but we need the strength of institutions as well. because that's another strength we have. i often in and out of afghanistan and one of the points i used to make was karzai or any of them, all of our leaders, secretary defense, is a strength in the institutions. institutions outlive all of us. strengthened those institutions of governance and help them build their own institutions so that they can govern. because we can't be there all over the world forever. to protect everybody and do the things that we can do better than everybody else. we don't have the capacity to do that. we don't have the will to do it. we shouldn't do it. we can't impose our will on people, but we can help them into images ways. we have done it more than any other country i think in history of man.

i think that's important about our country, our heritage. we look to the future. with great hope, great confidence, and we can't lose that -- >> see all of us online at c-span.org. we believe the last few months and take you like your from army secretary john mchugh, the outgoing army secretary. he said the american enterprise institute in washington, talking about the future the us army and sequestration, the ethics of sequestration on the army budget. secretary mchugh is a former republican congressman who stepping down as army secretary in november after seizures on the job. live coverage on c-span2. >> rowdy after suit with a service secretary after coming off our series with a joint chiefs of last year. i get any better way to end it, but it sure on a sunday with secretary mchugh because you'll be able to sit with us and reflect upon his service basically ended tired at the obama administration today as on either of his retirement from

not just the defense department but from government service. to civil servant in every respect, and he spent an unsung hero for the army and the soldiers that are in it. for ever, not just in his capacity as executive branch but during his long tenure in the house of representatives, 19 member from upstate new york, many, many other roles in commissions and responsibilities he has held in the last 40 years. we were just discussing. i am in awe and honored to host and am pleased to have him here and to welcome all of you. we will be live tweeting parts of this with hashtag. i will not give much for introduction beyond that because i know you know him well enough to have shown up to be here today. so mr. secretary, thank you. thank you for coming. thank you for being here. you. it's a pleasure to sit and talk and learn about not just what's next we would hope to get to it

eventually but talk all of it more about looking back over that for a moment and then we will open it up for questions and answers engage all out of here on time. spent there's been a lot of things come when we think back with the arm-twisting with stitches go out what you're talking think about today, it's been a wild ride. you have dealt with some significant challenges. >> yeah, i arrived where things were very, very painful, two theaters of war, but they were more settled in the new pretty much work the challenges life. we knew pretty much what our missions were going to be. thought we knew who our friends and our less friendly opponents were, but as you noted, things have a habit of turning around on either i think you look at the last 20 months, particularly certain from the army perspective we are getting with a menu of missions and challenges that were largely unforeseen.

even though a bowl in west africa we had we thought about the united states army and going and being the foundation of force there to do without challenge and to contain it, but we were called upon. we did it. isil obviously was not the kind of force and challenges that it is today. the activities in eastern europe, the adventures i called it was not that are played directly, et cetera, et cetera. so the good news is as they always have been that men and women who wear the uniform virtually and already have been able to adopt and have responded. it's been pretty breathtaking to watch him perspective as the secretary. >> absolutely. it's in some ways it's a very high profile public job and in other ways there's a lot of work that you do behind the scenes, and the chief will take the lead and java relationship, the two of you come in who does what.

>> usually. >> right. usually. you know, nine years ago you still had over 100,000 soldiers deployed active duty roughly and while they're in different places doubt the temple still israel to the high for a lot of different personnel and service members. it's a challenge because you remember the difficulties with long to plummet from one to one, deployed ration time in a challenge on people and their families. and then now we have a for small rotational-based as opposed to forward family-based forward. and at the height of the iraq and afghanistan wars it's stabilized, take it for people. and then we switched to this current sort of model and nobody wants to be in a garrison force. that is dull and boring. how to manage expectations of a

changing world in what the army is going to do speak with that's a critical question. i've been as repeatedly what keeps you up at night. there's any number of things, one of the things i really worry most about is as we transitioned out of the conditions that you described where virtually every soldier knew at some point or another likelihood was they were going into a combat theater. somewhat to iraq and afghanistan repeatedly. they met incredible challenges, and as i went forward of their, 26 trips to iraq and afghanistan, including my time in congress go i was always amazed to see these young lieutenants, captains, out of doing things and having the authorities that they probably had two or three grades higher, if not more, in conflicts past. and they performed magnificently and they enjoyed the kind of authority and learn from it. one of the worst things we can

