intelligence problems and prosecutions sat side-by-side. and so the division was created so that would be a one-stop shopping the department of justice here where the full range of national security problems could be tackled. and in doing that it meant looking at legal problems in a way where when it was department of defense, fbi, cia, nsa, that we viewed the problem as one that was intelligence driven, meaning we would look at what the intelligence shows the threat was. ..

>> against the terrorist threat. so the idea is we sit together almost every day in the national security council in the situation room x you'll have a terrorist or terrorist group, and we'll each go around the table with all of the different authorities and expertise we bring to bear and say how do we disrupt them, stop them overseas before they can do an attack. for us though, when we realize looking at some of the success we had against the terrorist threat, that we needed to get better to applying that model when it came to cybersecurity nets. so over the last several years, we've reorganized in the division to do things like train prosecutors in every u.s. attorney's office across the country to, on the one hand, handle that which is on the classified side -- sensitive

sources, methods, what threats are -- and on the other hand, learn about bits and bites and the specific laws that apply to computer hacking like the electronic communications privacy act. and then send those trained prosecutors back out to all 94 u.s. attorneys' offices at the same time as the fbi issued an edict just hike they had long done in terrorism that said thou shalt share what had formerly been on the intelligence side with these potentially-trained lawyers. -- specially-trained lawyers. the idea is that by now having these lawyers with the full range that look at what the intelligence shows the threat is, that we can start getting creative at increasing the costs of it at detecting it, but then deterring and disrupting it. >> evan, thank you also and thank you, defense one, for inviting me to join you today. last year nctc, the national

counterterrorism center, we did have a chance to look back and celebrate, take note of our ten-year anniversary. as you noted in your opening, evan, it was created out of the 9/11 experience specifically out of recommendations offered by the 9/11 commission and then incorporated in legislation by the congress. and i think ten years on looking at where we are, the fundamental weakness in our system that the intelligence reform and terrorism prevention act was designed to address the sharing of information, i think we can look with some degree of satisfaction at the progress we've made in making sure that all of the relevant information in intelligence information that's available to the united states government is brought together in one place and fused, understood, assessed and analyzed. and that happens every day at nctc. that's not to say that we've gotten across every hurdle that we've necessarily closed every gap or addressed every vulnerability that we have, but i would say that i feel very, very good that the systemic

shortfalls, the systemic challenges we faced at the time of 9/11 have been addressed and have been addressed successfully. i will say going forward, though, as we look to the kind of information we're dealing with in today's terrorism environment, the challenges are still there. they're still, in some ways, growing. my analysts who come -- my analysts at nctc who come across the intelligence community from every intelligence community partner that nctcs has contributes personnel to nctc. my analysts have access to the full array of intelligence information as was the design of reform. but increasingly, we're finding that relevant information exists in the nonclassified world, in the open source world, in the world of social media. and so the next great leap for nct dr. and, indeed, i would argue for the national security community, will be finding new and powerful ways to leverage our access to open source information, information that is out there for anybody to look at, but is out there in such

volume that looking at it with the tree of analysis and rigor you would want is a challenge. >> well, one of the things that happened just this weekend is a russian airliner crashed, and one of the first things we've heard is a claim by purported members of isis claiming that they were responsible for bringing down this airplane. is there anything you can tell us from what you've seen this weekend that sheds some light on this? >> well, i have seen, evan, of course, the claims that isil did make about potentially carrying out action that brought down that russian airliner, but i can say at this point we've got nothing that we've seen in intelligence to corroborate a specific nexus to terror toist activity. you'll notice i said at this point because it's an unfolding picture. we're learning more every day just in the days since the tragedy over the weekend. we've already reached out and tried to collect as much intelligence information as we can. >> john, one of the interesting cases that you've, you've been

responsible for recently is the farisi case. tell the audience about it and why it was ground break really for the justice department. >> the farisi case,ing and let me be clear, these are allegations as they're laid out in a complaint. and the defendant will have the right to defend himself under the rule of law. but this is a groundbreaking case. it's the first of its kind, and that is the first time we've seen what we've long said we would see. so this is a case where an individual is charged both with hacking, a violation of the computer fraud and abuse act, and with providing material support to a terrorist group. and i think it's particularly important because it shows the complexity of the new threat that we face and why while one of the key lessons post-9/11 was to make sure we got better at sharing within the government as this threat morphs to one that's done through cyberspace that our next leap has to be sharing not

just within government, but with the private sector and back. >> in plain language real quick, let me just interrupt. in plain language, we're talking about cyber terrorism, basically. >> yes. this is a case of cyber terrorism. so someone who used cyber-enabled means to help a terrorist group. and here's what he did as alleged. farisi went and hacked into a u.s. company, and when he attacked the u.s. company, what he stole was personal, identifiable information, over 100,000 personally-identifiable, so names, social security numbers, etc. and this is important because from the point of view of the company, what they saw looks like traditional criminal activity. and when they tried to kick him off the system, what he did was threaten them -- as we often see, hackers who extort -- and said if you kick me off your system, if you don't pay me $500

through bitcoin and let me back onto your system, i'm going to release these names and identifiers in a way that embarrasses you. so it looks like a criminal extortion type of case what the company if they didn't work with the government would not have known is on the back end this individual was then providing and in touch with a terrorist group in syria, isil, and one of their lead hacking figures, and he was providing that name that included identifying information about military personnel and their families to the terrorist group that then was culling through the data and focusing on those who were military personnel or others, posting it through twitter, through u.s. providers in a way that called upon people all over the world, particularly in the united states, to kill the individuals whose personal identifiable information they had put online. this shows the threat we're facing today. you have farisi, who's a guy from kosovo who goes to malaysia to hack into a u.s. company to

provide the information to a british guy who's in syria to use for a terrorist group that then projects it back into the united states using u.s. technology and, essentially, free services -- twitter and others -- to call for these people to be killed. and although this is the first, unfortunately it went be the last using this type of threat. >> how easy was it to figure out where this was actually coming from in. >> i think it's a good point here. when it came to cyber, for too long i think we weren't doing the investigation and attribution and bringing all the resources we have to bear to not just figure out generally who did it, but exactly who did it and how. and this is an example of the fact that we can do that. and although you may think you are anonymous and we can't put you behind the keyboard, we can. farisi right now is arrested by the malaysians pending extradition pursuant to u.s. criminal process. that's because we were able to work together and use information, whether it was collected by the intelligence community and law enforcement,

to figure out exactly who did it, then to look across our law enforcement tools and hold the individual responsible. >> and one of the people he is alleged to have been in touch with and passing information to is a hacker by the name of hussein, british citizen who was one of the most prolific recruiters for isis on the internet. he was killed in a u.s. strike. how did that relate to your case? how does that affect your case? >> so i won't -- i might kick over to nick for a description of hussein, but in terms of our case it's alleged in the complaint that he passes the information over to hussein, and in terms of him providing support to a terrorist group, that's one of the acts that he did. >> nick? >> i guess what i would say, evan, is that hussein proved to be one of those vims taking advantage -- individuals taking advantage of modern

technological tools for the purposes of, also for the purposes of identifying individuals inside the united states, inside western european countries, inside countries all around the world who might sympathize or affiliate with isil and carry out attacks locally in the name of this terrorist group operating in syria and iraq. so even though he's sitting in syria and iraq, he's communicating virtually with a set of extremists around the world and trying to instigate, inspire, prompt, trigger violent activity by those individuals here in the be united states and in other places around the world. and that's a new paradigm in terms of the terrorist model. i would call it a significant innovation in the terrorist playbook. it makes it much, much more difficult for law enforcement and intelligence to get in the middle of that conversation, to interrupt that potential threat. as opposed to the classic kind of terrorism threat we were used to dealing with where you were

dealing with a clandestine cell over a long period of time. we as an intelligence community often had many, many opportunities to get inside those communications and figure out what was going on so that we're able to disrupt it. when you're talking about something as simple as pointed-to-point communication between individuals over social media, it becomes a much more difficult and daunting task to disrupt those. >> we're seeing that effect here in the united states, putting a lot of pressure on the fbi and other law enforcement professionals and the prosecutors. we've had, say, roughly over the last 18 months there have been over 70 cases brought that are linked to the foreign terrorist fighter, fighters. and then in this year alone we're up over ten cases that are linked to individuals where isil called upon them. it may be too hard to travel overseas, so kill someone at home. over ten cases right now. as fbi director said, we have investigations open in all 50

