is you need the military for and what the role is in providing the capability going forward. i think the strategic guidance begins to smak small steps in that direction and begins to answer what we need the military for. it begins to answer the questions of what are the demand signals being sent to industry. it says don't invest as much in ground forces as you were planning on investing maybe two years ago. maybe look a little more at air and sea and more at innovation technology that you can put on the shelf. none of that, in fact, is clear enough guidance to allow a company to tell where to spend money in investment today. that still needs to be determined. that will be determined by the budget and by the debate as it plays out over the rest of this calendar year. with that i want to thank you all for joining us. we intend here at csis to continue probing these issues on

a regular and perhaps even too frequent basis. i think that the reality of the situation is that it is changing so fast that we have to work pretty hard just to stay on top of what the dynamics are. we'll have numerous opportunities to revisit some of these questions as this fact sheet becomes more less speculation and more fact going forward. thank you very much for your attendance.

sunday on news makers, chairman of the republican party of florida on his state's upcoming primary. he talks about how republican presidential candidates are conducting their campaigns on 10:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. . april 15, 2010 i arrived in paris. general mccrystal said so you are the rolling stone guy. i just want to be on the cover. >> michael hastings wrote about the commander of u.s. and nato forces in afghanistan in the 2010 issue of "rolling stone". i said it is between you and lady gaga. i was making a joke. general mccrystal replied put me and lady gaga in a heart shaped tub. i thought this is a different

kind of general and a different story. >> several months later as a result of the article general mccrystal had been fired. michael hastings talked about the article sunday night. this is c-span 3 with politics and public affairs programming throughout the week and every weekend american history tv, 48 hours of people and events. get our schedules and see past programs at our websites and join in the conversation on these social media sites. the u.s. army chief of staff friday spoke with reporters about the pentagon's new budget proposal and how it could effect the army. he told it reporters that two u.s. army brigades would leave europe. this is about half an hour.

i have about ten minutes and then i want to open it up for any questions that you might have. first thanks for coming out on this friday morning. over the past 236 years the history of the united states army by action and wide range of missions including regular warfare, humanitarian assistance operations, engaging with allies. over the last decade our army has been fully committed to combat operations in iraq and afghanistan. we are incredibly proud of the work our soldiers and civilians have accomplished. we remain a nation at war committed to the mission in afghanistan. we also remain an army globally engaged. we have 90,000 soldiers

deployed. our nations army has soldiers located in nearly 150 countries around the world. our army remains mindful of the purpose to fight and win our nation's wars. this role is nonnegotiable. in today's complex and uncertain strategic environment it is is imperative that our army is a decisive arm of the joint force. the army provides depth and versatility to the joint force. meeting the challenges of an uncertain complex and interconnected strategic environment requires an army that is adaptive and innovative, flexible and agile, integrated and synchronized, lethal and dispriminant.

with that in mind our army must retain the right capacity and diversity to perform a wide range of missions and provide a variety of military auction opt military leaders. the creation of the strategy was inclusive and comprehensive. we were deeply involved in this unprecedented and collaborative process. the defense strategic guidance was clear. we will strengthen our presence in the asia pacific region. we will continue to build and strengzen critical partnerships and alliances. over the last five years we grew the army to meet the requirements associated with large scale combat and stability operations in iraq and afghanistan. with the successful completion of our mission in iraq and the

reduction of u.s. presence in afghanistan our strategy calls for us to no longer plan for large scale stability operations. accordingly, the time is right to reduce the army'sfore structure. even given a fiscally constrained environment our army will accomplish our reductions in a responsible manner. we are committed to insuring we walk down this hill at the ready rather than running our nation's army off a cliff. we will reduce of active force and strength from 570,000 to 49,000 which will include a reduction of at least eight brigade combat teams. it is important to note, however, that an army of 490,000 in 2017 will be different and more capable than an army of 482,000 that we had in 2001. we had an army seasoned by combat. we will continue to increase our