do is to bring leaders like that, soldiers like that that enjoyed getting out and being a soldier, i don't think they enjoyed getting shot at, but all the times of opportunities that going forward somewhere provides, and boring them to death in garrison as you noted. so when the one hand the realities of the world are taking care of that for us, whether we like it or not. you mentioned and they rotational approach to much of it. we've had 136,000 soldiers right now who are forward station, or preparing to deployed and some 140 locations. so while the world is unsettling to people like me, to our soldiers it still provides that opportunity to go out and engage in train with other nations, et cetera, et cetera. but we have to begin to do better on station training. we have to make sure as challenging as are funding may be that we are maintaining our

combat training center rotations. soldiers love to get out into the field and train. and we need to as we'll focus on other things, broadening opportunities like education, partner to partnership, opportunities. just trying to do everything we can to make life in uniform of interest and challenge to our soldiers. and nobody likes war. nobody more so than a soldier. but we do have to be creative in how we keep them excited about being a member of the army gene. >> completely challenging. they're going to complain if you're sending out there, complaint if they're not identified like him any good way me they want a fulfilling career in the service to the country which i respect deeply. so that segues perfectly into another important shift in priorities although i would argue that the obama

administration and the team that has been, civilian and uniformed teams, that has been a focus on people. civilian dod and uniformed, more of a longer conversation about diversity. not just diversity in terms of gender or race or religion but in terms of life experience. i think it's like going to secretary of defense ash carter and deputy secretaries work in silicon valley in particular and the need to bring people in briefly and taken back out into the real world, more permeability in the system, changes to the upper outcome osha, blogger time and station, you are pcf throughout one's career. preferential treatment for duty stationstation if you're a high performer. a lot of this holistically is being called force of the future but it's a conversation that's

been underway since the last administration, since we have the national guard commission. there was a discussion of continuum of service you know well from your time on the armed services committee as ranking member. so while the conversations have been underway for argument a decade and have been some changes like a member of the guard on the joint chiefs and some other types of compensation changes can this force of the future stuff is hard. discontinue service model is difficult to do. do you see progress being made in the last 18 months of this administration or is this something because its executive and legislative branch the coming of two different definitions of success in this regard? some of it is internal to dod, a lot of it would be congressionally approved. can we make progress? can there be a big bang approach like a goldwater-nichols or will this take years? >> welcome i think there's an opportunity here, as you know, mckinsey, the first thing you

have to have industry comes around capital and the pentagon is an agreement that something needs to be done. and as in most matters that are new ones differences as to both what and how do those things between the fun side of the potomac at the pentagon as they call it, and on capitol hill, there are broader issues of protecting can provide the foundation to do some very positive things from now until the close out of this administration. and if nothing more, build a solid foundation by which the next administration can continue to work with the next batch of leaders and the pentagon. the other thing i think is encouraging comment you mentioned it, secretary carter and secretary work take this very, very seriously. there's a think a very discovered aggressive outreach to silicon valley but the challenges i think on more broadly based than just what silicon valley is likely to be

able to provide and whether it's cyber, whether it's the emerging technologies that the military knows we are going to have requirements for personnel. we just have to be more creative. it's generally couched against us competing against the private sector to advance you look at how you would come to the military in the past and set links up to her, et cetera, et cetera, you can understand that. 's the approach all of us are trying to take his how do we break that paradigm and most important, can we preserve that tour de force was for all of the military, the primary responsibly is to be able to go out and defend this nation. but on the margins in terms of these highly technological skill sets, we've got to work more cooperatively with the private sector. and i think we are making good progress there. it's hard to point out a cadre

of personal that they are examples of that but we offer opportunities, and i would just cyber as an example, that the private sector can't offer. we are faced with very highly publicized charges, private sector is as well. but we conduct operations, the private sector does not. those provide the opportunity for skill set development that i think in important ways can be of considerable value to the private sector. we can work better together to make sure that both our interests are better served. i think there's some real chances better for doing a lot better spent i'm encouraged. your colleague, secretary of the navy ray mabus with you and make some headlines, and -- >> reagan do that. >> and he talked at length about the budget challenges that -- were a can -- that you face. the growing money that is spent

