wisely. that we get more defense out of the money we spend. and we have a bipartisan, bicameral effort to work with the pentagon and with industry to help reduce overhead and also improve our acquisition policies. but on the bigger budget picture, the administration resorts to political blamesmanship, accusing congress of just being interested in parochial interests for not agreeing to their defense cuts. is there some of that? sure. always has been, always will be. is that the reason so many members of congress in both parties have real doubts and concerns about where this administration is taking our country's security? i don't think so. i disagree with a lot of the president's proposals really for two reasons. one is i'm not sure they are well thought out. last year they came to us and proposed that we keep the u-2 airplane and retire the global

hawk. this year's proposal just reversed it and wants to retire the u-2 and keep the global hawk. when you flip-flop completely within one year it doesn't give you a lot of confidence these poem proposals have been thought out. if you talk to commanders in korea they want to keep them both with the volatile young leader now in charge in the north. but the other reason i'm not willing to accept many of the administration's proposals is that i'm not willing that we have to accept that we have to have a smaller military or a smaller role in the world. most republicans and many democrats are not willing to throw up our hands in retreat and resign ourselves to a smaller military and smaller role. because we know as the united states retreats others will fill that void and those others will not move the world towards greater freedom and greater prosperity. the united states is exceptional and it is exceptional in a way that no other country in the

world is. president also accuses republicans of wanting to use military force in every situation. well, i don't. i think that is another of the president's straw men arguments. i do believe in smart power. i served on the smart power commission that issued its report in 2007. we talked about having the full range of tools of national power and influence so that you could use the right tool for the right situation. some of those tools however need to be big hammers. and every one of the tools are more effective if they are backed up by credible military power. but see, that is the rub. we have to have the military power. and it has to be credible. and we have to be credible about its use. david ig nacious wrote the

incredible factors of strength and credibility are in fact the strength of a rules based international system. see, that is what's fraying. our strength and our credibility. and that's the reason for the disarray. cutting through it all was former prime minister tony blair advice to us is don't worry so much about being loved. just be strong. what the world needs now is for you to be strong. of course no one could say it better than president reagan. memorial day, 1986 over at arlington. quote, and we owe them something, these boys. we owe them a promise to look at the world with a steady gaze and perhaps a resigned toughness. knowing that we have anniversves in the world and challenges and

the only way to meet them and maintain the peace is by staying strong. that of course is the lesson of this century. learned in the sue dayton land in poland and hungary and czechoslovakia and poland and cambodia. if we really care about peace we must stay strong. we must through our strength demonstrate our unwillingness to accept an understooding of the peace. we must be strong enough to create baes where it does not exist and strong enough to protect it where it does. end quote. the theme of this month here at heritage is "protect america." the only way to do that. the only way for us to have peace. the only way for the world to have peace is for america to be strong. and for america to be credible. peace through strength applies as much now as it ever has. thank you.

>> about ten minutes for questions. if you'd use the microphone that will be broadcasting this. >> if the military budget needs to be increased, how do we go about winning over the 20, 25% of the republican conference that is really tied to the tea party and seem to be almost as isolationist as this president? >> i don't think that's true. i think -- as i mentioned, i think mr. putin and others are helping remind everyone that the world is dangerous. and that our -- the first job of the federal government is to defend the country. i think the actual number of isolationists in the republican party is very small. and so i have seen a change even in the last year or two towards

a greater willingness to look at increased defense spending. at the same time i think it's really important that we continue to make the kinds of reform efforts they mentioned, to get more out of the money we spend. because the pentagon can be a big bureaucracy just like any other big bureaucracy. so one way we help shore up support for pentagon spending, not just among rubble continues but everybody, is to make the reforms necessary so that each dollars spent as wisely as possible. and fewer are spend on overhead and unnecessary things. >> i was wondering if you could elaborate on your trip to china and any issues you might like to announce that might came up during your trip. >> obviously a lot of issues.

i've mentioned had top two though. not only countries like china, friends like japan and korea are watching very closely right now to see whether the united states is a reliable ally or not. and part of what they watch again is not what we say but what we do. so we were in japan and got aboard the u.s.s. gorge washington which as you will recall the u.s. had no budget in its money to refuel the washington. meaning a ship that's supposed to last 50 years would only last 25. meanwhile even the washington now has to be in dock some months every year as part of maintenance and so forth. so the point is it's not what we say it's what we do. do we refuel the washington. how many ships do we have? do we have the presence that can assure allies like japan and

korea but other countries like vietnam and whose going to be there to challenge this chinese aggressiveness. i think that was the dominate theme of the trip. it has repercussions for defense budget and other issues but the big question is can the united states be counted on. >> in the back. >> i'm a senior at episcopal high school. regarding ukraine it seems there would be two reasons to intervene. one would be that we're the world police and two one that it affects us in some way. so if we put the world police aspect aside, how does intervening or not sbcinterveni in ukraine effect the united states directly? as opposed to effecting europe. it definite effects europe. how would it effect the united

states? >> when you say intervene, there are lots of ways to play a role in the world short of sending troops and trying to do something with military force. i think that two repercussions from ukraine. one is that it reminds us all that russia is not necessarily a benevolent power content to -- with its current status in the world. it is an expansionist power looking to reform world international rule sets towards its benefit. but i think even bigger, the people -- as i mentioned, not just in europe but in asia and elsewhere are looking to see what we, what nato does. and side note, this is a real test for nato. what is the purpose of this alliance? does it have meaning today? or does it not? so having sanctions on a handful

of individuals, which causes mr. putin and others to kind of laugh it off has not been a very effective response. now, it does not mean that ineffective sanctions or completely military invasions are the only options here. and that is where i think the president loves to make these strawmen arguments oh it's either one extreme or the other. that is not the case. but make no mistake, it is not just germany, france, countries in europe that are watching our response. it is not just allies like japan and korea that are watching our response. it is countries like iran and north korea watching our response, and china and trying to figure out what they can get away with. >> we do have a question from on online viewer sir. mr. scott sharer wants to thank you for your service to the

country. and then addressing rules of engagement. he says that there are as much as they were when the u.s.s. cole was attacked. he has a friend just returned from afghanistan. and this range's point of view is all they quit to do is look through the scope of a rifle and say the word bank. i this i the concern is with rules set by the chain of command or -- to be able to protect themselves or engage enemy forces. >> i think all of us in congress have heard from relatives of service members who are frustrated at the rules of the engagement. snernl afghanistan and even before that in iraq. i think we have to be careful about second guessing military commanders on the ground and the rules of engagement they put for their troops, particularly given the mission that they have. and remember, a lot of what we're doing in afghanistan is helping to stand up the afghan security forces so that they can be in a better position to

defend themselves. that means exercising some restraint, sometimes. and when restraint is appropriate and when it is overboard, i think is hard for us in washington to second guess. what i agree with the question is that a tone comes from the top. so it is really clear that the president doesn't really like being there. secretary gates points out he never felt like his heart was in the mission. and so what comes to those commanders is this understanding that the president wants a minimalist approach and -- we learned yesterday -- to get out as quick as possible. so does that lead the rules of engagement to be more restricted than otherwise because you know what the president's approach to this? yeah. that's what i'm afraid of. but that doesn't mean that every one of these rules is inappropriate. what it does mean is that the

tone comes from the top. and my biggest fear, as i mentioned, is that we're going to have not only the 30,000 who are there now, the 9,800 after that and the half of that in 2015 and the president doesn't really support their mission. he is just looking to get out with minimum damage so he can say at the end of his term i ended both of these wars and walk away from the consequences and just look at iraq now. not only what is happening internally but the threat that is posed to the rest of the world from terrorists. and that is where that policy leads. >> one last question in the back. yes, ma'am, if you can identify yourself and who you are with. >> certainly. thank you very much for speaking today congressman. my name is dr. laura core. and my question concerns secretary of state kerry's announcement of the $5 billion investment into an antiterrorism

fund for the world. and i was wondering what your thoughts are on that if you see that as a way that america can kind of restate and reassert its capability for other countries. >> i haven't seen the details of really what he means by that. as i mentioned, i am a fan of having a full range of tools at our disposal. i chair the subcommittee that oversees special operations, so i am a big fan of working by, with and through others. i think that is what makes a lot of sense. the more capability we can develop in other countries, the less we have to go do ourselves. unfortunately, in a lot of cases we tie our own hands with restrictions that make it hard to work with others. two or three years ago i was in nigeria for example talking with them about what might be possible as far as u.s. military training of the nigerian military because of the

restraints we put on ourselves very little was possible. and so that's why when these girls are kidnapped we've got to basically start from scratch because we don't have that ongoing relationship. so if the president's secretary kerry can cut through all that, then i think it is a good and useful thing. however, like i say, we can have this full array of tools. but if we don't have our own credible military threat, then nobody is going to take those tools very seriously. so it comes back to our military strength and our credibility. everything depends on that. even efforts such as training others. >> i think we're at time for the congressman. he has another appointment to get to. we certainly appreciate your service to the country and championing of those issues.

