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 battlefield

and we've only just begun as a community to grapple with a world in which even nonstate actors will be able to get anything the internet. second, the sizes of battlefields will expand. the proliferation of precision munitions and the isr network that supports employment are increasing the effective range of military units. our adversaries will not only be able to get what they can see but also strike u.s. forces actually over longer and longer distances. third, concealing military forces will become more difficult. more actors are developing sophisticated capabilities designed to find and target their adversaries. on future battlefields find the enemy will be much easier than hiding from him. i believe these features are the operating environment, ubiquitous munitions, larger engagement zones a more transparent battlefields are clearly apparent today. for instance, the obvious hesitancy on the administrations part to assert freedom of

navigation rights in the south china sea in my mind is due at least in part to china's multi-decade investment and long range guided anti-ship ballistic and cruise missiles. we see russia deploying and reinforcing what our top military commander in europe, generageneral breedlove, called antiaccess bubbles over parts of ukraine and syria. or even the when nonstate actors like hezbollah and some inside syria today are using advanced antitank guided munitions. the logical extension of these trends into the future should concern us all. in order to better prepare for this emerging reality we need to demand creative thinking from the pentagon and across the entire defense communicants and have to change operational concepts. these are the things which you guide how u.s. forces plan to engage adversaries in different possible contingencies. core operational concepts will need to focus more on enhancing our ability to strike at range, or assist in site contested areas blogger creates a time,

dispersed our forces over wide geographic areas while still retaining the ability to consolidate power mass our firepower when you do. i described is that in some length in my written statement. if our operational concepts begin to evolve along these lines i believe it will help guide us toward the defense investment portfolio that does three fundamental things. first, shore up our air and maritime power projection capabilities by employing land and particularly for carrier-based unmanned strike platforms. i note that chairman's leadership in this regard. emphasizing cyber incident can't attack from a positions. developing dispersed undersea sensor grids and unmanned attack platforms that can persist inside and adversaries contested maritime zones for long periods of time. as we heard the other day, ensuring a new long range strategic bomber is procured in numbers large enough to 100 points is very important i think to constitute a credible,

sustained power projection ability. second, we need to ensure u.s. ground forces are rapidly adapting to guided munitions warfare. by pushing guided munitions down into the squad and even the individual level for our ground forces, experimenting robust with robotic ground systems and air systems that can obviate the need to risk human beings and some high-risk missions in developing platforms that can deployed alongside our dismounted units to provide them some protection from adversaries a guided munitions. third and finally ensure our for basis that the forward bases can defend against guided munitions by more aggressively funded research and development of directed energy systems and explore innovative basic concepts that can dispersed u.s. military forces across larger geographic areas. mr. chairman, america's finally honed but technical edge is about and policy makers have a closing window to arrest this country for decades our adversaries were convinced by u.s. forces would be able to see them first and shoot them first

due to our overwhelming advantage and precision guided munitions and the means to deliver them at a time and place of our choosing. if this is allowed to continue, the deterrent power of the united states will erode as well causing significant disruptions to the global balance of power and we must not let that happen. thank you for the great honor of testified before you. >> i think the witnesses and i think it's very important and i hope that all of our witnesses will read your written statements, which i think are very important as well. ..

that is robust enough to bond with the pentagon has argued for some time along with your leadership and the leadership of others and as i said, i think the erosion of our policy has to be addressed. size is important, the quantity is important, but i worry that unless we allow this erosion of our military technical edge to continue at this pace, it will pose great danger to our men and women. >> mr. donnelly. >> i would suggest the president try to read posture american forces farther forward per shipment-- particularly in the south pacific and also in europe

and the middle east. that is something he or she could do even with the force that will be inherited and it's important first step towards reassuring our allies that the united states is serious about preserving the world that we live in today. >> out of curiosity, are you related? >> very distantly, sir. i did the research years ago and it asked out as distant as you can get. >> still a great name. >> it is a great name. thank you, sir. >> my advice to many presidents is to get back to strategy. strategy is about choosing and that means setting priorities. we have not done a good job of that and i understand that when you articulate those priorities you send signals, some of which are not necessarily welcome. some are necessary and i do think it's important to send a quite a different message to our

allies that we will forever have at their backs and ever and that they are expected to do anything that is to assist us and i don't think that's wise in the long term going to effective. i don't believe that the united states have the ability to foresee for many many other countries what their security priorities are better than they can. student mr. would. >> inky mr. chairman and i believe the president needs to clearly define the us national security interest and then resource the interests. how could you do otherwise? if you are not willing to devote the resources necessary and you need to recast your interest in the role you want to play in the world. will see the impact of baseline budget of 500 million with the erosion of the army dropping from 520,000, 490, 450 and potentially lower and we have seen that the deck-- degradation

and tricky jump capacity for us military forces to do things, so if we want to maintain a primary role in the world, the leading primary role that we need the resources and so i think the recent budget deal where we got to 607 billion i think when it's added up is merely to extend the erosion we have seen and will not buyback significant readiness or rebuild combat teams and we have seen them drop from 45 to 42, so that is the bare minimum that folks have been able to agree to and i think the funding needs to increase and the services themselves will figure out how to solve operational challenges. they need that capability and capacity to do the exurban tatian testing, see new how technologies-- if they don't have the capacity to do that and the capacity made possible by adequate funding and we will build to get ahead of the curve and we have been having a terrible record of trying to predict what the next war will

be, against you and what the characteristics will be. what symmetries are asymmetries will be actually in that mix of the current conflict and to have that kind of ability to test those kind of things capacity, i think, is the overarching need and finding adequate funding to have the military to regain its military role in the world. >> i think the first order of business, assuming we continue to sustain the vital interests we have established for ourselves in middle east, the far east of europe is to come up with a strategy to deal with the three revisionist powers and describe what the priority is among those three. not only in the near term, but over time, so it's a time sensitive strategy and i think by going in position would be that in the far east we need a defense posture is strategy and

i think in the middle east it has to be footprint combined with expeditionary posture and i-- i think it easter europe it would be tripwire forest with the potential for reinforcement if necessary and i think finally we need to come up with a strategy to address the problem of what i would call modern strategic warfare that involves not only nuclear weapons now, but advanced nuclear weapon defenses against missiles and cruise missiles, cyber weapons and advanced conventional weapons capable of attacking targets that were once reserved only for nuclear weapons. >> my time has expired, but i would ask witnesses to give it me a written response to what you think is the future of the aircraft carrier. i ask that because the aircraft carriers been the backbone of the navy as we all know since world war ii, and there's significant questions about the carrier itself, its size, they

air wing, the role and so i would appreciate that answer. that's one of the issues that we will be grappling with when we are talking about a 10 or 12 billion-dollar weapon system. i think the witnesses-- think the witnesses. >> i also want to thank the witnesses for their comments. lets me ask all of you a question. is been highlighted in your comments. one of the most rapid errors of change technological innovation which is world wide affecting ourselves and affecting our competitors and the other dynamic, which i would ask you to focus on is a lot of this technological change taking place outside formal government defense industries. you know, military installations , the private sector and how do we fit that

into our operations? me start return to go down the line. >> i think that's integral to the so-called byrd offset strategy and my senses some of my colleagues mentioned the advantage we develop for us-- ourselves and provision warfare that was based on the decision of the 1970s to ask for the information technology as a source of competitive advantage, that advantage is now a wasting asset. so, where do we go next? if you look as you said, we are-- where technology is going today and whether it's big data or robotics or directed energy, those technologies are widely diffused and available to anyone with the resources to buy and develop them. so, historically speaking i don't think as my former colleague as bob work and i

discussed you would back the 1950s or the 1970s and you actually have to look back at the interwar period of the 1920's and 30s and in that time you had a number of great powers and i mentioned revisionist powers that we deal with now and technology that were moving quickly then, the automotive industry, radio, radar, aviation were available to us, the germans, japanese, the britts and so on. what made the difference in world war ii were two things. number one, operational concepts who figured out best to employ those emergent technologies. so, when it came to mechanization, aviation, radio the french did in six weeks. you look at other aspects, the first integrated air defense system and that was the british. the germans were a bit behind on that, so it was a combination of figuring out how best to leverage that new technology to

deal with the problems that you identified. it was also the speed at which you could develop and imply that. so, we start world war ii with eight aircraft carriers. we ended the world with 99. ninety-nine aircraft carriers of all types. this gets, i think i'm about to issue of time. how effectively can you exploit time and that is one of the reasons i would certainly commend the committee for its focus on defense reform because we are a terrible competitor when it comes to exploiting time. the better you can exploit time at the last standing military capability you need in the better you can exploit time the more range of possibilities that are open to you. the better you can exploit time, the more uncertainty you generate in the minds of your adversaries because of the potential direction you can go in. so, i think in terms of your point about technology is why it is wide diffusing, i think those of be the two critical discriminators and who develops the best operational concepts and who can do it fast.