on core business functions and processes of the department like logistics, like health care management, contracting, et cetera. in many cases for good reason, right quick you grow the army in particular, when you grow the force after 9/11 as much as you did, it's understandable they would grow commensurately. the challenge of courses no one knows this better than the army. when the active duty forces dropped off pretty perceptive sleet and quickly, as fast as the army can do it i believe, the are no commensurate reductions in the workload and the manpower, the dod civilian manpower. but in the '90s when you were on the hill, that is the normal flow of things. we could argue, would argue, probably agree, that is public is not us to take -- in the '90s once again we thought they would be one active duty

force can doubt about 20% of the dod civilians followed a 24. this time around it is converted and the army is dropping like a rock and civilians are roughly flat. and some years they have gone flat. that's a tough challenge. it doesn't mean they are not doing valuable work doesn't mean they are not necessary. put on a caveat aside. but the army institutionally is looking at some challenges between writing is of course, three-legged stool, and strength and modernization. and all three are affected by what's happening in the civilian work force. what advice would you give your successor have to think about those priorities? if this would end up don't to find one or two of them how do you order them for risk management for the army and the nation's? >> i didn't take notes on my friend ray mabus comments, but

for the fourth estate i think they are finally recognizing the challenge to reduce their faces, as we say. because as you noted without that kind of reduction, the workload don't reduce. the army, and i will speak for the army has taken on the civilian work force reduction very aggressively. the secretary of defense ordered us to reduce headquarters by 20%. i up about 225. that was not without some concern as you might understand in the army holds. it we are over achieving. we also by the way to the definition of headquarters down to to circumvent and above which was more broadly based and we were acquired by neither dod nor congress to at the height of the civilian workforce in this era of two complex of war was about

285,000. that growth occurred not because some interesting financing we want more. it was done so that we could take operational or should say generating force soldiers, those who were training, those were in our school houses, et cetera, et cetera com, and put them into operational positions. we substituted civilians as they went forward. so we got to rationalize about. with the reductions as you noted congress and send it in again particularly have been very clear about that. and by the end of 2018 will in the army be down to about 233,000 civilian employees can reduction of over 50,000, and i haven't done the exact amount is roughly equivalent to the percentage reduction that we have in our end strength as well. we can do what we need to do as an army what people think about when they think of armies. without these civilians doing it. you were very gracious in noting

that but we do have to be in balance. when it comes to the operational force, you have stated it very directly. we are challenge on all three of those legs right now, frankly. but particularly given the environment that we are seeing across the globe and the likelihood of that next unforeseen thing which is another matter that keeps me up at night. readiness has to be our number one concern for the moment. we have managed our development programs. we have set aside most of our major acquisition programs for large major development of programs until the 2020s and beyond. but because we think that's the best thing to do for our soldiers but because it's required by this fiscal reality, focusing on snp, looking at things rather what we liked about 20 years from now because we think it may be necessary.

in looking at developmental issues where we know we're going to need certain things, particularly for the soldier in the squad, better armored assistance, reactive armor, better systems for operating integrated visual environments, robotics, uae, unmanned aerial vehicles, uavs, et cetera, et cetera. better energy programs to both save money but also delay the vote on our soldiers, diminished the number of convoys that provide an inherent danger, getting water and fuel from point a to point b. these are absolutely critical things to matter what the army are what i should say, what the enemy may look like, where ever the enemy may come from. we've tried to be smarter but our readiness continues to be a concern for me. our metric is somewhere come and get the discount you can get in an argument can is a 60% or 70%,

but i believe that question open. right now we are at about 32, 33% ready amongst our combat formations. we are consuming that witness because of those kinds of unforeseen missions that are mentioned as soon as we produce it. and while that's sustainable for a while, as i said in both general odierno and i, the former chief have testified repeatedly, if sequestration returns from any meaningful budget reduction in addition to that which we're going to manage right now, or that next unforeseen thing of any dimension comes forward, we are in very, very bad place. i've testified should either of those poker, let alone both, somebody's going to ask us, tell us to stop doing something. and, frankly, as a look at the world right now i'm not sure what that would be. so this is a critical turning point for the army and for the

department of defense. obviously, logically for the nation. while, why we are following very carefully what's going up on capitol hill. >> i agree. that was remarkably eloquent and i think general '01, make sure force will a respectful comments but anyway come out swinging to what policymakers as they prepared to think through how to fund the government beyond short-term resolution 52 is right to do that, to lay down a really bright red line in terms of how low end strength can go, readiness, et cetera. key to the first part of your remarks in the last question was i think the link he made between readiness and modernization, to get the soldiers better energy, better technology, whether that's at the squad level.

