shia, but it is shia sunni. and how that gets, gets put together by the government in iraq i think will be, will be very important thing for us to watch. so we are concerned about that. i think others in the region are concerned about that. but, i think we're going to have to work with our government of iraq partners in trying to shape that a little bit. >> very last question here. >> on with the hill. president-elect trump has said he would ask his generals for a plan to defeat isis within his first 30 days. that has planning begun and what might be done differently that's not already being done and where we might be in the fight when he does take office? thank you. >> again, president-elect has to be inaugurated. and then he becomes the president, then he'll give direction and we will do what he tells us to do. that's what we do. again, i would just tell you,

nothing's on cruise control with anything that we do in central command and really across the department of defense. we're always looking to ways that we can move forward, we can do things better. we can be more effective against our enemies so, you know, know -- we read the papers. i'm thinking about things and how we might do this as well, there's a lot of thought that's gone into this. we'll be prepared to do that. i don't to want get out in front of the administration. i want them to come look at the situation and give us the strategic direction we need and we will as military professionals provide them the best military advice on how we get there with that. >> well, please join me -- >> i can exercise my prerogative? >> absolute i hadly. >> and ask that we go to this point -- >> if you have time, absolutely. >> i'd be happy top take a question or two because you guys -- >> that's a great way -- these two gentlemen, almost next to each other and maybe take them together and give you one

last -- thank you. >> thank you for having us. i'm jack donohue from the alexander hamilton society. my question is about russia. roour's drawn a clear line in the sand in syria. putin has invested blood and treasure, and saying that he's not going to let the regime fall. he made that clear by directly attacked rebel groups that the united states has backed. so at that point, what can we really expect to accomplish in terms of supporting rebels that are attacking the regime without leading to a larger scale conflict with russia? and in a border scale, do you see russia's momentum gaining in this region? given that after crimea, after ukraine, and now their success in syria, and given trump's kind of statements that he's going to be kind of drawing back. do you see russia kind of expanding in this area or in other areas? >> thank you. >> okay, let me just beg off on your comment about the administration here. i don't think that's appropriate for me to comment on that, but let me just say this.

yeah, i think we are concerned about what russia is doing. it's always been a little bit of a mystery for me exactly what they are trying to accomplish here. i take your note on the fact that they, you know, inadvertently struck one of our -- the groups here, the ones that we control and we certainly have addressed that with them. so, you know, i think, i think this will be something we'll have to pay attention to. and again, this is very complicated. in terms hoff how we address this. i mean, the activities that russia has supported on behalf of the regime are horrendous. the atrocities that are being perpetrated against the people of aleppo i think should concern all of us. and it's certainly something that has to be taken into consideration. as we look to address that relationship. and, again, as we talked about earlier, i'm hopeful that we

will be able to maintain relationship with some of the opposition groups in a we've been able to support. >> one more from my blind side. so please, and then we'll finish with that. >> thank you. my name is drake long, i'm from miami university of ohio also with hamilton society. i'd like to ask you, you mentioned transregional system. with operation you've raised a shield, turkey entered the syrian civil war. where's the u.s. military? what do we know about the military's goals, the turkish military's goals and their capabilities especially since this is unprecedented. how are we incorporating their actions for solving the syrian conflict. >> thanks, thanks for bringing that up. let me just start off by saying turkey of course is a nato ally to us. they're an extraordinary important partner in the coalition. we simply could not do the things that we are doing, particularly in syria today with the support we get from turkey on a day-to-day basis. basing with access with overflight, with the support

that they provide to us. know, like others in the region, turkey has interest. and turkey has concerned. and it's important i think for us to recognize this. they're certainly very concerned about the islamic state, but it is i think fairly well established they're very concerned about organizations like the pkk. and what that might pretend for long-term security instability for them. so, and i think you see some of that taking place in the operations. the operations, they did along their border, i think were very helpful to us. they took care of an enclave that existed. they did tesktively and with the coalition support and did it working with opposition elements. so this is, this is a nato country. their capabilities are well developed. they have been far while. it's a country where we've had a long military relationship with. and we hope to continue to have that in the future. i think it's important to

recognize what their other concerns and interests are and again, it just highlights the come presentationty of what we're dealing with right here. you know, as we enter more and more into the heart of the caliphate, raqqa, mosul, all these things up here. we should expect, this is not unexpected, and we've expected we're going to have these challenges and we have to do this. and it's a combination of diplomatic discussions and military discussions back and forth to make sure that we are trying to operate as much as we can in coordination with each other. towards common goals. at this point, towards defeating the islamic state. with a recognition there are other things to be addressed here in the long run. you know, that's a long way of saying this is an extraordinary complex requirement. turkey has interest, they are great partners we couldn't do what we do without them. and by the way, they're a nato ally. and that means a lot to us.