investment in special operations forces and the cyber domain. we have drastically improved our command and control capabilities, significantly enhancing mission command. we have moduleized our brigade combat teams. we have increased our aviation assets. our national reserves gives us increased depth and capacity. we will leverage the lessons learned from ten years of combat as we look at the future force. going forward the army has three roles, prevent, shape and win. we prevent conflict. we do this by maintaining credibility based on the army capacity, modernization, to prevent miscalculation. moreover the army has a critical control in shaping the environment by supporting combat commanders and sustaining

relations with allies, building the capacity of partners, maintain internal and regional stability and operating along side our joint forces to facilitate access around the world. we stand ready to win our nation's wars when needed. if all else fails we will be ready to dominate any environment and win decisively as part of the joint force. as we look ahead the secretary and i have several priorities. foremost we will provide trained, equipped and ready forces to win the current fight. second, we will develop the army for the future as part of joint force 2020, a versatile mix of capabilities, formations and equipment. we must sustain our high quality all volunteer army. we will continue to transform the ways we modernize equipment by better lining requirements, resources and the acquisition

process. we must invest in energy initiatives in order to reduce the cost of energy within our budget. we will adapt leader development to meet our future security challenges. finally, we will foster continued commitment to the possession of arms, a noble calling founded on the bed rock of trust which will be key moving forward. we are an army in transition. while continuing our missions abroad we'll refine, adjust and adapt as we move the army towards the future force needed. our approach to the current future budget cycles will remain strategy based. adjustments will come through balancing three stats. the first piece consistenting of a structure and personnel, second modernization and third readiness. we will continue to meet our commitments in afghanistan and around the world. the army will continue to play a

large role in strategic guidance including counter terrorism, deter and defeat aggression, projecting power, defending the homeland, providing support to civil authorities and conducting operations. we will increase engagements with allies and new partners in the asia pacific region to enhance our collective security and promote economic prosperity. we must utilize our depth to sustain relationships with friends and allies to ensure stability by building partner capacity. we will decrease our european foot print by two heavy brigade combat teams. in order to continue our strong engagements with nato and other european partners we will deploy rotational forces to conduct

training and readyiness. in latin america we will use low cost and small foot print approaches to maintain stability and build partner capacity. strength reductions will occur. we will follow a draw down ramp that allows us to take care of soldiers and families while maintaining a force to meet any requirements including our operations in afghanistan. we will also continue to look at the optimum design of our brigade combat teams leveraging the lessons learned in combat. we do not expect decisions for several months but could lead to reduction of additional brigades if we decide to increase the capability of our current structure. the national defense authorization act and the budget request of 2013 reflects the modernization priorities that

includes the network, a replacement for entry fighting vehicle, and our soldier systems. as force requiremented continue to decrease in afghanistan we will reshape the force generation model. we will implement a model that meets combat or command requirements and takes advantage of our combat experience. this requires continual balancing between structure. this will ensure we maintain readiness across the entire force. we will continueualy visit the balance to ensure readiness. as we look to the future there are efficiencies we need to reduce costs. the direction has been clear in this regard. energy security requires us to focus on reducing our energy requirements both in terms of operational fuel but also home

station initiatives. we need to continue to find efficiencies as part of a mitigating risk to our strategy. this includes eliminating redundancies and stream lining our head quarters. in terms of pay and benefits the secretary and i agree with the secretary of defense's budget request. the all volunteer is the -- the cost has grown at an unsustainable rate. we will not reduce pay reductions must occur in the rate of growth and other costs and benefits. it is imperative that during this transition and in strength reduction we maintain a commitment to our soldiers and families that is commensurate with their service and sacrifice. today the army insured mission accomplishment guarantees --

compels, prosecutes military campaigns and forges a positive difference around the world. it is what the american people expect and what our own freedom demands. the secretary and i will continue to assess and make adjustments as necessary to ensure we have the right army that is agile, flexible and prepared for full range of operations and threats. thank you very much. that ends my prepared comments. i would like to open it up for questions. >> can you expand a little bit on the european plans particularly in light as you take two-out? can you give us the date the second one will be coming out? can you talk a little bit how you envision support for nato allies and support for some of the smaller allies that have been participating in afghanistan, for example. and also, are the two heavily armored brigades coming out, do you see them going away or will they just get moved to a