it's not just about rotations, right? it's also which are providing to them what they're driving and remotely piloted can whether using in hand with the weapons. what they're capable of doing, et cetera. i don't think there's that nuance -- well, i don't want to pick on the hill. i think on the policy committees there's a great understanding of challenges they are facing. >> absolutely, i agree speed it's a segment as you well know. the key statistic i often surprise me every time i hear it is the majority of congress, we are in, so in the 60% range is new, just want you been secretary since you left a hill. if you were to go back you would know the majority of the faces. you would know them because of your job but not from working there. which means the learning curve and a restart antieducation seems, is more frequent where we

in this the ike skelton's and we miss the carl levin's and we miss the gene taylor's. we all know the ones who are round many years with you as well. so it's a shorter cycle and turnover in the policy space which makes it i think even more difficult for service secretary coming on board are i think intentions usually in the right place at their limited by politics i think first and foremost. a lot of the situations. putting on your politician had, just meaning it, and you don't have to if you don't want to, but if you on the hill right now and you still ranking member, in this case, chairman of the armed services committee, what would you hope for, but which help leadership who hears about the day-to-day challenges the military facing, what would you hope beyond reversing sequestration would you want them to repeal dc-8 and highly? what outcomes would you look for?

>> well, look, i'm a recovering politician i'm not sure where i left my politician sacked, but you mentioned this. we are very, very confident and comfortable with the posture of our oversight committees. the members understand, to extend the nuances. that's why they're on the committee's because the other members wanting to be the experts. and if you are talking about the leadership, particularly senator reid, senator mccain, mac thornberry, adam smith, and their subcommittee chairman, i think they're trying to do everything they can to help other members, be they of some duration, some tenure, or otherwise to understand this. and that's our challenge if all we had to do was get our committees to act whether it's repeating bca or some other measure, we would be in far better shape. but that's not how this

democracy works. that's been the challenge to you mentioned, he become if you talk to any member, most members, they will give due deference to the problems we are facing. but in fairness to members, and in part this will accomplish to the united states military, they are not having to deal, thankfully, with a 9/11. or this is not a world war ii environment where every person knew somebody who serve. these individuals go back, and their constituents are word about their next paycheck, worried about the survivability of social security, what their children's futures going to be. ..

kind of an opportunity to show our status. we are just going to the hill every single day and trying to me with psn and mla and tell them the realities of what we are facing. we are doing that and obviously if this were easily would've been asked this already. >> myelin that last question is on the aviation restructuring

initiative. we were briefed on it extensively by the brainchildren in the army active duty servicemembers. it's remarkably well and i know it's been it moves through the system. but it's the right thing to do whether you had money going up or down. so how's it going? do you see this moving forward with much greater success in similar changes and with one assist terms and i commend you for that. what do you see for the next 18 months? >> i appreciate your statement is the right thing. right or wrong and you could get a debate on the right aspect of that. i am not sure we would've gotten

to it at this point in our developmental efforts were at now for the budget constraints. the reality is the analysis showed clearly it could save $12 million over the life of the draw down and operationally a billion dollars a year. we just could not continue to afford propping up and the apaches who mentioned before our aviation brigades are amongst the most part preston raced out the door. we very complain but as i said i'm inescapably and just to be sure without a whole lot of outside analysis. i've looked at it. we had formal reviews from marin and keep that osd, not always

their highest appraisers. all of the incentives you did that the hardness of the societies done well and we are going forward in regard to meet the requirements somewhat constrained by the legislative admits. but we are living with those and we think we can continue to do that. we need to execute this and it is simply the right thing to do. i understand the guards concerns. we have not tried to take for them to die the way, the vast preponderance will be taken out of the active component versus the guard. but we recognize they have a vital role over the last 14 years operationally and the

concern that i've heard most often as they no longer have a combat role and that is just not the case. if you look at the combat support, combat russians in afghanistan and the vast majority want phone by apaches. they were flown by blackhawks. as you know, we are prepared to give them a thousand or so most modern blackhawks. not only does not maintain their role in combat, but it also feels a critical need in their homeland defense, not sure old entre national disaster which we believe is essential as well. we try to do some puts and takes to smooth this over. the guard continues to be concerned about it. i fully understand that in from the congressional is we have a