and we can never forget that. >> thank you, general. please join me in thanking him. tonight on the communicators sflp and if we had to strike two regulations to do so, which can be done. we have a lot of regulations that can go. and we'd have a much more effective and efficient agency and more opportunity for providers to serve consumers. >> michael o'reilly, fcc commissioner, talks about how the fcc may change under the trump administration. he's interviewed by david calp. >> there's a lot of concern about cyber security right now and there has been far while. getting a particular amount of attention right now with what happened in the last few months during the campaign. does the fcc have a role in that? and what is it? >> so i think it's a very important issue.

and one that the congress has been very aggressive on in trying to find the right solutions. i think other -- rather agencies are as well doing so. the f drrks c's role is rather limited by statute that governs us after 1934, and while i do believe the government has a role to monetary and potentially provide additional fixes in this space, they aren't authorized by the law for us to do. >> watch the communicators tonight at 8:00 eastern. on c-span 2. and finishing up with the defense and national security conference as lieutenant director of the u.s. army capabilities integration center talks now about properly integrating new defense technologies and using military history to help create national security strategies.

if i could ask you to move towards your seats for the final time this afternoon. it's always a pleasure to reach the culminating discussion of the day. wonderful conversation between mcmaster and our fellow and the director of our center on military and diplomatic history, mark moyer. before we get started and you will forgive me taking the moment, i want to use a quick opportunity to say thank you to a few members of the fbi team before we wrap up and when folks head toward the exists, but in particular, elaine stern, lindsey mark kel, government

relations team at the fbi, very little would happen if it were not for them and daniel bar row, our operations director. the three of them in particular have done much of the great work that is made today happen. i'm very grateful to the three of them and very grateful to mark for everything that he has done standing up, cmdh, since july of this year, it's a new effort. mark arrived at fbi in the summer of 2015. after he came to us from joint special operations university. prior to that, he had been in the structure at marine corps university, the frequency with which he is publishing books is really quite stunning. he has a forthcoming history of special operations forces coming out next year. and at the end of the 2018, he will have a sequel to his very well known and truly excellent book, "triumph forsake even, the vietnam war, 1964 to 196 a ".

all of us are fortunate and we look forward to the conversation he will be having to do with general mcmaster. thank you. [ applause ] >> thanks to you for all your hard work that's gone into this event. i'm dr. mark moyer, the director the our newly formed center for military and diplomatic history and we've heard a bit today about some of the reasons why we actually need a center like this. there is problems on both the supply side and the demand side. the supply side, military and diplomatic history are really out of fashion at civilian universities, which is why you have someone like a ben sass or a lot of other ph.d. historians here who are not teaching at universities where they would, under normal circumstances be teaching. on the demand side there is i think a deficit of knowledge about history here in the policy

world and also to some extent a lack of interest. so we're trying to readdress both of those problems. now, social scientists, will often tell you historians don't know how to do anything except tell stories which is about as silly thing, fidel castro doesn't do anything except provide health to the needy. the -- but i am going to start with a story because it is a very ee eke five way of getting people's attention, after a day of being bombarded with speeches and us being the last place, i thought it would hopefully help us provide a point of departure. eight years ago in the same town there was a lot of talk about a new idea called smart power, if you remember that. and one of the key elements of smart power was using non

military means to alleviate conflict and it was said that under the bush administration there had been this alliance on the military instrument of power, so we are going to now use the non military instruments of power because these problems have root causes that are non military in nature, things like human rights violation, poverty, and so we're going to have those whole of government approaches where we have the civilian agencies taking on more of the work and the military is going to be doing less. and in theory, it sounded pretty appealing in a number of respect ds. we then saw this put into practice in a number of places, i will talk about one example. afghanistan. so the obama administration decided to increase the development aid in afghanistan from 1.2 to $4.1 billion. they undertook a civilian surge, which went about 500 civilians in afghanistan to 1,300