states, and we've already brought criminal cases in 25 different jurisdictions. we have not seen a terrorist threat like this before. of the cases we brought as well, we're seeing a change in the demographic. so i'd say about over 50% of the cases are 25 are under, and a third -- which is most troubling -- are 21 and under. and i think that's a direct result of what nick said. at least here in the united states, we're not seeing this threat driven by demographics or ethnicity. the common connection we're seeing is in almost every case a tie to social media. and because the people who use social media the most tend to be young, i think that's why we're seeing our cases trend younger and younger. >> one of the interesting developments though i since the death of hussein is we heard from the fbi director the other day in congress, testifying in congress that the number of isis reouts coming from the --

recruit is coming from the united states is down dramatically. we were having nine a month, and now we're, i think he said, six over the past three months. and i'm wondering whether you think it's related to the fact that hussein is no longer talking to people via social media, trying to lure them to this fight. >> well, i'll probably be a little bit more cautious in drawing that conclusion than you were with your question, evan. there's no do you want that we have seen some slowing -- no doubt that we have seen some slowing of the pace which this americans are traveling to iraq and syria to join in the conflict. but i'd rather see data like that persist over a year's time or well into next year before i would maybe feel that the trend has truly reversed itself. i would also hesitate to put too much on the shoulders of one individual. while we certainly looked at this hussein individual as someone with a very unique set of skills, someone who brought unique energy and creativity in the way he was reaching out to

populations in western countries, i would note in no way would i want to suggest he was one of a kind or that isil doesn't have other individuals who can reach into this country or our western partner countries and have the same kind of effect. i've asked my analysts quite often is there a natural ceiling to the population of home grown violent extremists that we hear inside the united states, and i don't think we know the answer to that yet. it is clear that the particular pathogen that isil represents seems to have injected new life and energy into that population of home grown violent extremists, and that's a population we've been dealing with throughout the period since 9/11, but there's no doubt it has been given new life and energy by isil. while i'm hopeful and i think the fbi director is on to something with the numbers he cited, i want to see those trends persist. >> and the vast majority of the home grown violent extremists that you are concerned about are isis-related. am i right about that?

>> i'd say, yes. i mean, it continues to run the gamut. you find individuals who are attracted to other terrorist groups who are attracted to other forms of extremist ideology. but as i said, isil, isis has injected new life and energy into that community in part because of their message, but also in part because of the unique way in which they're able to communicate that message. >> one of the changes that we've seep in the last few months has been a deal whereby the united states is able to use an air base in turkey to be able to carry out some of the anti-isis operations. and also an agreement for turkey to do more to try to counter the number of westerners traveling to syria and iraq. secondly, the entrance of russia into this conflict. can you tell us whether you've seen any change in the number of westerners who are being lured across the border there to fight? >> again, i'm probably going to

fall back on the too early to tell as the bottom line answer. in the kind of work we're doing to track foreign fighters, we often have lagging indicators. we often get the kind of information that will tell you about what someone did six months ago or a year ago, and that helps fill out the picture of how many fighters have made their way to syria and iraq. but i are say this, we have -- i will say this, we have seen encouraging signs in terms of increased capability and will by the government of turkey to interdict those lines of fighters looking to get into the conflict zone. we're certainly doing everything we can to provide support in whatever way we can, intelligence support providing advice and assistance on issues like border security where appropriate. our turkish partners certainly understand this is a problem that they face too. turkey has, have themselves experienced attacks from isil or isil-inspired individuals, and so i think we have a shared interest x we need to, if anything, deepen and broaden

that cooperation to make sure we get even more out of it. >> have you seen anything change in the flow of the types of cases that are being brought to your office? >> i'll echo the too early to tell. as i said, the biggest trend we've seen this year that was a change and now up over ten would be the individuals who are radicalized by somebody overseas often through social media and then are attempting to carry out the attack here in the united states. and disrupting them through the criminal justice system. and in order to defeat this threat or change it, it's going to be, it will require an all tools approach meaning applying some of the lessons we've learned which is you can't give these terrorists safe haven overseas to plot and plan. and whether it's the united states or our allies and partners overseas, you need to keep pressuring them overseas, otherwise we'll be playing constant defense here inside the

united states. but also given the changed nature of this threat, we need to reach out to those who are providing the social media platforms that terrorists are exploiting. and those platforms are used for many, many good purposes, and there's reasons why our kids are on them, playing on them. but at the same time, we know they're being exploited by terrorists. we know the terrorists are particularly targeting and having success targeting young people including children with their radicalizing message. and is so we need to call upon those who provide platforms and are experts on them to help us keep those platforms from being exploited by terrorists. >> the number of, the number of times you have testified in congress about the to pickness -- opaqueness of data coming out of syria and the concern about, perhaps, the vetting of refugees and also just simply people who might try to do us harm either because they have a passport that allows

them to come here with less, with less screening, how has that changed in the past year or so? >> well, i guess if you look back to where we were maybe 15, 18 months ago when we began our more focused engagement against isil, we were starting from an intelligence deficit. the drawdown of our presence in iraq had certainly. >> shrunk the size of our intelligence collection apparatus, both the broader intelligence community and certainly the downsized dod presence led to a less complete picture in iraq certainly than the picture we enjoyed all during the period of the 2000s when we were working with our iraqi partners. you add to that syria, the chaotic wartime environment in syria, the fact that we had to close our embassy a few years back and draw down our presence there, it simply meant we were starting from a much bigger hole in terms of an intelligence picture than we would typically want tock in.

obviously, the intelligence community has a lot of resources at its disposal. we've spent a lot of time trying to identify opportunities to give ourselves a better picture, but i wouldn't argue by any means that we're where we want to be at this point. if you think about some of the conflict zones where we've had great success in terms of conducting counterterrorism operations, we did so there after spending several years, even many years building an intelligence capability that began to pay off over time. in iraq and syria right now we're much more at the front end of that project than at the back end. and that has consequences for when we, you know, try to track threats. as you suggest, evan, when we try to engage in, you know, vetting and screening of potential refugee populations. the information we bring to bear is only as good as the information we have. and so we're, obviously, looking to make sure we can gather as much information about what's going on inside syria and iraq, particularly in those areas of syria and iraq where isil is in

control, as we possibly can. >> can you describe to me what it was like in may, june, july of this year? the fbi director has, in his testimony, talked about just having to move resources to be able to follow people and monitor people 24/7. there was a great deal of concern that something might happen this summer. and i just wondered how that was reflected in both of your shops. >> well, i'll start. nctc is a collection of people from across the intelligence community and around the government who focus on counterterrorism, but we are not operational. so we are not out in the field knocking on doors or surveilling suspects or carrying out interviews. what we are doing is dealing with a flood of information. and that period you described earlier this year, there was, in fact, a flood of information pointing to, as we talked about earlier, specific isil-linked individuals who were reaching into the homeland, into the united states, to try to

identify people who hold extremist views, who hold views very much analogous or very much like what isil believe ands seek to motivate them to carry out violent acts, terrorist acts here inside the united states. that model is not -- is a model not only that was new that we were looking at for the first time, but it was also a model that was showing up in volume. so it was taxing our resources to be able to follow all the different bits of information, all -- lifting up out of all the potential social media interactions and determining which actually has threat content. where do you have individuals who are simply consuming extremist material, and where do you have individuals who are actually looking to plot and plan. and that's resource-intensive work. >> on our end with the prosecutors throughout the country, we had secure videoteleconferences with individuals from the fbi, from nctc briefing the prosecutors in the field to prepare them for

what we could see coming. and this was an instance where i think the intelligence community did a good job of showing how the threat was morphing in a way we could see it was going to hit inside our shores. so that meant having prosecutors and the intelligence lawyers work 24/7 to obtain, to obtain the information in a way that we could use it inside the criminal court system. and whether that meant getting the proper authorities from the foreign intelligence surveil court or working -- surveillance court or working with district court judges throughout the country to bring case after case in an unprecedented pace and fashion and make sure we were available with the legal tools that the fbi and sometimes local law enforcement would need to disrupt this threat. >> is that -- has that pace gone down is since then? is it fair to say that it has? >> again, i would say it's too early to tell in terms of whether it's gone down in the last couple of months.

