to integrate that into an organization that will apply it. we have a rigorous experimentation program, where we get that in the hands of soldiers very early. where there is one called the maneuver and fires experiment at fort sill there is a cyber equivalent we do in new jersey, so i think that getting that equipment in then allows soldiers to see how they would apply it and then it gets feedback to industry and it informs our requirements. for example, we're about to buy and field a unmanned system that is about this big, it fits in a pocket, and has a significant amount of rang so that before you cross the street in an urban area or where a machine gun might be covering, you can send

this soldier borne sensor out and you have a real time downlink from the sensor. now, the tactics for employing there where it could be distributed and then also some of the design changes came from early experimentation. so for example, it wasn't very good in the wind, so i got to fly to fort benefitting a few years ago, it went up and blew back against the wall, that is fixed now. so i think that getting the technology in and seeing how it applies helps. the second thing is to try to simplify things. and you know, there is a great book called "men, machine and modern time." in the book he said that man has succeeded in creating these machines to help tame his natural environment but in doing so has created an artificial environment that is far more complex than the natural environment ever was. so i think can we get to the

point -- we stress getting to the point where we're integrating technology to simply things for soldiers. the iphone, in to wative, easy to use. then of course it's training and education and bringing in you know, the best soldiers we can, the best men and women in our society. i think that there is an untapped desire to serve in our country. and so what i would like to see is more young men and women volunteering to serve increasing the pool of candidates so we can become even more selective and we are pretty selective already who comes into our army and armed forced and i think we have to do a better job of attracting them by communicating the rewards of service which are less tangible and visible than the sacrifices and the difficulties of service. you know, long separations,

hardships, obviously the physical risk, the loss of comrades, and so forth. so -- but those rewards are being part of something bigger than yourself, being part of a team in which the man or woman next to you is willing to give everything, including their own life to you, where else do you have that rewarding experience in an organization that takes on the quality of a family. and then i think that we ought to stress more that our soldiers are warriors but they're also humanitarians, they're humanitarians because we are confronting the enemies of all civilized people with these groups. but the -- they're humanitarians because they're taking action to protect innocence from this kind of brutality. so i think that we can do a better job in attracting more in. there is -- there is a 1958

"look" magazine article, i think it's 1958, and jonathan shy is featured in the article, he is a captain who is leaving, you could have changed the names and the dates and think you are writing about the day, the equipment being more complex. it's not a new challenge, it's certainly a challenge and i think we are emphasizing this across really all of our activities. >> we've got about 15 minutes for questions, so we'll start with the gentleman right here. >> thank you. henry -- to what -- well, the first offset seemed to be a reaction to stalemate in veto ma'am, in korea, the second to

defeat in vet vietnam and the third seems to be whether reaction or not they come in the wake of these conflicts and the third to purgatory in iraq and afghanistan. to what extent are these bureaucratic responses that provide a refuge, a technological refuge that isn't relevant to the sources of our recent failures? >> it's a great question. that's a real danger. so i think that many of us are cognizant of that danger, this could be like some kind of cathartic, that war was really hard, let's go on to a cool war that would be more fun, right, or something that -- a problem that could be solved quickly and so forth. i think we're cognizant of that. we're doing a study on warfare, that is what you expect the army to do pay attention to what you are learning. we're not saying that is what

all warfare will be. we're looking at other hard threat capabilities and ongoing efforts in afghanistan and iraq. crane said it really well, the historian, he said two ways to fight the military, assume metally and stupid. you hope the enemy picks stupid but they're unlikely to do so. we have to be prepared to fight across a range of contingency operations, we've never been able to predict with any degree of certainty what the next conflict is going to be. and we have to do what sir michael howard said, not be so far off the mark we can't adjust once the real demands of the conflict reveal themselves to you. we're trying to adopt quickly to circumstances, learn quickly, develop situations to understanding with these problem sets and i think one of the things we have to really do is

recognize that there are no short term solutions to long term problems. and if we try to take a short term approach to a long term problem we're just guaranteeing that we're going to extend the duration of our effort and probably just increase the scale of it. so we're really emphasizing in the army the consolidation of military gains is an integral part of war and warfare, it's not an option nal part. and so i don't think we're trying to simplify things, it is some sort of effort to get beyond iraq or afghanistan into a much better kind of war. but that is definitely a danger and i think across the force and some of the defense intellectual community there was a tendency toward that. if you go back to the early work, it's multidomain battle, i think we're on the right path now, there was really a tendency to say those wars in afghanistan