>> my time is diminishing. >> quickly then, i think we need to have units information available to incorporate an extent that with these things as they come in because the change is so rapid and what residual capability do we have that free enough to do the type of experimentation that dr. krepinevich mentioned in a wartime. set kelly, we need formation that can operate independently to become critically dependent on a massive interconnected system that if the enemy compromises the entire formation is now vulnerable, so dispersed units that can operate independently, gps independent kind of precisions, closed loop types of systems and a scan of things where what one part of the formation can take a hit and the rest of the force can continue on. >> thank you very much. again, my time has diminished. >> quickly, i'm concerned about the proliferation of technology down to nonstate actors and weak states and especially brings us into an era of defensive

dominance. it does then raise issues of will we risk truly explicit platforms of technology and risk large numbers of lives if we are projecting power into other people's area in this new era of defensive dominance. >> red means go. again, i think visible task is to understand what our geopolitical purposes are, technologies as dr. krepinevich suggested it means different things to different people in different circumstances, so we have to figure out what elements of this technology are central to us and our job is still as it was in 1942, to figure out how to have an effect on the far side. we do not want to experience another sort of pearl harbor event and our purposes are quite different than they were in

1941. we are trying to preserve an international system, not build one from scratch. >> finally, mr. grimley. >> the number-- i associate myself entirely return to his comments annealing out dad's i understand this committee is holding a hearing and i think looking at that piece of legislation ever together i think the 198647 amendments to the act that created special operations and the unique acquisition authority that is used pretty well to go into the commercial industry and pull things and experiment with them and bypass a lot of the acquisition bureaucracy. investor getting deeper into those authorities and how they have been used and how they might be replicated across the board would be interesting. >> thank you and again thank you very much for your testimony, gentlemen. on behalf of chairman mccain may recognize senator hamilton. >> just an observation.

you have already observed this and we have had a lot of great hearings on this condition, this subject of today. a kind of fall into two categories. hearings with the uniform presence with a lot of those people responsible for the mess we're in now. then, we have about others come outside experts and that is certainly you that fall into that category. last week we had five professors and that was really really useful to see from the outside he read we are hanging around here listening to each other and i would like to listen to those who are outside. i would also kind of single out one individual as dakota would, he certainly has spent time, two decades in the marine corps and has been an outstanding leader in america. far more significant than that, he's from claremore, oklahoma. that's one of the homes that will rogers, so you see a lot of characteristics that he exhibits

so, let me read something. this is 30, 35 years ago, but you go back and compare the criteria that was set up in developing it-- a defense budget under the reagan administration with what is happening today. i will ask you to respond. dakota, you have already read this. he said in his 1983, set quote we start by considering what we've done to maintain peace review all the possible threats against our security. okay? then a strategy for strengthening peace in defending against of those threats has to be agreed upon. finally, our defense establishment must be evaluated to see what is necessary to protect against any and all of the potential threats. the cost of achieving these ends is totaled up and the result is the budget for national defense. what do you think about that strategy mr. wood? >> i think as many members have

already noted previously that we-- this has been a budget sort of exercise and how much money do we want to spend on defense ended and we try to make do with that, so i think what was-- what ronald reagan was getting at is that figuring out what it is you want to be in the world, where your priorities are at and that resourcing with those interests, so it should be strategy driven. us interest driven and if you want to shoulder the burden, you have defined the funding and the resources to do that. >> to do that you have to prioritize and i think most of us up here, i can't speak for the rest, but that is our number one priority. and does anyone disagree with that? >> if the second part that i would disagree with. i have come to believe particularly since the passing of the budget control act that in effect what we have seen over the last five years is it's not

unarticulated strategy, it effective strategy wherein the president and say the more libertarian members of the house of representatives agree that america is doing too much in the world and if we take away the means of the mischief that we will get into last mischief. again, i don't think that is anything like, you know, our formal strategic review process, but there is broad consensus that for the united states to step back from its traditional engagement in the world civic get on record and say i don't agree with that and i had made it very clear to the individuals that you have met without naming them that have this philosophy. by the way, you are very specific in your written statement and i have read that before you restated it here and that is, one of the things we should do is to adopt a three

force construct and i grew that. i have watched it deteriorates as you pointed out to a two theater and one half and so forth. i would like to know what some of the rest of you think. what about you, dr. krepinevich? >> senator, i believe that we don't have unlimited resources and so it's never going to be possible to eliminate every threat to our security. to a certain extent, the amount we spend on defense is a function of how-- of our risk tolerance. the more we spend on defense, the more we can reduce theoretically the wrist to our security. but, we can't eliminated because we don't have enough resources to do that. i think another factor you have to consider is what can our allies contribute and all of the times it seems the more we do the less they do.

so, how do we come up with strategies to encourage our allies to do more and be less free riders on the security provided by the american people. i think there is an element of social choice in this. we have chosen as a country and a society to have an all volunteer force. that cost a lot of money. other militaries don't have all volunteer forces and when we had a draft our costs were correspondingly less. as a society, we place a very high value on human life. we spent over $40 billion to bmis casualties in world war ii, away the russians cleared minefields was to remove their-- move there in the tree through it, so we made a cultural and social choice that we will invest a great sum of money to minimize casualties and i think finally, strategy. is always coming back to strategy. a strategy that there is a group

that advocates, as i mentioned, an offshore control strategy in the event as a way of discouraging conflict with china and they call for the maritime distance and that's a very different level of expenditure than what i've been talking about, which is our defense, which is-- >> on sorry to interrupt you, but it's well over my time now and let me just say i kind of disagree in one area because in terms of the resources that we have out there, we have resources. in your statement you made that clear as to the percentage of gdp that we had at one time and how it has deteriorated, so i would only say that if you could give me a written response, each one of you, in terms of this i would appreciate that very much so i can get that for the record as to how the reprioritizing would give us the defense that

we don't have now and that we need. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, mr. chairman and to all of you thank you for being here and bring expertise and sharing it with us and i will start with you and i would like all five of you to answer as quickly as you can because we are limited on time, but if you can tell me what you think the greatest threat to our national security is in your mind, what our greatest threat to our national security is. >> thank you, senator and at the risk of being provocative i would say the number one threat is our policymakers to the american people overestimating the ability-- abilities of the us military to close with, deter and confront our enemies and i think there's a great gap and i talk about my written statement between what our forces are designed to do and what our adversaries can contest us with and i think i would hate for the

country to experience a level of strategic surprise-- >> do you think we overreach? >> i think there's an element of overreach, but as the chairman talked about i think there is also an element of under reach. as we see i would argue in places like syria and iraq, there's a balance there. >> i would say the rise of a wrong in the middle east is the greatest threat we face because the middle east is such a mess and it's so critical to the whole system. is the point of that most likely failure and again, iran. >> i think the greatest threat is what threatens our greatest strengths, which is our ability to mobilize power through a strong vibrant economy and therefore the greatest threat to our country are the things that undermine the strength of our

economy and reduce our ability to mobilize in the future. >> mr. wood. >> two different types, one is actors that can operate at scale, so we have someone like russia or china for found implications that dominate entire regions with very deep nuclear magazines. that's a different kind of threat than in north korea or iran, which are sharp and erratic and very pointed. >> i'm just tosh-- talking national security, so you think russia? >> i do. russia and china. >> dr. krepinevich is. >> i would agree with dakota would in that the threats that could destroy us as a society, as a country emanate from russian china and i think it's the threat of nuclear conflict. although, i would expand that to say there is a blurring between nuclear and conventional weapons that's been occurring for the last 15, 20 years or so, lower-year old nuclear weapons