thank you. round of applause. [ applause ] the second part of this program. we'll start with dr. ken holmes to your right. and followed up by mr. robinson ratte. dr. homes a distinguished fellow here. led the work of the foreign defense policy team for more than two decades. heritage o the vice president of the foreign and director of the policy studies and director of

the davis institute from international studies from 19 t 1 to 2012. with a bit of the service interlude as assistant secretary of state. during most of the first time of the president george w bush administration. dr. homes previously directed hairs's team of the foreign and policy experts in four centers, including the asian studies center, center for international trade and economics and margaret thatcher center for freedom. he was a founder of the economic freedom and this year celebrated its 20th anniversary. led think tank's efforts to lead the united statess to --. and as well as its program on international trade. and is expanded the missile defense program to what it is

today. he's recognized around the globe as one of wa's foremost foreign and defense policy experts. dr. homes is a member of the foreign council relations. previous appointments include the defense policy board which is the secretary of defense's primary resource for expert outside advice. the board of directors of the center for international privacy sberps and a public member for security and cooperation in europe. dr. homes earned his masters degree from georgetown university and we're clearly fortunate to have him on the panel. >> thank you very much. good morning everybody. back to heritage. i thought that was a really good speech he gave. it's the kind of leadership that we would like to see more of. at least i would like to see more of coming out of members of congress. what i'd like to do today is to take advantage of the fact that this is the sentenial of course. the beginning of the world war

i. and in august you will see lots of articles about the origins of the war. i'd like to take opportunity to put on my historical cat. i have two agree degrees fra georgetown and masters in european history. so i studied this period many years ago. and there is a lot of talks about that. so i thought i'd take advantage of that and talk about some of the lessons i see from that war and apply them to today. as an historian i'm mindful that history never repeats itself, exactly. there are always differences in historical analogies. we have to be mindful of that. but history does echo. there are certain trends and themes that tend to manifest themselves time and time again. and of course it is those themes that as historians we try to understand. so before i get into what i see some of the specific lessons, i

want to say a word about the historiography of world war i. there are basically two schools of thought that existed over now for decades. particularly since world war ii. one was founded by the german historian fritz fisher. basically it was the thesis that germany started had war. it was germany pushing inside europe and his famous study called grif knockout -- which means germany pushing for a world power. he has lots of the followers. my professor pretty much followed in fisher's. and then the opposing school. many other historians, a lot of them in britain by the way. some in germany. who take the view that world war i was started not by germany alone but it was mainly a tragedy of ms. calculation. this is the phrase that turner

uses. it was more or less an accident. it could have been avoided. too many moving parts. too many mistakes and we need to learn from that. and from that you get essentially not only from that but also from historiography of world war ii you get two politicized views of what starts wars. one from world war i and certainly one from world war ii. that it is not just about these wars but about causing wars in general. picking up on the sort of stumbling into war narrative, many believe that the real cause is not only of world war i but of wars in general where things like militarism, referring back to rimgd timetables for example of the military prior to world war i. bellicose diplomas. look at the chief of the general staff and egging on the australians and the australian chief of staff to back up the

serbians. shortsided diplomacy. for example germany over reacting to the braken crisis in 1905. big power, irresponsibility in backing upper responsible smaller powers. and then of course the toxic influences of nationalism and ethnic rivalries. german nationalism and pan slavism. all of these complexities causes have a root in world war i but get generalized into causes of war in general. so this sort of stumbling into war by being overly aggressive led into one of the main streams of the ideology of liberal internationalism, is that you need some kind of international oversight to restrain the appetites of overaggressive national powers. out of this perspective of course led to the rise of league of nations, the end of war period and of course the united

nationss afterwards. and you see this idea still with us today. of course the lessons of the world war ii were quite different. the exact opposite. the culprit was the appeasement of hitler. the exact opposite of the word war one. we ended up in war because we were too weak. it was the mirror image of the world war juan lessons and because of that after world were what two we remained engaged. and also we developed very robust ideas of military deterrence in making u.s. security policy as a result of that experience of the opposite lesson, if you will, of world war i after world war ii. you see these competing narratives today in our debate. should we be more worried about appeasement? or should we be worried about provoking a war by being overly aggressive and not having sufficient international oversight. president obama, secretary of

state john kerry. all of that came out of our trying to interpret the causes of both of these wars. now, that is the back drop. i had indulged in my historiography there. now i have to get to why i was asked to come here. what are the lessons that can be implied to today from world war i. the first one the congressman referred to already. it's the most obvious. be ware of a large rising power whose main aim the revise the international status quo. this exactly was germany's role prior to world war i. once busineismarck tleft seelef seen the balancing act which was to unite germany and maintain peace at the same time that was dropped by the kaiser and his officials. germany had a huge naval building program which provoke ed britain. it aggressively backed austria

which changed the status quo in the balkans. it's military build up threatened france directly. and its claim to having in africa. that challenged also. so germany was an expansionist power. it was a big power and threatening upsetting the balance of power in europe. so what is the relevance today? congressman mentioned china. that is the most obvious analogy. china is a rising power who also wants to change the international order. it has territorial claims against practically everybody neighbor. it does not accept taiwan's independence, which we back. it see it is united states as an interlope ner east asia. it has unresolved historical grievances against japan and other neighbors. as germany did against practically every neighbor prior to world war i. germany by 1913, even the german

military plan, the great plan which was developed by german general staff to deal with a two-front war against russia and france. that was developed because germany felt encircled. that was the phrase they used in military planning. china feels encircled too. they feel that if we are along with our allies trying to contain china. so there is -- the similarity here though is that germany prior to world war i development a very insular way of looking at affairs. they felt so threatened it was very difficult to have a reasonable understanding what they actually faced and become very overconfident as a result. the chinese leadership also have a very highly insular view of the world. they see the world their own way. and even when we try to reassure them they often don't believe us and they see not only as a sign of weakness but trying to trick them.

so this insularity comes from fear, efl impoezimself impose i case of the china. and i would say also even germany. russia is also revisionist power. putin believes the collapse of the soviet union was a terrible tragedy. it is not at this point try to reestablish soviet global dominance but certainly resurrecting the old empire. so both china and russia are revisionist powers just as germany was prior to world war i. so i think that is an important analogy. the second one is -- a second lesson is be ware of tur pirks its think. he was the driving force behind the naval build up. which it didn't guarantee by certainly helped to guarantee a

collision course the britain. what the risk theory was that he knew that the german navy could not possibly be as powerful as the british navy. but he convinced had kaiser and the german general staff that it didn't have to be as big as the british navy. it only had to be big enough to ensure that britain did not have what he called naval supremacy, well, it turned out that this overconfidence in the german navy was one of the reasons german diplomacy was so aggressive prior to world war i. and it turned out to be completely wrong. the german navy was a complete disappointment. not only did the bismarck get sunk but also at the end of the war, the -- during the end of the war they could not even stop the navy -- the british naval embargo that practically starved germany to death. but it was a powerful delusion that gave germany too much

confidence that it could actually start the war. the relevance today could be that china is developing just enough naval capability not to challenge the united states navy globally but to challenge our supremacy in the east and south china sea. that is all they really have to do. and this may give them the confidence to think they could challenge over the senkaku island os or perhaps some move against others because they believe they have just enough power to deter us from responding in that region. and this could give them way too much confidence to result in a mas calculation which could actually lead to a war. the last lesson is the one also that the congressman referred to is beware of too much war weariness. it cannot only cause wars. but it can also make the wars they developed much worse than they they should have been. after world war i europe and the eyes were extremely traumatized by all the terrible slaughter.

