>> okay. >> thank you, mr. secretary. [ applause ] okay, i'd ask the panelists to come forward. i think secretary chertoff has done a great job of establishing the issues that we're attempting to deal with here this morning. i guess it's afternoon now. sorry. we have a lot of well-meaning people over on capitol hill and some of the commentators who are opining that perhaps the visa waiver program needs to be terminated, suspended, something like that. and that was the genesis of doing this event. we now have a panel. or two of the three panelists. the third one will arrive here shortly. but i would like to introduce them and get them started.

you'll notice when the third panelist pops up, he's kind of a big personality. we're going to start with my colleague, david inserra who is a research associate specifically tasked with doing all of the homeland security issues for heritage. he specializes in cyber and immigration issues. but he's responsible for all of it. he works for me and gets to do all the work. i get to take the bows. he will be followed by adam sacks. adam is the founder of the -- and president of tourism economics, which is dedicated to analytically-based consulting for the tourism sector. he is an expert and a consultant dealing with hard numbers of the costs and benefits, and in some cases liabilities of certain programs, and how they affect that very large economic sector to us, which is the tourism

sector. and then the missing third panelist is stewart baker. stewart is a partner with stepto and johnson. but he was the first assistant secretary of the department of homeland security for policy. and he's the guy who set most of these programs up there under secretary chertoff. and is a leading commentator on many of these issues and for those of you that know stewart i noticed a few laughs when i mentioned the size of his personality. he is a very outspoken person about whatever he chooses to speak about. so, we will do the same thing. each of the speakers will go for about five to seven minutes and then we will go through all three of them and then take questions. at the end of that, i will moderate that. we want to get as many questions

as we can. so ask short ones with an actual question mark at the end of them. that's good. we'll get through as many as possible and then go to our final speaker. with that, we will start with david. >> thanks, steve. so what i want to do today is just really quickly describe what the visa waiver program is, describe some of the benefits that were laid out before by secretary chertoff, deal with some of the concerns, and then discuss what are the next steps forward for this program. first what is vwp? the visa waiver program allows residents from member countries to visit the united states without a visa for up to 90 degrees for business or pleasure. to be a part of vwp, the country must meet several criteria. first a country must have a nonimmigrant refusal rate of less than 3%. a visa refusal rate is simply

the percentage of visa applications that are denied by the state department for any particular country. second, it must issue its citizens security, machine readable and biometric passports. and third the country must represent no discernible security or law enforcement risk to the united states. currently there are 38 countries that are participating in visa waiver, with chile being the most recent to join just earlier this year. as required by visa waiver program and other laws that amended it, these nations have agreed to other stipulations and obligations to join vwp. they must share intelligence with us on known and suspected terrorists. they have to exchange biometic, bigraphic information about criminals that could be coming to the united states. they have to share information on lost and stolen passports. they have to increase their own airport security requirements. and they have to provide u.s. citizens with reciprocal ability to travel to that country without a visa as well. now, these features greatly enhance security by providing u.s. law enforcement and

security agencies with more information and more intelligence on potential terrorists and other bad actors. the visa waiver program makes it easier for u.s. officials to know whether an individual presents a security threat. the visa waiver program also allows the state department to focus its limited consular resources on those countries and individuals about which less is known and who could be high risks to the united states. furthermore, the visa waiver program is not without screening and security procedures. as secretary chertoff mentioned every traveler from the u.s., coming to the u.s. from a visa waiver program country, must be prescreened through esta which checks various data bases and does the data analytics which secretary chertoff mentioned and checks to make sure they're not a security risk and eligible for entry into the united states. additionally at every step along the process from buying a ticket to checking in for their flight, to showing up at the gate, to landing in the united states, there are a series of checks that are going based on the most updated information that we have in our systems. at any point along the process if a u.s. official believes that

there's a security risk, they can dive in deeper, take a deeper look, and if necessary, deny the person entry into 9 united states. so in terms of benefits, clearly the first is security. the more information sharing, better airport security abroad and being able to focus our finite consular resources on higher risk countries and individuals. these all improve u.s. security. second, the u.s. has had and continues to have major economic benefits. vwp makes trade and tourism easier and brings individuals to the united states where they can spend their money here and also enables businessmen to come here and engage in business transactions. adam will probably be talking more about that since he's the expert on that. and lastly, vwp gives an important tool for foreign policy and public diplomacy. allowing individuals to come to the united states and enjoy our country can improve foreign public's understanding of america and our culture. by extending the privilege of

vwp to other nations, we also deepen the diplomatic ties that we have with friendly governments, as well. now with these major benefits, we should address some concerns, specifically the threat of isis. european passport holders becoming foreign fighters in syria and iraq. making the issue worse in 2012 there was a gao study that found a lot of the information wasn't occurring. certainly this is a valid reason for concern, if the vwp is premised on increasing sharing and the information sharing isn't happening, that's bad. in 2012 heritage wrote it was time to hold these countries accountable if they do not share their information. since then the information sharing has increased dramatically. the crs did a study just earlier this year and found that nearly all countries were sharing nearly all the data they had that was required under the law. more recent conversations i've

had with officials point to the fact that all countries are sharing all information and now it's just a question of working out some of the particulars about the data automation piece and how the information is actually being shared. but it is occurring. now, while radicalized britons or germans or anyone from europe is certainly of a great concern to any of our nations, which are threatened by islamist terrorism, this is not a good reason to cancel the visa waiver program. vwp promotes security through the security sharing arrangements and the other arrangements i've talked about. by canceling or suspending it not only would we have the immediate trade and economic harm that secretary chertoff mentioned we would also have less information available to us with which to make visa decisions and to watch out for suspected terrorists. so what should the u.s. do going forward? first of all, the u.s. should be looking for -- always should be looking for ways to enhance information sharing arrangements, improve the type of information that we get off of esta forms.

and make sure that we use the appropriate mechanisms to expand our ability to screen individuals and connect intelligence dots. these types of improvements do not require a chainsaw. they require the scalpel and they can all be made within the existing program and we don't need to cancel or suspend it. second, the u.s. should be looking to judiciously expand the visa waiver program. the more friends and allies that are contributing information of potential terrorists, the better able we are to look out for individuals who could be a threat to the united states. expanding visa waiver would allow us to better focus our finite visa and consular resources on other nations and individuals. the way to make this expansion happen is to replace the visa refusal rate, which i mentioned earlier, with something called the visa overstay rate or use some combination of these metrics.