and iraq were -- let's get back to what we do best. the response to theoff shore balancing argument in this issue of foreign affairs, it's really good and it's something we all have to probably try to get out there, get that argument out there. to in okay late us against that simplistic thinking. >> sure. in the black leather jacket here. >> thank you. keith hill, i'm here as a private citizen. i would like to approach your answer to not the last question but the question before that from a different direction. i heard the army chief of staff mention the fact that the army is the only branch of the service where more than 50% of its man power comes from the guard and reserves. in addition to the -- well, actually that was done because

general a brams when he was army chief of staff he wanted a situation where, when the army went to war it was going to be america going to war rather than just the army going to war. now, in addition to a lack of knowledge about history, wouldn't you say or would you say that more fundamental problem is this disconnect between the average american and the military? >> well, i think that is a big problem. i think the problem is getting worse because of the size of the army, the army getting smaller and so those touch points being fewer and fewer and fewer families having a direct stake in it because they've got sons or daughters, brothers and sisters in the service. the guard and reserve is a critical bridge between i think our military and our citizens. and i think that the more we can identify -- we can create opportunities, identify opportunities to a broader

population to serve, the better. and i think there are a number of initiatives we could undertake to do that. i think one is you know, an idea. is that we could have multicomponent contracts for recruiters, for example, i think we should do more of those. if you are coming out of high school and you don't want to defer college or a job for a civilian job you want more more than two years, come in for two year active duty enlistment and have a three year or four year national guard commitment on the back end. then you serve back in your home state, there are great incentives associated with the national guard service in sort of tuition relief. there is a lot more we can do. the other thing i think is engaging more broadly in our community. i think that military leaders, our sergeants and our officers in particular, ought to get out in their communities as much as they can and make the post as

accessible as possible. i had the privilege of commanding fort benning, georgia, there is not a better event than a basic training graduation. it's unbelievable. you will laugh, cry, way better than "cats" almost as good as "hamilton." it's amazing. so i think make it more accessible. any ideas you have sir, i'm easy to track down through these guys. any suggestions anybody has on how to connect better, you know, we're all for it. >> in the front. >> kind of a two-part question for you. you've spoken in some of the other army senior leaders have spoken about the fact this is the first time perhaps since world war i the army hasn't had a new combat vehicle under development and you have spoken about the personnel issues.

can you frame for us the broader situation the army finds itself in in a historical context. and then also, how does recent army history sort of the inspector of fcs and other things impact your efforts to develop other future capabilities for the army. is there a concern that budget drives kale abilities development as opposed to strategy. >> okay. great questions. you know, the army -- remember the old book called "massive command" it's about different cultures and services. it's dated now, it was before the all volunteer force. it got the army really right. the army's -- we tend to have a streak in us, i think the marine corps might be the same way. we can make do with what we've got. sometimes that prevents us from making a clear argument of the ka capabilities we need for the future.

that is an example of really a waive of deferred army modern i sags. there are a number of good reports on this, i think the csis report from a couple months ago is particularly good in which the author talks about the triple whammy of modern i sags and capacity. the triple whammy is that the army, size of the army has been severely reduced from 570,000 active -- 1.1 million total force. this is a huge reduction, way below the 482,000 that we had in the active army prior to the wars in afghanistan and iraq. if you remember, the wars in afghanistan and iraq were breaking an army, active arm of 482,000, so we grew the army to 570,000. at the peak of the wars in iraq and afghanistan, we had 170,000 soldiers deployed, 53,000 of

whom were reserve component. so 123,000 active, did eployed. so now when you go down to 450, think about what forces you have to surge forward. guess what, the historical pattern is that after wars your commitment goes up to consolidate the gains. the wars are going on first of all, in pakistan area, in the middle east where you have a brigade in kuwait. and armed forces, kurdish armed forces, turkish, you know, in iraq and then you have rotation nal to korea, one to europe now because of russian aggression. so one is capacity in the army. the second thing is that in