we couldn't believe how it had gotten so out of hand and how it became such a scat catastrophe. so therefore our intingts were led in the opposite extreme. he looked at world war i as the war that would end all wars. and this mentality that not only the league of nations were born but treaties to outlaw wars and control arm races were born. much of the national liberalism was created in these ways. as a way of compensating for what they thought were the mistakes that led to world war i. of course it didn't end that way. i ended up with hitler taking over much of europe. and in fact it was as a result of this mind seth set that the world war ii ended up being worse. the relevance today is that we are obviously in a similar period of the war weariness and

we may be making similar mistakes we did after world war i. we're not in a same period but we are in a period of retren retrenchment and withdrawing of the power is not only popular with the president but with the american people. and all of the concepts created in those interwar years to gave sophisticated veneer to the retreat are now front and center in american policy. and yesterday the president announced a timetable of ending the war in afghanistan. he announced a time when all but a few u.s. troops would be left in afghanistan. you will notice that absent from his strategy which was absent also in the strategy of the end of war period is the most obvious question. what happens when you walk away and the return of the taliban occurs. what will we do then? in other words, what is the condition for us leaving? what is the condition for us being there in the first place? after all that was the war aim. if you have a war aim you leave

when you achieved your aim. you just don't leave and pretend there was no war to begin with. the failure to answer that question on our interesting in afghanistan is bourn of the same shortsightednd that led americans in 20s and 30s to think world war ones truly over. it wasn't. world war ii was but the second round of a problem that remained unresolved from the first world war. world were two was round two in other words. and i feel if we walk away from afghanistan too soon as we walked away flt in end of war period we may have to some day return once again to finish the job. we've already left afghanistan once. the 19 -- after the 1980s. and there could be the same kind of tragedy that occurred in afghanistan that occurred in that -- in the end of war period. because it seems to me given what the president said yesterday about afghanistan, there is the same kind of mentality is prevalent. he said yesterday that afghanistan is quote in the

hands of the afghans. obviously that is true, to a large degree. but that should not be an excuse to think we can just wash our hands and just come home as if we had nothing do it with it and as if we have no interest in the matter. we tried ta once not only in afghanistan but in the end of war period with europe. and we paid a terrible, terrible price. thank you. >> now to robert zarate to my left. policy director at the foreign policy initiative. educates and engages u.s. decision makers, journalists and public on critical importance of u.s. global leadership in matters of security, dploems and international rurmt human rights and democracy promotion. he worked several years in the house of representatives. he focused on foreign affairs national defense, nuclear non

plichgs proliferations but also on trade. before the hill he worked as a research fellow at the non proliferation policy education center. as an independent consultant on nuclear issues for a few years. wired news. you have been everywhere, right? reporting on -- and also as a policy analyst here in washington where he focused on e-commerce and international control of import export and use of encryption and other dual use items. somer co-authored a group of the deeply insightful writings. very pleasesed to have you here and looking for your thoughts on world war i and the lesson. >> thank you for that kind introduction. it's pleasure to be on the stage. and also i should say a pleasure to also follow -- an honor to

follow vice chairman thornbury. he gave an excellent speech. and a great reading list on his website. he's got one. i encourage you all to check it out. the mandate here was to talk about the hundred year anniversary of the start of world war i, what lessons the united states learned from it in terms of the defense budget, national security planning and the like and what we should take from it today and going forward. dr. homes rightly pointed out that history doesn't repeat itself but it certainly rhymes as historians often sigh say what. what worries we today is i look out and see a lot of rhyming out there. and if any of you actuallying a. and so i'm sure some have, two big lessons just to make my overall arching point first.

world war i and history at large counsels humility. all the wide ranging debate and at the end of the day it was a confluence of many factors. everything aligned and we had one of the most constructive conflicts in history. and the second point world war i also counsels the united states in particular to prudently plan against a potentially very hostile environment. and also be prepared if deterrence fails. it really boils down to that. how i'm going to proceed is i'm going to offer a quick overview of some aspects of the conflict. a discussion of immediate lessons that u.s. policy makers and lawmakers learned immediately after world war i and i regret to say that in retrospect they learned had wrong lessons. and our circle today and i emphasize it is a struggle to learn the right lessons from

this history. and a month from today it is going to mark the hundredth year anniversary of the sas natiassan of the arch duke france ferdinand of austria. and his sassassin was a 21-year-old bosnian. i'll return to this idea of the pan nationalism. it's something we face today. the assassination did not cause world war i in itself. but it was a spark. and soon the continent was consumed in flames. and within a couple months, by july and august, we saw the start of what at the time they called the great war, the -- "the world war." what h.g. wells and later woodrow wilson would call the war to andy all wars and end

from 1914 to 1918. is and the scope of this conflict would only be eclipsed by world war ii. the allies and the germany, the united states which entered relatively late in 1918 due to strong isolationism. the conflict itself was -- it was a paradigm changing conflict. it showed how you could bring in science, ek technology, industry apply it on mass scales. and we saw new forms of warfare, trench, nascent tank. aerial warfare. the use of chemical weapons. talking about rhyme of history, noh look no further than syria. and the united states remained isolationist. and what sparked our involvement wasn't the bombing of the loose

lusitania. it was actually the zimmerman telegram that the u.k. intercepted in which the germans basically offered hey you go to war with the united states we'll help split the spoils. and that telegram which led to the u.s. congress to declare war on germany and enter world war i april 1917. a quick note about the scale of death and suffering. as many as 11 million people died. obviously there is a lot of debate about the precise number. but 8 million to 11 million combatants died. and on top of that about 7 million non combatants. for the united states the world itself was very costly even though we were involved for a relatively short time. if you were to adjust inflation

for today the united states spent about 500 billion for it's short involvement in world war i. and in terms of blood nearly 120,000 u.s. troops paid with their lives and another 20,000 were wounded. it was a dramatics dramatic c confli conflict. and to my second pointed the immediate lessons learned after this conflict, it is odd that the sort of pen glosian idealism emerged and this idealism trumped sort of sober pragmatism and the nature of man. we saw the league of nations form which they tried to impose the domestic -- domestic law internationally. we saw later in the '20s, the kellogg pact that sought to outlaw war. that they could just outlaw it.

with the united states rather than prepare for the possibility of another major conflict, this is from the u.s. army history. the war department urged congress to authorize the establishment of a permanent regular army of a half million and a three meant universal training system. and the congress and the american people said no. and rather we not just built down our military, we tore it down. the prevailing sentiment was another major war was impossible with the exception of the japan. and the bottom line what we saw was the general neglect of the military's capacity, capability and ready rns with at times a less than sober view of the growing international threat environment. and world war ii happened. we all know that war and how it ended fundamentally shaped the international system. it is because of that conflict that the united states emerged as the indispensable pillar of world order at the end of the day. and so this leads to my third

point, lessons for today. and dr. holmes i think alluded to this too and spoke to it. we can't fully understand world war i's lessons with out also references world war ii and even the cold war. because if the assassination of the arch duke ferdinand wassed so far that spark that led to a larger conflict, world war i was just the prelude to a longer continental struggle that in many ways is still continues. we see the russian empire which at that time stumbled and fell by 1917 and world war i. you see vladimir putin today trying to resurrect an empire. in the sweep of hundreds of years. the russian empire is hundreds of years old. a major lesson i think to draw from it is that we, the united states, american citizens we need to struggling mightily to see the world as it is and not as we want it to be.

and that is an dmangs demonstration nadmonition just for americans but leaders guiding national security. we need to see in particular the international threat environment as it is and not as we wish it to be in a corollary to that is we can and likely will be strategically surprised. today president obama is giving a speech at west point in which i haven't yet had the chance to see it. he's going to offer threat assessment and arguing for the obama doctrine and where things are going. i've been a observer both on the hill i will say of the messaging that i've seen from the administration about the threat environment. and things that we hear, the three main themes, al qaeda. until recently we were hearing how they were on the ropes. global terror on the ropes. to grand bargains diplomas can contain regional revisionism

from rogue states like iran or syria. three, we can consign great power rivalries and great power war to the history if we simply reset, engage and even occasionally comedy other rising great powers. -- accommodate other rising powers you sometimes hear that you listen carefully. and i'll just quickly say, al kwied kied al qaeda is not on the ropes. al qaeda in the arabian peninsula. in africa. lining organizations in syria. we've heard in recent months not just generals from sen come and africom but also the fbi director saying things like now actually beginning to pose threats to homeland. because we're seeing extremists getting battle hardened there

and setting their eyes now on the united states at some point and basically hoping to do a repeat of what we saw in 9/11. with iran and syria, despite the administration's hope that we can use grand bargain diplomas, we sort of segmented iran's nuclear threat and ignored its growing support of terrorism abroad. and we see that in iran support of supporting the assad regime. and iraning troops also in support of that regime. and we saw use of the chemical weapons. even though we have this bargain, if you will, to try to get rid of the chemical weapons program we've seen that assad has been more than willing to find loopholes in it to hide chemical weapons to use chlorine chaz dual use item and still we're struggling for a coherent

response to the cross of that red line. and russia and china. they are both returning in many ways, returning great powers. russia has a lot of systemic problems. but they do see that vladimir putin does want to e restore in effect the russian empire. that's what he's looking. and what's worse. equally troubling is vladimir putin's pan nationalism. if you look at the emf, that the russian parliament passed to authorize his activities in ukraine it is aimed at protecting russian nationals or ethnic russians over all the world, frankly. and many people are wondering what could benext after ukraine? would be muall dove. so this is a threat environment we see. but what we see in terms of the how the united states is responding to is a defense