i mean, it's going to spike and go down slightly over the year. >> and you've seen spikes like this before? >> we've never seen -- if you look at this point over the 18 month period, i think there's been one other time we've used sources with this intensity, the nas si bull zazi case. but in terms of having this many individuals who are not necessarily connected to each other but instead getting radicalized, we have not seen something like this before. and in terms of having this many defendants who are this young going into the criminal system, we haven't seen it before. and going back to why we were created, this is not -- this is necessary, and we need to work as hard as we can to prevent the loss of innocent life here. but success is not going to be prosecuting our way out of this

problem. so we need to maintain the pace to prevent the attacks while we can, but then we also need to work on strategically the long-term solutions to keep this from being a successful tactic, to keep terrorists overseas from being able to directly contact, you know, 17-year-olds, 18-year-olds inside the united states and lead them down this path. and part of that's educating. i mean, i think a lot of participants and community leaders are not -- parents and community leaders are not aware that a kid or teenager down in the basement is talking to a terrorist online on social media. t not happening where they can see it. >> i think a lot of americans look at what we've been doing in the middle east and in terms of the airstrikes, and now we're sending special operations forces, and they just wonder whether or not we're making any progress whatsoever and how long does this fight go on. i think it's an important question simply because we're in an election season. you're going to be both called to talk to a future president to

describe perhaps how long you see this fight going on. any ideas? >> well, when we embarked on this counter-isil effort as a country and working to assemble the international coalition that we've assembled, we did so with, i think, a very clear idea in our mind that this was going to be a multi-year strategy, that this was going to be -- the kind of strategy we were looking to employ was going to take time to pay off. we were going to be looking to empower local partners, we were going to be looking to identify as broad and wide a coalition as we could possibly put together, and all of that was going to take time. and it wasn't simply a case of winning one battle on the battlefield in iraq or knocking out one senior cadre of leadership in isil. the effort was going to be, you know, quite a bit more comprehensive than that and there would probably be ups and downs along the way. now, if you look at it, again,

12, 15, 18 months into that effort, all of that, i think, has borne out largely as expected. the effort to push back on isil on the battlefield in iraq has had ups and downs. we've had some success at working with some of our local partners in iraq, and at other times it's been quite challenging, and isil continues to hold some of the major urban areas that they were able to take during the first wave of the campaign. but again, this was envisioned as something that was going to take years to accomplish, and so in that sense looking at it analytically, stepping back, i'm not surprised that we are where we are. >> what would you say when called to give advice to the next president? >> you know, as difficult as that advice will be for the lawyers in the room, i won't repeat it here. [laughter] i think what we're, what we're seeing now we've talked a lot about the problem in the united states, and rightly so. our focus is protecting individuals here. but this is a world, a worldwide

issue. and, in fact, when you look at our numbers percentage wise even compared to our closest western allies, we are facing a smaller version of this same threat. and so what i think you've seen is leadership that'll need to continue whether it's going back a year ago to the unprecedented united nations resolution 2178 that for the first time called for and made it mandatory for every nation around the world to have laws on their books that would prevent their citizens from being used as foreign terrorist fighters. that was significant and led to over 20 countries putting new laws on the books. that will take time in terms of building those structures up. >> more countries are going to end up doing some of the same things you've been doing for the last few year, you're saying. >> exactly. we're sending prosecutors out regularly to those countries to both help them write the laws on the books and then using them using some of the lessons we've learned -- and if there's any good news story embedded in

this, it's that. the international cooperation on this set of issues is something pretty up precedented. the -- unprecedented. the amount of information we're seeing even with nonintelligence partners countries with which we don't really share interests very widely, we still have found ways to talk and share and communicate and cooperate when it comes to this foreign terrorist fighter problem. >> well, thank you, gentlemen, for this conversation. thank you for listening and appreciate defense one having us here. >> thank you. >> thank you. [applause] p.m. ..

graduate of princeton university, one of the very few army chiefs i think who was not a west pointer. he's been the commanding general of the tenth mountain division third corps and fort hood and was deputy commander in afghanistan overseeing more than 100,000 troops. also he's been married 30 years and has two children including a son who played at my alma mater in and played eight seasons in alexandria and i know he wasn't up late watching the world series. [laughter]

>> to soon. >> when you took over in august at the change in the ceremony, you said we have to fight guerrillas and kerry all the way for a state militaries. if we do not maintain the commitment to remain strong in the air on the sea and in the ground of people pay the pictures bill in blood and forever lose the precious gift of our freedom. that is like a shot across. why did you feel the need to say that at the moment? >> i think that as a soldier come as a professional soldier we've been doing this for 35 years and i think that it's fundamental to make a strength if you want to live in peace i think is important to maintain the military strength. if we want to maintain ourselves as a global power, then we in the army and the marines have to

be able to respond to a broad range of operations and its fading from humanitarian assistance and disaster relief sort of things up to terrorist insurgencies etc. all the way up to the competitors and state conflict. and if we don't mean that capabilities to do that, you've always got to balance that if you don't mean to be become maintain than you put yourself to risk. >> the congressman said that the $5 billion for the defense military has taken part of the budget deal is going to hurt. how is the army going to be affected by the end is that part of what you're talking about in terms of playing duties paying the butchers bill in blood? >> the same freedom isn't free. but it's also not free in terms of money and for us to maintain

our way of life and maintain a military that protects that way of life is a very expensive endeavor and i've said many times before that the only thing more expensive than fighting and winning the worst fighting and losing a war so if we are committed to engage in a conflict somewhere it is in our interest. so to do that is a very expensive proposition to maintain the soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines to maintain the equipment and have the best equipment money can buy because we want overmatch. we do not want a level playing field. this is not -- and do not want a fair fight we wanted in our favor. >> take a around the world in terms of a threat assessment. what is the most dangerous place right now and what keeps you up at night? that i've recently had an opportunity the last few weeks

went from iraq to jordan and then israel and afghanistan and europe to indonesia and that with all of the chiefs of army of the pacific and went to korea and then went into ukraine created some of them are particularly secret. you have a strategic issue that's been going on for quite some time with radical terrorism but it's another for a while and it doesn't lend itself to be an easy solution with other friends and partners in the region but

the problem is probably going to be there for a while. the president has given us a charge to go ahead and the great ice is so we are adjusting our operational approaches to achieve the strategic end state that if you move into europe the situation with russia in my mind is growing more serious and i see russia as aggressive and not just a third of. they attacked georgia and illegally seized crimea. the countries were free and independent and have been since the fall of the berlin wall. so that isn't just assertive behavior, that's aggressive and and there's a variety of other things that russia has been doing in the last few years that are increasing in the base and confronting their aircraft with

a wide variety of other activities so it is aggressive and i don't know the intent but i look at the capability and. since 2005 and 2008 in that timeframe they've reorganized the military and increased the foreign policy. if you go over to asia -- >> to talk to that russia for a minute as russia a greater threat than isis writenow? >> i said that i consider it a russia that number one threat to the united states. the reason i said that is twofold, one is capability and the second is intent created in

terms of capability, russia is the only country on earth that has the capability to destroy the united states of america. it's a it indexes digital press by definition because of the nuclear capability. others have nuclear weapons but not as many as russia. they have the capability to destroy us but the capability in and of itself is not enough. it has to be matched with a deft and as i said it's very difficult to define future intent but one way to look at it and an indicator to look at it is past behavior from the fall of the berlin wall until about 2007 or 2008 russia was into demonstrating any intent to have an aggressive policy against other countries. since 2008, russia has.

they've been in place since the treaty since they invaded the territory of other countries in the aggressive manner. why putin is doing and what he is going to do next i am not so sure. he's probably the guy to ask for predictions on the future but if behavior is aggressive and capability as a significant, they reorganized the conventional capability and special operations capabilities so russia there is a close watching and that's why i say they are the number one threat to the united states. >> so you would put them in the category of those and not a partner. >> the behavior is adversarial to the interest of the united states. >> should we be sitting at the same table negotiating the situation in syria?