civilians, and they set about trying to actually implement this sort of smart power approach in afghanistan. unfortunately the results did not live up to the billing. some of you here, i think saw this firsthand, but for one thing we saw the state department, u.s. aid could not get their experienced people to go to these countries so they had to bring in contractors and temporary employees. and the vast majority of those people never actually got out into the country side because it was dangerous there and civilian unions didn't feel they were obliged to go there. we then did not have over sight of where the huge amount of cash was going and they often ended up in the hands of the enemy or corrupt officials so the eu ex as -- if you wanted to do aid projects, the taliban was there and they were going to kill your

aid workers and governors, there was counterinsurgency gains but it didn't have to do with smart power and everything to do with military power because it was basically where the u.s. military went into those areas, brought the afghan government officials with them. i would argue that this huge waste of resources could have been avoided if we had actually paid some attention to history. if the obama administration had looked back, they didn't have to look back far, you could go to the clinton administration to find the same ideas. if you think columbia in the 1990s, we heard a lot of the same ideas, we were going to use non military power, we are not going to give money to columbia's military, to law enforcement we were going to do crop substitution programs, but what happened, same things that happened in afghanistan. too insecure to go into these areas, people getting killed and

ultimately it wasn't until the governments in both countries decided to put a heavy emphasis on the security side that you actually made progress. i think this is just one example where there is some pretty clear indications from history that a different policy should be reviewed. now, history is oftentimes not so straightforward. what we often see is a situation where there are multiple precedents you could look for. classic case would be iraq in 2003. after we took down hugh sane, we focused heavily on nazi germ knee. and i would argue in hindsight we actually probably should have looked at other cases, why not look at japan in 1945 or say the reconstruction, the american south after the civil war. we actually could have learned a lot from there.

history does not -- is not going to necessarily fall into your lap. it requires a lot of serious thought. i would add we can't just ignore it even though it's difficult because the times we've tried to do foreign policy without any history at all has led to disaster because it's based on unfounded assumptions. we do need to be aware that history is going to be used and so the question is how do we use it effectively. history i think is also important because it gives us familiarization, it gives us context so that if you are confronting a counternarcotic situation, it would be useful if you had spent time studying five or ten actual historical cases, when you go to the next one, you will at least know what questions are going to be asked, you can have an idea of what solutions might actually work. now, our center is doing a variety of events to try to

bring historians from around the country here to interact with the policy community and we're doing a number of venues, some public events this being the largest we've done so far. some that are specifically targeted private government audiences so we're going to the pentagon, capitol hill, foggy bottom, places like that. we don't expect that we're going to fundamentally change u.s. foreign policy doing this, but we do think there is a lot of value to getting historians and the best historians to talk to people who are making decisions today and we think also that by beating the drum on history, that we will get people in the national security community to spend more time looking at history, to think historically, you don't have to have a ph.d. in history to think historically. we are fortunate today to have somebody who i think is perhaps the best possible person to convey this message.

sitting next to me, lieutenant j.r. mcmaster, he has a ph.d. in history and is at the same time incredibly distinguished practitioner. he came to public attention during the gulf war in 1991, when he commanded an armored cal vary copy at the battle of '73 easting, where he routed a much larger iraqi tank force and this became textbook study in new forms of armored warfare. 1997 he pushed a book that was based on his ph.d. dissertation called "der reliks of duty." 2004 he was the commander of u.s. forces in iraq where he was able to achieve success against

insurgents at a time where very few americans were actually succeeded in that regard. he spent time in afghanistan, 2010, took charge of the international coalition, anti-corruption task force and he's now at the army capabilities integration center where he is in charge of planning army capabilities for future conflict as we go forward. he's done a lot of other great things, in the interest of time i'll leave it at that summary. i would like to introduce, turn it over to lieutenant general mcmaster. >> what a privilege it is to be with all of you. how many history majors are here? i want to know -- there is still some people to convert maybe. i thought maybe it was just going to be an audience of fellow historians, all of whom are talking about how underappreciated we are, you know. but i think this is such a great idea. i mean, the idea of a center for military and diplomatic history, for all the reasons that mark

identified, so what i thought i might do is talk about how i think the center can really help us, make us better, better at defending our nation in particular, better at anticipating, the demands of national security and then crafting a national security strategy to address really threats that we see or that are growing. threats that are growing to our nation, and i think all civilized people's today. so i will try to be super brief here. what i would really like to do is see where you want to take the discussion and hear your ideas and thoughts as well. but this is important, right. this is an important center, and from our perspective in the army, in the joint force in our military, because thinking clearly about diplomacy and security is fundamental, not only to protecting our vital interests and conflict, but also ensuring that our military is prepared, prepared to respond to threats to national and international security.