and it's not clear when you have a russian military doctrine that says you escalate to nuclear use it to d escalate a conflict and that worries me. >> me take this on another level, if i may. i asked this question five years ago and i had joint chiefs of staff before me and i was brand-new and i asked the question and i was intently listening. he never blinked and i and he said the debt of this nation is the greatest threat we face. the debt of this nation is the greatest threat we face, so dr. krepinevich, with a to you, do you believe we have enough money in the system, in the department of defense if we can make the changes or are we unwilling to make the changes because we are going down a path? i asked my grandmother one time, with the difference between a democrat and republican and he

said no problem i can explain that to you. if you put a polyp money in the middle of the table, tax dollars, they will both expended all and republicans will feel bad about it, but they will spend it, so with that i don't think we can print enough money. tell me if we just have to make sure we have enough. >> we could, if we chose to fund our military at the level mr. donnelly is talking about or more, 4%, 5% or more. i don't get twice to do so. in real dollar terms because our economy has grown so much over the years, thankfully, in real dollar terms what we are spending on our military is higher than the cold war average in inflation adjusted terms, so -- >> we are not getting our bang for our buck? >> correct. >> you are saying we need to make adjustments? i went to make sure we are giving our military everything we have got in and totally committed to the military, but people question the money we are thrown in-- throwing out it. i don't think you can print enough and you think it could be

revamped and so protect our nation and still be the superpower of the world? >> all of the above. >> that is not the ultimate metric. a lot of it has to do with how wisely the money is spent and how great is the threat and my point was the threats were growing. >> you are using different parameters. >> in terms of our overall national wealth, we are not in financial trouble because we're spending too much money on defense. paul kennedy once spoke of imperial over trent-- overstretch because we spend too much on defense. we are in the throes of entitlement overstretch and an unwillingness to fund those things that we actually wants and so we are deferring that

burden to the next generation and sticking them with the bill for what we are willing to pay for now. >> i do think you will find a rare area of agreement to what he just said he read we are not a fiscal distress because of the money we spent on our military, but to raising money to increase the amount of money spent on the military is constrained by the other things we're spending on. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> i will be showing the committee the decline in the size of our military and the number of ships and the number of prograde combat teams and also the decline in capabilities , dr. krepinevich, i know of no one who believes we have sufficient capabilities to meet the challenges that we face today, which have been outlined at this% of our gross to messy products to read we just have an

honest disagreement. senator sessions. >> thank you for your opening comments and i believe you raise some very important questions that all this need to. the larger debt, you get to a point where you function anymore and everything gets greased, so if he is trying to maintain a certain defense budget as long as our debt continues to surge but it does inevitably squeeze the defense budget, so we tried to fund a defense budget this year on the republican side based on the dangers that have surged around the world and that president insisted that we equally defend and raise the

same amount of money for nondefense. i mean, you mentioned our allies contribution met with some germans recently with a good delegation said i agree that it's running several that the united states than 70% of the cost of nato. you are correct, senator. secretary gates last week talked about his his demand to europe that they do a better job and i believe you indicated sometimes when we raise our spending, our allies reduce their spending.

how do we deal with this? >> i think senator, we have inherited or we have right now alliance portfolio that we constructed in the 1950s in a very different time with a dirt-- very different security environment. i think if you look the situation now as we revised our strategy-- with whom we still a security interest, but i think for example in the case of europe we will have to look more to the eastern european countries and must to those of our traditional western european allies. i think in the middle east, obviously, israelis are in a sense almost date the fact zero ally and there are other countries in the region like the uae for example that show on increasing interest in stepping up and providing for the regional defense.

japan, i was there a few months back. .. ..

in the middle east if iran gets a nuclear weapon. i mean, there's not a country in the middle east that is the united states military couldn't topple its government in short order, but is there a historic alterations of those circumstances is that if iran would obtain a nuclear weapon? >> i think iran is already getting the benefits of threatening to have a nuclear weapon. again, i would offer that iran's goal is regional hegemony, and the nuclear question is with immense personal to deter us. but secondly, so they're getting the things that they wanted, and they are actually enjoying a run of success, as one might say without, and they have the prospect of possibly having a legal nuclear capability within 10 years. they have a very clear path to becoming the dominant power in

the middle east without even having to cross the nuclear threshold at this point. i think we find ourselves in a worse in both world situations what iranians are getting what they want and where acquiescing and not enabling get. >> talking about strategy. my time is up but i notice secretary gates last week when he talked with us said, my concern is we don't have an overriding strategy on the part of the united states and this complex challenge over the next 20-30 years. he says, we seem to be thinking strictly a sort of month-to-month term. i think that's a tremendously devastating comment by the secretary of defense that serve in this administration and the previous administration. a man of great wisdom and experience but i don't believe we do have a strategy, and i think it's important, and i think it's possible to do it in a bipartisan basis. thank you.

>> thank you, gentlemen for your very thoughtful, provoking testimony this morning. i've been in several countries in europe in the last four or five months. one of the things i heard afterward i went was concerned about our inability to respond to the propaganda being put out i both russia and by isis come and, in fact, that is having on the potential for us to be successful in eastern europe, and the baltics and latvia. and we know the numbers around recruiting that isis has done in the middle east. but i was interested that none of you mentioned that, even though former secretary gates last week talked about our failure that we even dismantled usia in the '90s because we thought it was no longer needed.

i wonder if anyone would like to comment on the need to do a better job and the role that the department of defense should have and our response to the propaganda that's coming out of russia and other opponents that we face? >> if i may just quickly. to your last point i'm not convinced this is the right field for the department of defense. i'm not convinced of that but what i think we are seeing, strangely come in the same way they talked about the proliferation of technology to nonstate actors, we are also seeing the proliferation of information and the ability of nonstate actors in weak states to control the information in a way that not so long ago was controlled exclusively by states. now, we recognize there's a double edged sword because state-controlled media also has

its problems. i think we have to recognize we are in a different environment in which it is far harder for a single large entity, even as large as powerful as the united states, to shape the narrative. we have to rely on many more sources of information to sort of drowned out that isis or russia, as the case may be. >> mr. dodd speak with i think the problem isn't the message, not the means. young men with very few prospects respond to the spectacular violence that is in the isis begins. vladimir putin takes his shirt off and try to look at the role as possible. .com is that we don't have a message of strength, which is not the only message that we should be communicating but one that we must to make it and it's just not very convincing. because there's a proliferation of means of meditation i'm sure we would win this battle and

wouldn't require much government intervention to get the message out. it would just be nice to have a better message to try to communicate. >> it's not clear to me we are committed much of the message at all at this point. >> i think we are communicating a message. i think we are communicating a message of withdrawal and retreat clout and clear. >> but i mean we don't have a strategy and a means by which we are actively looking at responding to the propaganda that's coming out of russia and isis. >> again i would just offer that the way to defeat their propaganda is to defeat their narrative and we don't have a convincing story to tell at this point. >> does anyone else want to respond to that? >> i agree with the general, the tenor of the discussions. to proper judgment to counterpropaganda yet be confident.

what you are offering is better than the other guy. what we're seeing is the lack of confidence, lack of clarity of message and a lack of assertiveness in saying that the united states, our values system, what we represent is a better path, something better than the opposition. i think what we've been focusing on was the core idea of this particular panel had to do with military capabilities. >> no, i understand that that was the idea but i'm suggesting that we are missing critical element of what should be part of our military or at least our national security strategy. dr. krepinevich? >> i'm not an expert on this by any means, but it seems to me fundamentally we are talking about the old story of hearts and minds. if you're trying to mobilize people, can you win their hearts? can you convince them that you're going to provide a better future for them than the other side? and and minds.

