means? there is at least republicans talking about six different bills, right? there are things that everybody agrees about and things that they don't and coalitions that agree about all those things aren't always the same and one of the things that goes on in washington is, this might be popular with everybody but leadership doesn't necessarily let that pass because they want these other three things over here. if they keep the popular thing attached to these other things

maybe it will pull it all along. there are pieces of immigration you could pass right now in the house and senate but for various political reasons it doesn't happen because people are trying to work the angles to get some other pieces of it attached. >> -- passed tomorrow both houses but the democrats won't let it come to the floor that way because hispanics disown them. >> they believe their -- [all talking at once] >> it is not that complicated. it is just frustrating. >> i let van jump in here. >> andrew said we shouldn't look at these things through a straw. your explanation how the house is working is accurate but, in ad cut. there is much -- inadequate. there is much bigger things going on. first of all there is the way the public is being informed right now. i would argue to any of you, if

you have an uncle or some ex-boyfriend or girlfriend that gets their news from a news station that is named after a predatory dishonest furry mammal -- >> not any names. >> just saying, may be someone you know who actually gets their news about this issue from a news source that is named after a predatory mammal, known for -- then you can't trust the guard to henhouse. i will not mention fox by name. i'm just saying, that this, it is very easy to sort of make us all very simple. if only the house rule was different. if only we had more attention to pro-democracy stuff on internet. here's the reality. if we're going to make real change, we'll have to be sophisticated in the thing we're trying to change.

hank's strategy by itself will fail as well anybody else's strategy by itself. what we've got to begin to understand here, we found ourselves right now in a moment where we have the best information distribution system in the history of the world. we have more access to more data that we're getting dumber and the information system is growing and wisdom system is not. there is something missing at this stage of the story where we actually don't understand each other. i'm on a show called "cross fire." i get a chance to sit next to my friend newt gingrich and we get to bring all these guys on and you think we live in different countries. we haven't learned how to hack that problem where people can pick their own informational environment and honestly believe, barack obama, president obama, opened up the borders and let let those people flood the

country, these canadians. , flood the country, when in fact he supported more canadians, mexicans, deported more than any president before. we can't even agree on the facts. part of the reason, hastert rule would not be a terrible rule if we could be outside of the fact-free, pick your own blog world, pick your own tweet stream reality where literally people can't even agree on basic facts. so the problems are much more complex. i think it is very important what hank is doing because we've got to get more people involved who have a stake in more parts of the problem. so when he gives people the tools and technologies, you're not just giving it to one slice of democrats. you're giving it to everybody. >> can i challenge the people in room, andrew, talked about reaching members of congress, not just tweeting but picking up the phone and call, i would challenge this city, most

unbelievable tech community and stop talking to each other. there is not a lot of people to convince in this room. many of you are not from here. most of you did not grow up in new york. call your friend that are from alabama or from north dakota. or come from missouri like i do and talk to the people who watch fox news every day. talk to friends that watch msnbc. >> i want to underscore this -- got the shut this down. i want to brag on you for saying that. most people that know, are people like myself, friendless nerds, bully magnates, unloved by anyone else outside our immediate family, and not everyone in our immediate family , we spread from the middle of country to the coast and reinvented ourselves as whatever and did the best to forget all those people.

and now most of us we can't even go home for thanksgiving without inflicting or receiving massive amounts of trauma because we just can't communicate with these people. and that's something we can no longer indulge. we know how to speak american. we know how to not piss off everybody at the dinner table and stale make our point. as progressive democrat, i think we got isolated into our own stuff and strangely it is arrogant and intolerant, we sometimes accuse our opponents of that. i appreciate you saying that. >> i live in cambridge, massachusetts, and i have no idea what you're talking about. >> remind folks you can ask questions through the ipad and url is right up there. so we'll ask one of the audience questions. some of these questions have gotten answered on their own but

interesting one said, when do we say simply working hard at mcdonald's isn't enough? you know, when did we turn our attention to our public mind-set, we have a lot of people sort of extrapolating, people working 50, 60, 70 hours a week at minimum wage jobs, working really hard. they're not, they're not making anything close to middle class wage. at what point does our mind set change around? >> one of the ideas we talk about in the book i'm really fond of advanced by noted socialist milton friedman in the 199 '60s we have positive income tax, above some level of income we have to -- >> richard nixon. >> richard nixon. frederick hayak, a bunch much these crazy pinkos got together in the '60s you pay government in the government. below that level of income you get money from the government at the end of the year. it's a lovely idea because it provides direct incentive for work. and no matter who i talk to left

or right, we have this great fondness for work that is extraordinarily well-placed. it gives you something to do and community and meaning. work is great. joe, my solution if people remarking would hard and not able to make end meet, man, let's top them up. economist tool exist has ways that do do that. they used to have really broad bipartisan support time to bring these ideas back in the public discourse. >> i agree. i agree with that. this go all the way back to the end of the conversation, that is policy that's the kind of thing that can get a right-left coalition going and if the people, from the news channel good because it is work. people with liberals they say it is suddenly a lot of numbers,

not because technology is different but policy is different. that is important we not become people, that we could be omnipotent with technology and completely impotent when it comes to politics that can an a very dangerous place to be. >> we won't spend more time on that. >> oldest rule in economics, tax the stuff you want to see of and subsidize the stuff you want to see more of. u.s. federal government gets 80% of the taxes every year from labor. if we like work, we like labor, we're violating the basic fundamental tenet of economics we can shift that around if we want to. i'm completely with van. we can change our policies in the state of this technological tidal wave that is hitting us. we're not helpless at all in the face of that. >> in your numbers did you have any government transfer stuff with negative income tax would appear in the numbers or separate from what you're showing. >> -- this wouldn't appear in the numbers. >> the earned income tax credit is much like that but would that

have been an area. >> most of those numbers were included with taxes and transfers. >> go to a question. >> one directed on immigration. immigration reform pushed down wages for skilled middle class employees for software developers but increase pay for tech executives. >> repeat that. >> would immigration reform push down salaries for middle class employees like software developers and increase pay for tech executives. >> in some cases yes, some cases no. we have a talent gap. we have to figure out some way to get tall lant -- talent into this country with innovation to and train teachers to go to public schools. we need immigration in any way possible. unfortunately we're not going to see regressive tax or real tax reform in this country for a really long time, so looking to the government to try to solve this problem by policy a little

ways off unfortunately, van, i'm sorry to say. yes, it would be great if we were talking to each other and calling up our friend in parts of the country that should be calling their elected representatives telling them to pass immigration reform but we keep thinking somehow we'll elect people that will solve our problems instead of looking around ourselves and trying to solve our own problems. >> what does that look like? >> give you an example. so you probably heard of e-government. e-government is where government is using tools that we use every single day to deliver the services we expect them to deliver. pay our parking tickets, pay real estate taxes, apply to public school. governments are using more and more of these tools every day creating efficiencies. they're collecting massive amounts of data. they are releasing that data and people are taking that data and building on top of that. moreover we're collecting lots of data ourselves. when we're walking down the street or in a car we're

collecting data and people are collecting that data and some people are merging that data with government data and they're building new tools, applications and platforms that are useful to people in their daily lives and they're doing it faster than government can. my favorite example is exit strategy which is an app tells you where to stand on the platform of the subway to get to your station, the way to get out of the station was in right in front of you. that wasn't built by mta. it was built by brother sister team in brooklyn. took data themselves. police wouldn't give it to them because police said it was security threat and they built the map. there was open source mapping tool in kenyan election in 2007 that was disputed and used in haiti to help people identify where hospitals were, where water was, where resources were. wasn't built by fema. wasn't built by the government. it was built by people.

what we have the opportunity to do is go from waiting for e-government in the 21% century and get ourselves to we government where we and hillary clinton was right. we bid the village that we want n tribal times you were as concerned about your neighbor's son ability to throw a spear as our own son's ability to throw a spear because your village as sustenance or own life might depend on it. we live in factory model, a prussian model of education. factory mod definitely economics in this country where we forgot about facing each other and solving our own problems. we don't need more civic acts. we need acts that are more civic. manage airbnb started introducing people who are using airbnb to rent apartments in their neighborhood to each other to petition for a better park or for a bus to come by to pick them up or for a better school or for universal pre-k. or what if the owners of uber

were not the venture capitalists but the drivers themselves? we talk about the sharing of economy. does really lousy term because -- sharing economy but owners get paid in cash. it is not a sharing economy. the way to solve our political problems going over the next 20 or 30 years is not wait for government alone. partner with the government and partner with each other. >> joe, the initial question was about immigration reform and middle skilled wages. evidence on this is really, really clear. if anyone is hurt by massive waves of immigration, it ain't very many people, it ain't very much. if anyone at all is hurt it is people at very, very lowest end of the wages, those busboys and dog groomers and people like that. the evidence there is mixed. if they are hurt it is not very much everywhere else immigration is net positive. we just don't need to debate this anymore. research is too clear.