condition on the future of army that is a continuous deliberation. until the commission reports back and make some recommendations or lays out courses of actions for the congress that will kind of stay steady and see where that goes. >> i will say recently thanks to the u.s. army there is the deputy secretary. for operation dragon spirit the super bowl combat training us it was called and it was quite impressive. it was adjourned for several entry exercise. >> 14 years has caused us to focus on one mission. >> with all of your capabilities and equipment soldiers that are the first to go and is

incredibly impressive. it was in her service as well. it was truly truly impressive and i hope your successor will make sure you have more washington people out there. >> or neo-army operating can't let this a couple positive things. not trying to predict 20 years in the future are trying to make sure we at tomorrow's leaders who are comfortable in the unknown, who can react rationally, but it also emphasizes the joint force. you in today's era have to present multiple dilemmas. if you are a one trick pony, if you've got the best of this service or that service is great, but if an enemy knows all you got is a 100 while an hour fastball they will figure it out

and react to it. the joint force is absolutely essential. as you sought in death valley, we will return to focusing on that. obviously in the army's interest i would argue it's in the nations interest because we won every branch to be the best end if and when the need comes to operate effectively together. we have another chance chance because of other circumstances so we are trying to return to the basic skill set. >> i would commend you on your outreach and education. i think that is so critical for the army to expose decision-makers to cdma inaction and get them out of their comfort zone. we will conclude our remarks in open it up to questions. the cameras will not be able to hear you. we will call on rick first, good

friend of the army as well. >> most of the times. >> you properly said you were a public servant and i think of u. think of u. s. one because when you came to washington i say a good government guy. i have to tell you quite frankly you didn't fix congress. it is pretty dysfunctional when he went >> the president blames me for leaving. >> at it get worse after you left. >> i think you've tried to do the same thing but i would say you did not tame the beast of bureaucracy and the pentagon as much as he might have wanted to do. i'm wondering if you could tell me what you think of your performance. he tried hard to make things run. you were a pro-government person

at a time when i don't think most of your party is pro-government or pro-worker. the >> good to see you again, rick. >> i remember when i worked in albany as a staffer, the senator i worked for out of khartoum on this refrigerator in the conference room red simply when you're up your asset allocator is sometimes hard to forget your original intent was to drain the swamp. i went to the pentagon like most leaders do with an agenda. we wanted to do some dramatic things and acquisition. we wanted to take some steps to professionalize and provide development opportunities to the civilian workforce. we made progress there, but i've

admitted previously and is nowhere near by hopefully might be. but reality slaps you in the face and certainly from my time secretary when you walk in and you are into theaters of war, that pretty much takes up a large share of your energy tank. we've been working hard to meet the realities of training, manning and equipping soldiers to keep them as safe as possible and get them back safely. equally to begin to care for their families. one of the first things i found myself doing was taking our family care programs about $600 million in dublin million dollars and doubling the share of the budget to 1.2 billion. i felt i was a moral obligation frankly that there is a more basic reality that today's

soldier will always worry about their families but you don't want them worrying about things they shouldn't have to worry about. we focus on taking care of those families and now we see such things as ptsd, the aftercare are pretty significantly wounded soldiers and how they go forward. suicide, all of those things for a man plan god last. it would've been nice to focus 100% of the efforts on the agenda we laid out. i'd be happy to discuss the progress in those areas that i outlined. you've got a deal closest to the slide and for that is a different direction. i guess that is more an excuse than anything else in the reality i've had to deal with. again, far less to do with me

and secretary or any number of stars on anybody's shoulder. today is the greatest land force the world has ever seen and for all the great people on the pentagon that's for one simple reason that young man and young women of the nation continue to step forward and they're incredibly competent, skilled comment dedicated a jury of. i wish he did wish he didn't ask me, but if i had one wish i'd wish every american could see the true heart and nature of what the soldiers did. i extend that to other services. we are fortunate country to have volunteers who come forward and do this amazingly difficult stuff. >> why don't we work on rate to

left. >> hello, tom. how are you? >> ask me in a minute. as one of the nations of the pentagon top officials for the bioterror lab, can you explain whether that so much difficulty tracking deadly agents like anthrax and why you ordered a moratorium 10 days ago. >> starting with your second question i ordered moratorium on the sense of extreme caution. while as i think the cdc and others have stated that we don't see to this point any threat to human health and safety when dealing with these pathogens, the better policy is to air on the side of caution. we continue to examine these. i'm not prepared to say that. we've got some partial answers,