and to be able to, as mark alluded to already, to resolve crises at the lowest possible cost. in lives and blood and treasure. thinking about future war is often neglected. or it's just done superficially. remember the orthodoxy of the revolution in military affairs in the 1990s, a lot of you are probably too young for that. in the 1990s, it became conventional wisdom, future war was going to be great, cheap, efficient. wage war like the george -- leave on a high note after doing really cool military stuff. so it didn't acknowledge wars enduring political nature. the fact that people fight for the same reasons, 2500 years ago, fear, hon are and interest. it didn't acknowledge wars interactive nature, zlfr the interrent uncertainty of war. remember the language dominant

battle space knowledge, you could find it on the internet, it has its own wikipedia page. shock and awe, read the four conditions we were going to be able to achieve in future war. one was total control of everything. and so it didn't even acknowledge any kind of agency or control over the future course of events by one's enemies or adversaries. our ability to prevail, strategically and at peace in war in particular depends on as you heard from the senator, knowing who we are, right. and knowing our values. so some particularly in ack dame i can't don't want to study war, in part because they confuse the study of war with advocacy of it. what we ought to do is think about, i was thinking about war and conflict the way that raymond bradbury thought about

it. when he finished writing this novel, he was interviewed and the interviewer said to him, are you trying to predict the future? he said, no, i'm trying to prevent it. so unless we can think clearly about future war, we'll be unable to deter conflict. but others neglect, as i mentioned, continuity in the nature of war and focus almost exclusively on social or tech any logical -- it's the neglect of diplomatic and military history that per petiates deficiencies and understanding which in turn then can make war more likely. so what is lacking sorely today i believe, is depth of understanding. we achieve new heights of superficial, in our discussion of what is going on in the world and what we might do about it. in recent years many of the difficulties encountered in

strategy i can -- have stemmed from shallow or thawed thinking, enabled by the abject neglect of history. i hope this center will help policymakers and civilian and military leaders overcome the tyranny of the daily crisis, when you are thinking about and reading history you are freeing your mind from the day to day chores and engaging a subject more deeply. but i also think it will help serve as a corrective to wishful thinking that makes the future appear much easier, and fundamentally different from the past. so what the center will help us do is to go beyond what we should think about particular issues, but i think with a huge contribution is going to be helping us understand better how

to think. and so what can the center do in particular in terms of how to think about problems. and i think that first of all, to -- it will help us understand better how to do what was suggested we do. take what seems fused, big problems and then break them down into their constituent elements, to engage problems we're dealing with now, right. dice for isis or terrorists and engage it on its own terms and recognize the complexity of these problem sets. also just how to ask the right questions. asking first order questions, sometimes we got to skip that stage, you know. let's do bombing, this or that, right we confuse activity with progress, because we don't properly frame the problem. what is the nature or character of this conflict. what is driving the conflict. who are our enemies and add very

rares, what is their strategy. i mean, sometimes we skip right in, what is the enemy organization, how are they disposed and how do we go after them, for example. how to understand events and circumstances on their own terms, how to trace events. how to apply inner disciplinary approach that includes an throw apology, literature, fillis fee and science. and then as mark mentioned how to think in time, consistent with the historian carl becker's observation, that the memory of the past and anticipation of the future should go hand in hand in a friendly way. without disputing over priority and leadership. so whenever somebody taubz to you about the deep future or leap ahead capabilities run for

the exits. something crazy is coming right after that. you know. and i think what we really need is a grounded projections into the near future, a focus on solving real problems, addressing real threats. real add ser varryes in real geo graphic areas. we learn the military countries that are prepared to either prevent or respond to crisis are those who think clearly about the problem in future war in that grounded war. who think about it as the ancient greeks said, think about ourself as walking backward into it, paying attention to what is going on today and what has gone on in the past as a way to think about the future. so without the depth of understanding that history provides, the center will help provide, we'll remain vulnerable to what we have to always quote whenever we can, the 19th century philosopher of war warned against, the tendency to regard war as something autonomous rather than an instrument of policy.