you can when my heart but it's in my mind i think the other side is going to win that i will have to live with them, then you've lost me. so hearts and minds. so it's important to have a good narrative to win the hearts but it's also have the capability and a strategy that convinces them that ultimately you're going to succeed. there's also a problem with what the message is communicated. the russians present one problem because it is state-based media. groups like daesh, they take advantage of modern technologies to reach mass audiences that 20, 30 years ago a nonstate entity couldn't dream of reaching. so you're looking at mass audiences, looking at a lot of microclimates, it's almost a highly segmented market. i think we are at square one on a lot of these issues. i think strategic communication is going to be, i don't know if it's a mission for the military. we used to call propaganda but i

think it will be an mission for the government and an important one because of what i would call the democratization of destruction, the concentration of greater and greater distrust of power in the hands of smaller groups. >> i agree with that. as we watch the tens of thousands of refugees who are fleeing the middle east, and complex in afghanistan and iran and syria, they are not going to rush or iran. they are fleeing to the west because he want to live in countries that have strong economies and bad values that support democratic values. so i would say we have a strong message. we are just a doing a very good job of communicating that. thank you, mr. chairman. >> gentlemen, thank you for being here today. this is been a very interesting

discussion as we talk about strategy and force structure. december 13, 1636, that the birthdate of our modern national guard. and, of course, i'm very proud of our national guards capabilities, and we have seen the national guard participated in conflicts all around the globe as well as in support roles in places such as kosovo and honduras and many other types of exercises around the world. and i would like to hear a little bit from all of you about what role do you think the army national guard should play. as i've mentioned we've been in support, combat sustainment rolls, but we've also served in combat roles as well. just recently our second brigade combat team from iowa actually occupied battle space in

afghanistan. so there is an increasing reliance upon the army national guard, and they respond quite well i believe to the needs of the united states and our forces. i would like to know that if you believe the army national guard should be designated as an operational reserve of the army and if so, why, or if not, why not? dr. krepinevich? >> you said it right. >> thank you. i apologize. >> no, no, no. again, i think that back to admiral fisher's question, tell me how you quantify, tell me how you're going to deter. i think one of the big growth areas, if i could, if it's my search i think over the next 20 years the big growth area in ground forces is going to be in rocket artillery, air defense, missile defense, coastal defense instructor i think that will be

essential to have an effective defense of the first island chain. so i think in terms of an operational reserve for a second wave force or reinforcing force, national guard could perform the function better. in the persian gulf if we were, i think the guard of course has many capabilities that would support a little footprint mission. also if we had to have an expeditionary force, obviously you have to mobilize a certain amount of force. again i think major growth area for the with the rocket artillery in its various forms. and in eastern europe if you buy my idea that tripwire forces is what we'll need because of limits on finances and manpower and so on. if we were to develop our own and to access area, denial bubbles in eastern europe we would be relying on a lot of those kinds of systems as well. to the extent that the guard,

and i worked with the guard a long time ago when we have something called the army air defense command, and they were off the charts in terms of their capability of expertise in that area. so i think serve as operational reserve for those kinds of tasks, i think the guard could perform a valuable function. >> i appreciate that. spin i view it more as a strategic reserve and selective reinforcement of active army formations. we've talked about the proliferation of technology, increasing complexities of military operations especially when you're coordinating and synchronizing operations at higher levels. we would talk about distributed operations. there's a skill set that becomes ever more complex and takes a lot of time to develop competencies in those areas. and so i think the active component, doing the 24/7 is the force of choice to go off into o these kinds of things we're talking about.

you only have so much of that so think strategic reserve capability and then selected skill sets where you could have army reserve, other service reserves, national guard units that we develop those things that would plug into larger structures. >> thank you. dr. preble spin i've spoken all of it of this. i introduce to the other reserves as strategic and that was the intent as a mood where from the conscripted force, volunteer force that is to augment that smaller package a well-trained force. i do see value in engaging the public and communities in the way when we wage war abroad and our people from the community that are drawn away from their jobs and families in the way they were not entity because they are not full-time active duty. than it seems at a minimum we should of had a debate within we are having a debate over where exactly are we fighting and why. so if it were, if we were to move to operational reserve and

also engendered a debate over the wars we're fighting and why, then i would support it. >> very briefly, my time is expiring, mr. donnelly. >> i would tend to agree with actually both. there used to be a national guard artillery brigade that a long-term association with every army division. we got rid of those some time ago. there are roles the guard can play for early deployment and so on and so forth but if we find ourselves in a situation as without ourselves say 2006, 2007 where we were using anything that were a uniform as a soldier, that is a testament to that strategic planning. >> thank you. >> and not a knock on the guard at all. >> i would quickly say, senator, that the guard is an operational reserve. they have been used that way for the last 10 plus years. in my mind i see them that way. i think there is value, hundreds

of thousands former active duty troops who are now publicly the national guard. now is the time to think through effective use that we have to do so. i would just say i've been frustrated to see relations between the active army and the army national guard deteriorate in recent years. i think, i know there's a lot of blame to go around about a frustrated active army doesn't seem to think about the total army. it seems to think first and foremost about the active army and then and only then do we think about the army national guard and a lesser degree the army reserve. i think as you think the look at goldwater-nichols, one of the questions to ask his house the location of the chair of the national guard to 4-star status inside the formal chief of staffs have that had second and third order effects this complicated the relations in what should be a cohesive total army? >> that is a debate we have had in recent months as well. i didn't see never bite general milley and general.

thank you, gentlemen very much. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, mr. chairman come and thank all the panelists. i didn't agree, esther briley, we should have a close relationship, strong relationship between the active army and the national guard. you noted in your testimony that we have focused militarily on the quality of our military and that we held a technological edge which is being eroded. and i do think that we would lose our technological edge, the numbers begin to matter more because when you look at china and their monetization of its military to have more ships, more planes, et cetera. while they may not have the technological capability in these assets that we do, at some point there superiority in numbers shift in the company qualitative advantage. when we focus on the technological age that we need to retain, what would you

suggest that we do? what specific things should we do to retain and regain our technological edge? >> in my written statement i outlined some ideas and so do. i would highlight two things for you now. one is to make sure all the services are embracing the shift to unmanned systems and unread -- unmanned robotic systems. some are doing better than others. one of the debates chairman mccain is engaged on this the future of the carrier air wing, at the debates are and what unmanned aircraft from the carrier up to look like. what would the roles become and but with their mission? >> that's an area where the navy needs to be pushed hard. at any time have emerging technology that fundamentally calls into question the role of traditional highlights in this regard, you'll get a lot of natural bureaucratic tension and friction additive that's an area where civilians can with a

strong role both inside the pentagon and also in congress. >> mr. donnelly, you noted in your testimony that you recommended a three theater construct involving europe, the middle east and east asia. in your look at what we do in east asia, could you elaborate a bit more of what we are doing with regard to east asia strategy construct and what more we should be doing there? >> well, the policy of this administration has been to pivot to east asia, and that's problematic to begin with. global powers don't pivot. it's not a kiddie soccer game where everyone follows the bouncing ball. but i would say that it's notable what the chinese are probing, in southeast asia, where we are most absent. they are much more cautious when it comes to poking the japanese, for example, in northeast asia.

so despite the fact, i mean, i would agree that the development of chinese military powers is an important element and a central issue for defense planning, but the first order of business is to get some presence there. secretary carter make a big deal the other day about the fact we are sending a destroyer to reestablish freedom of navigation. again, the striking thing about that to me was not what was being done, which was very welcomed, but the fact that it didn't take too long to do and it required a couple billion dollars destroyer to safely go in those waters again. if we had been there over the course of the past couple of decades, maybe it would have been paid into an airfield. >> are you suggesting we need a stronger forward presence in east asia speak was absolutely. >> and to work more closely with

our allies in this area speak was absolutely. the filipinos are desperate to have us return to the region. again and this conversation about allies we should focus on allies, really front-line states and their the ones who are again most interested in having us return. what they provide which is a battlefield is something that is very hard to put a price tag on. >> for dr. preble and mr. donnelly, i would like your reaction to a recent hearing, dr. thomas from the school of advanced international studies state that strategy is all about how to mitigate and manage risk. he feels the u.s. has gone unused to having to take risks and their cause. do you believe that we as a nation have become too risk averse? both of you. >> i wouldn't say risk-averse but i would agree with the rest of the state of which we become

less capable are adept at prioritizing. i think that when we do see great risk aversion, especially the desire to not see american soldiers be killedverseas, the question is is the nation vital to u.s. national security? i think you are much more risk-averse and much more offers to casualties when there isn't a clear sense of how that nation is serving as national security interests speak very briefly, mr. donnelly. >> i have a different definition of tragedy that is to achieve our national security goals, not so much to mitigate risk per se. but i do not believe that this nation is risk-averse if properly led. >> thank you. thank you, mr. chairman. >> mr. chairman, before they can my questioning, and in korea of the chair and perhaps of the staff. what is the budget agreement due to the unfortunate veto of the national defense bill?