previous periods of draw downs, the army had been modernized. we did a lot of important things to strengthen our forces but those were really niche capabilities for those particular fights that are not really the modernization we need to respond to crises in the future, especially against capable nation states. so there is that wave of deferred modernization and compelled by a very significant reduction in the modernization budget. what do you do. in a democracy you get the army the american people are willing to pay for. so we are working very hard to not do what you said is a danger which is to have the means, the money you have, to determine what you do instead of having the objectives drive it. so the tendency has been okay as the budget gets cut, kucut, you spread less and less money over

more and more programs and you get less and less for the dollar as a result. we're trying to make the case for investment in army capabilities, can you imagine if you went to the navy and you said are you working on any new ships, no we're good, we like the ships we got. so to not be working on a combat vehicle when we see our friends and our potential enemies fielding more advanced capabilities, we're upgrading as you know the bradley and the tank, they're not the same by any means from the 1980s, but you know, they're from the 1980s, you know what i mean. there is only so much you can do. when you look at putting active protection, other network related demands into those vehicles, layering in other protective capabilities, additional armor, new infrared radar, you overburden the vehicle. so i think we've got to again, a

significant waive of deferred army modernization. >> sir? thank you for your time. my name is drake long i'm a student at miami university of ohio. you -- i want to ask a question about military history. to the average person, it might seem to have their strong points in terms of subject matter. for military history civil war, diplomatic world war i. what is a conflict, diplomatic moment or a war that you think not enough is written on and definitely needs to be paid attention to especially with regard to conflicts right now. thank you. >> i would say that the -- just going -- in recent history i would say the iraq war. and joel ray burn is here, he is just drafted a seminal operation

al history of the iraq war. i think what that will be is a tremendous jumping off point for historians to really dig into aspects of that operation al history in greater depth. i think in large measure we've been distracted by iraq by not the wrong question but a question that we've asked and probably answered, which is should we have done it. right i think the right question to ask is who thought it would be easy and why, right. so -- then how did the war -- how did the war progress from that point on. i think the iraq war and then obviously connecting it to what is going on today. i think michael ward even is working on another volume, he's been very good. that is the contemporary -- that will stand the test of time, his cobra and end game books and

this next volume. what other conflicts need to be written more about? gosh, you know, i think there is always you know, as my adviser at university of north carolina said, he said, don't think that there is too much written on a particular topic, right. so because there is always another good book or different approach you can take or access to new materials. i mean, heck, look at what rick atkinson did in world war ii, so what he did is he took historian's approach of doing multiresearch but also uncovering through his journalism background, of papers in attics and got all kinds of new materials. look at rick murray's book on the civil war. that book is brilliant in terms of not new materials but a different an lat tick framework to understand the course of the

war and the war's outcome. so i would say, just do what you are drawn to, what you are interested in and you will find, more than enough material for a good book. >> time for one last question. in the back. >> rick atkinson has written a trilogy on the war which is going to be interesting. >> venture capital things as they relate to this kind of stuff we're talking about here. this kind of piggy backs on the reporter's question up front around the army platforms. i remember the big five. blackhawk, apache, bradley and mlrs. i don't think it's coincidence that we haven't had a big five and candidly, one of the army's biggest acquisitions is buying a

truck. congrats. >> come on now. >> but having been a part of army transformation, and i remember watching how those war games went down. i'm sure you are at least familiar with those. >> i wrote a very, you know, entertaining monograph on that. not really entertaining. pretty dry but called "crack in the foundation." defense transformation. >> the challenge i've noticed, though, is whether we have 450 or 570 or pick your number, we don't really have a unifying threat like we did when we had the -- when we came up with the big five. we knew who we were fighting and that made it easy to say we need a main battle tank with 120 m l millimeter gun and so on and so forth.

going forward, you know, whether you want to talk about how many folks you need or how many platforms you need, the big challenge i've seen is what we used to call future operating environment. maybe a new term of art for it. but who the hell are we fighting? and given your role at army capabilities, how do you orient around that when fighting in blob or fighting a vapor, in this case? >> well i think we have really concrete problem sets now. it's not a problem at all. i think we have an opportunity to really mature our defense planning scenarios based on concrete problems in asia broadly with the revisionist power there. in northeast asia with an unpredictable and armed to the teeth with some old conventional equipment.