the visa overstay rate is exactly what it sounds like, people who overstay their visa when they come here to the united states. it's a better, more accurate metric for determining the immigration risk that someone poses to the united states. using this better metric would allow more nations to join the visa waiver program without threatening u.s. security or immigration procedures. it's worth mentioning that visa waiver reform and expansion has gotten caught up in the immigration, the contentious immigration debate. there's no reason why this commonsense changes and reforms and extension of this program should be held hostage to more controversial elements. congress should be considering visa waiver program on its own merits and not on the merits of amnesty. yeah. so with all these benefits the visa waiver program is more valuable than ever. the threat of isis and radicalized westerners is real and the u.s. should be using all of its intelligence tools at its disposal to find and stop these

terrorists. the visa waiver program is one of those tools. and to stop it now would make the u.s. less secure, less prosperous and less engaged with friends and allies. instead we should be looking to improve and expand the program. thank you. >> thank you, david. adam? >> thank you. good afternoon. as the head of a company that does economic analysis for the travel industry i'll be taking a decidedly economic centric view of this issue. the u.s. economy last year ran a trade deficit of $500 billion. amidst this, one export sector stands out in contrast, and that is the travel sector. the travel sector in this context is an export because it purchases of locally produced goods and services by foreign markets. that sector enjoyed an $80 billion surplus last year, or for the 12 months through july. and the broader context of trade as globalization has continued, and manufacturing has shifted to

low-cost areas of production, even though the u.s. has found key areas of manufacturing competitiveness, the travel sector continues to compete at the highest level across the board. ultimately, it's in this sector that we see the united states as eminently competitive. now, it's not just that we have a trade surplus of this $80 billion. tourism is actually one of our largest exports, hands down. $180 billion spent in the country last year by foreign tourists, it compares as larger than auto and auto parts exports at $152 billion or food and beverage products at $136 billion. why? why is the u.s. competing at such a high level? well, if we work with clients around the world, tourism offices, and governments on every continent, we see the way that they view the united states as a competitor. and their research, the research

that we use in developing their tourism development strategies, shows that 9 u.s. is one of the most aspirational destinations in the world. showing up within the top two or three bucket list destinations for travel markets from everywhere that you'd want to attract this market. now, if you want to put that into context, how good are we at this? that $180 billion that's spent in the u.s., that positions us as the number one source of foreign visitor spending in the world. who is number two? it's spain. and spain is at just about a third of that, at $60 billion. so that's how much better we happen to be at this in terms of competing. but there is nonetheless an enormously competitive global market. yet somehow within this the u.s. enjoys this intrinsic competitiveness and it's fundamentally, and say this with the view of the way that markets view us and the way that survey respondents talk about the u.s.

and their experiences, is that the u.s. offers a product of diversity and quality, with stunning beauty, myriad attractions, experiences, culture and entertainment that is arguably unrivalled. there's another reason, and it's the topic that we're discussing today, which is the visa waiver program. it is a significant part of why the u.s. travel industry has been and is as successful as it is. if you want proof of this, let me share with you some case studies of what has happened when countries have entered into the visa waiver program. so taiwan was accepted in the fall of 2012. in 2013 visits from taiwan to the united states increased 33%. then in november 2008, under secretary chertoff, a number of countries were granted access. czech republic, estonia, hungary, latvia, lithuania, slovakia, republic of korea. they met the criteria. well over the following three-year period, the

collective group of these markets increased 46% to nearly -- nearly half -- nearly 50% increase over that period of time. if you look at where they traveled elsewhere, maybe these markets were just growing at a faster rate, actually their travel to other parts of the world grew fractionally. if you want to look at specific countries within the group, south korea who joined in late 2008, grew 46% over the following two years. the czech republic grew 31% the year after. hungary 15%, slovakia 44%. clearly this program has a significant impact.

within the competitive environment though, resting on our laurels, much less stepping backward is clearly a bad option. there is serious marketing and product development going on around the world to compete for these visitors. the establishment of brand usa, to market the united states a couple of years ago, has been a major step forward in being able to compete. but they're competing against a global budget of destinations marketing themselves that tallies $4 billion. so other destinations are competing very strongly. though the tide has been turned over the last two years in terms of market share, if you look at since 2000, the united states has actually lost market share of global travel. it's lost market share from south america, from europe, and from asia.

and some of the products that we've been involved in as a firm have actually been helping governments around the world and consortiums of regional groupings, countries such as apec, asean and the organization of islamic cooperation, look at how can they begin to adopt more sensible and inclusive travel facilitation policies, including visa waiver where appropriate, so that they can compete at a higher level? now, other countries are certainly on this track. canada allowed the czech republic to enter canada visa waiver in 2007, arrivals increased 36% to canada from czech republic in the following years. russia opened up to hong kong in 2009. the volume of arrivals to russian federation from hong kong, china, jumped 184% in the following three years. so we can then with this background ask ourselves what would happen if the visa waiver program were reversed or curtailed? you could reasonably assume that

it would be the opposite of the benefits that were realized when it was introduced but there are also case studies of what has happened when countries have perhaps ill-advisedly restated visa requirements. and there are a few examples of this. canada renewed the visa requirement on the czech republic in june of 2009. so after liberalizing for two years, they decided to reinstate that requirement. well, arrivals over the next three years from the czech republic to canada declined 70%. canada also imposed a visa requirement on mexico in june of 2009 and over the next three years mexican arrivals to canada dropped nearly 50%. and then the uk, also another case study here, imposed visa requirements on south africa in march of 2009, then ensued a decline of 30% from that market. so the reality is with this

background that visa requirements are fundamentally a self-imposed barrier to trade on our own economy. the visa waiver program benefited 31% of our overseas visitors last year. amazingly even as these countries have been added over the last five or six years, the share of visa waiver countries that are represented in our total overseas volume has declined from 45%, to where it now stands at 31%. the reason for that is because emerging markets and high-growth markets are the very ones that still require a visa. and requirements are still imposed where growth opportunities still remain to be the greatest. china, brazil, india, latin america, and poland.

so in conclusion, there's no question that security must be paramount, but the need for security must not be seen and is not in conflict with the economic value and opportunity that the visa waiver program affords us. so if it's in reference to trade shows, we assessed the market a few years for the center for exhibition industry research and found that about 2.5% of potential delegates, international delegates to trade shows and exhibitions hosted here in the u.s., were refused entry. and that equated to, because of trade that takes place at these

events, a loss of $2.5 billion. and when it comes to leisure travel, when leisure visitors come they experience the realities of the united states of america, and not a caricature. so what this leads us to is the really unavoidable conclusion that investments in the visa waiver program should be made to make it as inclusive and secure as possible. and those investments will pay massive dividends. well, in my remarks i sort of unapologetically focus on the economics of this issue but perhaps i will and with a higher level of prose from one mark twain. travel is fatal. its prejudice, bigotry and narrow mindedness and many of our people need it sorely on

these accounts. thank you. >> thank you very much, adam. and now appearing just at precisely the right moment -- is my esteemed colleague stewart baker. >> you need a visa to use massachusetts avenue. apparently. >> and we talked security, we've talked economics. now you get to wrap up the panel here. >> tell stories hopefully. >> yeah. >> the headlines about the possibility of people with misusing western passports are obviously quite pointed these days. and the risk of terrorists coming back from syria and iraq has never been more of a concern. and that led the u.n. security council to adopt a unanimous resolution, and not easy to get anything unanimously out of the security council, on