>> i want to go to kind of further looking thinking. i want to go to further kind of looking question here. sorry. so, you know, we all kind of agree the robots are coming. the question is as to when. andrew, and this question, the robots are coming is a base wage inevitable? kind of expand on that. at some point the androids make other androids, what do we, are there new jobs created or do we need to fundamentally reevaluate whether work is something that everybody should be doing? because we have build work both to be purpose and earn income. that has served us very, very well with protestant ethic. does that change in a world of massive automation? >> go. >> well i think that is the key question. i think we would -- further really liked everything that andrew was saying and i think increasingly having orientation

he is talking about is the going to be the key to the whole thing i love what he is doing. the way this is going to come down, the middle class itself, the strategy was, how do you be in the middle class to get middle class wage, get a middle class job and middle class wage? that is how you get to be middle class. i think it will be very difficult at least in country, other countries to your point things are rising but here the expectation gap is getting bigger. people thought they would be living this way and they're not. that kind of stuff. when i go out on the road i see them everywhere. it is about having i think a middle class light, not life. not necessarily a middle class wage. there will have to be three strategies, not one to give people a middle class life. keep fighting for jobs and fighting for wages. i think that is losing battle

next 10 years. i think we're going to be losing more jobs in the united states, good in the united states than we're creating but keep fighting for wages. i think you will have to do two other things. you will have to have some kind of redistribution at government left, what the economists call it. there will have to be some kind of a floor. something that is done to help people. middle class can't collapse into poverty this country. it will not be a happy outcome. and to andrew's point, wages, government has to get involved here and then there has got to be some return to some kind of neighborly nest, some barn-raising approach. the idea that we're in this together. not do it yourself. not wait for the government to it. do it together. that is basic ethic of do it together and using technology to find ways to solve problems together. those three if you do it right you might wind you with a good lifestyle, maybe even a better, maybe if you're using your social capital, more than trying

to rely on the financial capital, you might have a better quality of life. the actual middle class life experience could be better even if you have less jobs. but we have to come to some kind of a consensus that if that is the world we're aiming towards, we'll be in, we have to start trying to figure out how we make that dad gum thing work. if we keep telling people you're going to be able to get a middle class wage, and if you don't it is because the government is return by some crazy socialist kenyan or because you're lazy or some other crap, at some point the stress gets the people turn to each other or turn on each other. i love what andrew says, a way to turn to each other and technology to solve these problems and that is only way i think is out of this thing. >> so the robots are clearly coming. we don't know how quickly. the absolute long strategy to assume the day is going to come to start planning for it right

now. instead i think absolute right strategy, look ahead, for the next decent chunk of time, our economy is recognizable. we still need people so add input to the economy. maybe, 50, 75 years down the road that's not the case anymore. when i go out to the valley an talk tote entrepreneurs an innovators out there, they say, you have no idea what is coming. next round of ai and robots. what we've seen so far, driverless cars and "jeopardy" champion supercomputers. that is warm-up act. we're about to roll out heavy stuff. even though that will not happen the next five or 10 years. the right playbook next five or 10 years. i agree with what andrew and van said, right econ playbook is try to do everything we can to add economic growth. we're adding jobs to the economy yet every month. we do not have a situation where we grow the economy and shrink jobs. that is not what is going on. the right playbook to grow the economy even faster. put in policies, again, eieio to

make sure people probably prepared to incentivize work instead of penalize with our tax system. that is absolutely -- i speak from narrow economics policy perspective. that is absolutely what we should be doing instead of doing whiteboard planning with a world where the robots is taking care of everything for us. i think that world is coming in the lifetimes of most people in this room but not where we should spend our energy now. >> we have a major structural problem we're creating massive amounts of wealth in small amount of people, you talked about that before i got here. there is so much wealth, what are you growing to do with $19 billion? and -- >> whatever they want. >> well even if they wanted to give it away they probably can't because they don't have the infrastructure to give it away. and let me tell you another little sad fact they may have signed giving pledge which they claim they will give away half

the money before they die, they will probably not die. they will figure out some technology that will keep them alive for 200 years. our philanthropy of our 20th century industrial age has figured out how to edit risk out of its portfolios. we have fantastic philanthropist, in ford foundation, rockefeller foundation, gates and others who are giving money where they can but they're not putting a massive amount of risk behind communities, behind people like hank, who could, maybe lose some of it. make some mistakes and learn along the way. we need a new generation of philanthropists who understand the additional opportunities in order to leapfrog the existing philanthropy industry and funding projects allow us to turn to each other. our government will not fund it. media does not want to fund it they want us to tune into each

other. we'll still need capital that will have to come from visionary young leaders who understand the potential technology and realize they don't need to solve problems in the first world, they need now to solve problem for the second and third world and use that capital to do it. >> so scott murphy, we'll give you the last word. >> i don't disagree with really with anything that andrew just said. maybe i will take it back a little bit. if you look back on american history, one of the favorite things i studied and talked about, how did this country come to be? famous battle was battle of saratoga. the british arm was coming down from canada, they would cut the country in two, come down into new york and divide the country in go. they had the most powerful arm in the world. the americans kept fighting and picking them off and slowed them down and slowed them down. eventually destroyed that army. first time one of these armies was beaten by a ragtag force.

it happened in saratoga up state in my congressional district. how did this happen. we never had an army like this lose to colony. what happened to the british? they sent to figure this out? alexis de tocqueville. he came here 25 years later. looked around, maybe it wasn't quite that long. anyway looked around, what happened here? and what did he find in the american spirit? exactly what andrew is describing. what made this so unique, what allowed this country to come into existence to fight off the british army was local commune groups. was the town square in new england. wars the folks that came together as a little community and a little militia, 10 guys around the town square where they were having their own government and solve their own problems i say government, it was just the community coming together to solve their problems. when the army came, they armed up and went and fought and kept coming from new hampshire and massachusetts from vermont and up state new york. that little community group, whatever it was, became the

lion's club or kiwanis club or jaycees whatever throughout history became america strong. which lost that. bowling alone. what is going on today? technology facilitates. my sid can sit and play forever when the computer and my mind craft with all his friends. which have bring it back to the same thing that founded country and same thing that allowed it to break free the local community connected to willing to fight, in that case die, i don't think we have to go that far, they were willing to do that where they wanted and their community could do that together. i think that's where we have to go to solve it. >> i want to give our panel a big round of applause. thank you, guys. [applause] that was fascinating. if you are interested in more such events, you should join forward. our volunteers and staff are at the entrance.