misunderstanding the kind of war in which we're embarking and turn it into something that is alien to war's very nature. in short, this center, and the history that the center promotes is important because i think it can provide a strong anecdote to future folly. so this is why historians have to make a special effort. i think be unabashed about connecting historical knowledge and understanding to contemporary strategy i can and operational problems. we have to be humble about that. historians should be particularly humble about that and qualify analogies, we must help think about concrete contemporary or emerging problems. so applying history to understanding the problems of today and tomorrow is just as important for citizens, though, as it is for diplomats and

offense officials x i'm glad this is a public forum, i think that the center reaching out to our citizens is going to be particularly important because citizens have to possess a fundamental understanding of war, and of warriors if they're to remain connected to those who fight in their name and if they're to hold our governments, our governments accountable for decisions involving killing and the prospect of death. and if society is disconnected from an understanding of war or is disconnected from that society's warriors, it will become increasingly difficult to maintain just the fundamental requirements of military effectiveness. or to recruit young men and women into military service. so the connection between our military and our society is something that we might focus on as well. as necessary to preserve the -- that permits service men and woman that see themselves as part of a community, and a

covenant that biends them to one another and binds them to the society that they serve. absent a fundamental understanding of war and what it takes to fight it, popular culture cheapens. it further separates warriors, often portrayed as flawed, fragile or traumatized human beings from their fellow citizens. the historian and the sensitivity to the limits of reasoning by historical analogy are important to preserve. historians must engage on contemporary issues. so this conference, the work of this center is important because unless we access history in a purposeful way, it's lessons will, as the great historian becker warned, lay inert in unread books. i'm looking forward to see where you would like to take the conversation, what a privilege it is to be with you.

thanks. >> well, thank you, h.r. for those terrific remarks, a few more points to my mind. you talked about taking a time to free your mind. that is kind of one of the things we're trying to do is just get in with a senior person, actually sort of a role model for our project is one of our board members, i met him in 2007, he was working on iraq and they had an idea that they were thinking of and it was in relation to what was going on in vietnam, they brought me into the pentagon to talk to him and other senior officials and i think it had some value to them and obviously i count give them all the answers, that was of value and it's easy to get caught up in the crisis of the day that it's valuable that way. you talked about complexity, i think that is one of the advantages of history and

historians, i think the social sciences in many respects and not all of them, but many of them, oversimplify things, especially when they try to quantify things or come up with grand theories and history makes you understand how complex things are that things are non linear, that you actually need to spend a lot of time studying something before you can really understand it. you also raise the point about inner disciplinary work and we do actually support things that are beyond pure history. i have actually written a couple books that are sort of in the political science realms. you are taking a subject, how -- you maybe take five different administration, look at their history for trends in certain areas. speaking of disciplinary, another thing came to mind, recently read a book "super forecasting." it's a pretty interesting book.

the book looks at forecasting and -- it grew out of an earlier

work that found that experts you see on tv don't really predict anythings any better than anyone else, they just say things better. you talked a little about future, maybe if you could talk a little more how your historical sense or historical knowledge makes you think about future, because you obviously in your position can't say we don't know anything. how do you think through that? >> thank you. so i think the first way that we think through it is we acknowledge the continuity in the nature of war, these are the continuities that make war that howard observed. wars resemble each other more than they resemble any other human activity. so if you acknowledge what makes war different, which is its for political outcomes, political nature, the human drivers of conflict, the interactive nature of war, it's a contest of wills for example, it helps you resist simplistic analogies like some of those in the 1990s. some had to do with law and computing power equals fundamental change in war, for example.

so it helps you understand continuities. of course the character of war is always evolving and changing. so what we do is we really look at four key elements. we look through this four considerations as we look to future armed conflict. the first is threats, enemies and adversaries in the operating environment. to make a ground pd -- to see threats to national security. we don't have to be super imaginative these days, unfortunately, so we're concerned obviously with the two powers on the land mass, russia and china, who are engaged in, you might say a form midtive war for collapsing the post world war ii order and replace it with one more sympathetic to their interests. they are pursuing a very

sophisticated strategy that combines the use of unconventional force under the cover of conventional sources and involves a -- economic actions and political subversion and so forth. so this is one threat set to look at. both of those militaries are modernizing their militaries and russia has been -- so we're watching that very carefully, we're looking at russian capabilities and emerging capabilities to see what our gaps are and understand better what our strengths are relative to them so we can preserve and accentuate those strengths. the threats -- i think we obviously look closely at north korea. it's difficult to overstate the threat from north korea. iran, whob waging a proxy war against us since 1979 and then terrorist protostate in the