strategy that is i think geared more at the world as we wish it to be not as it is. and what i mean by that is i think it's helpful to review to the last qdr review panel. one of the things they said is in the absence of a better construct to plan america's forces we should be using les aspen's bottom up review. something about that is it was designed as a time when the only real threat we were worried about was rogue strags proliferation. rogue state revisionism. generally speak. we weren't worried ant global terrorism and certainly not worried about the return of the great power rivalry. in terms of joust numbers, capacity we are barely at level t but we have a threat environment far more challenging than what was contemplated at

the time of the bottom review. we have a threat environment again. global terrorism. and game changers. and what's worse is we're on a trajectory to get out of the business as much as we can out of sort of very proactive global counterterrorism. we're -- we are sort of getting out of the business. we don't want to be in the business of dealing with great powers and the prospect of the serious great power rivalry. we're at least ambivalent. and last, we are still not very sober about what is going on with other rogue state regimes. and a last point too is because we're on this trajectory of the growing gap between strategy and budget, we've already seen a crisis between readiness and combat. and it's now moving to crisis in military capability, especially future miltpy capabilities. i can throw out lots of examples. but look at things like the tom

hawke which has been a stalwart system. we're killing it and we might not enough stockpile if we see future military contingencies in the coming decade. we may not have a follow on. and i'll close with this in terms of where our budget is today. i did the math here last night. it's been -- our 496 billion that we're spending in fiscal year 15, when you adjust for inflation, since '48 it's been exceeded in real dollar terms as many as 29 times. so 29 years since '48. in real dollars we actually spent more than what we're spending today. and a question we need to ask ourselves is whether the world is becoming -- are we heading that towards that world that people at the end of world war i hoped for, which would be for t war to end all wor war or postwar challenges which we need to be prepared to meet?

and i'll just close on that. but i'll just say that -- i think that there certainly is rob indicating b whose on something worse, world weariness. but i think to get over that, we -- we can advocate that role of leadership. i think the -- it of it that is going to be leadership both from the president and the congress in the years to come, after 2014, after 2016, why america needs to play a leading role and why that indispensable pillar without the world we know will crumble. >> appreciate that very much. we do have some time for questions. any questions at all? >> complaints? attacks? >> yes, sir? >> how do we go about perfect swaying our european allies spend even a smaller amount of their gdp on defense than we do

and it's dropping faster than ours is? >> how do we persuade them to carry their fair share of the load? >> a nato target has been 2%, most the members of 1.2%, 1.3%. >> well, i know one way we can't do, which is the way we've been trying to. we've been going to the europeans saying, we've been spending most and you need to spo spend more because we're sbending less. they're not responding with more but less. sort of the logical thing for them to do because it comes back to the leadership issue that it congressman p thornberry talked about. if wer into the leading we're not going to follow. i don't think we can do it ourselves. i think something needs to change in the calculus for them to see something of their own self-interest. there's been talk about doing more in defense because of what putin is doing but the germans are still pulling back. i had a meeting a few weeks ago

with a -- and he was talking very hawkishly, talking realistically about putin. it was a wake-up call. then when i asked him the question, well, doepts you think we should have more military deployments in the baltics or in poland? he said new yoo. we cannot respond militarily to everything they do. we have to do it some other way. so even then they couldn't cross the logical conclusion they nodeded to do something more in defense. we're not there yet, but it's probably going to be more what putin does than what we do. >> just quickly to that point, a friend of mine, a staffer on the hill who wrote a dissertation about -- it and the defense planning did note if you look at the data there's a t sort of a two-year lag. if we grow our -- aggregate and also in general increase their defense budget. if we klein, they decline. that's not a satisfactory answer because that doesn't -- what do you do? within europe there's a growing

debate about how best to integrate better their defense industries and move toward a more -- moving toward a more common foreign policy than they have been. they're a ways from actually not having a military that's interprabl but cooperatable. this is a decades-long debate about burden sharing and regardless of whether or not they are able to step up, we need to do what we can to convince them. we can do it with hebs of congress going over to the different parliaments and strengthening bonds and trying to make the case. but there's no magic bullet. >> question last time we didn't get to. >> thurston, as much concern as i think rightfully has been raised about the rise of revisionist nation states like russia and so forth, there's ever present the threat of jihadist terrorist

organizations. in light of that, a lot of talk has been given to the return of -- i was wondering if you could comment on whether it should be revisited and b if so, how would you go about revising it? >> well, depends what you mean by revisit it. if you mean to end it, i don't believe we've actually ever ended an authorization freeze hold before. we stopped using military force. so correct me if i'm wrong, i don't believe we've actually done that. so i would have problems with prima fascia just ending it especially because al qaeda is not on the ropes. it's morphed. it's al qaeda 3.0 or 2.0 network. i know folks like senator corker and his staff are looking at updating, and i think that could be fruitful. especially if it helps to deal

with some of the debates that have been longstandtion over what it actually covers. both the armed services committees have tried with their authorization bills clarify it or provide interpretations. but i'll put it this way. i think that so long as the terrorist threat orgy -- or jie had continues -- >> senator corker does have specific things he's looking into both in terms of legality and what it actually covers. but if you step back, i think politically what's happening both in the democratic and republican parties is on the republican side, particularly in the last seven or eight years, there's been sort of a general concern about the congress needs to be consulting in war making and yet there's a history of that that's ambivalent given the

least given the war powers act that the rkss used to be against it. so you can see that politically feeding into it. on the democratic side, they were against the war and want to end it. this gives president obama cover if after all he's ending the war in a couple of years has legal status. so i think frankly that's politically what's going on. my own personal view is that it the authorization was sufficient. i think there was bipartisan support for it when the decisions were made both in iraq and afghanistan. that should be sufficient to see the job to the end in my opinion. and the fact that the president is looking at it differently is a political judgment he is making supposedly on strategic grounds, but i think the whole question of the authorization is basically a secondary to the big debate about whether or not we should be doing more to win these wars rather than to walk away from them.

>> a short question. you said that -- both gentlemen said that world war i must be tied in with the results that world war ii developed. how do you see world war i contributing to world war ii? by the way, another question, when did the united states take over hawaii, what year? >> it became a state in the '50s. >> but pearl harbor -- >> late 19th century. >> it was established a naval facility in the late 19th century. >> pearl harbor is in hawaii, right? >> that's correct. >> so if we could just quickly -- we're right up against use of the room. very quickly. >> i sort of allude to it in my remarks, that there is debates over the versailles treaty, whether it was too punitive or

not. i think the big problem there is that germany, when it agreed to the armistice did not believe it was defeated. then after it was actually defeated it didn't believe it was defeated. this is very similar, i think to a mentality of putin's regime. they believe that it the collapse of the soviet union was illegitimate. they're starting to develop similar stab in the back theory that's the western powers stabbed them in the back just like germany did. because germany did not feel completely defeated in 1918. it did feel completely defeated in 1945. so that ambiguity which everyone including president wilson was trying to be understanding to the german interest turned out backfiring because they didn't understand the reality, which is what you're talking about of what was going on on the ground. then the other part of it was the united states did not remain engaged in the security of europe. we were engaged economically. we gave them loans. weror not entirely

isolationists, but we were not engaged as strongly as we would become not only during world war i but after world war ii. >> that's it. i'd like to thank our panelists for our contributions today and to thank more importantly you all for attending this particular session. it will be archived on our web site and should be available within 24 hours or so, i believe. again, thank you very much. if we could show some appreciation to the gentlemen. [ applause ] >> on "washington journal," stephen szabo will discuss the g-7 threats of new sanctions and

the latest moves by nato members following president obama's three-country, four-day trip to europe this week. then we'll take your calls and comments on the 70th anniversary of d-day. as always, join the conversation at facebook and twitter as well. tonight on c-span3, a hearing on training firefighters responding to firefighters. that's followed on a hearing on u.s. student loan debt. later, discussions about cyber security and business. now a senate hearing on training firefighters who respond to firefighters. mark begich questioned officials representing the forest service and firefighters about the resources needed with increasing

firefighters in populated areas. this hearing is an hour. >> thank you so much for being here. it's a pleasure to have folks here. this is the subcommittee on emergency management intergovernment relations in the district of columbia. i apologize. i have a cold so i'm suffering through a cold. so i appreciate you being here. i want to thank the witnesses to be here especially on short notice to lend their expertise to our discussion. we are here to look at the problems that are serious and concerns to many states for a while now, and that's wildfires. this is a challenge that confronts communities of all towns, villages, cities, states and the federal government. as a former mayor myself i know firsthand how important it is to have personnel resources to

prevent and fight fires when they occur. the stakes are high. we must ensure that first responders who are out there protecting lives, homes, businesses receive the training and support they need. that's why we're here, to learn from these experts and leaders about the situation on the ground, across the country, from a variety of perspectives. we have to know where we are succeeding. and where we need more resources or a new approach. there are different levels of governments involved in fighting fires. from locals to various federal agencies it's important we have comprehensive protection and response no matter where a fire occurs. i know providing that protection has become more and more expensive. especially on federal levels. in the past 12 years, federal costs have averaged more than $3 billion a year. that doesn't include the $2 billion spent by state and local communities as well as other private spending.