terrorist travel, asking, telling member countries to address foreign terrorists, fighters by doing a variety of things. preventing suspected fighters to entry are transiting their territories,mplenting legislation to prosecute foreign terrorist fighters, to undertake the recent steps to improve international cooperation such as sharing information on criminal investigations, interdictions and prostitution. i dwell on that because that turned out to be a surprisingly easy thing to get international agreement on. and the reason it was surprisingly easy is that the united states, using its vwp leverage over the last five to ten years, has more or less imposed those kinds of measures on our vwp counterparts around the world. so that we now have arrangements in which our vwp counterpart provide us with information that was never available before because we used the leverage of

possibly withdrawing, in whole or in part, vwp status, to get everybody to do things that they more or less agreed that was a good idea, but which they never would have done without something that drove them in the direction of actually doing it right now. and one of the things that i think that we can be pleased about was the bipartisanship that we saw in 2006, between a deeply democratic congress and president bush in which the 9/11 legislation was adopted, which set standards for what you have to do to be in the vwp, and where we were able to say, we can expand the vwp, but at the same time set very high standards for security in the program, and in our -- and in

connection with our counterparts abroad. that effort turned out to be remarkably successful. the combination of pressure about security inside the united states and the possibility that we would withdraw vwp status from people who didn't, countries that did not cooperate. at the same time we're demonstrating that we were committed to actually have a vwp program by opening the program to eastern europe produced a consensus, obviously the people are coming in new were deeply enthusiastic about pretty much anything that the u.s. asked them to do.

wants a have signed on to all of these secured a measures, it became much more difficult for some of the countries where this was a bigger problem either because they were less enthusiastic allies of the united states, or they had a bigger islamic population. in the long run they had to come on board, too. so we now receive information about criminal convictions from all of these countries, none of which gave it to us before. we also put in place a program of electronic, well, the european commission with whom i had i guess fraught is the nicest word with it, relationship, at one point said to me, look, this esta thing where people have to make reservations to come to the country, and fill out all these forms in advance, and you might tell them yes, and you might tell them no, even though we're a visa waiver country, this is like an electronic visa. and i said wow, you broke the code. the fact is what we have done is in the esta program is take advantage of the electronic

capabilities that the communications that the internet makes possible, the background data processing that allows us to say yes, we are open for business for 99.9% of everybody who wants to come here from these countries. and we'll tell you if you're in the 0.1% before you get on the plane. and that ability to do that background check, even for people who in theory are coming here without a visa, has transformed our ability to protect the united states from occasional bad guys who are coming from countries that are basically allied with the united states. so when they hear people

worrying out loud about the vwp, i can't help asking, compared to what? because the alternative would be to go back to -- i won't say the state department is not in the 21st century. but they are struggling to provide the kind of background checks that are necessary for people who are coming from visa countries. and they are doing personal interviews, which have value, but the idea that we would do personal interviews for everybody from great britain or france who wants to come to the united states is a way of saying we really don't want anybody from france or the united kingdom to come here. as you can imagine, if you had a choice of going on vacation in a place that required you to fly to washington and be interviewed before you could come, and some place that said well just get on the plane and fly here instead, most people would choose the

easier route. so what we have done with the esta is made much easier for people to go through the process. we are able to do deeper background analysis on those people because of the data we're getting from their own countries. we are not relying on our own list of people that we're worried about. we have the list from the folks who are closest to some of these movements in the country that the individuals are coming from. so it seems to me that rather than focusing on taking vwp away, we should be asking what can we do, especially with a u.n. resolution that everybody signed onto, a security council resolution, what can we be doing to take those requirements, and reinterpreting them in the context of a growing vwp, to say, yeah, we are going to implement all of that as part of our visa waiver program, and we're going to bring the rest of the developed world, and some of the countries that want to be part of vwp, along with us, so we can get security and more travel at the same time. >> all right. microphone people, get ready.

all right. we are ready to take questions for the panel. okay, you get to go first again. >> mr. baker, can you -- now wouldn't the people say these foreign fighters that are from france or the uk, just use an example, go to syria, train, come back, and they don't have any criminal record? they're young. a young man who is, you know, there's nothing there to let us know. i think that's a greater concern than people that are known criminals, or there's ties or something with their past because it seems like these are a lot of very young men and might not have something that would be a red flag. what about that? >> first, there is a requirement in the security council resolution to actually prosecute people for doing that. we used to prosecute people all the time for violating the logan act, or engaging in foreign

wars. so that there's plenty of precedent for treating that as a crime. and the other point i would say is, the french government, the uk government, is at least as scared of these people and should be, as we are. it is not a given that they're coming back to france to buy tickets to new york. and so french intelligence, french law enforcement is going to be watching for these folks trying to identify them and keep track of them. we do need and we have pretty good, but i won't say perfect exchanges of information about those folks. we now have a u.n. security council resolution that says you should be sharing information. we should take that and say as part of our expectations with respect to vwp, we want you to be sharing that information, and we will share back to you the same kinds of information about americans who have traveled to

syria for the same purpose. >> right there. >> hi. zoe o'hairen senate judiciary minority. so in the house hearing on september 10th discussing this visa waiver program mr. miller and mr. wagner from cbp said that 300 esta applications had been denied this year alone for security related reasons. but 400 that were previously approved were later denied. would you recommend expanding the data points that we are requesting from these countries? because you just said that we had told these countries that before their passengers get on the planes we've already screened them and we've approved them but more of them are being denied after the fact than

before the fact. >> i think we should look hard at that and we should also look hard at expanding the kind of information we get from people so that we can do a better job of using our own intelligence capabilities to identify people who shouldn't be coming here. there are times when you said okay we want them to come here so we can arrest them. but those are rare. and absolutely. you know, the vwp gives us lots of leverage. but it's leverage you want to use sparingly because it's a little bit of mutual shared destruction. if you actually take somebody's visa waiver status away from them it's going to hurt you as much as it hurts them. what you need to do is find things like exchanges of information that most

governments recognize they ought to be doing but they need some incentives. they need to be able to say to the opposition, people say don't share any information with the americans, they will just and all these people to guantanamo, which is what the usual rap is on the united states. they need to be able to say, well, we can't afford not to. we have a resolution, and we don't want to put visa waiver at risk. so if you recognize your leverage and use it sparingly, you can get more information both from governments and you can change the esta, start requiring more information. >> i was going to add to that, which is that, as circumstances change, as cbp sees it needs certain types of information there's no reason not to look at changing information we ask for on esta, threats change and data points we need might change so that's something we should take a look at. >> from polish press agency. so as i understand, if you are from the country that is not a member of visa waiver problem like from poland, you have to go for the visa interview, and then