all of them correctable. we want to be very, very sure that we understand as completely as we can the full picture before we come out and lay out a way forward. as you know, part of the moratorium are ordered included, all the labs under my executive authority to retrain, check protocols, check standards, and make sure people in various positions have the right skill sets and do things in the right way. this all started with a question of protocols. the scientific protocols you apply to make them inactive, are they actually valid question mark i don't know if we know the answer to that right now. these are things that are very calm legs and challenging.

i don't pretend to be an expert, but i'm going to make darn sure insofar as my responsibility goes we are taking every step possible to make sure the public is did and develop a way forward that allows us to conduct tests that are absolutely essential for security at the nation and people in a way that is as safe as humanly possible. >> thank you, sebastian springer worked inside defense. as you conclude your tenure, i wondered if you could talk about acquisition in broadly but also specific portfolios that have unanswered questions and then. one being the next generation vehicle in the other being air and missile defense.

where are you beeping things than what is next. >> it's kind of like writing my own obituary. when i first arrived at the pentagon as you heard me say, it was no secret that army acquisition was not where it needed to be. one of the first things i did was order a report that became known as decker wagner. this wasn't on the study and eyes looking at us. paula kamen is separately we knew it was shocking to see it all in one report in a piece of the findings from 1990 to 2010, 22 failed major development

programs which cost the taxpayers about dirty billion dollars. you didn't have to be an analyst to know we have to do better. we look at how we get to that place ms there are complex matters, a big part of that was the next big shiny thing. everybody wants something might be available and the army had a habit of investing requirements on things i'm likely and we now know they never did fields. the programs weren't able to come forward. we try to rein in our requirements programs. the first iteration of the grand combat vehicle after i arrived, the rfp came out with a thousand

months has telling the potential bidder you've got to give us all of these things. to everybody's credit for that and said that doesn't look like a lesson learned. so we went back and scrubbed back down to under 200 essential things. we allowed contractors to trade-off requirements against other capabilities. we understood sometimes enough is good enough and we also recognized the affordable way for us in the future was to build something in a fashion that incrementally from generation to generation you could add on to and adapt to whatever the new realities of the day maybe. in the last five years, most of our developmental programs were on time and on budget. the reality we've had to deal with as you mentioned is available monday to continue

whether through it all right budget cut or whether we go into a resolution that doesn't allow you oftentimes to reconfigure needs within a program. we decided ground combat vehicle to put that aside. gcb despite the urban legend to the contrary was on-time and on budget. it was a program that became unaffordable and we put that aside. we're examining technologies and advancements to see what we can do to maintain those and pick that back up in 2023. we need a new generation infantry fighting vehicles. the noncombat vehicle i should say. we invest the seeming from what we spend their and our upgrades, bradley is an abrams and such.

that is again a monetary necessity. it's not a failing program. the way forward depends on the money that lies ahead of us. we are challenged as well and missile defense. when you talk to partner nations, one of the first things they ask about our patriots are fed. i have visited many folks forward deployed and they were amongst the most deployed unit in the united states army. that too becomes a money issue. what you are able to do in large measure is what you are funded to do. so we will see. the >> over here. it will work back this way.

the >> he talked about the acquisition of requirements. replacement for the lh 58 out of vietnam was a shy and belts, flowed, canceled. >> i was in that period. the replacement for that was the boeing built, flown, canceled or the next replacement was the air age. are the lessons learned from those three put men the new process the army is using? >> thank you for digging those up. sadly i can name others, not just the aerial fleet but in some of our other developmental programs as well. we didn't sit down and analyze virtually everyone of those programs. i'm sure someone has been

sitting on the shelf somewhere. by and large what we found in terms of procedures as i've said and over reliance on developed immature technologies and requirements and always trying to get the very best next thing. kelsey grammer did a movie called pentagon wars. i don't know if you've ever seen the movie. not exactly historically accurate, but not totally unreal in terms of developmental programs have been approached. in one sense they were putting a porthole in. we are doing better. i can't tell you had me done the things we fell back to doing the comanche. , but we found from a prescriptive is very beneficial