>> you have to have a strength and balance approach so we want to on the one hand maintain strength in order to deter the further aggression and we need to stand firm care that aggression manifests itself. on the flipside you don't want to shut them off completely so you want to have an outreach where we do have a common interest and has a variety of interests where that united states and nato have a common interest so it's not a 01 calculation it's a little more nuanced. i'd be hesitant to predict anything that takes on the logic of its own as it goes does in directions that are unpredictable but i would argue our capabilities today are plenty good enough to deal with

anything that russia has. >> and what you like more troops? >> it's only one calculation. what's equally more important it's been on the prairie for the united states army and the way that i look at it as manning training, equipping and leading not just the size of the capacity of the force so that we want to have a qualitative advantage not just a quantitative advantage it's nice to have both qualitative and no qualitative advantages are far more divisive. >> what did you hear from the counterpart when you were in europe recently to meet with other heads of the army of europe? >> some of that i'm not going to share in public that i would characterize the military

support by the united states continued political support and economic support. they've been determined to remain a free and independent country. >> but we ask that those that are being sent to serious debate could syria. what is their mission exactly? >> as i understand it, they are there to train, advise, assist indigenous forces at the common fight against isis. we have to wait and see. we have been engaged now for over a year in the fight against isis. we laid out a strategy that didn't achieve results to date

and if you look at a strategy the way that i look at it it's by the president degrade and destroy isis. the ways and means that we have been doing that for the last year or so have proven insufficient to achieve the ends so we are adjusting the ways and means of the strategy so those fundamentally remain the same but the ways and means of going about achieving the ends those would be adjusted and you are seeing some of that on the news. >> how are you going to protect them on the ground since they may be the army forces how are you going to protect them from the russian airstrikes? >> let's talk about asia on the

korean peninsula and the rise of china both differed by the way. they maintain the independence but they are artificially divided by the 38th parallel. after some point in the future it is highly probable that korea

will be one country again. whether that happens peacefully that the $64,000 question for the thing. it's in our interest that happens peacefully and it happened over time to the diplomatic and political means and vice military means. having said that though, we have a leader that is aggressive over the third in the family line and he is conducted a variety of actions any one of which could lead to violence use all the incidents that occurred last august into the korean peninsula still to this day the most armed border in the world roughly speaking about a million soldiers on either side of the border and the border as well armed some items are to be that

a provocative incident initiated by north korea could lead to something more violent and that would be really tragic for the people in korea. >> do you feel like the chinese government and military can still control or korea or do you think that they've these kind of gone out of their influence? >> i think there is an element of influence. i don't know that i would use the word control. how many opponents does the united states have right now that you're concerned about? at the lower end i guess of the spectrum of military conflict

could would be to buddhist organizations in al qaeda, isis, taliban so we having. of those so that's just the top three with many others have to guard against. then as you come up the scale of little bits of iran is still clearly conducting online activities throughout the middle east and they still support eight variety of terrorist organizations. the agreement was reached over the weapons has lowered the temperature somewhat somewhat and people see how all this turns out over the course of the coming years but that remains to be seen. so it's something we have to continue to watch and we will continue to respond to any contingency. china is not an enemy. i think that's important for

people to clearly understand. china is a rising power and has been a rising power since 1979 and they've been clicking off at a 10% growth for almost 30 years and dropped down about 7% last year and they will probably drop again and come into their range of normalcy but that's still significant economic growth and there's been a really large historic change from the north atlantic-based global economy to know it's proceeding to be the north pacific-based global economy so what normally happens historically it's not in all cases but most cases where you have economic growth of that magnitude as the military it was the military capabilities for the last ten to 20 years and

they are going to develop themselves into a great power. that is not to say they are an enemy and it's up to play at conflict with it being inevitable. >> when the armies and the nation states cut their armies it often invites aggression. do you think the u.s. army has been cut too much at this point? >> almost any commissioned officer or any service would want more, so by putting that aside, right now at the current levels of strength and readiness, we can execute the national strategy that adding an element of risk associated with it.

it if it doesn't allow sufficient numbers to cover the tasks. it also sends signals to opponents and potentially entices adventurism and it gives them cause for aggression so there is some number undefined below which you don't want to go if that you don't want to maintain stability and adequate numbers. >> do you have a number in your mind? >> i do, but i'm not going to share it. [laughter] >> i will share it with the secretary of defense. >> you like talking about the myths of war. >> there's about ten or 20 of

them but the ones i rattled off the other day in the speech, one of them is the idea that the war can be won over by the special forces can do it all end and then the last one is short. i can tell you each one briefly. the idea that the war can be won from afar you can do a lot with standoff weapons. i think they are great and you can impose costs on opponents and you can punish, you can stiffen diplomacy and so on. but the war is different. it's a political act that you try to impose your political will on an opponents to the use

of violence because politics by definition involves people. people live on the ground so you have to use land power of some kind. it doesn't have to be american but you have to use land power in order to impose your will on your opponent idiot you have to seize the control training in the population so to win in the sense of opposing the one your opponent i said air weapons were naval weapons are on the shots but the final shots usually come from marines or soldiers so the war at the end of the day in my view is one on the ground. >> do you think we are relying on the special operations forces right now flex >> it's very seductive if we

have very elite troops and into their excellent, there's none better in the world. you have the space and cyber and air power and sea power, land power and the special operations forces and bring all of those effects in time and space to their. so that takes all of it.

they would be the first to tell you they can't do it all. >> i want to ask about another hot topic. we are having an open discussion about the pros and cons of opening up all of the mos two women in combat? >> secretary carter right now is in the decision-making cycle i suspect he will make a decision before the first of the year and he'll made a determination whether or not we open up all of the military occupational specialties.

we have all that the data that we've analyzed and looked at it very vigorously and we've come to conclusions and made recommendations. i want to let the secretary carter have the decision space if you and will and not have me debating it in public and people do with whatever he says at the end of the day. >> may be the secretary made this a degree today integrated a should have 18 weeks of maternity leave and do you plan on doing the same? spec secretary carter initiated a study called force of the future and it's an important study and its real looking at all of the personnel policies and the department of defense and what he wants to do and we all agree with him is to take

the current system and bring it into the 21st century so there is a wide variety of initiatives that are being looked at him everything from permeability of jobs for examples of there's a lot of talent in the it business in silicon valley and in the beltway up in the boston area etc. that we may want to use in a person might be 30 or 35-years-old and that person may have a desire to serve for two or three or four years and maybe we bring them in and they don't have to start at square one so that is just one initiative.

they have a readiness impact and we have to really work through the details. as i look at all of these initiatives it is what are the impacts on readiness and how much does it cost the taxpayer suits up 77 or 80 initiatives in there and the joint chiefs were all looking at these things thoroughly. is there anything you want to leave us with? that is your main concern right now.

the predecessors of the readiness of the army has a wide variety of contingencies out there that could happen so none of us can see the future and we don't know with certainty with tomorrow or next month brings so the readiness of the military is a fundamental concern and the greatest sin that i or any other general can connect is a sailor, soldier, air men, marine into harms way to isn't well me and come equipped and ready. so readiness is a big deal and that is my number one concern we are not where we should be so its to get us where we need to be to confront whatever challenges lie ahead. >> but it's not a hollow army. >> i wouldn't clarify it is a hollow army. >> thank you, general. [applause]

♪ and now a session from the underwriter is welcome to the stage the vice president of the sector. [applause] >> good morning. the theme of today's conference is the age of everything but. the age of everything as the father of three teenage children i can certainly relate to the age of everything especially with respect to the utilization of digital content and the constant demand for endless bandwidth. but in the age of everything as i was able to spend the last hour or two backstage listening to the speakers, one thing that became very, very important to me is that without national security and a sense of security for all of our citizens, we really -- it would be the age of

nothing and i want to take a moment to thank all of the speakers that have served in the military and the government as well as the members of the audience for their service and contributions to the service helping to ensure the security of the country. [applause] i've never had the opportunity to serve in the military or work in the government, i have been able for the last 30 years to work closely with the department of defense and the intelligence community to help them implement information technology and help support the key missions of the defending the country. and what i've learned are some very important thoughts and takeaways that i would like to share with you this morning. in the last ten years i've worked for adobe and it's been very important to us to work closely in partnership with the dod to help understand and help

incorporate key standards and features and capabilities that are needed to support the key standards such as g. i.e., eyesight and fed grant. in doing so we've been able to help provide better solutions for the government and at the same time their input in partnership with us has allowed us to by incorporating the features and capabilities to really have a competitive advantage over the competitors in the commercial marketplace as well. and a few minutes i have with you this morning i would like to share what we believe are very emerging areas that we think could have a significant potential opportunity to support our country from the military and intelligence standpoint.