$35 a year to become a member. you get a copy of andrew's book. he may even sign it for you if you're lucky. we're going to be, if you have thoughts on future topics you like us to put askings around, we're all ears. really our goal is to have serious, thoughtful conversations about many so of these big topics and have how the tech community can engage -- >> as this event wraps up we take you live to the national press club in washington d.c. press club president myron belcon will introduce general mark welsh speak about the future of the air force. he will take audience questions. he took over the air force in 2012. before that he was commander of us air force in europe. getting underway live on c-span2. >> he is not entirely unsympathetic, tellings congressional subcommittee, quote, every major decision reflected in our budget proposal hurts. each of them reduces capability

that our combatant commanders would love to have and believe they need. there are no more easy cuts. if a planned a-10 combat jet retirement isn't allowed to go through, the entire b 1 b lancer bomber fleet and 350 f-16 fighter jets may face the chopping block according to a top budget official. but cutting any f-16s isn't a move the general says he wants to make. welsh also generated headlines a year ago when he blamed the sexual assault activity in the military on the hook-up culture among young people. nevertheless, he and secretary of the air force create ad special counseling program for victims of sexual abuse. since its implementation earlier this year, there has been a 33% increase in assault reports and prosecutions. before his appointment, welsh was commander of us air force forces in europe and oversaw the

operations of the air force base in ramstein, germany. please join me in welcoming to the national press club, us air force chief of staff, general mark welsh, who will talk about the future of the air force with continued budget constraints and the latest on the battle to combat sexual abuse. [applause] >> myron, thank you so much for the introduction and congratulations on your appointment as the president, more importantly on a remarkable career in your chosen profession. ladies and gentlemen, thanks for letting me be here. this is actually pretty cool. i get to do a lot of stuff in this job that i feel like a little kid when i get to do it and i'm at the national press club, pretty amazing. you guys have kings and queens and heads of state and movie stars and sports icons and kingpins of the financial world. you picked the wrong morning to come. [laughter]

because you get me and jj and sid today. let me thank them for being here. jj jackson, chief of the air force reserve and sid clark, director of air national guard have been tremendous partners this job and general frank glass, chief the national guard bureau. we worked hard last couple years bringing our total force in a way that reflects how well they fight together in the from the time of our business. we'll continue that effort. it is a way we have to do business but it wouldn't be possible without their help and support and that's why i asked them to join me today and we would be glad to talk about that later if you want to. this is fascinating time to be in the u.s. military. great time to be an american airman and always a privilege to be chief of staff of the united states air force no matter what is happening around you. your airmen are proud of who they are. they're incredibly proud of what they do and incredibly good at doing it. the their biggest frustration, most folks don't have any idea what that is. a good friend of mine,

lt. general dave golfine director of general staff he has analogy that i shame nullly steel and he used it as csis last month and describes exactly how the air force is seen. when you walk into a room and look at the light switch on the wall, unless your electrician you don't have any idea what is behind the wall but every time you flip the switch the light comes on, every single time. that is the way our air force is. we don't do a whole lot of things in the world that are visible to you every day. for example, we have 600 strategic air sorties flying around the world. every 2 1/2 minutes every hour every day of the year. we have almost 330,000 airmen make that happen. we people and equipment around the world. i never heard the question asked in washington, d.c. as we look at options moving patriot batteries to some country or brigade combat team to another country or moving marines to the black sea or whatever we're talking about, the question can we get it there never comes up. never even heard it whispered

which is an incredible compliment to the people who do this business. when people start to think about using precision-guided weapon somewhere on the planet if they're an american military member they don't worry whether or not the satellite constellation that makes that operating is that day. you don't worry about it when you start the car. you don't look at it from the cell phone to see a what the time is from signal coming from space. we have 25,000 airmen who do that around the clock every day, all day and they support military operations all over the world. which have 2/3 of the nation's nuclear triad sitting on alert right now. it is the wallpaper of national security strategy. has been for a long, long time along with the navy's nuclear submarine fleet. they don't ask for a lost recognition but they do the job very, very well. they're getting attention right now. we can talk about that as well if you like. when we decide to send a b-1 from the american midwest to libya to kick off operation

odyssey dawn and drop 16 joint direct attack munitions on every shelter on an airfield in one pass, and then land somewhere on the other side of the globe, refuel, rearm and hit another base coming back home, second target set, nobody really asks how do you do that? that question doesn't come up. when we decide to send a b-2 launching from the american midwest to show of force in south korea, nobody really asks how that comes together. if you think about it for a second it is pretty spectacular. think about the intelligence or the arrow fueling requirement, command-and-control requirement. how does all that happen? who is doing that? they're just kind of in the background making things happen every single day. there's a great tv commercial, gulf commercial where the tag line is, these guys are good. you probably seen that so are my guys. they're incredibly good. luck cully our combatant commanders know that too. so the demand for what the air force provide is on the rise.

urn fortunately the supplies are going in the other direction. that is what we're facing with sequester level budgets we're looking a in the future and decisions we're having to make. as myron mentioned every recommendation we're making these days does hurt. it is taking capability or capacity away from combatant commanders, things that they believe they need and things we would like to provide but just won't be able to in the future because we have to be part of the solution to the nation, to the budget deficit. we got that. we're figuring out how to wisely move forward, keeping our air force balance as we downsize over time. we're reducing capability in everyone of our occur missions. that is reality of it. every single one of it. we're cutting modernization programs by 50%. we're keeping key programs we have to recapitalize. kc-46 tanker and long training strike bomber for operations that we have viable air force 10 years from now, that is part of our job, not just being ready to operate today. we're doing everything we can to

maintain the balance being ready to do the nation's business today and being capable to do it 10 years from now against threats getting more capable in some areas and getting more complicated in others. even with a ball baned budget agreement it is important to remember the reason it so dramatic to people, three years ago in fy-12 if i just pick a year out, the projected budget for fy-15 tore the air force was $20 billion than we actually have in our budget. that is 20% of our overall budget. and so, changing from a planned ion three years ago that had projected funding and training and force structure at that level to one that is going to be 20 billion a year lower from here forward is a significant adjustment. that es why the changes seem so dramatic. but if they're not done it will get worse in the future. it's hard to make a 20 billion-dollar reduction per year without making some significant change. so trimming around the edges as we put together our budget proposal just wasn't going to

work. we had to look at some pretty dramatic things. myron mentioned the a-10 fleet. one of those dramatic thing was cutting fleets of aircraft. let me tell you why we ultimately decide to recommend that fleet since it has come up already. the decision has come under fire from several sectors but there's a logical reason we got to that point. let me briefly explain it to you. we have five missionaries in our air force, just five. we've son the same five core missions since 1947 when we became an independent service. we added space superiority in as part of the first one, that is only new one. the way do the missions have changed the domains we do them in have changed. we do air, space cyber now but we do the same five missions. air and space spear i don't rememberty, global strike, isr, airlift and command-and-control. that's it. we're not complicated. in airspace superiority we're taking cuts in the budget. the f-22 is hinge pin of air superiority for the united

states of america, not just for the nights air force. air superiority is foundational way we fight wars as american military. without it you can't manuever on the ground, you can't manuever at sea. you have to have it. all of our warfighters know that. so only one service can provide a theater's worth of air superiority. only one has capacity and command-and-control capability to do it. when we capped the f-22s, meant we had to support them with some other airplane to provide theater of air superiority. until the f-35 is able to assist, it is f-15-c. we can't eliminate the entire fleet of aircraft or we can't do the air superiority mission and combatant commanders went accept that cuts but you can't cut a fleet. fleets save you big money. you get rid of bigelow gist call factors to and sum ply channels and things that cost a whole lot of money.

we have fleets there too but if you ask the combattant commanders number one short fall year after year after year is isr capability. we are already taking isr capability in this budget. they're cutting every mission area. they would not support us cutting anymore than we already projected. take out global mobility. cut airlift fleets. we talked about that i talked to ray odierno, chief of staff army, we're getting smaller. you're getting smaller as well. can we cut the airlift fleet more than we planned aligned to force size for you. we are smaller. need to be more flexible and more agile, no i wouldn't support you cutting airlift fleet. can't cut airlift fleet. what about tanker fleet. we looked at, cutting the kc-10 fleet. looked what impact that would have on operational scenarios we face. looking cutting equivalent amount of money from the kc 135 fleet. it would take as three times kc