different location? >> first the plan is to have one brigade come out in '13 and the second in '14. that's the current plan. they will come out of the force. they will not be restationed back in the united states. that's the plan right now as we look at this. as we look ahead i really see this as a model of how i see us doing things in the future. we'll have a rotational base out of the united states. we will rotate units for example into our training complex we have that will allow us to train with our nato partners and also with some of our other partners in europe. we'll be able to do that at several levels, battalion level across several different domains. in the long run this will benefit all of us. it will cause more units to get involved in working with nato partners. and i think we will be able to

taylor our engagements based on their need. so if you want to do a higher head quarters, if you want to have a light unit we can have a light or heavy unit. it will enable us to diversify our relationships with our nato partners. i see if we do this properly that we will be able to make this an advantage to us as we move forward. >> thank you for your time this morning. i want to talk about the balance between the in strength and national strategy. at a usa you led us through a thoughtful discussion about how the army was supposed to implement a two war strategy. you say you are comfortable dropping to 490. share with us what about the new strategy is different enough to give you that comfort level. >> the fundamental principle says we are going to do long term stability operations.

that is what drove the increase, the fact that we were engaged in iraq and afghanistan for eight and ten years. the thought process is we will still do stability but at a much smaller scale that relied on other partners to assist us as we do stability operations. we know we have a lot of uncertainty out there. if, in fact, we end up having to do a large scale stability operation we will depend on our ability to reverse and expand which will be highly dependent on the reserve component initially in order to help us meet our initial requirements to buy us time to potentially look at reexpanding the army again. i feel comfortable with that strategy. >> i'd like to follow up on tom's question about troop strength. we keep hearing one of the things you are concerned about is not hollowing out the force and yet we are going back to a

figure that was considered a hollowed out number. you are talking about expanding and where the united states goes and the missions it conducts itself in. why was that number considered hollowed out ten years ago and now it is not? could you give us more details about restarting? >> i don't think -- i didn't believe the force was hollow back pre9/11. i think we had problems in the late '90s when we came down a significant number. i think we recovered from that. but i will say as i look at the 490,000 number it's about how athat matches up with force structure. what hollowness means is if you have structure that is not ready. you can have a lot of structure but if you don't have the money to sustain training and ensure they are equipped properly and manned properly then it is

hollow. i believe with how we are now we will be able to do that at the 490,000 level. i think they will ask for two more brak rounds. we have to work that with congress. so we expect we will get a request to go through two more brak rounds. we have to work that with congress and see what their thoughts are on that. the one thing -- the army went through a very significant brak here not too long ago. we did a fairly significant consolidation within the army. so for the army i believe a fall on brak would be, would not have as much impact on the army because we have pretty much done what we want to. we will have to do minor things as we go through brak. i think for the most part we have established our

installations. what you will see around the army and in the continental united states and alaska and hawaii you might see a reduction in the installations but not a big installation being asked to close. we think we have the right foot print. we'll see. we'll work our way through it as we go forward. >> with regard to aviation assets there was mention yesterday about delaying or modernization for helicopters. also, does that effect aas? i would like to ask about the decision to -- do you plan to sign the mou being up to provide direct support without the c 27 j? >> with the aviation we have modernization in the program that we need. we slowed it down a bit but we are very comfortable with that because of the reset that we are

doing with our aviation assets as it comes out of the war zone in iraq and afghanistan. we are still doing reset and still continue to modernize but at a slower pace. we are fairly comfortable with that. in terms of the c 27, i signed the mou this morning before i came down here. we have been working this for a few months. it is important that we have direct support to our units out in afghanistan. it is a concept that we tested while i was the commander in iraq. i thought it was a very successful test. i think i'm comfortable with that. so we'll mitigate the loss of the c-27. i'm not sure we will be able to completely mitigate it but that will help. >> is that part of the delay of the helicopter? >> do you feel the army is shouldering the bulk of the burden of these defense budget