if you are allowed to, you have visa for ten years and then you can travel to u.s., whenever you want without any procedure. and when you are member of the country that is a member of the waiver program you have to each time when you want to go you have to pass through the esta procedure and delivering the information about you, yes? so in terms of security, actually which system is better? >> so it's a close call. you don't actually have to do esta every time. you do it once for a couple of years, usually. the main difference between the two is that there is an interview but that could be very short interview and it doesn't necessarily produce a lot of information. to my mind if the choice is between having good cooperation from the intelligence services and the interior ministries of a country so that they're telling you who they are worried about, and they know more about who is dangerous in their country than

we do, if the choice is between that and being able to do interviews of people in that country, i'd like the data cooperation every time. >> also just add to that, not only are their information sharing and cooperation aspect but also we talked about budgets have come up a little bit here and there. state department only has so much money that it can spend looking at doing these interviews and the such. if more people are part of visa waiver program that means the same number of visa consul officers are able to focus more intently on countries where we think there are greater risks. so there's also security benefits from being able to shift towards higher-risk targets. >> right there. >> thank you. i'm dino drury and i'm on the board of advisers for the federation of american immigration reform. i have two related questions. one is, if you waive people from

having to have visas, how do you keep track of whether they overstay the visas they don't need? and the second related question is, if the united states is in effect a net benefactor from foreign travel, more people coming here than going someplace else so we make $80 billion more, why would a country which is having more of its residents go to the united states for business or pleasure, than come from the united states to that country, have any incentive whatsoever to facilitate and increase the incidence of that happening? >> let me try that one. >> all three of you may comment.

>> that would be great. so first, a visa waiver doesn't mean you just don't come here without a visa and stay for as long as you want. it is really a visa. it's a 90 day visa, if i remember right, and if you stay to day 91 you're overstaying. we know you have come here because we've got your entry data, and unless you sort of do something weird like drive in and fly out, or fly in and drive out, we will also have records that show you departing. so it's not at all impossible, although it's obviously a big data job to match up the information on the manifest coming in and the information on the manifest coming out, which ought to be the same passport information to see whether

people came and stayed longer than they should have. our usual approach for most people, and this by large has a pretty good disciplinary effect, is to say a few overstay, you ain't coming back on the visa waiver program. you're going to need to get a visa next time, and i vividly remember some poor woman from iceland who came to the united states. i picture her as a matron in a nice sweater. she arrived and they said, you know, 20 years ago you overstayed your vwp status by two days and she said, oh, well i was in love. and they said sorry, we have to send you back because you don't have a visa. and before we send you back, of course we have to keep you overnight because the next

flight to iceland isn't until tomorrow. and because of our standard procedures for dealing with people who are unlawful immigrants who have to be sent back, we're going to have to put you into detention. and because of our rules for how we do detention, we are going to have to shackle you arm and leg to ride in the bus. she will never forget -- all of iceland will never forget that experience. so there are ways of deterring that. but you also have a number of checks when people, in that allow you to do security checks on people on the way in. so i think there are mechanisms. we have a particularly, if there's reason to be concerned about an overstay, there are

folks at i.c.e. who make a priority to track down the people who are particularly -- raise concerns from a terrorism point of view. i'm not questioning incentives. i'll try to be shorter. the -- this is not just a calculation of, well, who's getting more money? you know, who has got more tourists and richer tourists and what's the net benefit? the real incentive here is that if you were a french official and you told the french public, by the way, i have screwed this up so badly that you're going to have to come to paris and sit down in the embassy to go to disneyland, you would -- you know, you would lose the next election. and the same would probably be true in the united states. it would be viewed as a major faux pas to have screwed up the relationship with europe so that nobody could take their holidays in europe without going through this. so both sides will feel enormous political pain from doing this,

as opposed to saying, i think i'm ahead of the game so i'll go ahead and cut off vwp. i don't think it really works that way. >> i think experience bears that out. there's no incident where someone is granted visa waiver to come to the u.s., and there hasn't been that reciprocity. notwithstanding the fact that in most cases the u.s. has a net balance trade would be the primary beneficiary. i think another interesting example right now is brazil. because brazil, which many within the u.s. travel industry would say should be a candidate for the visa waiver program, actually requires a visa for u.s. travelers to brazil on the basis of reciprocity. it's not, has nothing to do with the security or overstaying issues. it's the fact you're going to require of it of us, we're going to require it of you.

they would most gladly lift that visa requirement of american travelers, even though brazil -- travel for brazilian travel to the u.s., that demand is much, much greater than for american travel to brazil. >> i would just add on the question of overstay, that's one of the reasons why at heritage we recommend that we should move to a system which includes visa overstay. you're never going to stop every single person from overstaying their visa. but if you have a requirement that you have to have a visa overstay rate which is, you know, say lower than 3%, a low visa overstay rate then you are effectively looking for countries which already know their citizens already have good ties. they tend to go back. you're reducing your immigration risk there. that's another reason why you could switch to a metric like that. >> okay. i'm going to have to cut off the questions so we can get to the ambassador. please thank me, or join me in thanking the panel. [applause] >> and as they exit the stage i will apologize ahead

of time as a guy whose name gets mispronounced quite often. i apologize ahead of time, mr. ambassador, but we now have ambassador ryszard schnepf. i apologize. see, it's a good thing i did it ahead of time. he is a longtime representative of the nation of poland for their ministry of foreign affairs. he has been the ambassador of poland to spain. most recently before this assignment and is now the ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary of poland to the united states and please join me in welcoming him to our stage. [ applause ] >> good afternoon. we've been talking about spain here. so i can confirm that the tourism is -- it's a great deal

that spain has enjoyed since many years, thanks to the open policy to attract all the tourists. let me start by thanking the heritage foundation for organizing this important event, and for inviting me to have the last word, which as you know, presents both an opportunity to leave a lasting mark for those with some additional treasure to deliver. i would like to thank also the panelists. i really enjoyed it. it was very instructive, very interesting. and particularly i agreed with the last opinions concerning the cooperation between two countries, as far as the security is concerned. it's much more important than the interview system that still is being complied with some cases. my mission reached its midterm

surprisingly fast, after two years' stay in washington. some journalists in poland say i'm the most experienced member in the polish foreign service, which is a subtle diplomatic way to remind me that retirement is on the horizon. before one drives away into the sunset, one can have dreams. and mine is quite a simple one. to get rid of the last obstacle in the u.s. posed bilateral relations and get poland to the visa waiver program. polish citizens deserve to feel welcomed when visiting the homeland of their friends and

allies. a resolution once and for all to this issue should mean a lot to all of us. having said that, i would like to draw your attention to a couple of important facts. and the first one is that despite not being in the vwp, poland has fulfilled all the legal requirements demanding -- demanded by the program. we have signed and abide by all bilateral security agreements that are needed to be a part of vwp. second, we are one of the closest u.s. allies in europe. polish soldiers have fought alongside their american

colleagues in iraq and afghanistan, and we are part of the anti-isil coalition. the poles don't pose a terrorism threat to the united states. in fact, our attitudes toward terrorism and what is happening in the world today are in line with that of our american friends. our cooperation as far as security, as i mentioned, goes really far. and third, the hassle and embarrassment associated with having to stand in line to obtain a visa has turned many polish businessmen and entrepreneurs who look for business opportunities elsewhere, rather than the united states. when asked why, the reason is simple. the delays and hassles visa applications have on their

business models. finally tourism, which was mentioned so frequently here. an area where the united states is missing out greatly. with 10 million americans of polish backgrounds calling the u.s. home, there is plenty of places where poles have a reason to visit. yet in the recent years, they prefer going to disneyland in paris rather than disneyland in orlando or los angeles. why? simply because of the stigma associated with having to stand in line to ask for permission to travel to the united states. i think you will agree with me when i say that we are both losing out in the current environment. but no one more so than the united states. not only is it missing out on tourism revenue, but more importantly our relations miss out on the critical people to people contacts, the bedrock of our strong relations.