the costs are increasing because wildfire activity is growing. when you talk about wildfires, most people think of flat, grassy states like montana or states hit by drought like california. but as weather patterns have been changing with the rest of our climate, more states than ever are being hit by huge wildfires. in the past decade, acres burned are up by almost 67%. right now in anchorage, more than 700 men and women are fighting a dangerous fire in the kenai. it's the funny river fire but there is nothing to joke about. they have been fighting to put it out since may 19th. they have done an amazing job. all alaskans are grateful for their efforts. as of yesterday, the fire was 59% contained. and danger to life and property has been nearly eliminated. it scorched almost 200,000 acres of our forest. close to residents, businesses and individuals.

it's early in the fire season for something of this magnitude in alaska. my state has had one of the warmest winters on record. now strong winds and low humidity are combining to allow these fires to grow quickly. over the weekend there were reports of 15 new fires in the fairbanks service area from chino hot springs to toque. luckily they were relatively small fires, but they only stayed that way because of the outstanding work of our firefighters. to make sure we are as prepared as we can be that we have the resources and experienced personnel in the field, we have to look at the first responder hiring and retention practices. the skills men and women learn during training to become a firefighter, smoke jumper, hot shot team. members are invaluable. we must recognize their importance. not just with the words but in how we treat them. earlier today i was proud to introduce the senate version of the federal firefighter flexibility and fairness act to address a glaring misstep in how

we treat federal firefighters. across the country, municipal firefighters are able to work out changes in their schedule among themselves with vancouver -- supervisor approval. they can trade shifts without impacting their pay schedules, allowing them to take care of sick family members or attend children's important events. this type of flexibility is important to morale and life balance. and i'm glad state and local firefighters have it. for some reason, federal firefighters do not. right now these men and women can only swap shifts within a two-week period. an accounting system the government uses ends up with one firefighter receiving no pay for the shift while the other receives overtime. it doesn't make sense. because the system is nonsensical, some departments don't allow shift swapping at all. i can't blame them. for not wanting to deal with the headache. this problem needs to be

fixed. treating our firefighters well is the moral thing to do. it is also fiscally responsible. the bravely and skills earned by folks in the field make it more important to retain them as long as possible. attrition reduce it is effectiveness of firefighting teams which is unacceptable. we need to train and maintain the best teams we can. clearly that goes to more municipal firefighters as well. i have been a strong supporter of the important federal resours like fire and safer grants that go to the fire situation. firefighters have told me how beneficial the grant programs are. that's why i'm fighting the to

roll back president obama's proposed cutses to the programs in this year's appropriation bill. as a member of the appropriations committee i'm committed to restoring the $10 million proposed are reduction. every dollar spent will save more in local communities. over the last -- on one last issue i want to bring up briefly before i introduce our witnesses is a broader issue that impacts many firefighters in alaska. this advantage is to seasonal employees in the federal hiring process. i have been working with senator tester and looking closely at the bill he and senator udahl introduced the land flexibility act senate bill 1120. seasonal workers are so important in alaskans have different jobs depending on the season. many firefighters come from the lower 48 to help us fight fires in the summer. right now it seems to me that the federal hiring practice isn't giving these seasonal workers who have developed great expertise over many years a fair shot if they want to transition to a full-time job in the same field. i'm glad to hear your thoughts on the issue. i look forward to the continuing discussion with senator tester. i'm not sad.

i have a cold. let me introduce our witnesses. i will start with mr. jim hubbard, deputy chief of the u.s. forest service, part of the department of agriculture. jim? >> thank you, mr. chairman, glad to be here. as you've noted, we're into the fire season and alaska is especially, arizona, new mexico are having normal fire activity but it's busy and the funny river fire is a bit unusual, you don't have 200,000 acres burn on the kenai very often and that gets a lot of attention, especially with the values at risk and people in the way. what our season looks like is that june will continue to be that kind of a problem for alaska. maybe it will moderate by the time july gets here. i hope so. alaska went a little longer than usual in past seasons.

as we move further into the season, we get into july, california, oregon look particularly bad. nevada is not going to be good. so that's where we expect most of our problems. it will be scattered throughout the west as usual and we'll have surprises pop up all across the west. but those three states in particular look problematic. our forecast tell us we probably will be spending more money on suppression than we have in the budget. so we'll go through that process again. we are prepared. the inner agency forces are at 14,000 firefighters available to us. currently we have 14 large air tankers but could have as many as 22 under exclusive use contract before the season is over as those next generation planes begin to fly. we still have the 8 military

mass units as surge capacity and we do have the 72 engineer tankers under contract and more than 600 helicopters under contract. so aviation forces and ground forces are in place for the season. but the conditions are challenging, the long-term drought, the changing conditions we face with climate and fuels and insect and disease have all caused problems, not to mention the development that has to be protected that's in the way of some of these difficult situations. risk reduction occurs on about 3 million acres per year. that's a substantial amount and it addresses some of the priorities. it does not cover the territory that needs to be -- the risk that needs to be reduced.

it is a combination of what you do on the landscape and what you do in the community and around the community that will save us in the future. some of our limiting factors have to do with the transfers that occur when we don't have the suppression dollars and we have to take it out of other accounts to do so. how we budget for suppression has been an ongoing debate. you mentioned do we have the resources and do we have the right approach. perhaps that needs another look, another look such as was proposed by senators widen and crepo, and the agency continues to provide in their budget the initial attack and forces and cost of that initial attack. we do catch 98% of the fires during that initial attack

period. it's the 2% that get away that cost us about 30% of that suppression budget and those are fires that are perhaps fall into a disaster category and ought to be treated financed differently. if that were to happen, we would hope that the agency could make proposals for using some of that budget constraint to increase the land treatment and reduce the risk further. that would be our approach and we would hope something like that could at least be considered. thank you, mr. chairman. >> let me ask william dugan, national president of federal employees next, please. >> thank you, mr. chairman. for inviting me to testify, our union represents 110,000 federal workers and for 22 of my 31

years in federal service i fought wildfires serving in many positions, i spent 16 years in sitka, alaska. i can tell you fire fighting is a dangerous business. when you're on a fire, the only thing between you and trouble is equipment and brave men and women with you on the fire line. that's why it's so important that we arm firefighters with the training and resources we need to be safe and complete the mission. the wildfire problem in the u.s. is growing. six of the worst fire seasons since 1960 have occurred since 2000. we must recognize that this is the new normal and we must change the way we do business to account for it. with respect to training, the usda inspector general issued a report in 2010 that predicted is future shortages of qualified firefighters in the forest service. too few are being trained to

replace those retiring. that prediction is coming to fruition and it is a major problem. they have done tremendous work to improve inner agency cooperation. the development of a consistent certification and training system administered by the national wildfire coordinating group is an outstanding achievement. our union is proud to be a partner in the apprenticeship program which we hope will take consistency and training to the next level. unfortunately this program has been underutilized in our view. within the forest service, training resources are not reaching the field in a timely way. from one forest we're hearing the primary fire personnel are unable to attend training classes that are only offered out of state leaving them no option for certain training. at another forest we hear managers are getting the training budget too late to get employees into classes. congress can improve access to training by exercising oversight to ensure that the action items developed as a result of the referenced i.g. report are properly implemented and make sure the program is used to the fullest potential. also, congress should make every

effort to appropriate funds in a timely manner so resources get to the ground in time to be used. with respect to workforce retention, the attrition rate is alrmingly high. something must be done about it. for a firefighter, experience is hard earned on fire line but firefighter career path is blocked by flawed and dysfunctional federal regulations. many begin their careers on temporary appointments and many return year after year acquiring valuable training and experience. however, firefighters looking to advance their careers face a critical barrier. current regulations do not credit service regardless of how long as qualifying for acquiring competitive status. because of this barrier to career advancenebt, many skilled firefighters eventually leave taking valuable skills with them.