cuts? when we look on paper it sure looks like you're taking the biggest hit. also, how did you come up with the number 490? >> first, i really want to be very clear. this is not about winners or losers but coming up with the right joint force. i believe the army grew more than anybody else over the last five or six years as we got involved in iraq and afghanistan and that growth was very specific because we were worried about the tempo of our soldiers and units. we grew the army to meet the iraq and afghanistan. i'm comfortable that we are done with iraq and our commitments are coming down in afghanistan that we can do this. i don't see it as we are bearing the burden of it. i'm saying we are making a correction based on what we see out there as tench threat. in terms of strategy, what i look at is what does 490,000 get me.

what we are doing is we are increasing special operation forces. we are going to go to 35,000 total special operation forces in the army. this is significant growth. i want to reemphasize the roles they play. we want to continue that. we think that's the way of the future. and it is now the relationship that has been built between special operations and conventional forces. the integration that we gained we will now carry forward as we continue to conduct our other missions around the world. then i look at the number of brigade combat teams. i feel comfortable although as i mentioned right now we are planning on reducing and a reorganization. the capability that we would have behind would allow us to execute the strategy that we are talking about. i feel comfortable with where we

are headed. that is how we got to that number, 490,000. >> you mentioned seven of the top ten armys are the largest in asia. you also mentioned the deterrent effect of having -- are you worried that you're sending a signal that you're reducing the size of the army yet just as they are pivoting towards asia where there are larger armys? >> i'm convinced with the number of division and brigade combat teams and increased our aviation capacity and it gives us enough to deter. and know we are capable of moving this army anywhere in the world, being more capable of moving quicker and being more responsive to allow us to answer those issues. >> sir, can you explain the purpose and goals of the low-cost operations in africa and latin america? >> first off, it's about

continuing to stay engaged and continuing to build relationships with the leaderships within these nations. we can do that across several ways. we can do it with special operations forces and with unique forces such as engineers, medical, aviation. so there would be more niche forces which would help them to build capacity that they don't have. it is those kinds of things that i think we'll do more of in africa and south america, for example. we have the passing capability to do it. that is the depth, we have the ability to bring other capabilities to these nations that not all the other services can. i think that's our strength. although we will be more focussed on the asia, pacific and middle east we will have the capacity in order to do small

scale events whether training events or building partner capacity or bilateral events to allow us to continue to establish the relationships. the relationships are the most important. >> sir, the 490, roughly, what is the savings over, what is the army's contribution to the figure? >> i keep wanting to be able to give a number to this. it is so complex. the reason i say that is it is not only people reductions and benefit reduction, the reduction in equipment that we have that goes out. it's the reduction of training dollars. we'll work our way through this number. in the end it will be upwards of -- it will be a fairly significant number. i don't want to put a number on it because i don't think i'll be accurate.

>> yesterday listed in the cuts and reductions. i thought the program was going forward. >> the reduction is $1.7 billion because of the challenge. we had to delay it because of the challenge. and so we couldn't snend $1.7 billion. so the program has not moved a year. $1.7 billion was taken out because of the protest. now the protest is done and we are moving forward and we are comfortable with the program. >> we have time for just two more. >> general, historically when major security challenges and its involved partners, coalition of partners, i think i'm right to say that the partners have always relied on america to provide the boots on the ground. are you saying to your european

partners, sorry, we are not going to provide the biggest force anymore? you're going to have to provide more? is that realistic seeing how the european is cutting -- >> i don't think that is what we are saying. i think we will have plenty of capacity to lead if asked to lead with boots on the ground depending on the operation. i think we have the capacity to do that. we will continue to have that. we are certainly going to need our partners to move along with us as we do this. i don't think there is any greater expectation that they would provide more. i think we want to continue to do what we have been doing. we have built strong partnerships as we address challenges around the world. >> it is a very short one. which of the four brigades -- which are the -- >> we are still working our way through that. it will probably be another couple of weeks and we'll