acceptable. >> thank you. >> you're aware that the united states providing refuelling saudi arabia jets, missile support, intelligence, and other assistance, correct? >> i'm aware that we are assisting the saudi arabia to combat terrorist activity, yes. >> the state department proposed another sale of billions of dollars of arms, safety department notice when congress was in recess, little time to act on it, is that correct? >> i'm not aware of that congressional notification, sir.

coverage on c-span at 7:30 p.m. eastern. >> c-span's video app makes it easy to follow the 2016. it is free to download from the apple store. get up to date coverage, pod cast times for our poplar public affairs, books and history programs. stay up to date. lewis and david exhorton live saturday at 8:00 a.m. eastern on american history tv on c-span 3. next, defense secretary ashton carter and former defense secretary william perry on technology and innovation at the pentagon. they also discuss several issues including industry partnerships and cybersecurity efforts held by the hoover institution. this is an hour.

>> hello, everyone. familiar facees. >> good afternoon. my name is tom gilligan. i would like to welcome you to the hoover -- johnson center. welcome, dick, so glad you could join us. also, welcome you and thank you for joining us today. our discussing is titled innovation in u.s. defense policy. secretary of defense perspective. it will take a deep dive look at how the u.s. employed technological advantage in defense of the nation and whether that remains a feasible proposition. what was once the novel use of stealth technology, guided precision weapons, satellite command and control is now challenged by new technology such as autonomous weapons, cyber and advanced

manufacturing. with an accelerating research and development process, will the u.s. be able to continue to rely on technological dominance for its national defense. moreover, what role does the private industry play in this future? the moderator for today's discussion knows both participants well. as the former washington bureau chief of the new york time bill has had front row seats to consequential national security events of the last few decades. in 2008 when bill retired from "new york times," he came to stanford where he is an adjunct professor for center for international security and cooperation. also serves secretary of stanford board of trustees and associate vice president for university affairs. thank you in advance, phil, for what i'm sure will be a fascinating discussion. we're also delighted to have two incredible public servants as our speakers today. honorable william j. perry has been at the front lines of u.s. national security for half a century.

starting his career as analysts writing reports reaching president kennedy during the height of the cuban missile crisis. he hit the pinnacle of government service when he was named 19th u.s. secretary of defense. as secretary perry led efforts to reduce dangers of nuclear weapons in the post soviet era and secure safe transition into post cold war world. awarded him presidential medal of freedom. when he retired from a career in government he took on another service, teaching and research of the at stanford senior fellow with institution and friedman institute for international studies. honorable ashton carter is the 25th and current u.s. secretary of defense. as the chief executive of the department of defense and principle policy adviser to the president, secretary carter is responsible for men and women of

the united states armed forces. similar to dr. perry, secretary carter has devoted much of his professional life to public service and advancing science and technology in the defense of the united states. he's held a variety of positions in the pentagon including deputy secretary of defense, under-secretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, and assistant secretary of defense for international security policy. prior to his current role, secretary carter was annenberg distinguished visiting fellow at the hoover institution. and payne lecturer. together they have spent years in and out of the government focused on how they can promote and maintain peace and stability. when they were in academia, bill at stanford and ash at harvard co-directed defense project, program on how to prevent large-scale threats to security

from emerging, co-authored op-eds reports. they have mutual admiration and respect through friendship. i'm sure you'll see that today. have an opportunity to recognize this long-term friendship and benefits it property to security. give thanks to mike franks and washington team and pentagon staff here, debra gordon, robin perry and lisa perry for making today happen. finally, a quick note before we begin, both participants have in advance chosen not to speak about nuclear party under consideration by the administration and will not be commenting on that subject. further note, we have the secretary for about 30 minutes. his day job calls him elsewhere. thanks for doing that, ash, thanks for fitting us in. we appreciate it. there will be a bit of a change in the middle. if everyone can remain seated we'll carry on with secretary perry /*ry at that point in time. we appreciate it.ry at that poi.

we appreciate it.y at that poin. we appreciate it. at that point. we appreciate it.at that point . we appreciate it. i'll turn it over to you. >> it's no accident these two gentlemen are here to discuss defense technology and innovation as most of you know, bill perry started his life as a mathematician, has a ph.d in mathematics and ash has a ph.d in physics. as i say, when you look back at the history of innovation and defense department, you often find scientists serving in top civilian jobs as the catalyst for that kind of change. so let me just set the stage very briefly because we don't have much time with secretary carter. i would remind you that science and technology and defense are indivisible in american history. if you pick up the story with world war ii. you have geneva bush working as head of science research and development. of course there was the manhattan project during world

war ii, which was staffed by many imminent scientists. then if you come to what i would think of as the first sort of explosive period of technological innovation in the post-war period during the eisenhower administration, you have the development of intercontinental ballistic missiles, the nuclear navy under admiral rickover and the development of reconnaissance satellites. then if you jump ahead, i think that the next big period of technological innovation really began in the carter administration and largely thanks to bill perry and harold brown, who was of course secretary of defense. by the way, also a physicist. in that period we saw the beginning of the developmental efforts that led to the gps system, that led to stealth aircraft and precision munitions.