135s as ac-10s to get the same savings. you can't get rid of logistical structure behind it if you don't take care of whole fleet. if you take get rid of kc-10 fleet it would be less impactful as kc-135s. if you take away the kc-135s you can't do the job anymore. we finally decided impact of that was too big on all the service, and combatant commanders compared to other options that we looked at. so airlift wasn't a good place to go. so command-and-control, maybe we can cut systems there. the only service that can do command control in theater is air force. missile defense, air operation, isr activity, whatever it might be, nobody sports that cutting further. we're down it strike platforms. we don't control the policy on nuclear business. so going after nuclear platforms is not part of our purview. we need 80, to 100 bombers to do nuclear deterrents and any predictable campaign flying with a bomber fleet in a large

conflict which i hope we never have to do. if we have one you better have 80 to 100 bombers you can't do them both. that is about how many we have today. they're aging but we have the right number. we can't go smaller. our number of squardrons is below the standing requirement today. you go into the tactical strike plat formed, b-1, a-10. f1 6. we looked at a-10 fleet. we can save $4.2 billion divesting had a-10 fleet not because we want to divest the a-10 fleet. we save $4.2 billion cutting f-16s out the fleet. that is 14 quad drones of f-16s. we could cut entire b-1 fleet. push up 35s outside of future defense plan and buy them later with costs and we could do that we could ground a whole bunch of quad dance today and make lights look lack last year, with nobody

flying. we looked at all the options. reached through them independently. ran through detailed operational analysis, with the against the standard dod scenarios and we came very clearly to the conclusion that of all those horrible options, the least operationally impactful was to divest the a-10 fleet. that is how we got there. it is not emotional. it is logical. it is analytical. it makes eminent sense from military perspective if you have to make these kind of cuts. nobody likes it. not me, nobody. but we've also worked very hard as part of that to put together transition plans for the units that are in those airplanes now. one of the things that sid and jj around i spend a lot of time on in our planning routinely these guys in particular spent a ton of time on in this budget looking for those guard and those reserve units impacted by losing a-10. is there a plan we could move other hardware into the reserve come point and transition those into missions that are viable

for the long term? that is what we owe our reserve component. we do have a plan to do that if we don't divest the a-tens from toes units the plan will come unraveled. we won't have force structure at the right time to make great those units and we'll start planning over again. everything in this entire chain of events is hard. the balance is pretty dell democrat cut, the cuts are real and issues are serious and deserve serious consideration. so let me stop there and i will be glad to talk to you about any of those things. i will be grad to talk to you about the budget further, about the total force integration. we can talk about sexual sought. we can talk about anything you like to talk about. if i need any help i will call on sid and jj who are smarter and much better looking. thank you again for the opportunity to be here. [applause] >> the air force is looking for a guiding concept to bid and

modernize around and you've mentioned recently you believe the us air force should focus on strategic, strategic agility. in practical terms, what does this term mean and how difficult is it to implement in this budget climate? >> thanks, myron. the concept actually is pretty simple it is just hard to get there. by strategic agility i'm referring to agility from everything from thought to training to education, to the decision processes to acquisitions, and to operational activity. we have to change the way a little bit that we do everything in order to get to this point and i think it's a long-term journey. all of you know we have a lot of processes in e inside the department and inside the government that none of us would consider agile. if we look forward to try to solve this in a budget cycle we can't do it. that is the difference. we have to start by making a concerted effort to long at the long term as the for the solution.

we're trying to change the way we do strategic planning in air force. we're standing up strategic planning organization that will focus on strategic planning and long-range resource planning. the idea we will have a living breathing strategy document that has three pieces to it. the first one is the call to the future. it is the priorities for science and technology, for research and development, for development of new concepts for human capital development. for new approaches to training and educating our people so our people are capable of being strategically agile. there is 20-year piece of this strategy is master plan a single air force master plan. we have 12 aligned on core function lead. the problem with that is you end up with 12 different plans for the air force. they compete in lots of ways, both overt and covert. and we need to bring that together into a single master plan where we can make the prioritization decisions as an institution that al us to be realistic about funding going forward. that master plan will have a 20-year forward look.

it will be bounded by projections of resources. if we expect the resource, will be at this line we'll not build into the plan anything that will push us above that funding line. and if which add something in that drives us above the line we take something out that keeps it balanced. the third piece will be a 10-year balanced budget. we'll balance it every year. first five years is future years defense plan but we've got to stop pushing costs into the future and assuming money will fall from heaven because that is note going to happen for the for seeable future. we have to start balancing our books kind of like what you do at home. >> it is well-known you're an a-10 pilot with several hundred hours of time in that air frame. has this impacted your response calls for the a-10 to be replace by f-22 or f-16? is there any willingness on your part to try to keep at least a few of these aircraft around for specific close air support

missions overseas? >> yes. we looked at every option we could. here's the problem. i mentioned that the you don't make big savings unless you cut fleets. if we took for example the a-10s rewinged last few years, put new wings on airplane as part of continue ages of aircraft, kept those aircraft, just those and divested rest of the fleet we would save one billion dollars. because it is all the infrastructure that drives the big costs of the so the difference between one billion and 4.2 billion is significant. that pays for half the flying hour program each year for example. so we just decided not to do that because we can't find billions of dollars of savings in many places in this budget. this is not about the a-10 not being a great airplane, not doing great work. it is about where we can take operational risk going forward, where can we create savings and how can we start transitioning air force to thinking about the threat and environment we will have to operate in 10 years from now. the a-10 will not be part of

that solution in a high-threat environment. what the budget is doing to us, i mentioned we're cutting capability in every mission area. it is eliminating our ability to have airplanes, systems, people who only operate in a single environment. >> if the air force is prevented from cutting the a-10 what are its second and they are options to achieve the same savings? >> any of the options i mentioned before. could happen. people are suggesting that, for example, we could cut 363 f-16s. if we did that the other missions air force is accountable for, the major missions we do in theater of operations and god forbid a big conflict would be almost impossible to achieve because the a-10 can't do the missions. f-16, f1 5, b-1s can do close airport. they have been doing it extensively alongside the a-10 in irrake and afghanistan last

eight to 10 years, thousands and thousands of sorties. very successful sort first. the problem the a-10s can't do the jobs airplanes can do rest of the battlefield. we save a lot of lives killing enemy's will to fight. destroying command-and-control networks. keeping their reserve forces moving forward to join the fight. by eliminating second echelon and operational reserves so they never engage u.s. or coalition troops on the ground. that is how air forces save big lives on battlefield. we also do it by providing air superiority i mentioned and gives our forces freedom to manuever and freedom to attack. that is what air forces do in significant way to shape battlefield. we also do close air support. we have a number of airplanes and can and do provide close airport very, very well. >> this year's fiscal 2015 budget, much like last years, continues an interesting trend

as far as aircraft procurement in the department of defense. the navy is buying more aircraft than the us air force and the army isn't far behind. the air force is retiring its force structure and not buying aircraft. while planning to combat sequester related cuts, what do you say to the airmen who joined the air force to fly aircraft? is help on the way? >> you have manx it sound as if navy and army are expanding and i don't think that is the case either. air men who joined the air force joined it for lots of reasons initially. they find when they come in the door, even if it wasn't the pride that attracted them it hooks them. they get very proud of who they are. they get very proud of what they do and how well they do it. they get very proud of people they stand beside just like folks had our other service. i have a son who is marine infantry officer. he is same way. he could not be prouder to come to work every day and work with the people he gets to work with

every day. and that is what our airmen are looking for. they are looking for the opportunity to be good at what they do. that is the one thing that will cause them to walk away. one of the things we're trying to do in the air force we're trying to balance our force at a size where we can afford to train and operate it. we didn't choose the law that was passed but it's a law. and in '16 we'll return to sequestered levels of funding according to the law. if that happens, we can not operate and train our air force at the size we are at now. we have got to downsize. our people understand that, although it is tough on them. it is a horrible environment to be operating in, worrying who will be there next year, who is not going to be there next year. we're trying to do force management this year so we can reduce the size as quickly as we can and get past this trauma in the next 12 to 15 months. whoever is in the air force at that point in time we start to focus on the future. that is the approach we're trying to take, myron. >> in the longer term, the air force is buying a new tanker and

procuring a new bomber in the coming years. it also wants to step up f-35 recapitalization in the coming years by many times today's rate. and also move to procure a new j-star's replacement by the end of the decade. that is an unprecedented modernization curve in the history of the service. not taking into account the large and growing expenditures related to space. how will the service manage all of this? >> well, first we have to manage it realistically. one of the keys for strategic agility in my mind is taking honest look in mirror routinely and make sure you afford what you're planning to do. we think the budget we submitted this year is step toward managing this in a way that is fist cooley responsible over time, not just over the next year or next five years. all the things you mentioned are in the current plan. we're not asking for new money for them. we're not trying to raise the budget line to get it. it is in the plan even at these

reduced levels. what it means though is in our military judgment those are the things we need to be successful ever, not just today but 10 years from now against the threat as we see it. what we can't do is maintain everything else that we would like to keep going and still be able to make that transition. that is the dilemma we're facing. do you want a ready force today or want a ready and modern force tomorrow? that's the tightrope we're walking. >> general welsh, you've mentioned a few times the us air force should begin looking at what it wants in a sixth generation fighter. as in the successor to the f-22. what are the attributes to an aircraft like this? is it really fair to call such an aircraft a fighter when it will likely be just as vital as an isr and network asset beyond just a straightforward air superiority fighter? >> maybe not, myron.