do we know? >> i think the deal is, would entail a $5 billion reduction that we on the committee are trying to work through instead of 612 billion, it will be 607. >> but with a veto still, do we have to act on the veto or is a withdrawn? >> you know, i don't think you can withdraw a veto. i think we are going to have to go through the drill again. is that your understanding? >> i think so. >> i think we'll have to go through it again spending you mean we passed the bill coore override veto? >> i think we have to do is readjust the authorization by look at the elimination of about $5 billion out of authorizing, then the width of the process again. i'm afraid. i hope not but i am afraid. ..

that is a huge strategic concern. i think the longer-term threat that is typified by the comment is the marriage of increased capability and 15 years ago in north korea to have the

ballistic missile that they could make with a nuclear warhead that could target the continental united states would have been unthinkable. >> and the follow-up question is the nuclear weapon in the hold of the tramp steamer. >> in the end 2004 they wrote the freedom democratization of violence and that is a sensually what is happening in the system and what most concerns me enough world is when precision guided munitions are available it's very scary. >> we all seem to be commenting and saying yes they are developing nuclear weapons and my question i would like to take this for the record is what should we be doing about it if anything what are our alternatives? second point on the issue of the budget, the generals questions and senator sessions did a quick calculation. if interest rates return to historic levels of 5.5%, the differential of the increase of

3.5% with the art running and now what exactly now what exactly equal the current entire defense budget. it would be something like $630 billion just in the increased interest charges so i think the national debt is a threat not to define the defense budget. i am not arguing we should reduce its because of that but the problem in the national debt is increasing demographics and health care costs. that's where the problem is. but i think we have to be cognizant as a national security threat. >> you talked about submarines instead of the triad that question is how vulnerable our submarines to detection my concern is that we not fall into the mind trap. >> this has been a long-standing concern since the third leg of

the triad after all those ballistic missiles in the late 1950s and then from the very beginning to concern about the ability to detect them and undermining their capabilities. i think that generally speaking, those concerns have been proven wrong so far over time but each time evil claim the new technology that significantly undermines the still viewed stove of the submarine is viewed very well. as i pointed out in my statement however is if the circumstance were to change and we still have the flexibility to adapt other forces but for now, the combination of stealth and precision and other improvements in technology made the ballistic missiles the same. >> but the key word is stealth. >> and if there are technical

logical erosions than it creates then that creates a problem we need to be attentive to. >> a question for the record for all of you how do we enforce the 2% standard? you all had mentioned that we were carrying too much of the burden. i would like some suggestions how that is carried out rather than ways of just implications to the allies. finally, i'm going to screw up the pronunciation as we all have i think that you made a really important point. time is an issue. the senator has a chart that shows the time to put an aircraft in the field is 23 years. i would submit if that had been the case in the manhattan project would probably be speaking another language here today. we have to be able to field new

technologies faster. the cost is obviously a question. but to talk about a bomber that probably won't be billed for ten or 12 years maybe not even then, we have to deal with this issue of time and it is a resource as much as manpower is or technology is or defense dollars. >> are we we over thinking these weapon systems and making them so complex that it becomes stressed time wasted? >> i think the secretary had it almost right. he talked about performance characteristics and he said we want everything that's possible, he talked about cost and said we could treat cost as though it is no object and he talked about the time and said that again everything is subordinate to

performance we sacrifice cost in terms of no limits on cost and we sacrifice times and i think that time is also irrelevant because it's a lot easier to know what kind of security challenges we are going to face into her three-year span in 20 or 30. and so his point was the reasonable cost that's why he canceled his systems like airports and future combat systems and so on. >> i agree with that and it seems to me the message is exactly as you stated plus design and build the systems so they can be operated over time but get the system online. >> thank you doctor known to many as andy.

we have a famous coach. senator blumenthal. >> thank you mr. chairman. i am more sympathetic to the names having a more difficult one to pronounce them mccain. thank you all for being here this has been an excellent discussion and i'm following it in the midst of doing other duties. to pursue the line of questioning that line of questioning that the senator raised on stealth or as mr. brimley referred to it as concealment and just to quote one sentence in your testimony nature of an act is awareness that they will differ but it

seems clear the future battlefields finding the enemy will be easier than hiding from him. the senator identified the advantage of the versatility and the ohio class replacement is far stealthier than any submarine now known or perhaps imagined that i wonder in terms of both your point in relying on a smaller nuclear deterrence that it made consist only of submarines whether in fact we can pursue that objective in light of the plausible plates that finding our submarines will

be easier than hiding and we are here because we can't talk about the technology in this setting and in fact i might be a loss to talk about the technology in any setting in terms of mike scientific or engineering expertise. but maybe you could just expand on that flight. >> on the question of survivability as a function, concealment or stove it's not merely that our submarines are well had an aunt they make them the site had that there are many of them when we talk about one it's not just one permit is 12 or 14 or 16. and so, we would have to believe that to be advanced technology that made it so much easier to find the submarines was made

without our knowledge and then sprung on us in a moment of surprise in which all of the vessels were held vulnerable at the same time. i think that is highly unlikely. therefore, that's why we wrote a whole subject of the the paper and we would be happy to share a copy. but that is why we bb that while some of the earlier arguments against the submarine in the early days of the triad were valid. they've been overcome in the technological advance which also explained why they are suitable. >> i think that point is very powerful and convincing certainly for the first ten or 20 years but the ohio replacement is going to last well into this century, and it may not be strong on us in the

first five years or ten years but at some point, one wonders whether that technology can be developed. >> which speaks to the other conversation we have been having today that the essence of time to develop new technologies and the seeming inability to adapt over time which isn't true. we are capable of adapting and revising technology that advising so much in a single platform on the assumption that it will maintain its technological edge for 40 or 50 years is unreasonable. >> i happen to agree with you that we should never have a fair fight against an adversary, and i'm quoting you. one of the first steps should be to shore up the maritime projection by those that can attack from the position.

ideally with platforms from larger payload capacities etc.. and i wonder if you could commit commit and appointed you in the point that you made about concealment expand on that. i think part of the solution to the challenges like i said earlier to fully invest in the unmanned regime so in the world where stealth starts to eat road and comes into question one of the ways we have to deal with that is to get fully unmanned to the point where we can answer a little bit of the qualitative edge with our enhanced ability to generate more in terms of quantity and take a risk on the platforms because they will be unmanned. that has to there has to be an

area that people like the secretary are looking at very closely because it's an agreement of potentially large advantage if we invest in that. >> i thank all of you for this very thoughtful discussion. thank you. let me welcome and recognize senator sullivan. >> i appreciate the panelists coming and providing us with important insight on some issues. i wanted to focus on the issue of energy. we have had a number of members in the administration. secretary carter for example but then after experts, general jones to the former commandant of all talked about this as an incredible new instrument of american power that ten years ago we were not focused on

because we didn't believe we had it as something that was important but it is now that we are the largest producer of gas for the largest, largest producer of oil and renewables not by any help from the federal government all through the innovation in the private sector. would you care to comment on that as how we should take advantage of that and how the federal government can help being from a state where energy is very important and we are a big producer of energy and we have a large scale or actually they have a huge scale project in the state of alaska that would help our citizens but would certainly help in terms of the strategic benefits for the allies in asia who need so i

would welcome comments on that and i know you talked about it in your testimony and i welcome that for any other panelist. >> i would say from a defense standpoint i'm very pleased by the fact -- >> we believe the discussion to go live to washington. remarks from the chief of naval operations that of the u.s. special operations command and the deputy director of the cia and also we are expecting remarks from the deputy secretary of defense. this is live coverage on c-span2 >> hopefully we will have an entertaining afternoon. we have three sessions to remind everyone or four sessions how well the military pair needs and everything we have the vice admiral who is the deputy cio who will talk about what's going

on. after that, we have to brigadier general who is the afrikaner commander -- afrikaans -- africom commander. then we go through the deputy director of the cia who is running the new digital director at the first time he's been in a director in like 30 years now. so he's just starting to come out and speak publicly. we had a good entry with him on the site you will look that up if you are interested and we will get us talk and finally, to close off debate the deputy secretary himself who we all know and love so let's get it started off with the vice admiral and the deputy editor and enjoy the rest of the afternoon. thank you.