middle east is representative of terrorist organizations striving to take control of resources, as we look at these, but also recognize that these problems are completely disconnected from each other. they'll continuously calculate their actions and pay attention to where they might see opportunities associated with the effect that others are having on us and our interests. but what is common across all of these conflicts that we see and potential conflicts is their about population and resources. we see common across these are potential enemies take four kind of, they do four things, that are common. first thing is they try to evade what they see as our strengths. we have to understand our enemies are not going to be the passive recipients of our military pro wes, they'll engage

in counteractions traditional simple ones, they'll disrupt our capabilities, come after what they see as our network capability with sophisticated cyber and warfare kale built, concerned about our air power, russia's established air supremacy over ukraine from the ground. so these are the kind of things common across different adversaries and enemies. the third is they will especially euiate. china engaged in intellectual threat in history. the most transfer able to our enemies, and finally expand on the other battlegrounds, propaganda, district information, political subversion, criminality and so forth. what we have to do to sure our interest. the third is technology, changes

in technology, also understanding from a historical measure there is countermeasures, sub marine, radar, machine gun tank, tank missile, understanding that interaction within technology, enemy technology, our technology to gain advantage. and finally the fourth lens we look at. we can learn so much obviously from what is going on today in conflicts we are still involved in. i was -- you hear this, what is it like to be in this post war period, man, what post war period you talking about. so we're learning a lot from -- french operations in -- or israeli combat operations in gaz i can't or lebanon in 2006, so learning from what is going on that we see around the world today is important. ukraine obviously is -- and russian operations in syria, things we're paying particular attention to.

that is how we -- that's the framework we think through. what we try to do is lay a strong conceptual foundation based on that thinking for mod rnization. based on that understanding, then we describe how army forces in the future will have to be prepared to fight or fight how they would fight to secure our nation and our vital interest as part of the joint force with multinational partners, with civilian agencies and others. so that is the description of how we have to fight in the future. that is in highly readable army concept. in time to take to the ski slopes with you. there is a whole family of consents soc waited with that foundation and the latest is something called multidomain battle. based on that conceptual foundation we have to identify what are the required capabilities and then we learn through seminars, experimentation, war gaming and we learn through a framework

called the war fighting challenges, these are 21st order questions, the answers to which will inform future force development. so it is an effort to learn in a focused, sustained and collaborative manner, not to learn, you know, repetitively or eped soically. in the army we get enthusiastic about things, what about robots man, if it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing in the army. so the problem is then we'll forget about that and go on to something else. like kids soccer, right. so counterusa. the key is we have to learn under this framework on a -- in a sustained manner and then we have to analyze what we're learning effectively and bridge an implementation. i think there's a role for history in each of these phases, right, so what do we read, well, we're reading history to understand better contemporary

conflicts and the threats. you know, we're reading the history of technology and interactions between technology and organizations and doctrine and so forth. so we have some work that is seminal in this area, the book that dealt with mcgrog other nox and -- lot of great literature on technology. a lot of literature on militaries that did innovate and learn effectively and those that didn't. there is work on comparing the french and ger mans. i could go on and on. the history of how we got weapon systems, the king of the killing fields. so we -- everything we do, we have wane lee from the university of north carolina coming to our organization tomorrow, to talk about history and history of the waging war

and how to think about changes in the character of warfare, so just a quick, it's not a quick synopsis. >> i will ask one more question then we'll open up to the audience. one of the first historians we had two months ago was brian lynn, he has a new book out "elvis army," in the book he looks at the army in the '50s and makes the point that a lot of the transformation that we hear now in the -- are actually similar to what was being said in the 1950s and they ran into a problem ultimately that tech nomgy they wanted to introduce surpassed the capabilities of the military because you did not have sufficiently educated work force within the military. there is certainly lots of talk these days about personnel

especially trying to find innovative personnel. where would you say the army is right now in terms of human resources and what further steps would you advice the army to make? >> so this is a big area of focus for us. and we say in the army operating concept, in appendix c, it's awesome, wait until you get to that. you will be like what is going to happen next, right. so we say our differential advantage comes from combinations of resilient well trained sold dwrerz and cohesive teams and adoptive leaders with technology. that's our differential advantages, we're at pages every day to say we don't man equipment, we equip the man or woman. so the key thing for us is from the beginning to be sure we're cognizant of how that technology actually applies to the problem of war and warfare, i think the