so the subject for today really is what i think people are now referring to as the third offset. the prior offset, so-called off sets were done to give the united states an advantage in technology where we lacked some of the manpower to face soviet threat and warsaw pact. so here we are today. you have launched a lot of very interesting initiatives and offset. i think we're headed, at least from what i read, to more semiautonomous weapons, maybe fully autonomous weapons systems. you're working with silicon valley. so when you think about what the goals are for what you would like to achieve with this, what would be the top two or three be? >> the goal for me is the same as it was for bill and harold and all of my predecessors,

which is to make sure that we remain the finest fighting force in the world. we're that today for two reasons. i should say one is because we have wonderful people, whole different subject. also one where innovation matters. the other is technology. what we're doing today to try to stay the best, technical substantive terms, as you said, keeping up with the times. you mentioned cyber, you mentioned autonomy. you might have mentioned bio, also, because that's the revolution that will come after information revolution in a sense. we need to be there for that as well. in addition to the technical substance and we're present across the entire waterfront. we always have been and will always need to be.

there's a stylistic change from the time when bill was doing this, and i was working for bill and even before then i wan to come back and tell a story about bill later. but first of all, i always tell people we don't build anything in the pentagon. we buy things, first and foremost. we buy them from private industry. so the key is our relationship with the private technology sector. the alternative was tried by the soviet union. we just do it all in-house. didn't work out very well. it has always been our relationship with private industry that has been the channel through which we got the best technology. now, that has to be different in today's world. that's what i'm trying to adjust to, than it was in the world where i began and where bill was.

in those days the technology of consequence in our world mostly was american. and much of it government sponsored. those two things are still -- were still major players, but those two things are not to be taken for granted anymore. so we have to have a new relationship with the dynamic innovative culture of the united states from the one we had when i started my career. so there's a technological -- there's a change in the technical substance we're trying to achieve but also the central change in style. that's when you see me coming out all the time to the palo alto area and elsewhere around the country trying to connect to the innovative community. it's in recognition of the fact that they, unlike i, young

scientists and engineers, it was part of my dna growing up that you had a responsibility and connection to public life. that's just not -- there's nothing wrong with people, that's just not a reflex anymore. we have to reach out, especially hard, to connect with them and draw them in. >> some of the things you're doing, some may know defense innovation unit experimental, diux. defense department set up these units in silicon valley, boston and austin. you're planning one elsewhere? >> sure. we're going to keep going because there's lots of good technology in the united states. it's a great thing. it is a cyber world and we can all talk to each other over skype and so forth but animal proximity matters. having somebody in the neighborhood who is from us and of us and reaching out and trying to meet people on their physical and really mental territory matters. so i'm grateful to stanford, which was an important part of

helping me set up diux down at ames, then boston which has a somewhat different technological center of gravity. that's good. just last week out in austin, vibrant technological community. people who -- if you talk to somebody who hasn't been part of this, and you give them a chance, these are young people who want to make a difference. they want to have what's up here. just like all people younger hoover scholars. same thing, same as you. they want what's up here to make a contribution. when you tell them they can do that in the field of national security, and that that will be really meaningful, and you'll make it possible for them to do it, enough to join the military, although that would be great if

they did, but we'll find some other way to make it possible for them to go in and out, do it for a time, then go off and do something else, broaden themselves in some other way and recognize kids are different from kids in my day and kids in bill's day. and we have to adapt if we're going to draw them into our mission. >> right. so i think if one is a student of the defense acquisition world, and i spent a fair amount of my time as a journalist writing about it, it's a very slow moving process, quite cumbersome, bureaucratic. what you seem to be trying to do is create an alternative universe in defense acquisition. agile, accelerated, buying things off the shelf, increase, in places like silicon valley and getting involved early on in the development of technologies that you think may have military applications. so this is not such an easy

thing to do on one hand to accomplish that, and on the other hand, don't you face a lot of resistance in those traditional consolidated defense industry about this, in fact in the military services themselves? >> the last part is easy. no. the reason is they are great companies that work for us for a long time. they are in the same situation as high-tech companies that i just described the department of defense it's self being is sels. namely, needing young, good talent. needing to draw people into them to the importance of what they do. so there's compliment every time

i get someone to work on our problems, that's someone who potentially will work for them. in many cases, it's a small company they will buy. and so this becomes a feeder for the traditional defense industry, which, you know, i was secretary of technology and logistics, essentially the job bill had for harold when harold was secretary of defense and he knows it extremely well. it was a different era. in this respect it was the same. there are things that take 10 years. you're going to build a design and build a brand-new ship class, going to take a little time. what you can't afford to do in today's world is make everything take that long, because just look around you. world of technology is changing too fast. you'll fall behind and people won't want to work with you

because they are not going to work with people who fall behind. so it's a double whammy if you can't be agile. so we need to do that and we're -- the wars oddly, war is not a good thing but a spur to agility. you can't stand to not be there on time with something for somebody who isn't just getting ready for some hypothetical fight. they are actually fighting today. and so we learned a lot about agility during that period. i myself learned a lot about it. so our acquisition system believe me on the last one is going to tell you everything is perfect there. but the companies are in the same boat we are. and the same boat basically every major institution, they are trying to get young people, especially young talented up to date people in their environs