to explain, agencies have the flexibility to fill positions from current employees under merit promotion or from among civilian applicants under the competitive process. over 2 million federal employees have the status to compete over merit promotion and firefighters classified as temporary workers do not. they cannot compete for jobs. we urge passage of the bipartisan land management workforce flexibility act, s-1120 which addresses this inequity. funding for wildfire suppression is also a problem. with the occurrence and severity of wildfires increasing, the expense of fighting wildfires exceeds the funds appropriated for wildfire suppression. when this happens, agency transfer funds from other programs into fire fighting accounts to cover the shortfall. this so-called fire borrowing results in cancellations and delays.

ironically many of the canceled projects are those designed to reduce frequency and severity of catastrophic wildfires. it's robbing peter to pay paul and it cost taxpayers more. we urge congress to pass the wildfire disaster funding act s-1875 to address this. i will conclude my testimony by quoting one of our members currently out on fire assignment in alaska. in alaska, we do have a well constructed tactical plan to deal with fires. the wildland fires are on the increase. we fight to put the fires out immediately and address hazardous fuels but sometimes forests are allowed to grow into overgrowth and decay causing a hazardous situation. it is time to take action to provide resources necessary to prevent this hazardous situation occurring in national forests across the country and protect communities from wildfire.

these reforms cannot wait until next year, they need to be acted on immediately. i thank the subcommittee and would be happy to answer any questions you may have. >> all written testimony will be included in the record. we have kevin o'connor, for the public poll of international association of firefighters. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i'm here representing 300,000 professional firefighters and paramedics who provide fire rescue and ems services across our great nation. first, let me thank you for the introduction of the flexibility act and firefighters greatly appreciate it and for the support on appropriation for the other programs is very much appreciated by our organization. wild land fires increase in intensity and duration and scope, they are a threat from coast to coast, from 2003 to 2012, over 17 million acres have been scorched by wildfires, claiming over 300 lives and destroying 34,000 homes and

resulting in over $70 billion in insurance claims. as you know, mr. chairman, the raging fires currently threatening your state are a stark reminder of this present danger. before the hearing we spoke with tom wescott. he estimates that a vast majority of his membership will be engaged in those efforts before the fire is finally brought under control. the scourge of wildfires has become epidemic and will continue to peril our nation. changing the way in which federal government budgets for wild land fire fighting. it makes sense and should be done but is only a first step. for decades firefighters are battled on how to deal with wildfires. today with the increased development of wild land urban interface, we want to develop a more holistic strategy to deal with the issue. clearly the federal government must take the lead. we applaud the strategy. this strategy establishes a national vision for wild land

fire management and response. the strategy is an excellent first step but once again more must be done in the 1960s and 1970s they were blighted with arson. the national commission on fire prevention and control issued the landmark report america burning. over 40 years later it is frequently cited and still has value. the federal government should take a similar approach to the wild land fire program. we propose the establishment of a blue ribbon commissioned modeled after america burning with congressional participation to fully study this issue and make recommendations. although the iff, they have yet to act. the federal government is the only entity that can ensure the participation of all stake holders. we hope that either their own volition or general nudge from

congress they will soon act. state and local governments contend with devastating wild land fires and privately held or state owned lands, fire fighting operations are exclusively handled by state and local assets. it's safe to say throughout the southeast, nearly every firefighter will be called upon to fight a wildfire. disturbingly not all firefighters are trained to battle these fires. cash strapped firefighters cannot afford training. we propose a pilot program to provide wild land fire training for local firefighters in high risk areas. furthermore, because fire fighting is an inherently governmental function, it should be a default policy to contract with a governmental entity having jurisdiction in the impacted area if additional fire fighting resources are needed beyond the federal effort. however, if private contractors are required they should be required to meet the same rigorous standards of their governmental counterparts, period. this is an issue of public safety and firefighter safety and operational efficiency.

lastly we need to protect the men and women on fire line. not quite a year ago, brave firefighters from the hot shots team 3066 died in the line of duty battling the yarnell hill fire. the death or injury of any firefighter should give us pause. wild land fire fighting is physically taxing and emotional draining and incredibly dangerous. the job differs greatly from that a structural firefighter. wild land firefighters are on scene fighting fire for days or even weeks at a time. through government investment and research over many years, much is known about the health impacts for fighting fire and how best to protect them. but we're only beginning to examine these impact on lild land firefighters. as a leader in firefighter health and safety the iff is

uniquely positioned to help coordinate research efforts. with our california forestry local 2881, san diego state university and much appreciated funding from the department of agriculture, research has already started. san diego partnering with cdf studying improving protective clothing, a great start. to prevent death and injury it is incumbent we study staffing patterns and other metrics to ascertain the impact on firefighter health and safety. partial funding from d.o.a. has been provided and we encourage the federal government to continue this investment until the resource is completed. we must act now and very divisively on multiple fronts to address this complicated issue. i thank you for the opportunity to testify and will gladly answer questions. >> let me go to the mayor. i was down there at the funny river fire which we all know has been a top priority, i know for fire fighting.

we appreciate you and thank you for being on a pilot of using our technology. we'll allow you to testify and open up for questions after your testimony. >> thank you, senator. >> uh-oh. >> hold tight. >> i appreciate your holding this hearing and touring the area and asking the right questions about the adequacy of the response and whether or not resources were available when needed and where needed. in answer to that i think is absolutely. i was exceptionally impressed with the incident command structure in the way there was coordination between all of the agencies and we had incredibly high winds changing wind directions and conditions but the knowledge that they command team had of fuel sources and

fire behavior and logistics, all of the things that count when you're really reacting to an ever changing fire dynamics was truly impressive. the coordination between the agencies, i can't say enough about how all of the resources and resource agencies worked together. one of the things that i should point out is that the refuge folks were quick to order up a command team and had done fire breaks between urban and wildland interface that were critical to the way the planning and protection of the populated areas and structures there. we were very, very fortunate. i want to say thanks to you and to the resources that were put towards this and result was that we had very few small structures, some remote cabins,

that were lost. all of the residential areas were protected and priorities were clear from the outset that is protection of the firefighters who are employed, also protection of life and property in the urban areas and developed areas around the peninsula and looking where the important infrastructure is including very high voltage lines that needed to be protected. and i want to also just talk briefly about the importance of the planning process well in advance of what we know are going to be an increasing number of wildfires. that is federal resources important to the kenai peninsula in a variety of ways, we had funding over a long period of time to deal with the bark beetle infestation and allowed us to build a coordinated plan that we could identify where the consensus was and where the consensus was is making sure that we enhance natural fire breaks and roads between urban

and rural and wildland areas in the event that at some point we saw a wildland fire that would threaten the developed areas. so we over a period of time we got as much as about $18 million from the federal government and we used that to build fire breaks and do a fire wise program and renew fuel sources. i think that this is critically important. the other thing that we also used federal grant funding for was the borough information system. we have a very good system. we update it regularly, the last time we were able to update it with a federal grant doing aerial flight to gather the data and put it in the system was actually 2012. we have pretty up to date information on where structures were, including in remote areas. it allowed them to tap into our system and use it where they

were going to muster resources and it was an excellent planning tool. that's one of the things in looking at whether or not resources were adequate in this case as i said i was very impressed with the level of effort that went into this fire, resources that were employed and planning that went into it on a nightly basis and the planning that was put into place and executed on a daily basis. i think we did have adequate resourgss, one of the things i'm thrilled about, your efforts to get the drones at the university of alaska fairbanks, that was something that was employed in this fire, sort of at the end of it to do overflights and it's something that will be even more increasingly valuable tool as we move forward.

as you know, senator, the state of alaska has an incredible remove wildland areas and a lot of interface between rural and urban and small pockets of developed areas and population. it's critical in alaska. i want to again thank you and thank the incident command team, rob allen, also the fema and tree planning through our office of emergency management and coordination at our director did to help support that effort, all of that -- this was a good example of how in part we were lucky but the realty is there was a lot of planning that went into it well in advance of when a fire might happen and it really worked in this case. i think it's a good example of right amount of resources and expertise that's brought in to a lot of different areas around the country and state. it was impressive. thank you.