>> today's world is the age of everything digital and if you look at what has happened to technology the last several years, many industries have been completely disrupted by the shift to digital. if you look at areas such as the entertainment industry, the music industry, the retail industry and others, they've had to make a shift to digital for those that haven't had become no longer in business and we think that this move to everything digital also applies to the department of defense and national duty apparatus. we believe that it that it's a cinch to focus on the problems that of delivering the right information on the right time and device to the war fighter and to the intelligence analyst.

just to give you a little sense of what has happened most recently i was reading a report from gartner that basically was looking at the number of sensors and devices that are connected to the internet and today there's actually over 5 billion devices connected in real time but are providing live video, live audio and all different types of information in an interconnected world. within four years to prediction is that we'll go from five to 25 billion devices all connected and providing censored information in the internet of things which is mind boggling in terms of the amount and scale of date information. as the dod looks at how to deliver the right information at the right timeto the troops in the field or to the intelligence analysts that have the need to know, we believe that that there

is some similarities to the very cutting edge work that's being done in the commercial world. as we talked about earlier many industries have had to make that transition from analog to digital. you see it every day with companies like amazon, netflix and others. we live in a digital world where content needs to be delivered to a consumer at anytime and anyplace and with many of these companies are also doing is into the blanket advertising, they're interested in communicating in real time with their customers knowing exactly where they are and what device they are on so they can provide offers and advertisements and requests for purchases to that person in real time and deliver customized content. the way that this occurs and believe that the companies are able to integrate all of the systems in the database and

connections to the real-time streams is by using a technology that is known as a digital experience platform and we are seeing many leading companies in the transformation to digital embracing the digital experience platform as a way to know their customers better and to be able to deliver the right information at the right time at the right device and i think this is an area there's quite a few similarities to the way that companies are marketing and delivering the information to what we are trying to do from the country to the right soldier with the right analyst at any time or place that they are. the second area that i would like to speak about is a topic that information security. it's such a visible headline or

story about a different breach that has occurred either in government or in the corporation and if we look at how security was handled, the way that we handled security he handled security was pretty straightforwardly build a castle and at that castle we put a century and a guard to protect the castle. things of value that early in the castle and it was all about creating a fortress and so then we made sure that it is very difficult to get to that castle and in today's world if we look we look we have been securing the information systems we've taken the approach to basically lock everything up. firewalls, intrusion detection, all types of leaders of security and when the break-ins occur, what do we do, we typically put in new stronger locks or other

ways of making sure no one has access to that information. the belief that with the phenomenal growth in the explosion of connectivity in our world but this way of trying to implement security by putting on more locks is fundamentally flawed. if you look at the success in the last three or four years we have had incidents of such as wikileaks, snowden and the latest the locks are not working it's also the importance of the important of the amount of information and allowing that to get to the person that needs it, we belief that there is a new approach that is required to protect content and this is a

new emerging area that we are excited about it's called content centric security. that is the content itself should be able to determine who has access to the content whether it is an image, video, microsoft office document, engineering drawing that should be embedded in the content itself in an awareness of who has the writings to access the content in the pdb that fundamentally the shift to securing information at the content level is absolutely essential. they are ready there but. if it is used to securing that information.

we are starting to see the use of the security have widespread adoption in many different industries. one of those areas is the entertainment industry. it's the movies, the tv shows, the digital content and they want to make sure they can charge the contents that content so they've readily embraced the concept of having security at the content level to make sure that only their subscribers are people that are paying for the services have access to the information.

it's for the publishers or were magazines, subscriptions, newspapers. the idea is only the content should be accessed or available to a person that is authorized to have access and these publishers are able to in real time either turn on or turn off who has access to that content. we are seeing similar things about it in the industry where the nations valuable defense systems are in engineering drawings are starting to see them adopt this approach to protecting and securing the content at the content level so that if someone gets into a network they don't suddenly have access to some of the most sensitive potentially damaging information on the defense and national security infrastructure we are just starting to see the government look at this and the

belief that it has tremendous potential to help address the information security problem. in developing the information systems and delivering technology is fundamental thing i've word is the way to the effect of software is to start with the end-user in mind where the design and construction system should begin. too many times, we see the other approach occurring which is what we call the inside out approach, so outside in is when you start with the end-user and work backwards to figure out what information and what capabilities they need.

too often we see software major systems being built from the inside out without the end-user being the core thing that we are thinking about in terms of delivering systems. we believe that it's absolutely essential to begin with that end-user especially we talked about children who are teenagers. soon they will be the age they will be able to serve and work in government and the bbc they are going to expect an awful lot of capabilities to be at their fingertips and they are going to be asking hard questions about why they don't have the kiddies disabilities if we don't take this approach of looking from the outside in so with that i would like to thank everyone for your time today. my contact information is here on the slide as well as access to the website so thank you and

enjoy the day. [applause] please welcome back to this page defends executive editor kevin barren. >> thank you, thank you. a quick announcement. how about the morning panels, for those good? thank you. i will take the applause. thank you to the speakers for the morning. we'll have a brief time for a coffee break maybe ten minutes and make your way up to the breakout session upstairs and when those are over in the general area you will find lunch and then we can reconvene here at 1 p.m. for those of you live streaming at home if you don't go anywhere and if you do you'll come back soon to be a thank you for sticking with us and enjoy the next round.

>> as you heard of the conference is taking a short break now for some breakout sessions and then lunch. they will have conversations with the head of the u.s. special command and then closing remarks from the deputy secretary of defense. we will resume the conference scheduled for one type of 15 eastern and we will have it for you here on c-span2. coming up up with that later remarks from president obama on the criminal justice system speaking of records university in new jersey at the center for

law and justice. we will have remarks starting at 420 eastern. as the alleged misuse of the worker relocation program and in light of a recent report by the office of the inspector general showing misuse of program funds and alleged misuse of senior pa officials. the hearing starts at 7:30 that will be live on c-span2.

ways they can defend themselves against adversaries. >> good morning. we are pleased to have with us today a group of witnesses -- and a variety of alternatives on how to reimagine, reshape and realized and resize the military for the future command before i go further i would like to just mention two members of the committee that now hopefully we will have completed our work assuming that the agreement will be passed by both the senate and house and signed by the

president and in tend to embark but hopefully the participation of every member of the committee on extensive examination of the force structure of the challenges in the future and need for reforms in every area of national defense and i would seek the subcommittee chairmen and ranking members as well as all members to engage in a series of examinations of national defense in all of its aspects so that we can come up with a continued reform package to follow on modest beginnings in this year's. i know that the senator is

committed to the same prospect and i know that we can embark on this odyssey in a completely bipartisan fashion. i think the men and women that are serving deserve it but more than that, america deserves a thorough examination of how we can best equipped our military and the ability to defend this nation in very turbulent times. so, i will be having the meeting on the committee next week so that we can discuss this in greater detail so we are pleased to have thomas donnelly the representative fellow of the maryland center for security studies at the american enterprise institute and the executive vice president and studies at the center for the new american security, and drew, the president of the center for