in today's efforts. again, we are not doing any major developmental programs until the 2020s or beyond. every night when i go to bed i pray to god one time you let me live in the out years because everything will be great in the out years. we will see if that comes to fruition. but the budgetary reality, not a failure by development people. stay tune. >> and chin han sick from the atlantic council. back in the 1940s the united states sought nuclear weapons and proliferated in the 50s around the forces tactical nuclear weapons and soviets developed nuclear weapons and company to reorganize because we

were afraid nuclear weapons would, when the battlefield. plan was in time activation which was in a well-funded member, but an attempt the army can deal with the asset strategy coming back. in the 70s and 80s, precision weapons. they've got lots of precision weapons towards enemies and now the deputy secretary and secretary of defense are worried about it coming back the other way towards the precision weapons coming up their force potentially. if the army tried an awful lot of ground forces talked about weapons which did not seem to be used as an organizational challenge, do we need to rethink organization or double down on

the third offset we don't need to. what do you think? >> look, we've got a lot of brave people think about a lot of different things. the third offset is one of those things under discussion now. i am a fundamentalist when it comes to warfare because what i worry about is somehow that denigrate the role of land forces. morrison and the net endeavor any humans live on land until they sprout wings or develop gills. baseline will always need an army in spite of discussions about sanitizing more and fighting a with robots from 30,000 feet. the future cast all the stuff and for us that work not the

least of which is a command and may look at that and you combine that with the commander plan is the way goldwater-nichols will structure now his combatant commanders have their response -- their responsibility areas may look at at the challenges both today and tomorrow and how to best address those. there is no coordination. i can tell you how that is going to come out right now. we were dealing with more immediate, administrative, budgetary and political challenges of running the army. i don't go to bed at night or it don't stay up at night worrying about we are not thinking about some thing. we always think about those kinds of things than the fact viewer tracking the third strategy which showed those of

you in an active process. i just can't tell you how that's going to come out. [inaudible] >> and meredith walker, an economist on national security next-line this focus on military and veteran initiatives. as our nation's longest-serving and most dedicated secretary of the army, you traveled extensively to me personally with men and women who serve in the army. you've also said civilians would be amazed if we can see i'm in action as you have. would you share with us one of the trips unimpressed with the most most about the men and women who voluntarily choose to put their lives in harms way so we might be free. >> yeah. second service, longest-serving.

don't want to take credit. one of my trips to afghanistan and all my trips to go forward to combat outposts. one trip we went to the little village. we had a combat outpost probably half a mile away from the actual village. we went into the outpost and i met with the command leadership for this whole area, a captain on a lieutenant. lieutenant was about about six months out of west point. they were at along with their troops. they had spent recent makes clearing the valley of the taliban. anybody who's seen those, they are thick cement walls. doing the military reaction successfully, they were with the local share of common to suppose

that alters i went and met with and most of them in their 20s because many older people have been killed off, got them to agree to a work with our side, not except the taliban out of coercive concern or any other reason i developed the local militia, taken the local villagers and taught them how to be an effective militia. all at that level of command. i think that normally you have a couple starts running around generations past doing this stuff. to see those young people as i said the captain was a special operator at the time is breathtaking. the other thing last time i told this story broke down a little bit. we were transiting through and

we were visiting troops while our crew is getting rested. the soldier had just been brought in. she had lost one arm. his other arm was wounded and mangled terribly and he was incubated and they said you can go in and talk to when it is unconscious. so i went in there and i whispered how proud we were of him and what a great american he was impressed according into the one hand that he had left. that soldier intubated saluted. it's amazing. almost made it.

>> i can't think of a better name that they represent to their families. which we can conclude our days discussion. we would see well and you're not off the job yet as the second survey in secretary of the army until november 1st or a successor is concerned. i want you to know how grateful we are for the work we've been doing. [applause] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> hispanic gallivan to continue

debate on the iran nuclear agreement. the senate last week failed to get the 60 votes needed on a resolution of disapproval. they will try again today at 6:00 p.m. eastern. my senate coverage here on c-span2. the president pro tempore: the senate will come to order. the chaplain will lead the senate in prayer. chaplain black: let us pray. gracious god, the center of our joy, we thank you for all the blessings we receive daily as gifts from you. though we don't deserve them, your mercies provide for all our needs. help our lawmakers this to move from simply knowing about you into a vital relatio