last week, secretary of commerce led an official visa delegation business delegation to poland to p p promote greater economic links between the countries. during the visits, she high lights poland's transformation which president obama called an economic on the visla. placed poland among the top 20 economists in the world, enabled poland to avoid a broader, european recession. and made poland the sixth largest, as well as the fastestifastes esest

growing economy in the european union. this is part of the reason we have seen the u.s. connections grow at such a rapid phase in recent years. among the hundred largest u.s. companies, 56 operate in poland. more than 300 u.s. kbaecompaniee invested in poland across all sectors. from retail, to services to investment of $30 billion over the last two decades. at the same time, polish companies invested half a billion of u.s. dollars in the united states on the last year. i stand here before you to make it clear that these numbers can and should be greater. the vwp expansion is essential

in allowing for these to take place. over the past two years, my staff and i have worked closely with the administration along with capitol hill to get poland into the visa program. jotak, a way for poland to pay has passed earlier in the senate this year. the house version has 165 co-sponsors from both sides of the aisle. but the house version has been stalled for a month. >> i know i speak for many when i say we want this bill to see

the light of day. as all indications suggest, this is broad bipartisan support that would lead to its passage in the house. let me conclude by thanking and applauding the heritage foundation for the on going support for visa waiver problem expansion over the years. and encourage our business friends as well as those who are just taking the opportunities our marketplace provides. jopack is a great starting point.

as far as i'm concerned, we'll wait two years when congress can get this done during if lame duck session. u.s. jobs depends on that. transat lantic relations depend on it. so i remain hopeful the house acts, congress follows through and that this bill reaches the president's desk. and i'm counting on your support. thank you. [ applause ] >> well, mr. ambassador. i have to say as a member of our military who fought next to your mep a men and women, both in iraq and afghanistan, i thank you and i thank you for the

continuedfriend ship that was there before you became a formal ally until now. and we, at heritage, stay firmly behind the getting your country into the visa waiver program and, hopefully, expanding it further. thank you. >> i'd like to thank all of you for being here today. hopefully, we've increased an understanding of the visa waiver program. and i will put out an invitation to those of you in the press and those of you from over on the hill. if your members have questions and why we support it staying in place and actually expanding during this time rather than trying to get it to recede, we'd be happy to chat with you. we think it's very important for the security of the united states and for our relations with friends and allies why we do this. with that, i thank all of you

that are here, those of you online and with us through c-span and we wish you a wonderful afternoon, thank you. [ applause ]

. >> i'd like to thank everyone for being here. first, i want to do a couple of quick introductions. to my right, your left and thus, the sort of mirror effect as we used to say at the infantry school. i've got genitally, chief of the army reserve and also commander of the u.s. army reserve command. dual hatted. answers to the three star

commander underneath forests command. to my right, your left, mike tucker. mike is the commander of first army. first army is actually the executive agent for executing the army tollal force policy. and we have mr. paul patrick down here to the right. on the far end, he's the assistant secretary for defense for readiness mobilization. retired major general and brings a lot of expertise at the civilian senior leadership level for us. and then, finally, on the far left, my far left, is jud lyons, whom you all know is the acting director of the army national guard. lots of experience with him, as well. so just a couple of opening remarks from me and then i'll let each of them give their pitch. i don't know how many of you were at breakfast this morning,

some of you were, i imagine some of you were not. that is essentially my message to you, though, is what i said at the total force policy wraek e breakfast. first, let's look around the world. there's a wide variety of hot spots that are out there. you don't have to have access to intelligence to figure out who it is, where it is. all you have to do is read the newspaper and watch the evening news. we've got soldiers serving in active ground combat in afghanistan, working as advisors on security force resistance and a wide variety of other skills. we've got soldiers in iraq and that is an emerging requirement. and we anticipate additional advisors or other capableties as

we continue to support the iraqi security forces. we don't know exactly how syria will unfold in the future. we can't predict, necessarily, what will happen in georgia or egypt or libya. we don't know necessarily what will happen in yemen. we don't know what could happen in the future in other particular parts of the muslim world. so there's an area of the world that certainly has lots of people's attention and we cannot predict the events before they unfold. the united states has made a strategic decision to make pivot to asia last year and the year before in the national strategy. there are issues there.

so you've got the rise of china. is that a con flikt? no, not at all. is it going to happen? i don't know. you don't know. none of us can possibly know. right now, as you see in the news, it's unknown where the leader of north korea is. lots lots of speculation. we have a treaty with south korea. there have been issues and tension over many, many years on the korean peninsula. so there's issues in north east asia, this's issues in southeast asia. there's issues throughout africa. there are issues tlout the globe, there are hot spots throughout the globe.

and a rarnge of potential military assistance goes from the low side, relief all the way to combat operations. you see one of those playing out as an emerging requirement right this minute in west africa with the ebola crisis as we begin to send u.s. army, navy, air force, and army navy forces to west africa to help contain control and then, you will matly, just feed the ebola virus. so that is unfolding on the lower end. the range of military operations from an operation like that, gebs e against ebola, all the way to operations that you see

against isis or the taliban or other potential aggressors, all way to potentially operations to prevent con flikt on the korean peninsula or, if conflict were to return, our ability to prevail. so the united states army, 2 skills, the capableties that we have to be prepared to train to is a wide range and it is dwloebl in nature. so when chief of staff of the army talks about a globally responsive and regionally engaged army. that's what he's talking about. you can see it manifest itself.

my message to you is the world has lots of hot spots all over the place. if the civilian leadership of the united states decides to engage and use land power, then they are going to call on the united states army and the united states army must maintain

capableties across an entire range of military operationings and keep ourselves in a high state of readiness. so the first message, we don't know what the future holds. the second one, because we don't know, we have to be prepared for lots of different possibilities and we have to maintain ourselves in a high state of readiness. how do we do that? analyzed and did an review of veet nap. and they determined that the united states military, you know, we lost the war in veet nap and one of the reasons that we lost was the will of the people was broken. we know that war is an act of violent means. and by engaging in the act of war, you are determining one person's will or one group of people's will over another group

of people's will. it's a political contest. in the vietnam war, it was assessed that our will broke. and he said what can i do? he said what i'll do is redesign the force so that the united states army can never again be committed to a ground combat situation, a ground war, without bringing along the american people. and he decided to make sure that the active component was fully integrated with the national guard.