>> thanks for joining us. we do appreciate you coming to talk to us. this has been an age of everything. this year we have seen russia stretching out into the arctic more over in the pacific we have seen china being more active around the south china sea. the chinese navy when you're gone up from the caribbean, the insurgents off of yemen. what is changing the fastest and how is the navy turning to meet those challenges? the >> thanks for the question and for inviting me. on behalf of the new cmo i'm honored to be here with as many members of the national security community and look forward to telling you about how the navy is doing what they are doing today and how we are facing the challenges that were mentioned.

if you were to ask me to prioritize, i'm not sure that i could. but i could tell you though is from a navy perspective, media perspective, we took a good hard look at the security challenge that exists around the globe in the development of the cooperative strategy for the 21st century which was released in march, we took a hard look at all the things you mentioned. the strategy outlines kind of three key points that i think focus where our efforts are. number one, we are deployed forward. so the navy is the crisis response force and we are forward each and every day city about 40,000 of our young men and women are deployed on a tip of the spear. they are ready to give a large number of things from humanitarian assistance when needed to deterring conflict to

responding to crisis and ultimately to be able to fight and win the nation's war. so it is a key part of something that we do everyday. second, we are engaged all across the world so our friends and allies as part of us are critical to what we do and we know that the arbiter when we operate together. so, you pick the area that you mentioned. we work with those friends and allies and partners all the time. at the last, we are ready. so why all the canned have all of the forces deployed each and every day, we have the ability to surge is called upon for a crisis. so, without giving you the prioritization, i guess what i would tell you is we are forward and and engaged and ready. >> so, the fleet is also growing for the first time now in a

while up from 270 something presently to the 308 i believe. they recently came out with a report that said it isn't going to get to 308 quite as fast as the navy planned. beyond that, the 308 member was i think a little bit before the recent resurgence of russia and we are entering the great power competition at sea. as the 308 still going to do the job? the >> i think it is. as we develop the strategy that the threats and things we would have to respond to are clearly upon the calculus the most recent force structure analysis identifies the fact that we need greater than 300 ships. we need 11 aircraft carriers, we need 33 amphibious ships coming and we need 14 in order to

execute the missions. those are the big moving pieces that the strategy determines were about right and that keeps us present around the globe in order to do the missions we talked about. currently, we have five groups that are either deployed or that are trained to deploy today. so the uss theodore roosevelt is returning from the deployment. they correctly just executed a mission with the indians and japanese in the exercise. we have one east coast and west coast strike group ready to deploy. we have the uss ronald reagan that just departed and is stewing the western pacific operations and the shape and size of the structure as i outlined we believe will meet

the commitments required by the global geo -- geographical. >> and that takes into account of the insurgents? >> all the threats we have to respond to. you can pick any day of the weekend you might find them being the organized than the other. in response with what we are doing together which would go directly to the russia question last week we executed some ballistic missile defense exercise events with our nato partners and allies. we have for ballistic missile defense ships that we have in order to meet the threats that you describe. spec lets talk about the forward base elsewhere in the world. there's a couple of ways to get

more in a given ship. it can be opposed to back home you can make sure that it's ready to go and i know that the navy has issued it in all three of these areas is its time to consider more timid sure that the ships go as far as they can? >> i think that our current view of how we operate forward is based on two different models. some of it being forward base into the example there is the forward deployed naval forces into the group of ships to operate out of japan. we have before that i talked about operating and the submarines in the long and we also have the educational deployments. those lead from whatever base they are currently out and i think that the comment i would think to you is make to you is that in doing it with regards to our need, desire and intent to be forward deployed is really not about bases but it's about being where it matters and when

it matters. >> understood that there's different ways you can get where it matters and i wonder what kind of things the navy is thinking about doing differently in that view. >> what we have done differently as we have executed the president tasked to rebalance to the pacific as one of the initiatives that we have taken on. we currently have 16% of our naval forces deployed to the pacifica station. 58 i think is the latest number. we will get to 60% by 2020. and that's not just things. it's our most capable things so our most advanced teams are out there. the most advanced ships are out there and again, it's not just

about things. the rebalance is more than just things. it's about partnerships, it's about how we think about operating and critical was the fact that we are aligned with each of the nations out there in order to attend building network of navies that can respond and support those in favor of security in the global collins with international rules, laws and norms. >> i realize the balance is a national decision to make and get you are responsible for making sure that you can respond to whatever things, whatever requests come up. a lot more is happening in europe and a lot more is still going on in the middle east not to mention the caribbean and other places like the arctic. how do you make sure you have

what it takes to get in these places that are not in the pacific even though you try to execute that overall strategy? >> the globally deployed forces are balanced across the different areas of responsibilities almost devoid to the point of 30 ships in the middle east currently supporting the offense that are going on there. somewhat less than that but again i highlighted the defense missile ships just left through the mediterranean. so we are supporting each of the global combatant commanders as required and we are meeting their needs. we are also mobile. those forces can shift as required depending on when and where the crisis might be. so again many instances from the navy perspective i had deployed in the idea where i was going to go to one place and ended up in another. it's one of the benefits the

navy provides. while we are not tied to the bases copied to the access granted by any nation we bring our own logistics we can come and go and operate anywhere we need to to support the tasking. >> and you say what the navy does. the united states navy over the past decade has come up from all sorts of stuff that it didn't intend to and has carried that out. you've got a new -- you are executing a new optimized fleet response plan that is trying to synchronize the various that need to happen to get the fully functional powerful navy out there. what are the challenges that you face now, what keeps you awake, what are you working to -- what are you working through to make sure this happens? >> i just finished working with the admiral and that is nothing keeps me awake. i sleep just fine created number one for knowing that i'm a part

of the greatest navy in the existence of or through time. now the optimized fleet response plan was designed to get right at one of the three pillars being ready. so for us to have a sustainable affordable first-generation model that provides the high-end trained capability that is needed against today's threats, that's why we develop the optimized fleet response plan so i worked with the admiral is a part of the development of this and he was kind of the mastermind, and what it did was asked a variety of different inputs and its synchronized focus to produce a completely sustainable, affordable force that can deploy and execute the missions which took into account the hard things that go along

with maintaining the ships to keep them ready to go to see. it took into account the ability to train the amazing sailors to the high-end fight but they would have to do. its synchronized parts and aircraft and the sustainment of the aircraft and its synchronized the ordinance required to do the fight. and when you take all of those things, it was an eye-opening challenge. >> the navy i think announced this last year and started putting us into effect in november and now it's been going for about a year. how is it going? >> the first one was going to be in 17 and we are on track. i'm not going to tell you we have all the answers as with anything we are smart enough to learn that we will probably have gotten most of it right but we

are agile and flexible enough to understand that for those things that might need some tweaking or adjusting that we are ready to do that to be it again if you take the maintenance community and figured out how to take the entire navy group of ships in the line with the cruiser into the destroyer ships and the piii submarines, it is a fairly large task. ..