strategic and budgetary assessments for the vice president of the defense studies at the cato institute and senior research fellow for defense programs at the heritage foundation. i welcome all of you today. last week the former secretary defense robert gates echoed what the senior national security leaders have testified to the committee on the year and finally shouldn't forget or downplay the dangers we face in earlier times the current global threat environment is uniquely challenging complex and uncertain. many of our adversaries have spent the past decade and more investing billions to build up and reshape their militaries and developing technologies to thwart america's military advantages. as we go here today many of the technologies that made america the unparalleled global military power just 15 to 25 years ago such as precision guided

munitions are proliferating tethers at a dangerous speed and scale. the adversaries are also finding new technologies from cyber to counter space in order to keep the traditional military advantages. at the same time, we face a growing network of extremists that will engage us in a low technology conflict of ideas and will for years and even decades to come. as the bipartisan national defense panel warned in the future conflicts are likely to unfold more rapidly and battlefields will be more legal, operational sanctuary for u.s. forces will be scarce and often fleeting, asymmetric conflict will be the norm in this rapidly changing and firemen, u.s. military superiority is not a given and yet since the end of the cold war a quarter century ago the united states has maintained a similar but

shrinking version of the military that he built during the 1980s and constant dollars we are spending almost the same amount on defense now as we were 30 years ago. but for this money today we are getting 35% fewer combat brigades, 53% fewer ships, 63% fewer combat air squadrons and all of our era as he and overhead. guess the forces are now more capable than ever but they are not capable of being in multiple places at once. capacity still matters especially given the numerous potential contingencies. what's more many significantly so. the military technological advantages are even looking past. add that to the years of arbitrary defense cuts into foolish cuts imposed by the budget control act and sequestration we are now facing the dual problem of the

quantitative erosion of the military edge. at the level of strategy we are now moving through an all too familiar pattern in american history. the period with international exertion is followed by the desire to cut the defense spending and research from the reach wrenched from the world that inevitably goes too far and we end up putting the disasters of the action of self-imposed harm. unfortunately the senior leaders in the government to do not even seem able to define the concept. they offer objective standard general interest and inputs and means and hopes and dreams but not a strategy and not a

description on the way to marshal the limited means to achieve their ends. it tells us preciously little about a strategy. many of the witnesses told us last thursday has become more of a sustained explanation of the program of record. we must determine what permissions are more important than others and what capabilities we must have the expense of others and there are no shortcuts around the strategy

i think we can succeed with business as usual. we cannot. that is why defense reform is so important but not as a cost-saving measure although there are certainly costs to say that the department of defense but because they need to be smarter and more innovative about how we prioritize the national security interests, how we use the military power to achieve policy objectives and what size and shape the military must be to succeed now and in the future. the choice is here and will not always be popular in all quarters of the defense establishment. these are the choices we must make to ensure the military has built and posted defeats the adversaries that is the purpose of today's hearings and hearings in the future and i look forward to the testimony of the witnesses. senator leahy. >> what we think even joining the witnesses for being here

today. your expertise and insights are particularly important as we cope with the issue is the chair and has laid out and again let me thank the chairman for providing the committee the opportunity to take a deliberate and holistic review of the defense department organization structure permissions and essentially look forward very creatively and abruptly. as the chairman pointed out we were privileged to have the secretary of defense bob gates and host of other experts, former officials and historians and active commissions that talks about the defense department and strategic context in going forward and it's worthwhile as the chairman has done to quote doctor. he said americans including all too often our leaders regarding the national crisis and conflict as aberrations when in fact it's sad to say they are the norm. he also repeated in the

conclusion by more than four decades of public service is predicting the future remains perfectly never gotten it right. because of this he said we must place a premium on requiring equipment and providing the forces to most possible capabilities across the border as possible spectrum of conflict in the processes in the way the strategic guidance is crafted in including the review. among other things the witnesses highlighted the documents become significant on the resources overtaken by global developments by the time they are published and i'd be interested in hearing each of the witnesses comments about the process and how it can be improved.

it cannot depend on me and give you the personal involvement of the secretary. we continue the challenge of how to institutionalize the culture and incentive structure that encourages more time, urgency, simultaneously with long-term planning and acquisition as a matter of course. several of the witnesses today as previously stated that the twins organization in the properties are outdated and once again i would be interested in updated and getting a small insight on these particular issues. given the dynamic and security challenges facing the nation today, nearly 30 years after the goldwater nichols is appropriate to ask what missions that nation should perform and how the military should be structured and posture to the most effectively carry out a task and how we might reform the guidance to make the products more elephants to planning and budgeting efforts and i commend the chair chairman for leading us in this effort. thank you.

>> thank you mr. chairman and for inviting me to appear here today to present my views on this important topic. given the limited time i would like to summarize my testimony by making five-point. all witnesses statements will be made a part of the record. >> and again it's in the context of the medical analogy. before writing the prescription and a lot of times i think we would like to go from the threat thread environment talking about forces and equipment. the key connected to shoot really is the strategy that tells us how we are going to develop the defense program that most helps protect our

objectives. my first point is that we are now in a period where we face threats that are growing in scale and shifting informed against those that we spend most of the last quarter-century planning for. there are three powers in the key regions of the world that the presidents of both parties going back decades have declared to be vital to the security. and these powers are overturning in significant ways the rules-based international order that has benefited us and our allies and partners over an extended period of time. in the powers china, russia and iran and we also see the their eyes and the empowerment of the radical nonstate groups and entities. in terms of the scale of the

problem, we are also seeing a shift in the form of the challenges they present. any good strategy involves developing sources of advantage that you can use to exploit your enemies weaknesses. and we have seen this go through the advanced military technology so for example, the chinese in particular focusing on the tendency we've had to operate in the permissive environment areas where our operations are tested as of the developing capable buddies to go after the battle networks and also the forward bases and large mobile platforms like aircraft carriers. second, if the adversaries can't take us on directly, in most cases they've gone more towards the protracted warfare created a also engaged in acts of ambiguous aggression whether it is a little green men in ukraine, the proxy that has waged against us throughout the

middle east for 30 years and also the paramilitary forces in the form of organizations like china's coast guard that are pushing on advancing its interests to overturn the international order in east asia. ..

global conventional strategic strike capabilities, something that perhaps we haven't really thought through in detail. there's also the issue of cyber warfare and the ability of cyber weapons to hold certain targets at risk that perhaps were once reserved only for nuclear weapons. so an array of new challenges on a greater scale and presented to us in a different form. now in confronting these challenges, we confront them with diminished resources. as a percentage of our gross domestic product, our defense budget our declining over time. in terms of the budget itself, we have rising personnel costs. the cost per service member since 9/11 in real terms has gone up over 50%. this means overtime if the budget doesn't outgrow the rate

of personnel cost growth what you have are diminished resources for things like training, equipping, modernization of the force in readiness. we also find that our capital stock, our inventory of planes, tanks, ships and guns one while more formal than that possessed by any other power in the world may depreciate at an accelerated rate in the form of the challenges presented to us is shifting. and, in fact, it is. so our emphasis on, for example, on forward deployed forces to large bases, when you have adversaries that are mastering the revolution of precision warfare, and isn't able to target these bases with high accuracy, they may make but once was a reassurance for allies and partners a source of actually anxiety and lack of assurance. finally, if there's an arms race going on between ourselves and our allies and partners, it's

more of a disarmament raised or a race to the bottom. our allies and partners, particularly in europe, have failed in most cases to meet the nato standard for 2% of gdp deployed, or invested in defense. japan which under the of the government another one of our powerful ally potentially powerful allies -- abe. assist them impressive things result in adopted i think forward looking policies. but again we have yet to see japan breakthrough that 1% of gdp barrier. so again we are not just restricted to our budget in terms of how we respond to threats and increasing scale of the challenges we face, but in terms of the budget itself, how the budget is distributed, our capital stock and the ability or the willingness of our allies and partners to step up when they are needed, i think there's a growing disconnect between the