i don't even know there is an airplane. what we have to start looking at what does air superiority look like 30 years from now. go back to the strategic planning document and the call to the future. i don't know what it looks like but we better start thinking about it because it takes us a long time to deliver because we don't have the strategic agility in acquisition so far. not just in the air force but in our government. we've got to start figuring out what does air superiority mean because it will still be required 30 years from now and the air force will still be responsible for performing the mission and providing it for our combatant commanders. if we don't start thinking about this at this point in time i think we're being irresponsible but i wouldn't try to characterize it or describe it. i have no idea yet what it is going to look like, what it even is, whether it flies or a combination of things. just don't know. >> drones are an increasing part of the air force's mission. yet they are very controversial. what would you say to critics

who argue that drones depersonalize killing? >> first of all, remotely piloted aircraft we fly, i will get the party line in, jerry told me i had the opportunity to mention this we don't call them drones. we have awful lot of people behind these things. people that operate them are proud of what they do too. we don't have anything flying around deciding to fire weapons or drop weapons on something. it's a hung of metal doing its thing. that is just not what happens. we have people in the loop on every level in process of flying remotely powered aircraft. 97, 98% what we do on remotely piloted aircraft, is purely intelligence collection. . .

in ways where unmanned capability has the most effective. if you plan to collect intelligence over particular area for long periods of time, then don't limit yourself by the human body. that's what they been used extensively up to this point. if you want to track things 24 hours a day, then let the aircraft work well for you but if you want to make quick decisions, it's the wrong type of technology to use. if you want to carry nuclear weapons, if you want to move your families around, i'm not sure i'm ready for a remotely powered aircraft do that you. what does the technology like to do and what should you do? that's the debate we have

internally on remotely-piloted aircraft. should they get bigger, smaller? what will technology and resources allow? we will probably move more freight in the united states of america not in the military side of house but on a commercial site. when we do that the ability to move things will start to explode. that will change the game in the rp business. right now we still get my multiple rpa in the same airspace under faa control. notches in u.s. but also national airspace control in other nations. don't have tracked them, organize them, manage them. we've got to figure that out. the faa is working with the military and with states to do that today in multiple locations around the united states. this industry is going to grow. as the industry grows it's important for the air force to be of the leading edge of technology. that's what we do. we are founded on technology, we have people who are drawn to it, understand it, employed

incredible and their innovative with it. that's what interests us mostly about remotely-piloted aircraft. >> in light of the recent gao report on the mental health of drone operators who are overworked and have little access to psychologist, according to the report, how does the u.s. air force view the recommendations and how will they be implemented? >> the gao report actually, it's a great read because it gives you good picture of a community. i think they cover 2006-2012 comments of the information in there is a little bit bigger. there has been some changes made during that timeframe that having an impact now. if you look at the results of some of the focus groups you will see some of the focus groups tell you they don't believe there is a problem today. they do have access to medical care, and counselors, all that is changed as result of the effort we've been making over the last four or five years. i think we are just progressing.

this career field is new. we are just getting started. the rapid expansion between 2006 and today, in a remotely-piloted aircraft is result of the conflicts in iraq and afghanistan has been dramatic. we didn't have a committee of people who were up and operating and fully mature and some of the system and which is transition to rpa. we built this committee on the fly. into those and eight, we haven't lived there 21 orbits of these rpa's and the people associate with it. now we're approaching a new target is 65. we hope to make that 55 and reinvested in other areas of the fleet. but that's the way we've been growing. as a huge investment of people and of cash. just trying to meet the needs in iraq and afghanistan. enemies of the counterterrorist conflict around the world. all that happen with a group of people who are stressed should

to begin with, under threat of expansion, conducting combat operations. there was a lot of pressure and we have to make sure we're treating them the right way. i think there's lots of good lessons learned from the gao report. >> why did the united states wait for so long to develop technology for a next-generation rocket engine for launch? >> i think when we purchased the engines were currently using for heavy launch, the real issue today, the russian designed and built them, i think was a great product. it was cost savings come inefficiency we begin by purchasing en masse and they've been very basic social. we can't afford to do. we just had 100 state national security space launches which is a spectacular success story. and so one of things would be very careful about any decisions and the space launch america's first do no harm. and make sure as we transition we transition in a smart

meaningful dedicated detailed way. i think clearly it's a good time to look at what is the future of heavy space launch and propulsion. we support fully the assessment we're undergoing right now to try to determine the best way forward for the. i think the of force and the nation will be well served i this. >> with nasa's loss of the shuttle program, how does america's small role in space affect the u.s. air force and its issue? >> our mission has been dramatically affected by nasa losing the shuttle mission. the things we do through space have not changed dramatically over the last 10 years. we have just gotten better at it. we've got a little more efficient. we're expanding our knowledge with the actual environment and looking at the missions required for the future. there is a change in technology in space that's going on. to change in capability nations

around the world and it's going to be very important for the united states and the united states air force as part of that to keep up with the technology growth and if possible get ahead of it. as opposed to reacting to something that other nations do in space routinely with new technology development on capabilities that are there, we should be trying to drive the activity. instead of just being in a responsive mode. that's what we've been trying to do. across platforms to operate in space are growing just like cause of platforms that operate on cnn here and we've got to factor that in to look into new ways to do business. the way we've been doing it is not going to continue to be the right way. and so this idea of miniaturized sensors, smaller packages move into space, different types of orbits, different approaches whether it's this aggregation or riding as passengers on commercial platforms, whatever it might be we've got to be strategically agile enough to think of new ways to getting at

an old problem. somethings were we demand full security, full confidentiality, the ability to operate 100% of the time no matter what happens but that doesn't have to be everything every day. costs will drive us out of that mindset if nothing else does we need to get moving in that direction. i think our folks are doing that now. >> lieutenant general johnson of the air force academy has had to make elimination of about 10 majors in response to the cuts that were mandated under the new fiscal year '15 budget cuts or how do you feel about this heavy-duty impact to the academy's mission? and is it possible for the endowment taken several underwritten fund to help offset some this academic and outside cutting mandated by the defense budget? >> what general johnson has done since he arrived at the academy is she's taken a hard look at the air force academy at what product is designed to produce.

we helped her bike and outline that requirement, what do we expect a graduate of the academy to be able to do. she has been started effort she's calling the essence of the air force academy, noticed its air force academy and the idea is determine exactly what is it that we have to do incredibly well at the academy to produce that graduate. the cuts your dog but i within the academy to refocus their priorities and to focus resources on the things that mean the most in terms of that essence. the specifics were not directed by the air force or anyone else, and, in fact, michelle knows there were resources of able to help her where she needed them. she's tried to manage your own funds and be part of the solution as to which she believes is part of our responsibility as one of our commanders. i completely agree with it. at every level, people are making these decisions. this is the sequestration. we need to get used to it. >> general welsh, we are one of

only a couple of chiefs who graduated from the air force academy in colorado springs. how has that affected your thoughts toward the problem of sexual harassment the academy has been experiencing? how do you feel they're progressing towards dealing with this problem, once and for all? >> i am a graduate of the academy, a proud graduate of the academy but my thoughts of sexual harassment were really formed by growing up as the son of the world's greatest mother, and a brother to five incredible sisters. they pretty much shaped my moral fabric on issues relating to respect between the sexes at a very young age. my family is a family, because my parents, that shows respect for each other all the time but we always have. we love each other. we respect each other and the idea that you would not act that way the people of another gender is just beyond my comprehension, quite frankly. so that is one of my views on

this much more than being at the air force academy. my experience at the air force academy was without women in the actual, we didn't have one when i attended. i worked there since but i was not in that department. anywhere on the planet or in a town outside the front gate, this is unacceptable behavior. the difference in the last couple of years in the air force, in the discussion on this topic, is palpable. if you haven't visited and air force wing, talk to the people in the base about the discussion there having at the lowest levels, aaron up, you don't really understand how this environment is changing. trust become on not cleaning victory. we will claim victory went victory so we'll celebrate when the number is zero. and i don't think that will happen in the human domain. so what we have to make sure is that we are doing everything possible to prevent environments the lead to things worse than harassment even, but it starts

with lack of respect for individuals but it starts with a lack of understanding that inclusion is a strength. it starts with lack of understanding the diversity must be a strength of the united states air force. those are the things we're focused on. we've had a lot of visibility and activity in the higher in the crimes that occur but really it starts with human behavior towards other humans. we are spending a lot of time and energy on that to include new training programs, lots of education, and not all major air force programs, some of us directed stuff or was it that i talk to five or six people 30 minutes a month just to talk about what matters to you. want to our core values mean to you as an aircraft trainer as a classroom instructor or as i finance officer? and get people to know each other. every airman and a air force has a story. every one of them. the winter in uniform, ones without and ties to work, and the stories are spectacular. some of them are inspirational,

some of them are a little sad, but they are unique. and until we know the stories we just can't take care of the enemy and the way we should. so that's the drive. i tell everybody i meet inner air force to learn the stories. >> one more question in this area. senator kirsten gillibrand argues that commanding officers do not have the training to always properly handle complaints of sexual assault in the military. what make you confident that all of the commanders in air force are prepared to deal with such cases when they are not trained prosecutors? >> no one can commanding officers in the air force, leaders of industry, nobody is fully prepared to deal with every issue related to this area. they are just too many of them to comprehend. every command in air force is, however, advised by a prosecutor.