>> thank you, mayor. these are pictures from that fire and it's incredible devastation that occurred and i was down there on monday, as mayor talked about, some incredible resources came to the table at the right time. there was one thing you had mentioned and i want to ask you, made a note here. your borough mapping system, was that funded by the borough or a combination of federal or state? how does that -- how did you upgrade that? >> you know, it's operated by the kenai peninsula borough and available publicly and has a lot of tools that folks are familiar with the gis systems can tap into and use to get all kinds of different vegetation mapping. there are a lot of tools that can be used to identify where strategies can be employed to attack a fire like this. the other thing that i should

mention and you're aware of it, oftentimes at the federal level, the sheer perspective and size of this fire was huge but in terms of the state of alaska and even the kenai peninsula, it's only a small portion of our land mass. >> if i can, i don't know, maybe jim you might be able to answer this first question i have, when i was down there i took a tour of some of the areas. what i saw was these areas where they thinned out some of the trees, kind of found natural breaks and the mayor described those areas. you could go from the heavy clustered areas and thinned out areas and some cases a road or utility corridor. and the comments i got was a raging fire. then when it hit that thinned out area it dropped lower to the ground, firefighters could attack it and manage it quicker. and control it at that point. they were describing to me that that came from -- i was expecting to hear a big number

to be honest with you, a big cost to that piece. they said, no, that was about $175,000 out of the wildlands fire fund, that they were able to get a grant for to do that. can you tell me the status -- i know that has been under pressure for many years and that's more preventive than disaster. so tell me a little bit about that fund. is administration looking at long term for that and additional resources and does that connect at all -- and i'll put this issue way over here for a second. i know the president put together a proposal, a billion dollars in climate change issues and so forth, disaster management, other things, is that at all connected? two-part question, the impact was unbelievable because they showed me the area where they were unable to do it and it just

swept across the road. unbelievable difference. >> mr. chairman, as you just described the effect of that kind of land treatment on fire behavior is exactly right. and that's what we're after. and where we place those treatments is pretty important too. if we do that in combination with a community that has invested in being adapted to fire, a little more firewise, then we have a chance of protecting that community and saving it, even when fire like this comes their way. and most of that money is appropriated through the forest service. we work through the state forestry agencies on the private lands at least. and what happens there is a competitive process in the west with those states proposing their highest priority for their

it protection and the money being allocated. >> is that fund, that money comes out of for local communities like this, give me the sense of that. i understand it's under pressure and not as robust funding as it used to be. can you comment on that? >> we try to protect that one. >> does it need more? i'm giving you a softball. i know you can't answer because onb probably haven't told you what you can say. >> what i think i can say -- >> i might jump to these two to answer. >> it's not -- you ask if it was connected to the president's climate change proposal and we are working with the administration on what we might be able to propose in that regard. but perhaps it is definitely connected to the proposal for how we finance suppression. if that were to pass, go into effect and free up for the

forest service roughly $300 million of discretionary funding, the appropriators of course control that, that would be our proposal to use it this way. >> let me make sure i clarify what that is because i know some people might be watching or later find out what we're talking about. in the past, the way your disasters were funded were fires occur, you rob all of these accounts because we never funded enough. then we come back to try to fix it all and never do totally. now the idea is and i might be wrong about the numbers but know i'm close, 80% of what the cost is and try to fund it. you're at least having a budget to work from so you're not robbing other agencies, is that fair? >> that's fair. >> i can tell you when i said that, the mayor was there doing a press conference and i said

that, one of your employees in the middle of the press conference jumped excited about the whole thing. it sounds like that is a big piece of this puzzle that you need to kind of get out of the way in order to fund -- this is the piece that they were working on but as appropriator we'll try to do that this year in the appropriations process. that's a real positive for all of us. is that a fair statement? >> that's a fair statement. thank you very much. >> let me ask you, there was an estimate or -- we know since the '90s the money has gone to 3 billion and we'll still be half a billion short. do i agree with that? based on your analysis and what you're seeing this summer? >> yes, i do. those forecasts come from forest service research and they provide them to us periodically during the year. it's based on what's going on with the forest conditions and based on the drought and based on what -- how the weather patterns are setting up with

pacific oscillation and ocean temperatures and gives us an indication of what's coming our way for the season and where it might hit and what that might cost. right now it is predicting that we will fall short. >> the question or comment that the mayor navarre talked about about the bark beetle i know colorado has issues and northwest has issues, a constant growing problem, for several years i know alaska was earmarked. we had earmarks able to do this for some reason some people in this body don't like earmarks. i do. because people i don't think -- it was not taking from the budget but taking from the existing budget and do you think we have enough resources to go after -- i use spruce bark beetle in my state, basically

beetle kill or forests that have dead kill in them, are we doing enough there? or do you think that's an area that maybe we better be watching carefully here because it could be growing because of these drier temperatures and droughts we're facing? does that question make sense? >> yes, the drier temperatures and drought, the condition of the forest in the west it's largely a disturbance forest and being regenerated by disturbance, fire, insect and disease. that's going to continue on a large scale. there are things we can do to mitigate that. we can't stop it. but yes, there's more that can be done to help with the impacts of it. >> let me if i can to mayor navarre, you don't have any more federal resources for that type of activity in the spruce bark beetle cleanup or management or do you have federal resources

you're tapping into? what are you doing now to combat that issue? >> what did we do -- >> in other words, the grant money you used to get, do you have any of that remaining that you can use to do the management or what are you doing now that those resources are pretty limited to manage that? >> well, it actually happened last time i was mayor from '96 to '99 where we identified the problem and before that mayor gillman had come to the alaska legislature to get funding. in '96 and flew over the entire kenai peninsula, i was shocked

at the level of infestation and potential for a huge fire. and really because of the different landownerships and agency oversight and things like that, what we did initially was put a task force together that worked very well reaching common ground on things that everybody could agree on. natural fire breaks and enhancing them, whether there are power lines where you have 100 foot right away and trees on either side 200 feet tall. trying to broaden those and making sure you're clear rights of ways for roads a little bit further. then, perhaps as importantly as the firewise program, things like that. because people want to stay in their homes and protect their homes. it's their largest investment

often times in their entire life. so making plans ahead of time that put resources into those types of necessary areas so that when you have an event like this, you have the ability to actually combat it on a reasonable basis and at the same time, putting adequate resources to it and protecting the folks who are actually out there fighting it as well as the urban areas. we still have areas that we could use additional funding for but we're going to go forward with that in any event. the educational process for homeowners, where they can build protections as best they can and then making sure that our emergency operations plans are in place and reverse 911 system worked exceptionally well for pre-notifying folks and when there was an evacuation in two areas we could get them out in

an orderly manner, again, it -- those are things that are critically important in the interim between what as i said we know are going to be growing numbers of fires. >> thank you very much. jim, i said i have no more questions but i have one more. i just remembered when senator mayor navarre was talking to me. down in -- i saw this map, utility company, i think it might be homer electric. they had a power line going through two federal properties, one a reserve and one not. and yet they were able to clear the power line area all the way and then the new designation goes after that and they can't clear. to anyone else you wouldn't know the difference between the land and you see there's no clearing going on. and their point was part of their job because they have to access those utility lines, they

have that area cleared but from a fire protection area, it's a fantastic opportunity there have you run into this problem elsewhere where you might have a different designation and another one side by side, maybe the west has this problem. and yet -- i couldn't believe the map. just clearly they show where they clear cut and this strip where the power line, break, everything then this stops. the utility corridor keeps going and yet the fire could occur anywhere. do you run into this? is there something not to get you in trouble with any other agency, is there something we could do here to help this problem? >> yes, we run into the problem and it's not just differences of federal ownership but differences with state and private ownership.

when we get into this, it really takes everybody coming together and different agencies have different mandates. and different environmental clearance processes that they have to go through. but when you have a common problem such as this, and you have values at risk that need to be protected then you need to find a way of working it out together. >> i may bring you an issue then because in some of the states that have had huge swath of jurisdictional issues, especially federal land, seems like we should figure out this. the comment -- on one hand we're watching one area burn up, the other hand we're controlling it on another hand because we did this this way and other side burning it up because we didn't do the right control. so we'll follow up. let me, if i can too, william and kevin, thank you very much for being here. there was a recently released national wildfire strategy. are either one of you familiar with that? william, you want to go first? >> yes.

>> can i assume and if i'm wrong, correct me. can i assume your organization or members of your organization might have been involved in the strategy or at least responded to the strategy? >> our organization was not directly engaged in that. we certainly have had input over the years talking about fire management issues and about kind of the more strategic picture with how we manage our landscapes across the country. >> do you think -- why i bring this up, kevin had a comment about a blue ribbon committee. and one thing i'm always nervous about is another committee around this place. we'll committee stuff to death. you mentioned the i.g. report which is a question i'll ask my staff, what have we done and not done, because as we found with the v.a. when you have i.g. reports, you should respond to them. this might be the same thing. but do you think this strategy

could morph into where we engage stakeholders to say, look, we've got this strategy, is it the right strategy? what's the action plan that goes with the strategy to move us forward in a preventive way as well as a response in a sense. can you respond to that? >> i think the national strategy has great utility to get us thinking about how we engage -- how we engage each other across jurisdictional boundaries, across geopolitical boundaries and other regional boundaries. that's part of the problem we have in this country -- >> some of those land issues, they're jurisdictional.