threats we face and the means we have to address them. and consequently, i think there is a need for a well-designed strategy, one that employers our resources most effectively to maximize the effect of these limited resources. unfortunately, i think we have lost a great deal of our confidence to do strategy will. i don't think this is a military problem or a civilian problem. i don't think it's a republican problem or a democrat problem. i think the problem that has developed since the end of the cold war. in the '90s when we didn't have a threat, we didn't have to focus on strategy. after 9/11 boyne secretary gates said that apple is open in terms of defense spending, we did again have to make tough choices. now we are in that kind appeared again where resources are limited and perhaps diminishing where the threats are growing. it is about time that we begin

to focus on strategy. one final comment, in terms of the size and scope of our military, in terms of the forces we have an index where they are positioned around the world, we have to come up with a strategy before we can make informed decisions about those kinds of issues. how are we going to deter china from advancing its revisionist aims in the far east? is our objective defend the first island chain? have been made that clear? if we have, are we going to defend it by positioning forces there in what will be called the forward defense posture? the arguments called offshore control that we are to limit our focus to simply blockading shine as a way of discouraging in deterring acts of aggression or coercion. that has an enormous effect on the kinds of forces, where you position them, we ask of her allies. first you have to come up with a

strategy. and i'll close with a quote from a british admiral, jackie fisher, who along with nelson is regarded by many brits as their two greatest admirals. and fisher said a lot of members of parliament ask me what kind of a navy do we need and how many ships and what type? i've done them diversity of to do is make up your mind how you're going to fight, or as what the hell are you going to deter invited me to. he said how many of us have made up our minds? famously said, and how many admirals even have minds? thank you, mr. chairman. [laughter] >> go ahead. >> chairman mccain, ranking member reed, members of this committee, thank you for this opportunity to contribute to ever do better than factors to shape the u.s. military. remarks today are more concise

summation of the submitted test the. i'm delighted to know that this committee is challenging all aspects of u.s. policy. this session on rationales and military capability is an important step. obviously there are different opinions on how and why the military should be postured and equipped to defend u.s. interest. with russia and ukraine, syria and threatening data, iran and often operations across the middle east and expand its military portfolio china behaving provocative in the asia-pacific region and north dakota north korea developing longer range to reach the united states come having the right forces in sufficient quantity is critically important. in recent work with which i've been involved as editor of the heritage foundation's index u.s. military strength, we took a different approach to considering how one might think about the sizing the u.s. military and posturing it for the future. instead of trying to predict where forces may be needed, we chose to look a what history tells us about the actual use of military force.

we also reviewed other top level studies of national defense departments to include the bottom-up review and the qdr and ndp report. what we found was that from the korean war onward the united states has not itself an image or every 15-20 years and in each instance use roughly the same sized force. further, each of the nine major studies came to roughly the same recommendations for and strength, major platforms, formations potential of the historical record and these studies indicate the u.s. needs an active army of about 50 brigade combat teams, and maybe approaching 350 ships, and hundred 50 ships, and air force at least 1200 fighter attack aircraft and the marine corps based on 36 battalions. this size force will provide the ability to fight a major war or handle image of sustained contingency and while having sufficient capacity to assist in large-scale commitments elsewhere and respond to an emerging crisis should a combat or try to take advantage of a perceived window of opportunity. in other words, the force

enables the country and the one major crisis while deterring competitors from acting opportunistically. this historical record spans 65 years encompassing decades of technological advancements, various geographic regions, enemy forces, economic conditions and even ships political control of executive and legislative branch of the u.s. government. that are practical realities in the is the force that override nearly all o all of the factors. the nature of war and operative space within it is waged require large forces to control territory or to deny such to an enemy force. numbers really do matter. sustained suspend operations are part of our traditional base, conventional combat operations require sizable forces replaced combat losses and rotate fresh units into battle. small numbers of exclusively a quick forces are inadequate to such situations and completely force that is sensitive to

combat losses or is quickly worn down by numerous deployments in rapid succession. numbers matter preparing for the future. win the force is small and is hard-pressed to meet current operational demands, little capacity is available for the future. if we believe that new ways are needed to maintain a competitive advantage over opponents, and a portion of the force must be available for extreme edition whether by reducing current demands or enlarging the force that can do all the things being demanded of the. instead we see further reductions and increased workload. former secretary of defense robert gates recently appeared before this committee as has been noted. one of his major points was the u.s. continuous cycles to ramp up for crisis, and then cutting the force to some their minimum once the crisis is over. folks wireless in another crisis will not come along in short order, that we will somehow be able to predict when, where and against it will occur.

they are used expensive and can come at a cost and capacity. we should continue to explore the advantages of unmanned systems, advanced networks are precision guided munitions should not lose the fact that the sight of the fact. our current modernization path at existing levels of funding and we're likely to find ourselves with a military equipped with state-of-the-art capabilities yet incapable of conducting sustained operations against a credible opponent. this outcome is quite troubling it is something this committee should consider. i would emphasize that numbers matter, capacity of a military for operations in the least as important as how it is equipped, if not more so. the overall size of the force and how much of it is used appears to be independent of technology, perhaps even strategy, into the organization. and too small a force is profound consequences for his

readiness, health and strategic ally. want to get i think you for the opportunity and i look forward to answering your questions. >> thank you, senator mccain, senator reed, members of the committee. it's an honor to be here. i would like to focus on how current u.s. national security strategy shapes the international system and discuss an alternative strategy for the future. i will then address some of the capabilities required under this new strategy. the single word that best describes u.s. foreign policy today is primacy, a strategy that hinges on a forward deployed military poised to stop perspective threats before they materialize. primacy reassured our allies those discouraging them from taking steps to defend themselves. as one government document explained or preponderant military power aims to deter potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger global or regional. leaving aside the question whether this is preventing

rivals from challenging u.s. power, and dr. krepinevich, has suggested it is not the costs have been considerable. american taxpayers especially american troops have borne the burdens of primacy by u.s. allies have been content to focus on domestic priorities as they are underfunded defenses language going forward we should ask more of our security partners. we should not merely expected to support us when we use force abroad. rather, we should expect them to address urgent threats to their security before they become regional or global once. what are these threats? we are quite good at identifying a dizzying array of them but far less proficient at prioritizing among them. under primacy the united states is expected to address all threats in all but a regions at all times. a more resilient world would not be so overly depend up on a military power of a single country. restraining imposed to use the u.s. military when our vital interests are not directly

threatened would move us in that direction. reluctance to use our military power allows for a smaller one, but we must first revisit our security relationships. alliances that advance common interests are acceptable. the current arrangement whereby we agree to defend our allies and they agree to let us is not. let me turn now to oust the of the overall force structure consistent with the foreign policy of self-reliance and restraint. a capable navy, a credible nuclear deterrent, and a flexible, mobile army. i'm very proud to serve the united states navy. i the great naval name, plus i grew up in maine where you might have heard they build ships. so yes i am a navy partisan but my support for a strong and capable navy is more than just parochial. it is integral to a strategy of restraint in think about the missions that are navy may be expected to perform and the ships only to perform them, we

should focus on numbers of ships in the fleet today but rather on the cost and capabilities of those of the future. investing substantial share of the shipbuilding budget on just a few aircraft carriers leaves less money for small surface combatants. where do submarines fit into the mix was the budget must account for them. understanding these trade-offs is crucial. we should not build or fleet around the supposition it will be continuous engaged in offensive operations all around the world. the u.s. navy should be a search a force capable of deploying give local actors fail to address threats, not a permanent presence force committed to preventing bad things and happening all the time and everywhere. what about our nuclear deterrent courts maintaining a deterrent as a key deterrent as a geek about a u.s. national security policy. under restraint but does not require nearly 1600 nuclear warheads deployed on a triad and delivery vehicles.