and it is a fact. we pulled every court-martial case in air force for the last three years, this was about eight, nine months ago. over those three years we had i believe the number and i could get this wrong but i'm close, 2411 court-martials. of those 2411 court-martials there were 25 incidences are a committed not a great with his judge advocate generals recommendation on the proper disposition of that case. in 13 of those cases that judge advocate general asked a higher level commander to review his recommendation and a higher level commander accepted the jags recommendation. in 12, they did not. you supported the lower level commander. so in 12 of 2411 cases, which is a pretty small percentage, about 25% actually, we did not have agreement between the commander and a jag on the best way forward. in 12 cases. one of those was a sexually related case. so the idea that the commanders

are trained and, therefore, you don't take the right action is an interesting discussion but it's not true but it doesn't happen. it just doesn't happen. and so that logic doesn't track well with me. i tell you what i do like. i love senator gillibrand's passion on this issue. while i don't agree with on this particular point, i love her passion on issue and the passion of a lot of members of the united states congress. we are making changes. we can make changes in the future with their support. some of them have a lot of experience in this arena including the legal arena and they have great ideas. special victims council. with the air force is getting credit implement a year ago was an idea that came from congress, a great idea. and it's been a huge, huge program for us. so i think this is a partnership. it has to be a partnership on forward. people will focus on the difference is that the we can give each other will what make it a success.

>> how have the iraq and afghanistan wars affected the air force is rolled? >> action of them in chains our role at all. we've gotten better at supporting a low intensity conflict, the counterinsurgency fight just as all the services have because that's a we been focus of a we've made huge development and tactical airlift and tactical air drop. most people don't know the precision and drop capabilities comes leaps and bounds forward in the last 10 years. we used to meet about a 600-yard square drop zone to drop things into in the battlefield environment. now we can land something on this head table. it's pretty incredible. we have the ability now to move patients from battlefield in afghanistan to full trauma care centers in the united states, who the trauma director of trauma at ucla medical center told one day he wouldn't move from 110111 in his hospital because he couldn't stabilize them long enough. the medical advances over the

last 14 years in battlefield care all the way, critical care transport to revolutionary surgical techniques and new technology have been absolutely stunning. i think over time will just be a signal achievement of people and air force dash and the entire joint medical committee over the last 10 or 12 years. the core missions of air force haven't changed at all. we are still doing them, you're just not reading about the. they are happening at all the time but it's the light switch. we are doing all those other things all over the world. >> put in scale, the herculean effort put before the air force in drawing down from afghanistan, what if there is a full withdrawal by the end of 2014? does the current infrastructure there allow for this or would you need to build it up? >> we have the ability to do the drawdown, the plan has been in place.

general general dunford has done a fantastic job i believe in putting together a transition plan that covers lots of different options. we have and women in the middle of the retrograde plan figure out how to move equipment of the country had a sore in the country, where do so, how do you sell it if that's the game plan. we have and ago to search strategical airlift under u.s. transportation command leadership to move equipment and people rapidly. the big issue for the air force is what would be allowed to continue training afghan air force. the aviation industry in afghanistan is an opportunity for the country. it's an industry that could be incredible successful and meaningful for them in that region. but it hasn't been robust in the past. their air force will lead that effort. they are element will lead we we have a chance returned a level where they can be fully operative sustainable air force overtime, with the build not just to fly airplanes as the approval for to manage structure and systems and logistical training of those things i think it helps the

country's ability to build over time. that's why we would like to stay engaged, but if we come out by the end of this year chloe that effort will not continue. >> your biography does not making any reference to your time serving under then cia director leon panetta. use served during the raid under bin laden compound in abbottabad, pakistan. the recall any of the details as to how this raid was decided on and what the decision process was to keep the photos of bin laden under the shroud of secrecy? [laughter] >> i'm sure you brought some papers with you. >> no. [laughter] and fact i wasn't there. i left a while before that. >> do you think this raid and aftermath permanently hurt our military political and diplomatic relationship with the

government of pakistan? and what do we have to do to repair this relationship? >> i'm just not any position, myron, to understand the damage the relationship with the government of pakistan. i'm really not in that information network right now. i'll to you this, one of the things we do in the military that is what i do make connections with our service counterparts. i do know the pakistan attaché here in the u.s. i have met with the pakistani ambassador come to meet in the next couple of weeks. we are trying to arrange a visit for me to visit pakistan, meet with the energy. also invite him here so i can meet them. one of the great things about the military is that it really is a kind of common understanding between nations, people who do the same things whether it's banking finance, military or whatever. with erin and it's a unique thing. i don't know why but we just connect. j.j. will take the same thing. there's just a connection that happens very easily. so while we may not be the military may not be the pillar

of an international relationship or a bilateral relationship, we certainly can be part of the connected tissue and we would like to be that with pakistan. >> several weeks ago secretary james anderson announced the dismissal and retirement of 10 command level captains and majors from the malmstrom air force base missile command. for cheating on a routine periodic proficiency test. what has happened to the testing regime and what changes are being considered and implement it to make sure this climate of cheating does not continue? >> the people who were relieved and resigned all attendant colonels or colonels. it was the wing commander of the group committed to the deputy group command and then the squadron commanders at malmstrom. none of those people were actually involved in the cheating. the concern was that they didn't realize the cheating was

occurring. each of the squadron that about 40% of the people involved in this to include a large number of instructors on the base. so basically the command of the 20th air force lost confidence in his commanders to commend them on at great an environment that was required to be successful and to maintain all of our core values as they move forward. and so that changes in limited have been intimated at that level. the secretary and i are not telling them what to do. the commanders involved, general weinstein, general wilson put together a command record investigation. they put together some formal focus groups. they formed a an effort called the force and for the program would've brought people from every part of the nuclear energy together with experts and advisers from outside including people from other services and from outside the military to look at every part of the enterprise and see if there is a way to start making changes or will have meaningful if it. over the last six or seven years

we've done 20 different studies. the air force didn't start focusing on this about two months ago. of those studies we've taken about 1056 i believe is the number, but 1000 has some recommendations have been completely implemented. one of the things that was not highlighted is the id of cheating. somebodsome of the other issuese found in all these focus groups and the list the general wilson has taken were identified before and we've made partial movements to fix these things but not extensive enough. we now have 300 additional recommendations from this internally developed focus group effort and we're going to march down a solution sets one at a time, figure out where we can put resources, where we should the resources, read we have the most impact. a lot of the smaller things that are activating people that made them frustrated in that unity already been changed. we're trying hard to eliminate an idea that you can never make a decision, your most senior boss always has to be the one

making the call. a lot of things got to be doing in the business and we're trying to push it. we have looked at environment for training or testing as a small example. we have made a monthly test as crewmembers take pass-fail as opposed to score them which is the underlying concern that criminals is if you don't score 100% you are seen as not being confident enough -- often enough. the only assessment the command has is a project environment they operate in. so that's already been changed and there will be a lot more changes as we move through this but the goal is, number one, take a look in the mirror. admit where we are and then let's change the game. let's just change it again. our people deserve better than the. the people who cheated, the people who are breaking the law, breaking our policy intentionally, they don't have a future with us. that's not how we operate. >> peering into the crystal

glass, are you seeing signs from congress that sequestration levels will not return in 2016? >> i am not seeing any indications of that. >> what is th the air force's backup plan if it loses access to the gps constellation? >> one of the great things about the gps constellation is it does have a lot of capability is dispersed that is difficult to remove the gps constellation. we are, have been look at partnership with other nations who also have navigation type systems. we are looking at technology that uses different ways of precision navigation. things we think will be useful whether the gps system signal is denied or whether the systems come from is do when we can't develop coalition are allied partnerships that will allow us to use their systems and to in the world we don't have immediate access. gossip efforts going on.