warfare challenges help us do that and we also understand how 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 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, deployed. 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, cut, 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. sir 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 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 allowing 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 electromagnetic 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 cyberelectromagnetic 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 surface, 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-fired 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 tapper, 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 sack of 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. ♪

tonight on american history tv. heros from vietnam, and iraq. featuring silver star recipients and military women. it all starts at 8:00 p.m. eastern. this week on c-span, tonight we'll have coverage of accounting in illinois, at 8:00 p.m. eastern. tuesday night at 8:00, jerry greenfield talks about creative and responsible business

practices. the idea that i couldn't sell enough ice cream in the summer to stay in business that forced us to look for other markets. >> i think we have unfortunately over the course of the last many years. done serious damage to our capabilities to be able to meet those threats. >> wie living in that period. there are a lot of flash points, and administration is going to have to look at that kind of world. and obviously to find policy that we need in order to deal with that, but then develop the defense policy to confront that kind of work. >> thursday, at 8:00 p.m. eastern. look at the career of president-elect-elect mike pence. >> and amidst the sands of culture of law, we stand without

apology for the sanctity of life. the importance of marriage and the freedom of religion. >> on friday night, beginning at 8:00, farewell speeches and attributes to several outgoing senators including harry reid, barbara boxer, kelly ayotte, and dan coates. this week in prime time, on c-span. >> sunday, january 1st, in depth will feature a live discussion on the presidency of barack obama. or taking your phone calls, tweets, e-mails, and facebook questions during the program. our panel includes april ryan, white house correspondent for american urban radio networks and author of the presidency in black and white. my up close view of three presidents and race in america. princeton university professor eddie author of democracy and black how race enslaves the american soul. and pulzer prize winner journalist, david marinus obama

the story. watch in depth on sunday on book tv on crashesspan 2.

good morning this hearing of the senate homeland security committee is called to order. i want to welcome the witnesses. i certainly thank you for your testimony and your time here today. the chief and the deputy chief of the u.s. border patrol. definitely interested in what you have to say. i decided to hold this hearing, actually before the election, as we were monitoring the renewed crisis. i don't think the crisis ever went away, but certainly, we haven't been seeing the publicity about the unaccompanied children coming in

from central america, which is pretty much at 2014 levels. it's just not being publicized. but you, of course, are having to deal with it. so, i think we want to kind of really highlight that. and you know, based on the election, i'm also encouraged by the fact that i think we'll have an incoming administration that will definitely be dedicated and committed to securing the border, which we must do. so, i want to get your initial observations of where you think we are at in terms of border security and some initial thoughts on what we need to do to actually secure the border and honor that commitment. i don't want to take a whole lot of time. we do have a couple charts here just laying out the problem. the first is just a chart history from 2009 through last fiscal year of the number of unaccompanied children that have come in from honduras, guatemala and el salvador. and you can see that, you know, prior to deferred action on childhood admissions, we were at pretty low levels, somewhere around the 3,000 to 4,000 unaccompanied children level. 2012, we went to 10,000. deferred action on childhood admissions was implemented. all of a sudden, we hopped to 15,000 and backed down a bit in 2015, but we're up to almost 50,000 in 2016.

and the starting months here in 2017 do not look encouraging either. so, it's a real problem, but it's not the only problem, because our second chart shows in addition to the incentives that we create in our law for unaccompanied children coming from central america, now we see family units coming in as well. and those numbers of people coming in as family units actually exceeds the unaccompanied children. and my concern is we're not publicizing it because the border patrol has been so humane and so effective at apprehending, processing and dispersing. so, we've dispersed well over 120,000 unaccompanied children to all points in the u.s. we've actually got a chart here for members to see where the 120,000 -- it's really about 130,000 -- unaccompanied children have been dispersed around the country.

i've got members' states yellowed so you can see how many unaccompanied children have been relocated into your states. that's kind of the information we've got. i do ask unanimous consent to my written statement be entered into the record. i do want to take this moment to certainly thank senator ayotte for her dedicated service on this committee. i think i speak for all the committee members when i say we'll definitely miss you had and your participation here on this committee in the senate, and we certainly wish you well in the next chapter of your life, in your next career. so, thank you for your service. and with that, i'd like to turn it over to ranking member senator carper. >> if i could just follow up. i was fortunate this morning to run into senator ayotte and a kounl of our colleagues in the senate dining room with ali majorca, who just stepped down as deputy of homeland security. and i'm reminded just on the heels of what our chairman has said about kelly. right after world war ii, the brits won with a lot of help