a smaller force based entirely on submarines would be more than sufficient. a triad grew up during the cold war that it's not clear it was ever actually required to deter soviet attacks against the unitetheunited states. the case of a triad today is even more dubious. no adversary can destroy all you is ballistic missile submarines let alone all three types of delivery vehicles and will be time to change if the circumstances did. lastly what about our ground forces? our troops are overtaxed. we've asked much of them and they've responded honorably but they cannot do everything and they cannot be everywhere. more troops is not the answer. a more judicious use of those that we already have is. in that context we should consider the wisdom of armed nation building, counterinsurgency, to observe that the united states is ill-suited to such missions is not the fault of the u.s. military. the american people will support missions to strike our enemies with a vengeance of most doubt nation building is worth the

effort. the public skepticism is warranted. the crucial factors for success in c.o.i.n. are beyond the capacity of outside forces to control the track record of democratic powers as the uprisings in foreign lands is abysmal. then again americans are accustomed to doing the impossible if that's what's required the real reason why we will not master state of is that it is not needed. we should deal with threats as they arise and drop the pretense that we must succeed at nationbuilding abroad in order to be safe at home. if we revisit the other possible rationales for a large standing army, if we reduce our overseas presence, encourage other countries to defend themselves, we could rely more heavily on reservists here stateside. in conclusion is assumed the roles and missions that we assign to our military will grow more onerous. it is unreachable to expect our military to do more with less. many would solve this means and mismatched by increasing the

means. we should reconsider the end as well. the military's roles and missions are not handed down on stone tablets from heaven. they are chosen by policy makers right here on earth. strategy must take account of the resources that can be made available to execute it. increasing the military budget in order to put a primacy strategy until to the american people to accept cuts in popular programs, higher taxes, or both so our allies to neglect their defensive. it seems unlikely americans will embrace such an approach. the best recourse is to reconsider our global policing role, encourage other countries to defend themselves and their interest, and bring the object of our foreign policy in line with the publics wishes. thank you. >> i would like to reiterate my thanks to the chairman, ranking member into the committee for this opportunity.

this is indeed a really critical topic. as many people have said before me, defense plan is strategy. on the other hand, strategy is not the place that we should be starting, i don't live, notion would be starting with threats nor operational capabilities. the place to start is really with the reflection upon the continuing security interests of the united states. this is a lesson that i learned while serving as a staff ascribed to the national defense panel into qdr independent panel before that. to distinguish numbers of those panels to all the qdr briefings that were unavailable and then begin to scratch their heads. they found themselves deeply dissatisfied with what they heard. but what taking away from simply not by taking the briefings or reading any documents but by reflecting on the behavior of the united states since 1945, if

not before, was that there was a consistent pattern of american behavior. in this they both consulted in a remarkably concise way. they said, it's in both reports, but the principles they could interests of the united states are having a secure homeland by which not just with america but the caribbean basin, access to commercially and the ability to militarily exploit the comments, that is the seas, the skies, cyberspace and space. and a favorable balance of power across the three critical it is in eurasia, europe, east asia, and the middle east. and, finally, that because we were americans was important to us to preserve a decent quality of international life. and it was the american crisis where the threat of a genocide the united states could not stand idly ever been willing to use military force to intervene. so if those are the purposes of

our power, then we can ask the how to strategy question. but without that to orient on, then any stretchable do come any set of capabilities will do, and any sized force will do as we have heard from the previous three witnesses. on the other hand, if you want to preserve the international system as it exists, what you think is not only wise, possible, but something of a moral obligation to our children would not look kindly on us, would hold us accountable if we failed to prevent a remarkable post-cold war peace that is now beginning to slip away. it's been remarkably peaceful. there has been a great power war. has been remarkably prosperous. there are more middle-class people on this planet than there have been in any previous period of history. and most of all is the freest international system that anyone can record.

so it has great benefits. it's fundamentally sound but it requires us to be engaging now. i believe that time in defense plan and strategy making is equally as important as numbers of troops or the board of weapons systems. so i've just for basic yardsticks that i want to suggest that you should consider end up raising defense strategy here today are derived, chamber of commerce, report we put out a couple of weeks ago but there are really four fundamental tenets in that. first of all the construct we needs to be a three seater construct, not a to war construct for a one and half wore construct. as recent defense review is a friend of them. but something that's relevant to the international politics of the moment. as i said, the principal driver of military force structures is

preserving the capable balance of power in the east come in east asia, and in europe. best -- that's possible for us to do, deterring russia and china is not an impossible task but it requires us to be not simply capable of establishing supremacy in combat, but deterring them from crossing the line in the first place. therefore, we must be present. and there is no status quo to preserve the middle east that is worth the cost. so if you're going to be responsive to the situation that we read about every day in the newspapers, we want to reverse the course of events. veterans are negative and accelerating. so simple deterrence is not likely to be acceptable in those theaters. those theaters are all very different in character, and geography. land-based forces injured office he played a central role. likewise, indo pacific. my map shows a lot of blue.

american forces are on this critical. and in the middle east probably all sorts of forces are necessary. so we need to balance in a variety of forces. if we make strategic choices and geopolitical choices by accentuating one form of military power over another, then we'll find ourselves behind the eight ball, as we found ourselves in the last two decades. secondly capacity matters. that's the most immediate problem that the military faces. i look at the history of the past 15 years, and may take away was that we did not have sufficient force despite expanding to active duty army and marine corps, despite employing reserve component forces at record numbers, and despite employing naval and air force officers in ground missions to successfully prosecute campaigns in iraq and

afghanistan simultaneously. we did not meet our own to war standards. and those wars were relatively small wars by historical standards. so the first thing and the thing that we can do in a timely way to meet the crisis at the moment is to increase the capacity of the force that we have. that said, i agree completely with the testimony of people like dr. krepinevich that new capabilities are needed. however, i think the time factor needs to be applied in this regard as well. as much as it would be great to have warp drives and photon torpedoes and all the things that american and international science can invent, it's important to field a new capabilities now. we have a very few numbers -- if you number of programs we can throw money at. this is not like the reagan years where there was a warm and

diverse defense industrial base that could digest a lot of money rapidly. ronald reagan decided not to build either the be one or the b-2, but to build both. we will not have given a we just jettisoned a company team to build a new bomber, that is not likely to be actually fielded within the span of the next administration. so we have to put money where it can show some return. we can't afford to wait another 10 years to get new capabilities in the field. and, finally, we have to pay the price. reforms are important, no doubt, and i would urge the committee to focus on structural reforms like the goldwater-nichols act which was an ideal way of fighting the cold war which passed into law just as the soviet union past into his ship it is remarkable we can support combat outpost deep in afghanistan or iraq with a few

teams from a carrier, but it's not the most efficient or effective way to do that. -- f-18s. there are things we can do now and we need to be able to have a sustained increase in our defense establishment. many people including the ndp report talked about getting back to the gates of graceland budget of 2012. well, that's not going to be sufficient for sure. that's a good first step but getting back to something like a four-person base, which is affordable, sustainable, and was the kindest thing that would be necessary to build the force that would be sufficient to protect and defend and advance our geopolitical interests, and allow the united states to continue to be the leader of the free world. thank you. >> thank you, mr. chairman, ranking member reed, distinguished member of the committee. i'm truly honored to appear before you today and also to

testify along with my distinguished colleagues. in my statement argued america's armed forces are the most highly trained, equipped and experienced in the world, yet the margin of the battlefield superiority is eroding but i believe we are seeing a slow but steady erosion of the merit of military technical superiority. and less veteran is arrested and arrested soon, america's armed forces will find it more difficult to prevail in future conflicts. modern u.s. military strategy depends on technological superiority. this was a consistent pillar of strategy during the cold war, the antiwar years that followed at even the worst of the post-9/11 era. this page was a product of contention cold war strategy designed to increase the quality of u.s. forces to help offset soviet numerical advantages. this strategy ultimately resulted in capabilities like the gps constellation of satellites, stealth aircraft and precision guided munitions.

the resulting monopoly on these technologies that we enjoyed as among the reasons that united states stood alone and triumphant at the end of the cold war. the erosion in american military technical superiority is occurring because the technologies that undergo depositions are rapidly proliferating across the world, and there's nothing we can do to stop it. the same technologies that use forces enjoyed a monopoly on for decades are now central to the different strategies of our competitors. this develop alone is shaking the foundations of u.s. defense strategy and planning. in my statement i described at some length how the velocity of global change, coupled with accelerating diffusion of military power, and shaping the contours of tomorrow's likely battlefield in three important ways. first, precision munitions will dominate the battlefield. these weapons have now proliferated so extensively that nearly any actor decide to employ them can do so effectively on the