i'm pretty confident that we have have a very many of things to choose from if we want to guarantee the ability to use it. we become reliant on it. we have to be able to navigate precisely to operate the way we are operating as the u.s. military around the world. >> we are almost out of time, but before asking the last question we have a couple of housekeeping matters to take care of. first of all i'd like to remind you about our upcoming events and speakers. may 27, donald trump, chairman and president of the trump organization, and on may 28, ben carson, neurosurgeon and author. next, i'd like to present our guest with a traditional national press club mug. agenda, i don't think we could call it air force blue but it is a nice blue. [laughter] spent thank you so much. >> how about a round of applause for our speaker.

[applause] >> thank you all for coming today. we are adjourned. excuse me. i made, i thought we had a perfect breakfast, and i forgot the last question. which i'm sure the general will want to respond to. as an a-10 pilot, which the most annoying thing about flying commercial? [laughter] >> i better think about this one. you know, actually there is nothing annoying about flying commercial. as i get older, the problem is it's just not as comfortable. [laughter] >> thank you so much. [applause]

>> thank you again. we are adjourned for real this time. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

>> president obama today opened a four country swing through the asia-pacific region. he plans to promote the u.s. as a committed economic, military and political partner. the president is in tokyo and will be the guest of honor at a state dinner thursday night at the imperial palace. the present will visit south korea, malaysia and the philippines. is due back in washington on tuesday. ap reports the president kicked off hi this trick on an informal note joining japanese prime ministers, president of the -- present copy. it was casual by japanese standards and underscore the effort by both countries to strengthen the personal relationship between obama and abe. they will hold more formal talks on tuesday. looking at her schedule, the

center for strategic and international studies host a discussion this afternoon on iraq's upcoming parliament elections about a week away. live at 2 p.m. east on c-span. at five agencies that will be like atlantic council as they discuss the foreign policy of russian president vladimir putin. tonight on booktv in prime time you on c-span2, books on exploit america. we start at eight eastern. >> more than a year there have been allegations, simulations that kind about the planning of the watergate break-in and that i was involved in an extensive plot to cover it up. the house judiciary committee is now investigating these charges. on march 6 i ordered all

materials that i had previously furnished to the special prosecutor turned over today. these included tape recordings of 19 presidential conversations, and more than 700 documents from the private white house files. on april 11, the judiciary committee issued a subpoena for 42 additional tapes, conversations, which it contended were necessary for its investigation. i agreed to respond to that subpoena by tomorrow. >> forty years ago on april 29, president nixon respond to a house judiciary committees subpoena for additional watergate tapes. is response plus reflections from former "washington post" journalist carl bernstein sunday night at eight eastern, part of american history tv this weekend on c-span3. >> now u.n. special representative for somalia nicholas kay discuss the

country's progress in governance and security. he was at the u.s. institute of peace this week to talk about some august 2016 elections. follow his or, ambassador kay took questions from the audience. it's about an hour and a half. >> good morning. welcome to the united states institute for peace. i am johnnie carson, senior advisor at usip, and i will serve as this morning's moderator for our program on somalia. i am also extraordinarily pleased to be able to introduce our guest this morning, ambassador nicholas kay, who is the head of the united nations assistance mission in somalia, and also the u.n. secretary-general's special representative for that country.

somalia is undergoing a slow and steady political, and security transformation. for most of the past two and a half decades, somalia has been used and held up as a classic example of a failed state. a country without a functioning government, economy, or security apparatus. a lawless country incapable of protecting its people, its borders, or its natural resources. and a country that has generated problems for its regional neighbors, and also for the international community.

a mere five years ago at the beginning of 2009, the situation in somalia appeared to be at its lowest point, and many observers have clearly written it off. ethiopia and troops have been fighting against extremists had been driven out of the country. the transitional federal government at the time, was in chaos, and he was about to step down. and a group called al-shabaab, a radical element of the islamic union was spreading its rule across the country.

including the capital, mogadis mogadishu. then tsg have control of probably less than one square mile of the city in and around somalia. but the past five years have seen an enormous amount of change, and an enormous amount of progress. today, the transitional federal government is no longer there. the former president hassan sheikh mohamud step down. there's a new provisional constitution, a new president, a new prime minister, and tremendous and growing international support. on the military side, led by

uganda, but also including troops from burundi, kenya, and as far away as sierra leone. we have seen al-shabaab pushed out of mogadishu, many of the major towns and cities in south central. at the same time we have seen a sharp decrease in the level of piracy off the coast of somalia and the red sea. there has been changed, and somalia looks different from the way it did five years ago, 10 years ago, or 20 years ago.

today, we have with us the person who was most responsible for the conduct of the united nations operations on the ground in somalia today. ambassador nicholas kay. ambassador kay has a distinguished athletic background, a former british ambassador to the sudan, and also later to the democratic republic of the congo. i can think of no better person to be conducting the business of the u.n. and the international community than ambassador kay. experienced, wise, and knows how

to operate in very tough, political and security environments. in my last position at the department of state, nick and i were colleagues. we talked on a weekly basis, and sometimes on a daily basis. we have traveled across central africa together doing difficult lifting on the drc, rwanda, and other places. so it is a great honor for me to be able to ask ambassador kay, a good friend, to talk about how he sees the current situation in

somalia, and whether the slow, steady progress that i mentioned is, in fact, real or is it a barrage -- a barrage. where is somalia today and where do we expect it to be next year and the year after. it's my pleasure to invite ambassador kay to make some remarks. >> thank you very much indeed, johnny, for the extremely kind words and thank you very much today to usip for inviting me, it's a great pleasure to be in this magnificent building. a great pleasure to see so many people here, contending strong interest in somalia. i would like to say also -- i see several familiar faces as well, some of whom have served with in somalia, or visited

recently, acknowledge a former british ambassador to sudan as well, alan, a former college. good to see. i feel as if i'm amongst friends and, therefore, of course i will speak frankly and clearly, and since this is also being webcast, my job totally hangs on the line. i'm not going to speak from a script although i have actually good script prepared but i will just elaborate off the cuff as it were. and very much look forward to listening to questions and discussion because i'm always here and traveling to listen as much as to speak. because there's a lot of

collective knowledge and wisdom in the room, which it would be rash of me to leave today without having sort of exploited. so i look forward to that part. let me start, the title i think that i was given in which is greagood because i didn't have o think of it, is a very good title, somalia progress or peril, or progress and better, i'm not quite sure, which captures exactly what johnnie was mentioning is is opening comments. as our passion is to automate time having to field the question, how's it going, are you optimistic? and all those sort of rather difficult questions. and it is a difficult sort of questions because yeah, i mean,

i could just stop now actually and say essentially there is progress and that progress is in peril. both of the above are true. not an either/or option. september 2012 john and i were both doing our respective jobs in our foreign ministries, supposedly overseeing quite a lot of sub-saharan african business, and we were all deleted, i think no doubt about it, the end of the transition in september 2012. the election, selection of hassan sheikh mohamud, civil society leader, not a former warlord, somebody came with good credentials. it really felt like the dawn of a new sort of age. and yeah, hope very, very high. i imagine really unrealistically

high, and now 18 months later, the fact that those high hopes are now tinged with harsh realism, i think it's only normal and natural. i don't think we should be particularly surprised. the going is tough. the last 18 months the federal government has coincided with the end of the u.n., the beginning of our nation's last june. i've traveled a little bit of the road with hassan sheikh mohamud and his government. i can attest to it. it's pretty tough going. now, what is, you know, tough about it, i think really comes as no surprise, and we are more

or less in the same boat as the international community and the federal government. we are faced with the same sets of challenges. at the top of the list probably isn't security. this is a challenge, al-shabaab is a determined, ruthless enemy with a lot of intent and quite a lot of capability. and they use it against the federal government and the use against the united nations, and they use it even -- they are very nondiscriminating. they do not discriminate between humanitarians and political missions. they don't discriminate really between nationalities, the church is very high on the list of targets as well as western non-muslim countries as well. so we are all in the same boat, facing those challenges, and any that is determined to derail international support and assistance for somalia.