so he did that in the early to mid '70s. we are today promulgating that very con september in what the secretary today calls the army total force policy. and in 2012, he wrote a short, two or three page memorandum, a directi directive, to those of us in uniform drekt us to make sure that we implement or execute the total force policy. he followed that up with an implementation document. the second document the following year which tells us you will itmplement by doing th following four, five, six things. that went into effect last year. those are the strategic imp

rem impleapting documents. one is partnership. and we have tried to group them by geographic locations throughout the country. and we have matched national guard divisions with corps and brigades with divisions and so forth. in order to form the connective tissue between units within a broad geographic region on the active component in the national guard reserve. so partnership is also the state partnership program for orr seas which is a different program. the parter in ship i'm talking about is the active component and the reserve component partnered together. a second big flag ship initiative that was butt in place is the combat training centers.

the major exercises, a wide viert of major exercising that occur within the army. so what we want to do is make sure that throughout forces command, all of these major exercises are fully integrated with active component, national guard and reserve component. the objectsive that i've promulgated is roughly 50%. so what that means is when a unit goes to louisiana or california for a national train center, that we will roughly speak -- roughly speaking, have about 50% active component and about 50% reserve component.

now, there are two rotations a year in which you will be a strict national guard bct certify case. that's when we want to certify at least a minimum of two national guards per year for potential deployment if required. a third piece is leadership development. you've got equip immaterial issue, a training issue but you also have a leadership issue. and, really, i would argue leadership is probably the most critical of all four components of readiness. we want to up our game on leadership, across the board. in the active component and in the reserve component. we want to amp it up, up the game in our leadership

development. leader development, especially at the tactical units at the brigade and below. where the rubber meets the road on combat operation, typically speaking, is that the brigade is below. and that's where the action is happening. that's where people are getting hurt. that's where you need really strong, good leadership. and that also is the area in which, relatively speaking, we have leadership. and then lastly, in equipping in the standards of training. in both of those other two areas of readiness, the secretary of the army has commanded that we all have the same training. the active component units and

the reserve components are all being evaluated and looked at and graded, if you will, to the exact same standard. there is no difference. that's important. we want to make sure that we have similar -- it will never be exactly the same because every unit is designed a little bit different. but we want to have close to the same standards of equipping that we have throughout the active component and the reserve component for obvious reasons. we want to be fully integrated in the operation. we want to make sure that we're

completely interoperable. i'll be happy to elaborate on any of those as we go forward. any army, you pick your army, the german, the french, all armies have fundamentally two functions. an army's function is ooeeither fight in combat, or to prepare to fight in combat. if they're not engaged in the act of fighting, they're preparing to fight. other range of military operations are typically lesser-included cases. we have resident capableties of various skill to deal with a vied viert of operation. but it is combat, ground combat,

that armies exist for. and we should all remember that. to successfully have on the ground combat requires the entire nation. it's a nation that goes to war. it's a nation that wins a war. it's not the army, the navy, the air force, marines, or the national grd or the u.s. army resoerve. it's note any of those individuals or individual organizations that win a war. the nation wins or loses.

wj ever wm the within the army, that's our concentration. with that, i'm going to turn it over to jeff, first and then we'll go mike. and then we'll close it out with paul and then open it up for questions. go ahead, joe. >> thank you very much and good afternoon. i want to thank everyone for being here today and attending this important panel on army total force implementation. and thank the general for our total policy and why it's important for e in order for us to serve and operate as a total army in service to the joint force of the nation. >> for more than 13 years of war, the army brought contingency and theater security operation missions around the world including operations and during iraqi free document. it was during those two operations that the need for the army total force policy which required the army to man, train and equip its active and reserve components as one integrated

total force that became clear. now, since that time, the need to manage the reserve component is part of the operational force and to ensure the reserve component capableties have also clear. reaching the alignment and army reserve forces to support army corps, army service commands and

combatant commands as they seek to shape global environment to prevent conflict. the only component of the army that's also a single command is integrated into every ase and co-com around the world. it maximizes our unit readiness. and that's the prepared piece. and general miller will talk more about that, i'm sure, as he talks about the important army and helping ensure that we have total army training. and then it becomes necessary for the army to engage the enemy. and to win decisively and dominantly. another way to generate readiness is by recognizing that the army reserve is the most

closely-linked industry, in my opinion. as traditional reservists, where do they maintain their skills? they do it in the private sectors. doctors, nurses, civil affairs, lawyers, whatever requires those hard-core secctechnical skills. we have to recognize how do we leverage that relationship of the private sector to help general rate our readiness. we do this from fortune 100

companies down to small companies and they use their resourcing to help us train and general rate better individuals, soldiers and leers in terms of readiness. bringing together through a unique professional and career trade gopment. the army reserve provides businessmen and women needed to succeed in competitive markt places in return for civilian opportunities to enhappennce th skills of our soldiers. they help prevent and shape

events around the world. for example, the collaboration we have addresses the issues of water, access and quality and the significant security issues associated with waterer around the many regions of the world, including those strategically important to the united states. other projects that we have on going include issues like medical capability and the i independent state of samoa. civil affairs in the republic of congo.

so together, general rarts that readiness so whether it's contingent or combat operations can support our total army and the total force. the final point is soldier for life. we have to remember that soldier for life is not about the regular army. it's about the regular army, the army national guard and the army reserve. we want you to stay a soldier for life. so, particularly now during these challenging times that the army, the army reserve and the army national regaguard have to dound size. it's important that we capture that ac to rc.

we need to benefit and recognize them so that they continue to be a soldier for life. i look forward to your discussion on the importance of total force. >> okay, i'll have to change the order. do you want to go next? >> sure. >> it's an honor to be able to share with you all in imp lemting our total force policy. i have a few points i'd like to make. first, i'd like to emphasize that developing the total force policy has been a very open and collaborative process for the army guard. >> general allen spent a lot of time socializing the interim guidance for atfp i

implementation. secondly, one of the most tangible, early wins in total policy implementation has been the unit partnering. our divisions have been parter inned. the intent of that program is to provide leadership development opportunities. so that the divisions, such as commandment control, chemical,

biological, c2cbravo and the mission set. our brigade combat teams have each been aligned with active opponent combat teams based on type, location aexisting relationships. the partnershiper inning of our functional and multifunctional leaderships is mostly complete and we're starting to see the fruts of o some of those leaderships. i'll high light a couple examples for you. a screaming eagle summit in may with army national guard brigades that are partnered. so we have states in attendance including indiana, iowa, arkansasa arkansas, ohio and tennessee.