what russia has demonstrated already with its capabilities, and i can go through those if you want if we had more time, i could. you know, other scenarios as well. so we have very, i think, well developed scenarios as a basis for our war gaming and experimentation. and what those war games and experimentation is aloug us to do is establish a very clean logic trail between the future operating environment, the problem of armed conflict. scenarios associated with it, how the army has to fight as part of the joint multinational team to protect the nation against those threats, enemies and adversaries in that operating environment. the capabilities required of that force. then through our learning, identification of the capability gaps and opportunities to maintain overmatch, integrated solutions which are doctrine, organization, material, solutions, all integrated and specific requirements. so what is like an equivalent of the big five today?

well, these are really capability areas that we think are immensely important for the future fight. i mentioned combat vehicles. all the trends we see in future war are making close combat more, not less likely. in fact, long-range capabilities are those that are in jeopardy. satellite-based communications. precision navigation and timing. the whole network strike capability is -- we're going to work out countermeasures but the enemy has ways to counter that now. potential enemies do. they've focused on it. so what are the trends that we see that are -- that we have to cope with? all domains will be contested. in the '90s, everything was dominance this and that. full spectrum dominance. and it was never going to happen anyway but i think now everybody is convinced all domains will be contested. we will not have air or maritime or cyber elect romagnetic

supremacy. that will probably be temporary windows of superiority across those domains. the battlefield is increasingly lethal in terms of range of weapons systems and energetics and democratization of destruction with even networks, smaller forces having greater destructive capability and powers. the third is complex battlefields. the need to fight in and among populations, likely in urban areas as well. and the fourth is that all operations will be degraded. so we can't develop exquisite systems that fail catastrophically. redundancy and systems that degrade gracefully. so what does that mean for us in terms of capabilities? i mentioned combat vehicles. combat vehicles is tied to a larger problem set of advanced protection. that means area protection and also protection on specific combat vehicles and aircraft. the so-called russian snow dome

capability. russia has established air supremacy over ukraine from the grand. we need tiered defense capabilities, electronic warfare capabilities that allow us to protect our forces and so forth. the third area of emphasis for us is robotic autonomy enabled systems which can do really five big things for us. if you google the robotic and autonomous system strategy, we have a strategy out on that, and i think a pretty good way ahead on that. and the fourth area is cross-domain fires. this is the ability for army forces to be able to project power outward from land into the maritime, aerospace and cyberelect romagnetic domains. we're already developing capabilities now that have tremendous promise using even existing systems that will give us the ability to sink ships. if you have a fires unit, it can do surface to surfarks surface

to air or shore to ship. other critical capabilities involve future vertical left which i think a very good program going now that will give us a lot more speed, payload and legs so we can self-deploy. and you can bypass so-call a2a2 bubbles and deploy forces into areas they can maneuver from offset objective areas. and all of this is underpinned by shoulder performance and overmatch. close combat is getting more and more effective. a traumatic op ed by joe scales who i loved yesterday in "the wall street journal" said we need to invest more. i agree with him in close combat capabilities. but we're doing quite a bit there. soldier-borne sensor. also a flying munition. it's extremely effective. also developing shoulder-fifrd capability. we've developed the first shoulder fired weapon that has a

ballistic solution. integrated thermal site, laser range finder and ends firefights. if anyone has read "the outpost" by jake taerp, if you haven't read it i recommend it. we don't want to put our soldiers in that kind of situation where a taliban platoon with a sachk rpgs can pin down u.s. infantry units. we're developing those units and getting them into the field pretty quickly. so i don't think there's a lack of clarity at all. and we are drafting now future force development strategy that would help us communicate this outside the army better. but if you go to the army capabilities website, our website, you see this is what we put out as the big six plus one capabilities that are tied in that logic trail all the way back to how we have to fight in the future and the future operating environment. >> h.r., it's been a tremendous pleasure listening to you.

thanks so much for coming and spending some of your very busy day with us. if everyone could join me in a round of applause. thank you. [ applause ] and on that happy note, i again thank you mark, thank you general mcmaster and all of you for joining us today and wish you all the best for the rest of the year and a happy 2017. thanks for coming to the forum. ♪

this weekend on "american history tv" on c-span3, saturday evening just before 7:00 eastern, providence college history professor patrick green, an author of "the land shall be debhujjed in blood" examines the life of nat turner, the slave rebellion he led. >> the clash between the slave and the -- embodied the dramatic differences that existed in the black community as some, including artists, decided to support the revolt while others el