and is determined to destabilize the government of somalia. so we share the challenge with the federal government. they find it very difficult to move around mogadishu. they find very difficult to move outside of mogadishu. we as the international committee, we all travel in the richard -- wretched arm would vehicles. we are very much in the same boat there. we also face the same challenge of we are pretty well nonexistent institutions as johnnie said. classic, welcome the prototype a very failed state in the world, somalia was. the phrase was coined to describe somalia. and so 23, 24 years of nonfunctioning state and very,

very, nonexistent institutions on the whole. state presence control even in mitigation let alone around the rest of the country, very weak as well but presents the initial can be a challenge. government has the challenge. lack of capacity, human capacity, very, very week within the ministries institutions in mogadishu. two or three good people at the top of every ministry and then nothing beneath it really on the whole. and that's the challenge for government wanted to deliver an ambitious program of job, health, education for the people. it's a problem for international partners trying to help them to do that. poverty, lack of resources, again a challenge that faces us as internationals that faces the country as well. it is often easy to forget just how poor somalia is.

it really, economic figures are very, very shakey in terms of reliability, but one that always sticks in my mind is this is a government trying to, 9 million people huge needs in terms of education, infrastructure, everything. and how much money does he get from its own resources to do that. it survived and found off the revenue, and on a good month the government gets $10 million a month from that. that's got the. you see about 5 million, 12 months ago, economic indicators are positive but that's the only money the government has to run itself. $120 million a year from the same resources. i'm sure most departments, on any washington forestry here have a high revenue than the

federal government in somalia. so are the problems that we share and that we face together? corruption, no doubt about it. again, in the absence of functioning state institutions, the last 22 odd years and a great competition for resources and survival, then yeah, corruption has been endemic and it is still there in the system as well. the problem the federal government faces trying to reach out, and we as international face that challenge, too. then, you know, plan, factionalism, huge partisan sort of political structures which again have built up in the absence of functioning institutions, the absence of a robotic system, people have had to rely much more on clan, and

again that presents challenges to the federal government, a challenge for us. lots of challenges. what i find in a way is quite remarkable is that did we ever, i mean, why were we so hopeful? why was this a bubble of optimism? i mean, i think all we have done now is put on our realism had -- hat, and why did we ever think there would be no corruption after september 2012? why did we ever think it would be no clan fighting and shooting after september 2012? why did we ever think that suddenly it was a government and an administration that could deliver services and benefits? why on earth do we think it was

suddenly going to be like that? i think we were going through a period of collective euphoria, or we're all making the wrong stuff. i don't know. so we are where we are. the government, people of somalia, the international security, the united nations, we take a whole series of related deep-sea challenges, circumstances, conditions in the country. against that sort of background, well, are we making progress? i think we are and how go through just a little bit from the heading of security, politics, international engagement and a little bit on economy and financial governance. and then don't worry, i'll come back to the negative stuff as well and i'll get to more of the

perils in the immediate context, and hopefully wrap up with just a little bit of so what, and what do we do. okay, running rapidly, progress at the moment is dominated obviously by the offensive that's taking place across the country, conducted by amisom and the somali national army. and i certainly pay tribute to their efforts and their sacrifices, which should not ever neglect or forget the african union has been prepared to put their troops, their sons and daughters in harm's way in a way in which most international organizations and international interventions do not do. and somalia national army are also fighting very bravely

alongside, and clearly obviously both are taking losses and casualties. but, so i think that is an important part of the question, what's happening. when i arrived last june, one of my first questions really is what is the offensive against al-shabaab stopped and it had stopped? why was and why were towns no longer being taken? people moving forward. he answered very simply, i was told when i arrived was lack of resources from amisom. they needed more. they were overstretched. we, the u.n. and au took a precaution of actually sending experts to understand these things better than those who spent a few good weeks on the ground, but then the reported back and yes, the answer was amisom was overstretched and they needed more resources. and the city council approved just over 4000 extra troops, as

well as specifying the need for more enablers. and significantly in that resolution also authorized the u.n. to give nonlethal logistics support to the small you national army. so to sort significant developments which have now fed through to enabling the offensive that officially start on the third of march to get underway. and it's been pretty successful in the last six, seven weeks it's been going on, 10 population centers have been retaken from al-shabaab. many of them not involving direct fighting is about take the option of leaving. one or two have had to be fought for. and this is quite an ambitious operation happening in a geographically spread area, at least three of the amisom sectors are actively involved.

and it's been sitting from ethiopian forces now being incorporated in amisom as part of that outfit. it has a stage understand from my amisom colleagues, the first phase is likely to be, a second phase following on quite soon. it's good now that government authority can send over significant towns and villages where it wasn't before. it's good because al-shabaab has been deprived sources of revenue. they got a lot of taxation's in the towns they control. it's good because al-shabaab has been also described training bases, in one of these towns, you may have seen on al-jazeera tv a few months ago there was a record size done of a terrorist training camp, quite impressive but i was impressed they had

two, 300 people there being trained as suicide bombers. with other curriculum. even less impressed when it introduced the first person who i think did mention my name. one of the people -- [inaudible] >> but that, that training camp is now a somalia national army base, it's been liberated, al-shabaab has been removed. so again this is good. they are being deprived of revenues, deprived of training, places where they can operate with impunity. and this will go on. it brings with it challenges as well. i mean, there's no doubt this operation is now presenting to the second order challenges in terms of supply routes. al-shabaab has left the channel -- left the town. they are interfering with

traffic and stopping food reaching some of these places, putting a great onus on helicopters and air supplies to resupply the amisom forces and we don't have enough helicopters to i will not be the first srsg you've heard probably bemoan the lack of helicopters in a mission. but it's a serious issue we are facing now. and this is not just civilian transport helicopters, so the united nations does need, but amisom has no military helicopters whatsoever. and, therefore, have no capability of protecting their supply routes from the air. and it is remarkable to me and deeply disturbing that no african union member states comes forward with helicopters for the african union mission.

ihl been nuked tomorrow and again will be sending the same message that without that military air support, amisom are in peril. at least its success. so that's going on. meanwhile, you will have seen unfortunately as a consequence of the offensive al-shabaab having increase their act is -- connectivity in mogadishu. that has been happening over the last couple of months. and yesterday and today, successive days to assassinate a member of parliament each day in mogadishu. a reminder from them that they're still capable, they are still there. a reminder that they are determined to undermine the government, create the impression the government doesn't have total control. and i think this will continue. i'm not a great tactician, but i

guess if i wasn't al-shabaab terrorist and i was under pressure of being chased out of the towns and villages that i controlled, what would i tried to do? well, i would try to land some kind of strategic punch in mogadishu, unseat the government, particularly unseat the international community, if they could force the international community to retreat, then that would be a strategic success for them. so i think we can expect them to continue to try and do that in the coming weeks. that security, mixed picture. as i say, in general al-shabaab is under pressure and progress is being made. it throws up challenges, sustainability, supply routes, et cetera, helicopters and a backlash from al-shabaab, particularly in mogadishu.

and it might be elsewhere, too. me within the region, kenya, ethiopia, elsewhere i think they're also trying to conduct. political progress, are we doing that? yes and no. the big ticket items are somalia has committed itself and its provisional federal constitution to doing three things. one, form itself as a federal-state, and that means grouping together some of the regions, two or more, to form federal member states. secondly, having a constitution that enshrines what the federal-state's, final constitution which we submitted to the referendum. and then thirdly, to have democratic one person one vote elections across the whole

country in 2016. those are big ticket challenges. any one of those would be quite a challenge for most countries. doing all three of those in the country and the context that i described at the beginning of somalia is, is outrageous -- outrageously ambitious. however, is it doable? i still firmly believe it is. we have two and a half years. i think we will have much clear ideas of whether it is available certainly by the end of this year, because there is a drop framework of action, the vision 2016 the government is preparing with a very tight timetable of exactly what needs to happen i win, i do. and there is no