>> each parter in ship met to discuss their planned training over the next 24 months. f . >> we've had teams receive opcorps and ultimate support. as well as our war fighter exercises. this is all happening without additional funding. certainly, funding for efforts like this would enable more events. but we all know that funding is scarce, particularly in f.y. 15. so it's encouraging to see what is being done. >> the final point i'll make is

how encouraging it's been dereceid dereceived that all will be major components. in fy 14, we had seven guard fcc rotations that sbe greated with an army national guard brigade. looking ahead in fy 15, approximately 80 army guard units, that's around 6,000 army guard soldiers are supporting active army rotations. we think that's a good start. we're glad the army is part of the effort.

sir, thank you again for allowing me the take part in the panel. >> thavnks, joe. >> mike? >> back in 1993, the secretary of army was required to stand up and act upon force with the intent of reducing the time it takes for post mobilization. that's a hitle 1 force. mobilizing up to 90,000 a year to sustain. the intent, obviously, was to shape remobilization. as the army told first army last november to shift our focus from a primary effort and post

mobilization to look and begin your efforts in premobilization, which is more akin to, you could argue, if ndaa of 1983. we did a total mission analysis of the first army headquarters. we determined that obviously, our mission had change. so we had to change first army. and that's one of the major efforts in operation bowl shift. a bowl shift to pre-mobilization training. a bowl shift to pre-mode training support and then get our t.d.a. correct so that we can be dressed for the dance, so to speak, so that we have the cs and css observer, coach and

train trainer population meet. so what the first army is doing is reducining ourself from 16 brigades, no two were alike, down to nine by grades. those will be organized into six combined arms training brigades. all teamed with cs. we're also reducing from 192 to 42 battalions. the numbers are becoming smaller, but the size are much, much larger.

so that's where we're going to create these integrated training events. also, there's about 30 a year in the form of combat training centers, rotations, war fighter rotations, both brigade and division. there are an xctc rotation. the army is organized u trained and equipped and manned to fight as a total force. we never go e go to war as a single component. we go with multiforce. so one of its intents is if we don't continue to train together, we'll go back to our stove pipes. we can't allow that.

we have to train as we go to combat and we go to combat as a multiforce. we've mentioned that several times. the way to organize that through two venues. there we've put up the troop list. and we are in the room with all of the operators and planners and we begin to plug exercises in and that's what's an army realization resource council which is hosted by forces command which follows two months later.

we do that four times a year and that's how we integrate policy. we're standing up 12 engineer brigades that don't exist right now. and we're doing this entire transition, in 18 months, will be complete by the end of '15, pressing into '16, and it's palm neutral. it's hard government work. so the ax lair will be published by the department of army tomorrow and it's been a long road, but we're excited.

>> thank you, general. i'm very glad to be here with all of you representing the acting assistant secretary of defense and, offing, our big boss, if you will, the undersecretary of defense, the honorable jessica wright. on a somewhat humorous note, it's always difficult to be the last pirn that speaks for two reasons. you might forget what everyone emgs has said but you might rebel what i said so i might get a lot of questions article waerds. nonetheless, let me break into my comments. firstover all, i want to give you a brief description in what osd reserve affairs does.

and then i'm going to give you some kparexamples of what we do support total force integration. >> the tore mission is to develop policy and affect all the components in the areas of reserve, manpower and perts e personnel. ready nsz training and mobilization, which is the directive in which i work and then finally, material and facilities. in many cases, these policy and legislative initiatives set the conditions that will enable routine use of the reserve component as part of the operational force: the

reservists cover all the components: two examples i want to give you as i said before, of policy initiatives that are related to training. address the burden presented by common military training and separate and related to this initiativ initiative. >> now, you may ask what do these individual training enhancement initiatives do to affect the collective training man dates of the d.a. in force com total implementation guide, as general milly mentioned earlier. well, they do that because their goal is to enable reserve component unit commanders to a i

chief a more productive program drill and to be able to general rate more training time to collective tasks. this, in turn, increasing es university readiness. therefore, fostering, also, a greater focus on collective training goals at annual training. and, of course, it goes without saying that it's critical in an increasingly con trained budgetary environment, to drive missions operations readiness e fish e fishen sills and cost effectiveness from the 39 statutory days that are available. and, being a ready and traped force is a formation that's part of the operational force.

i hope you would agree that not only for the army but for all services. let me kwon collude my remarks with a strong endorsement of first army's bold shift initiative. the advantages of first army's partnering and engagement with the army national guard and army reserve in training plan develop 789 and post mobilization training in bre pairing our units identified for combat over the past 12 plus years are well domtsed and brought the level of total force integration to unpres dented heights. bold shifts maintains this critical first army role but expands it into many important ways. first of all, first army training support shifts to include premobilization as general tucker mentioned.

and not all units, not just those that are deploying. in support of iraq and afghanistan. but, now, the training support encompasses the entire multi-year generation cycle. and instead of a deemployment e employment to theater, it's a cull my nating training vent e vent to cst or csx or e kwif lent event. secondly, first army plays a critical role in supporting all army r.c. training as the force provider and unit training component for the army. to ensurement mall training in an e fisht and cost effective manner.

this brings back combat support. adding another layer of depth to acrc integration. for example, acrc parter inning in integration and neutral support throughout the training and readiness process. a more ready r.c. force whose progressive unit, krekcollectiv training is acknowledged and recognized while readiness is general rated during the premobilization training. thus, decision makes are more

likely to consider peacetime and, in term, plan a program for their rue teem use as part of the operational force via 12304 bravo authorities. this is equally as true for emergent con ting is, disaster spoens. and the benefit of training requirements that will make the reserve component even more sfonsble under these contingency sell scenarios. its's the right thing to do now and into the distant future. thank you.

>> at this point, we can open it up to questions. come to a microphone, if you could, because this is being broadcast. so, questions from anyone about anything? we can talk about anything from the red sox to the new york national guard to the 87 airborne division. >> please state your name and organization? >> senator john delegate, general reservement my day job is totally sprat, but i'm also a kucher of military. >> so we're traxing big you shall shoes and looking at the

potential army structure. my question for you is a little different about the use of the reserve components to respond to domestic emergencies. what's the realtime line for the policy to come together to be anyone to activate the reserve component with all the capableties we have. >> let me make sure i understand that question. the use of reserve component dealing with domestic rj emergencies and what is the full-time line associated with that? >> yes, sir. >> thank you for the questions. good question. the answer is we already have that authority. >> secretary stockton who came

from california stanford, specifically to be amointed secondary of defense, got tired of seeing complexities happening in california and the federal force, the federal reserve force, not being able to be utilized to help the guard aggress e dress those issues. so right now, as we speak, anything happens anywhere in the homeland, a company commander of the army reserve the authority given to him by me to,for up

2072 hours, to launch o quipment. >> i provided the watering units, aviation assets and it worked just fine. break. go to dod? f oh, ma, 1 hun% are provided by the army reserve embedded in your fema regions. so the army reserve is identified routinely in support of our guard brothers and sisters: and that all happened in the national defense act, 2012. >> can you talk about that from the narnl guard angle? >> yes, sir. in addition to what genitally mentioned about authorities being in place, a yew neek

aspect of the army national guard and the air national guard is our ablt to op rate you should e under under state active duty. >> i might also add as we've envisioned and in the past utilized, both hitle 10 is the dual status commandment. whereby a dual status commander with authority rather than one to issue changes? responding courses.