>> absolutely they are. it becomes very difficult and challenging to try to deal with fire across those boundaries. because you have to understand fire doesn't respect geopolitical boundaries or other jurisdictional boundaries. >> we saw that in kenai, they really don't. >> so the challenge for us as a country is to figure out how can we engage the stakeholders and get people to understand this is not just a federal issue and just a state issue and local issue? this is a national issue that everybody has skin in the game on. >> good example of that, $3 billion plus taxpayer money and i think the data point that jim, you gave which i thought was interesting, 98% of those you get right at them, 2% that then add 30% of the cost. and it's -- those are ones where we may not be as aggressive as we maybe could be. i thought that was an interesting quote. let me -- can i ask -- i'm going

to jump back and forth. you heard the commentary here. i like the idea that we kind of attack this issue in the sense of what do we need to do. there are clearly changes in the environment for alaska to have a fire of that magnitude in may is unheard of. and we were very, very fortunate where it was and how quickly they could control it on the back end. it could have got to a whole bunch of businesses, homes, properties and lives and it seems like these little things of prevention could actually -- in some cases we lucked out and jumped over a river. but then hit a swamp. you know, thank god the swamp was there. it was going to move in a different direction. the winds helped us but then the winds were moving left and right literally in a 24-hour cycle and aggressively moving that fire. give me a thought on this strategy and could it be morphed into this idea you have that

getting stakeholders and going after this. >> let me first say as an old firefighter, i'm not much on commissions or meetings. >> i know a lot of firefighters and you fit that mold, i can tell you right now. >> with respect to this issue first, i do want to laud what the national action plan has done. i agree with phil. it has an awful lot of utility and the wildland fire leadership council is doing a good job. the international association is not part of that but this is not a parochial issue for us. this is such a complicated issue. you can get firefighters in a room and come to the consensus on the ground, the coordination between state and local assets is tremendous, but it's more than just a fire problem. in my oral testimony i use the term holistic, if you read the action plan and it's a great document, all it talks about throughout the document is bringing people outside the fire service, other stakeholders to the table. and quite frankly efforts were undertaken several years ago,

the international codes council on trying to bring people together. and they weren't successful. why? because frankly nobody had the hammer to get all of the stakeholders hammer to get all of the stake holders sitting at the table. the home builders and code enforcement folks, all of these people who weren't part of the effort but need to be involved in larger dialogue as it results to this problem. as everyone testified, it is going to be a problem for many, many years. my analogy was look at america burning -- >> if i can interrupt, what happened there was congress got involved and said, we see this as a national issue, we're not interested in one group taking the lead, we just wanted a strategy that has an action plan to determine if we can fund it, make it happen from the state, local, private federal levels. that's kind of what happened there.

>> that's absolutely correct. i have an aversion to those type of commissions, i don't see any other entity aside from the federal government that can force people to have that conversation. >> would you agree with that? >> i think the convener has to be the federal government. i think we need to start thinking outside the box of o, you know, what do we need to do? what are the interests we need to satisfy to get these people to the table? for some it may be we might need to consider some sort of incentive program such as if you participate in this program and do certain pretreatments to your land, you could get a tax break, for example. >> got you. >> that's an interesting idea. >> so, because, again, as you described on the kenai with the

utility corridor, if we have people that are participating or landowners participating in other landowners that are not, that's really not going to solve the big problem. >> more amazing that they were two federal agencies, one wanting to and one not. >> that is something we definitely have control over in this body. you had said something that, two things, in your written testimony it says we are still doing business the old way and it's not working. then you also talked in your oral presentation about apprenticeship programs, which i'm always intrigued by apprenticeship programs. we used them quite a bit when i was mayor of anchorage and as senator use internship programs all the time. i was intrigued by that. can you -- you say with business kind of as usual not changing much, can you give me a sense of one of those vacations we need to be doing, which i do agree on issue of a temporary -- we had the same problem when i

was mayor, we had great parks and rec people that came back every single summer. they had probably 20 years doing it. because the way the system worked, the first -- someone to come in working for the city full-time, first year, walk in and have a better chance of getting the job than the temporary. we changed that because if you have 20 years working seasonally, the odds are you're good at it because we wouldn't hire you back for 20 years. i introduced legislation to fix that. we think there are a lot of interesting ideas here. tell me what you're thinking when you say the old way. >> another good example is the funding issue, how do we pay for fire suppression? historically federal agencies have basically been given a budget of x million dollars for fire suppression. when the money runs out -- >> we rob everywhere. >> the agency is forced to look else where in its budget to come

up because, again, we can't fire is unique, relatively speaking, in terms of an agency's program. we can't just when the money runs out can't just walk away and fold our tents up and leave. >> again, so you support the support of the bill and what we're doing in appropriations committee, which i feel confident we're moving in the right path here when we get the interior budget bill we're doing two bills a week now in the full committee. that seems like, i mean, to be frank with you, i was so much shocked when we got here and we were fighting at a 20% level or so and we know the average. we know what's going to happen. we would hope not, right? everyone hopes we don't spend anything in disaster firefighting, but that's not real. make this approach is better. that's a new approach that you think would be huge. >> i think that's going to ensure that the agency has the funds in the programs that help

it to accomplish its mission. whether the programs are pre-treatment instead of robbing money from pre-treating forest fuels and have a full budget and we can continue to do these projects to mitigate future fire occurrences and hopefully allow us to catch fires when they are small before they escape and become huge catastrophes. >> i absolutely concur. we have to have a different mentality. years ago, wildfires were largely contained in areas, they were simply that, wildland. massive fires and it's a natural phenomenon and they burn. part of the mentality was you allow it to burn. i'm not qualified from an environmental standpoint to comment on that. with the fire fighting standpoint, we have to change

your view on how to do that. when you talk to the folks in terms of my membership which is municipal, we don't represent the wildland folks but almost all west of the mississippi are engaged in fire fighting. the coordination on the ground is great. if for example in california we have a california department of forestry and able to mitigate the event before federal resources are there. conversely, the same thing happens when there's a federal station near a state land or privately held land. the radio systems are compatible, there's a unified command structure and it works very well. however, what we are hearing from our folks is that there is an issue and it gets back to money on timely repayments for local assets assisting the federal government. this is something that particularly in california some

municipalities and counties are actually skewing a little bit mutual aid agreements because they are concerned and it gets back to base he money, the same thing applies to training. training is vitally important. but when you have a municipal fire department and has to train people on structural response and ems and hazardous material, clearly there's only so much money in a pot. one of the things we want to ensure, the red card, qualified certification versus the trained certification, we want to make sure that every one of our firefighters exposed to wildland fire is going to be number one safe and number two effective on the fire line. there's no substitute for training and unfortunately that cost money. >> let me ask one last question. i want to thank the whole panel, this is helpful. i know in the fire, correct me if i'm wrong, or jim you might be able to know this, we had to bring in two canadian water tankers, if i remember right in

addition to our crew, if i remember this right. >> i know in the fire, correct me if i'm wrong, or jim you might know this, we had to bring two canadian water tankers if i remember right to our crew, if i remember this right. this is what happened, they brought in blackhawk helicopters and had planes that were also deploying retardant in areas that it would be effective on the particular fuel sources. >> jim, you laid out a an agreement with alaska and probably the states that border from the lower 48. do you -- on the equipment that we have, that we operate and we have relationships with, do we believe that that we have good resources for continued maintenance and upgrade or is that an area we have to look at here long term to make sure that we're not, let's assume for

example, this season is a busy season, again. it's the argument you might make for a guy doing aviation that the more hours you put on the plane, the more wear and tear it takes and therefore the capacity for it to operate long are term diminishes. do you see that as an issue that we need to really reexamine because fires are more severe and happening on longer spreads of time? meaning season is longer, i should say. is that something we have to look at or something you are looking at or? >> both. we are looking at it. we have made some strides. we have moved from primary fleet of 1950 vintage aircraft that are getting tired to a next generation fleet, but we're just getting into that. there's a ways to go on making sure we've updated our aviation assets, especially the large air

tank portion of that. i would say that the progress is good but we're not there. >> and we did something last year if i remember this right through the national defense authorization bill, we got 21 went your direction and 14 went to the coast guard. >> that's correct. >> of surplus planes from the military, who knows what they were going to do with them. but they saw an opportunity, right and we were able to mobilize them for forest service as well as for the u.s. coast guard? >> yes, that's correct. that was a welcome addition to the fleet. and we don't have those yet but we will. we'll start phasing them in next year. that was seven c-130 hs and we have 16 sherpa aircraft. for smoke jumper platforms. >> i know we worked on that from our office with senator mccain because we thought it was a great win/win for the coast guard for equipment that's