with regard to lessons learned, we meet monthly on the status, the different communities brief to the fleet commanders the status of their strike groups, airplanes, any cc outfits, and we will continue to make adjustments to produce the most affordable, sustainable, efficient, and effective fighting force we can. >> so, how do you know when this has succeeded? are ships better equipped on station? do they stay on station longer because you're not fixing stuff? what's the ultimate mr. of the success of this plan. >> i think the metric is when the schedule is built, when you go in on time, when you come out

on time, when you deploy ready to execute the high-end missions. i talk about our missions. from humanitarian assistance, deterring aggression no matter where we go, responding to crisis, and then ultimately defeating a high-end adversarial task. that's the ultimate goal. if we go to war and win, i think you're right. >> let's go back to what you talked about earlier about our international partnerships. we have not talked about the thousand ship navy for a few years about it's a good concept and international partnerships are as important if not more so. what are the mean areas changing in that from where you said? who is really coming along and who is the navy -- >> the global network of navies is the term. we don't talk about the thousand

ship navy but to the cno has been keen on highlighting the importance of engagement with international partners. all like-minded partners with regard to understanding maritime operations for the global security of the global commons, to be able to enhance the economic portions that go on in the world as the protector of the sea lines of communications, and again, i don't think we have a rack and stack of one is better than the other. we're all in it together. we operate across the globe. we just did a large exercise in india, we worked with our nato partners speech every day. we have done some ballistic missile events in the northern atlantic. we have the george washington carrier completing a transit of the straits of magellan,

executing an operation with0 southern american partners. >> i'm sure they're delighted to have an aircraft carrier there. >> they are. we were automobile to that and clearly a huge benefit to the south american partners and friends, and it doesn't matter which nations we. we are better when we are together. when we can all contribute to the global security of the maritime aor. >> so let's talk bat different kind of teaming. the navy marine corps team. the navy marine corps operate closer together than any other service, and always interesting things that you guys are doing to help improve that. what is new and what is next for the blue-green folks? >> the navy marine corps team, we have never been anything but extremely close. if you go look at the

cooperative strategy for the 21st century it's actually tri--signed. signed by the cna, the admiral, signed by the commandant, then the general, and then signed buy the commandant of the coast guard. so the maritime services are more together than ever. the marine corps, we have a variety of eevents where we work on concepts, our ability to operate forward together more effectively, and that's called a naval board. the naval board is a monthly event i host with co-chaired by general walsh, and we bring to that event the critical concerns and tasks that the commandant and the cno want us to get after. to increase war-fighting capability, to increase our engagement with our

international partners, and additionally, to ensure that the navy marine corps team is ready to go ahead into the 201st 201st century. >> we talk about specifics? what are you going to work on next? >> there's plenty of things. there are events with regard to enhancing and improving our war-fighting events with regard to any access area denial challenges, and as you know, that's a threat that seems to be, i would say, increasing across the globe. the navy marine corps team is working on a variety of events in order to enhance our capabilities. let's talk about that. there's been an awful lot of talk about a2ad, a big problem in the pacific. china is rapidly developing its own military, obviously, but even elsewhere, where there are air defenses and all the good old naval mind, the ways that

our enemies can, with varying degrees sew fess tick indication, keep naval forces away from the fight and it's been noted this is itself a kind of asymmetry. it costs $1,000 to put a mine in the water that can keep a billion dollar fleet away from the hash bowl. are there asymmetries the u.s. navy can bring to this problem? >> i would absolutelywith regard to the antiaccess area denial threats, they're not new, and our strategy has identified them as key component and a challenge that we have taken on and will clearly overcome. the ability for the navy marine corps team to execute sea control, that is, go into a place at the time and place of our choosing, in ordinary to execute our mission is critical to how we do business. the marines are going to be the

first to bring online the jsf, whereas the navy will be not far behind them. that capability is critical to our ability to get into and access an and execute our mission inside area access denied. >> because of it healthiness? >> clearly the stealthiness is a critical component. the mix of the air wing of the future is a critical component. our ability to execute electromagnetic maneuver warfare is a critical cam opponent and there are vast amounts of things we train to and execute in order to defeat that type of threat. >> you mentioned the electromagnet stick. the f-35 will be the most sophisticated jamming platform or electromagnetic action platform as opposed to a dump bomb truck you have. what's the plan for starting to

exploit that, to learn how you fight that and use it in your battle plans? >> so, you mentioned what's going on in the naval board. that's one of the topics. the navy marine corps team is working together on determining how to best employ. we're building concepts of employment, concept of operations, the marine corps will be lead because they'll employ and deploy their jsf version first, but the navy is completely plugged in and working towards understanding the naval employment of that asset -- >> so the marines get to try it first and watch how they do it. >> we're working with them before so at our weapon schools and our training bases, the teams are working together as we speak to understand how it best supports the fight that exists in the area, how to best synchronize the effects from a marine corps standpoint, from a

navy standpoint, and ultimately how the two teams work together to defeat this antiaccess area key -- denial threat. >> we talk about china a little bit. the headlines in recent days have been filled with the south china sea. that is one of the most contested areas in the maritime domain in the world. a lot of stuff going on. u.s. has begun freedom of navigation patrols. china has in response sent our own jets to the area. this is not the only place the world that is so contests. from where you set, what is your section of the navy doing to think about how you approach this kind of problem? >> i don't think this kind of problem is really very much different from what we do every day. our forward presence and global deployment plan, we execute these operations each and every day north just in the western pa pacific.

the mediterranean, north atlantic, south america, so i don't think we view it as a singular problem. we view it as standard normal ops. the secretary of defense, i think, said it best, when he said that the -- we, the navy, will operate anywhere we desire within the international norm standards, rules and laws. so, that theme is nothing different than we have been doing for a number of years. >> fair enough. how about this. this is something that is really unprecedented. climate change. we have got rising seas, extreme weather events, all sorts of projections and predictions about how this is going to cause unrest as resource access shifts. from where you sit, what are you thinking about? >> the climate change issue is, again, not something that recently just showed up on the radar scope. the navy, i think, has kind of

taken the lead. it is built in as a part of our strategy. we believe that the -- that arctic area will open up over the next few years and we're not waiting for that. we're doing operations each and every day as we speak to become familiar with and be able to operate unimpede in the arctic when the time comes. we have developed out of my office and my predecessor built, what we call the arctic road map. we do things in the arctic frequently. so not long ago the uss sea wolf surfaced at the north pole. we have executed operation isx in the not too distant pass. we happen -- we swapped sailorred with our nato partners to work navigation strategies and we have u.s. sailors on a couple of foreign ships familiarizing ourself with the area that they operate probably

more frequently than us. and we'll be ready for the arctic challenge. i see only our operations increasing over the next five years there. >> hmm. a little closer to home, congress and the president have concluded a budget deal that seems like it's bound to give a little more stability to -- two years of stability maybe to the military budget and the navy budget. what does that do for you? >> i think the stability is the critical part that we were looking for. and i would argue the other services. the unknowns really make it hard to build a plan that is consistent and just impinges on getting to execute the strategy we talk about. so if you have done all the analysis to get to greater than 300 ships, 11 strike groups, 3 am fibs and 14 nuclear deterrent

sub marines, anytime the budget impacts our ability to stay on path, just makes it more challenging. the good thing is i don't have to touch the budget in my job. joe malloy has to do that. it directly impacts operations and other things when the uncertainty reduces what is required to execute the strategy. >> the world is going to produce enough uncertainty for everybody coming up. of the things you can foresee out there in the world, the challenges, over the next year, what are you going to be thinking about? what are the big things you have to grapple with? >> i think it's to keep us focused. i think the plan we built is really on target. there will be a lot of popup things, us a you know, across the globe, bright shiny objects that get your attention. i think the plan for us is to remain a fully deployed naval

force and not get pulled back into garrison. so keep our ships forward. as the nation's response force we have to deep l keep our eye on the ball. when a cries occurs the president asks where is the nearest aircraft carrier. that's our role. we have to keep a lying with nato allies and partners and friends across the globe, and we have to have some surge capacity should crisis break out to be able to respond. if we just keep on that path, we'll be in a good place no matter what happens. >> i think that would do it for us, thank you for joining us. >> thank you for having me. >> please welcome commander of u.s. special operations command africa. >> all right. [applause]