>> okay. great. paul, from an osd perspective? >> i think part of the question -- thangs, ser. i think part of the question was asked also in terms of response times chlts if e h. >> if i heard that correctly. that's only for a limited period of time. at some point, they would have to be put on orders. we have policies based on

deliberate notice of sourcing, noblization alert and so forth. but these are policies that are not lost. if an emergency requirement was done, was needed, then the reserve component could be moeblg e mobilized very yikly both for emerging contingencies as well as humanitarian rescissiresis tense. getting them on board is a little bit easier. an example of what paul said, it's also 12304. not that long ago, there was a weather event that significantly impacted the philippines. so we get a call that we need

logistics vessels in the water. i have about 5,000 troops in the u.s. army pacific and i needed them the same day, launched and i needed a two-star on the i was the authority for that, as the cg. they left the same day. that's how fast we can respond. >> thank you. >> we have a question on the left. yes, ma'am? >> my name is audra peterson. i'm with the national guard association. one of the concerns that we have at nagos is the future of funding for training. my question is, will your fy '16 budget request include funding for the division in unit partnering initiative that you have mentioned? >> a couple comments. one is, the partnering piece is not specifically a line item, as

i understand it, in the budget. we've done this in decades gone by as well. it shouldn't cost anyone. the partner on a variety of -- if i'm running an officer, or non-commissioned officer, professional development class, and i have to be located in state x, and also in state x is the national guard division or brigade, and they have to be 15 miles away from me, then i should, from the guide, extend an invitation that national guard brigade, to say i am

having an officer, noncommissioned officer opd. and the date and time is such-and-such, and the topic is such-and-such. and any or all of your people are certainly welcome to attend. so it won't be everybody. but with those whose schedules permit, they make it. or i'm running an ts. and i've got a company commission time and space to run some of your squads, or fire teams, or perhaps even individuals to augment these company live fires that are going to occur throughout the next six weeks. and i call up my local national guard guy, and say, it's an opportunity for you if you want to take advantage of it. we try to do it ahead of time. is it specific money to do that? no. nor does there need to be a lot of money associated with that. that's a couple of examples of how it can be in hand at low cost. and i'll flip it over to general

lyons if he wants to discuss any other issues with the budget specifically related to training of the guard. in your specific interest of the guard, if you want to start reserve as well. >> both are great. >> okay. so we'll go to judd first and then jeff. >> as we look ahead, particularly, i think the question was about 16 palm is submitted. fy-15 is a tough year for the army national guard, in terms of both paying allowance and omn. it's about $1 billion less than it was in '14. as we look to '16, we hope to see that increase. and on a rise throughout that palm cycle. we're getting ready to get into 1725 palm bill. so we want to talk about those issues. but as general milley said, i think the root of the question

is, it's when you go beyond a statutory annual training period. of 15 days. and so if you're a typical ctc rotation, it's extra days, both in the rotation itself, and then there's travel. and there's costs associated with that. we have to capture those in our palm efforts, as we do war fighter exercises. so that we can allow a division commander and staff to execute training events, in conjunction with war exercises and maximize opportunities. where that increases above and beyond a statutory annual training period, i think is the crux of the issue, and how do we capture that in the process, so that we can maximize each and every one of those engagements. and i think that's just a -- that's a function of our articulating the requirement. and then capturing it in the palm process. we certainly want to do that.

>> having said that, we have scheduled right now, for the national guard specifically, two combat trainings in a row, two division war fighter exercises, six brigade and extra guard brigade war exercises, and six ctc exercises. that's 21 exercises that are going to involve the brigade or above formation. and as you well know, since january, our combat training center rotations, the echelon above the brigade logistics, were provided by csbs. over half of those rotations are guard and reserve. that's an entirely -- that's a huge formation, and a real game-changer in terms of getting us off contractual logistic support. you've got a cssb that's really flexing their muscles in an effort that is so realistic, it's almost better than combat.

the environment is at play here. it's a big, large, huge learning curve for us. tremendous exercise. >> so the short answer is, if you're looking at in the case of the army reserve, has a plus up for training dollars above the 39 training days a year, divided by two, 39 training days a year. do we have plus up on training money for the entire army reserve in the pom 16. the answer is no. or 17. the answer is no. the answer in 15. the answer is no. the reason is, because of the budget control to take effect. don't confuse that with us not being able to meet readiness challenges. remember, the readiness model that we use in our army to generate readiness, not every unit needs to be ready all the time at the same level. so we have to generate the right level of readiness to meet the

response. the way we do that in the army reserve, and it's painful, is i have to take money and resources dedicated for other units and push to the right to make sure i'm getting the unit out the door in the available year for a contingent or combat mission. we get it done. it would be easier if we didn't have sequestration. >> okay. we have a question on the left side of the room. >> major nick mcmadden with the army national guard. >> there you go. you a red sox fan? >> no, yankees, sir. [ applause ] >> shut his microphone off. you have got to be kidding me. >> so, sir, my question -- >> the door is right back there, ranger. >> my question, sir, relates to leader development. you mentioned that that's one of the most important components -- >> i didn't hear the question. i completely shut you off.

i completely shut you off. >> roger, sir. >> leader development. no leader development for you. >> sir, in line with that leader development, are we also looking at the program for professional milita military through to the war college and in, co academy? i know that active officers attend resident courses absent significant national guard components. could this also provide cost savings by integrating the l courses to the active component to get cost savings for them and the training we achieve for the officers? >> did you understand the question? i didn't get the accent. did you get the accent? i didn't get the accent. >> sounded like a yankees fan. >> all right. next question?

[ laughter ] >> i'm just kidding you. go ahead. he'll take your question. >> if i understood the gist of the question, as an example, there's a dl component to it and resident component to it. your question is, should we maximize opportunities for integration, and collaboration, perhaps if we had guardsmen perhaps more attending residence and active component experience learning -- >> absolutely, sir. in all of those courses throughout our training. >> so i don't want to speak for general milley, i think there's merit to that in terms of collaboration and integration between the components. as we all know, when you're in training together, in resident education together, you build

bonds and partnerships that last a lifetime in some cases. the same thing could be true through perhaps cost savings and opportunities through dl. you also said something, though, that is something that i wanted to drill into, and that is dl itself, distance education. using captain's career course, this is a reserve component, i think a perspective on this. as we continue to partner with tradoc on what is the content -- excuse me, not the content, but the duration of those courses, captain's career course, if i'm current, right now is an 80-hour dl, distance learning phase, coupled by a two-week resident phase, followed by another 80-hour dl phase. so the net effect there is to complete that critical training