>> good afternoon, everyone. welcome. joined by the commander of special operations command africa. very -- a place of lots of military activity and many cases the general's troops are the face of the u.s. military and the u.s. government in the types of missions they're doing over there. so, first i wanted to. >> can i say something? >> yes. >> i'd like everybody to take note of the picture behind me here and the soldier dressed in his combat kit, and that soldier is representative of all of us who serve in the military and those that support, and in my environment that is navy, air force marks recents, army, and civilians, and this is what it's all about. this gentleman here represents us all over the world. he is expected to do a number of things for us.

one, see the big picture, number one. number two, he is expected to work well with others, and number three, he or she is expected to build teams. have common sense, professional education, physically fit, aggressive but not reckless, optimistic, energetic, and resourceful. and this is what we see every single day. i want to thank everybody out here for all the support the service they give because we have people in the service out here, those that have been in the service, those that continue to serve. our civilian partners, our civilian agencies, and i just want to make a point to thank them and to thank you before we get started. god bless you all and thank you. [applause] >> the theme of the soldier, that soldiers is facing a lot of threats especially in your aor, lra, boko haram, isis.

which one of them is your top threat right now and kind of what are the threats you're seeing, being the most serious? >> well, thank you for the question. when you think of special operations command africa, you have to think of us as the threat focused component for general rodriguez and the african command, as we support his operations through this theater campaign plan. so i do not categorize the threats from one to five. we do five different threats. i have four different platforms deployed on the continent to be able to deal with those threats. we are connected by our partners in africa and by the threat in africa in north africa, east africa, central africa, west africa and across the sahara, and we organize of uses to do that.

so, although isis is grabbing a lot of the headlines lately, it's not just isis that we focus on. isis has a foothold in libya. isis is able to co-opt and influence foreign terrorist fighters and other terrorist organizations and other criminal organizations in north africa. they're a transnational threat and a transregional threat, as are all the threats that we deal with in africa, in our assessment. cross-reg nat, transregional, and transnational. that an important takeaway and it's about building networks and organizing yourself on a continent to get at the threats. so although isis is a concern, so is al-shabaab, so is the resistance army in central africa and the 43 other elicit groups that rate in that area that don't get much press but

are there present. boko haram, aqim and all small groups in the area. >> stick with isis. what type of activity are you seeing between isis in iraq and syria coming into africa or vice versa. >> well, like i said, it's transnational and it's transregional. isis in north africa is in libya. they feel that is a legitimate part of their caliphate, and they try to draw foreign terrorist fighters from other countries in africa, to support operations in syria and iraq, and to build a cadre and a recruitment base within north africa. they are very good at reaching out to -- and co-opting other terrorist organizations, like al-shabaab, boko haram, and aqim. so we're seeing that influence there. we're seeing the transfer of tactics, techniques and

procedures and that's why i say we're connected across africa by our threat and by our partners, and most importantly, our african partners and our allies and coalition partners as we develop platforms to be able to assist african countries in developing capability and capacity to deal with the threats within a particular country and it's most important to note here, i think, is that our african partners are realizing their problems are more regional than isolated to their country. so they have to reach across borders and coordinate with boarders in the task force in east africa, the african union regional task force in central africa and most recently, the multinational joint task force in the chad basin region, headquartered chad, led by

nigerian general officers and supported by -- are examples of the regional perspective they're developing. >> you mentioned borders. with all those pourous borders how does that complicate your mission in terms of what types -- you're dealing with specific government us but not in others. how does that, i guess, form a challenge for you? >> that's a great question, because this isn't a military solution to the problem in africa. the military play a role, special forces operations plays a small role in a much larger picture. the real solution to the problem in africa is strong institutions, and institution-building and being able to do that. the military can only get you so far. so i'm asked to build a counter-violent extremist organization capability in a

particular country. i can do that. i can build that operating force. i can build a generating force. but if there's not an institution, a valid institution to plug it into, then we are there for a long time. and so we have to build these institutions that are able to be able to do the medical piece, put them on leave, pay them, promote them, and do a lot of other things to support that military, but the gap begins when the military operation ends, and there's a need for civil administration. there's a need for police. and so we can also help that with our civil military support elements and our military information support teams, but the bottom line is, the way you get at those other problems is not necessarily a military solution. it's a civil administration and police solution, and an institutional solution in cooperation reaming nally with other countries to protect both sides of the border or multiborder in some areas in

africa. >> i wanted to talk to you, sticking on the threat theme, last month, defense one, we had an event with lieutenant general hodges, the commander of army europe. we were asking him about russia and the threat being posed to europe from russia and just kind of visibility he had into the situation in ukraine, and one of the things he said, which was telling, a lot of the isr, the intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance assets were tied up in centcom. 70% were in centcom you have a huge area of responsibility. do you have enough of what you need? >> well, there's a question. i heard the chief of staff of the army this morning say nobody ever has enough of what they need. so we could always use more. but that's a global resource in question, driven by national priorities. and we take what we get. whether it's isr, structure,

authorities, permissions, funding, resources and other things. what we do is we knit those into a force structure platform inside africa that is flat, decentralized, and distributive so we have a lot of soft forces spread out that are tee signed to operate in this area, shoulder-to-shoulder, leveraging our partners. we also leverage or allies, united kingdom, canada, the italians, the french, depending on where ware operating in order to take their capabilities and capacities and integrity them in everything we do so we can maximize some of the shortages that we may have in isr. if one country has a shortage, then another country comes in and fills that. i someone needs to put boots on the ground in order to gate presence on the ground, a footprint on the ground, then we

assist each other that way. we leverage the african partners. remember, in africa, the united states is not at war but our african partners are, and that is an interesting policy and strategy perspective as you go to conduct operations inside africa. so, the most effective thing we do is about 1400 soft operators and supporters integrated with our partner nation, integrated with our allies and other coalition partners, in a way that a allows us to take advantage of each other's capabilities and capacities, fill those gaps ace best we can in order to have the information we need to drive our african partners' operations against the enemy. >> 1400. how busy are they? what's your tempo like and how historic -- maybe historic perspective in recent years.

>> they're extremely busy. so, if i could just take a moment to talk about what my structure looks like. first of all i have a special operations command forward in east africa, central africa, north, and west africa. commanded by 06 so either nave ya captain, air force captain, army colonel -- air for connell. excuse me. thin i have an air component that runs the air operations for special operations on the continent. that's an 06 as well. i call those my integrators. so they're integrating everything we need to do, all the missions that general rodriguez gives us and the requests we get from our partners. they integrate all that together. and they give that down to the soft teams, who are executing the missions on the ground.

in 23 different african countries. on a day-to-day basis. so, that's seven days a week, 24/7, they are busy. so everything that we're doing and africa is designed to support african partners who are in the fight today, and that's something that has to be understood. we are close with our partners, we're close with anyone operating in that area, and then we have augmentation inside the embassies because the ambassadors, integrated countries, strategy, is hugely important. we are supporting efforts in this environment in africa, on the military side. we're not the main effort. we're supporting effort. so, you have the ambassador's plan. everything has to be transparent with them, with our partners. we have to make sure we're doing what our partners ask for, so we have this soft structure this, backbone that can act as a

platform to receive and support ngos, usaid, and other governmental agencies, either foreign or u.s., that come in that need a platform to work from in order to have an influence on the populous. it's all about institution-building. effective governance, the able to deliver goods and services, the military provides time and space for that. the operations that our partners do are designed to do that, and so we support that. >> there was talk earlier about the special operations forces heading to syria, and the type of fight they'll be getting themselves into in many ways similar to the type of missions that your forces are under. what type of lessons can -- take from south africa as they move forward with the new mission in syria?

>> i think soft operations in africa opens up a unique tout look at how we advise, assist, train, equip, conduct full spectrum soft operations from counterterrorism operations to counterbalance extremist organization operations, training and equipping, advise michigan and assisting, civil military operation, to understand how to operate a lethal force we develop, effective live operate in and among the populous. how to gig separate that with civil administration and the police to fill the gaps, and then how to do the proper messaging itch think there's a lot to be taken. i am not going to sit here and say that they can't learn something from us, but that's how we operate on africa. in as lethal and dangerous an environment as anywhere else in the world. we are close to our partners. we do advise, assist, accompany. we do everything that i think is being expte