from us, and winston churchhill, you'll recall, was prime minister of the country and carried them on his back through the war. and six months later, he lost re-election. he was not re-elected. and the one reporter said to him at the time, he said, for you, mr. churchill, is this the end? is this the end? he replied famously "this is not the end. this is not the beginning of the end. this is the end of the beginning." and it has been a joy to serve with you. and thank you for your service. it's been great having you on this committee and for you, my friend, this is the end of the beginning, all right? i want to thank you, mr. chairman, for bringing this together, and i look forward. we're grateful for your service and many times have been down to

the border, sometimes with those guys, sometimes with others on the committee, and i look forward to being back there and maybe with you in the not-too-distant future. it's always been an important issue for this committee, it's an important issue to me. it's commanded particular attention during time i've been privileged to be the chairman and ranking member and just a member of this committee. i think everybody, certainly in this room, i think most people in this country, want stronger borders. if we don't have strong borders, we've got a real problem. you know, we all want to keep terrorists out of this country. but we also need to remain clear-eyed by some of the other real risks and real solutions, real solutions. and i always like to focus on the real solutions, the root causes and how to address those root causes. unfortunately, during the campaign season, which thankfully is over, but immigrants and refugees were unfairly attacked as a grave threat to our country in many cases where they're not. we've heard about walls and deportations and not enough about underlying the real problems of immigration we face.

as a result, too many immigrants who come to the u.s. from all corners of the globe are anxious that they will no longer be able to care for their families, contribute to our great country. this includes the dreamers, who were brought here as children, who are now being pulled from jobs, pulled from their schools and deported to countries they may not even remember. i just don't think we strengthen our country by ignoring the contributions of immigrants or turning our backs on refugees. helping vulnerable people is part of our moral fabric as a country. scripture teaches us that we have a moral obligation to the least of these in our society. when i was a stranger in your land, did you take me in? and to treat other people the way we want to be treated. doing so also contributes directly to our economic strength. for generations, our open and diverse society has attracted immigrants of all backgrounds who have continued to enrich our country and helped us to grow and to prosper. deeply troubling, an attack this

past week at ohio state university where i was watching midshipmen many years ago weighed heavily on my mind and the minds of many across this country. it reminds us that we must be -- continue to be eternally vigilant. we must work hard to meet both our security challenges as a nation and our moral imperatives, and indeed, i believe we can do both and i believe we must do both. before i highlight some of the tools i think can better secure our borders, i think it's first important to recognize the significant strides we've already made along our southwestern border, thanks to the efforts of a lot of people, including the folks you lead. worried about the large-scale undocumented migration from mexico. and now experts tell us that there are more mexicans going back into into mexico from the u.s. than going into u.s. from mexico. migration is less than zero. the men and women at customs and border protection deserve a lot of the credit. perhaps the biggest factor for the change is the strengthening mexican economy. they have a strong, vibrant

middle class there. it helps hugely. that is an important thing to keep in mind as we talk about whether through open trade agreements in the region. the surge we're seeing today along the southwestern border right now is a different challenge, mostly humanitarian, as you know. thousands of kids from families from el salvador, guatemala, honduras. most of us have been to those countries. we call them the northern triangle. they're fleeing extreme violence and poverty in their home countries and seeking asylum in the u.s. we are complicit in their misery. the chairman said this again and again, by virtue of our addiction to drugs. you know, they send us drugs, we send them guns, we send them money, and the people face lives of misery down there. horrible down there. they want to get out and they want to come here to be safer. haitian migrants, on the other hand, including many who have been living and working in brazil until its recent economic decline, are another new concern, as we know. most of these migrants are

turning themselves in to agents not trying to evade the agents that work for you. it's unlikely we will fix these current challenges i think with a wall or even with more border patrol agents. instead we must address the root causes of the migration by helping the governments, el salvador, guatemala, honduras, improve the desperate conditions too many of their citizens face every day. when i'm down there, i always talk about home depot to the folks in those countries who say, you can do it. honduras, guatemala, salvador. we can help. we can't do it for you. you can do it, but we have an obligation to help because we are complicit in your misery. i traveled to the northern triangle and saw efforts being made by the governments to address governments, non-profits, you name it. our folks are there to address the extreme poverty, the violence, hopelessness that drive so many of their citizens to make the dangerous journey across mexico to our border. last year, democrats and republicans provided about $750 million to support these countries work to address these difficult conditions. and i hope we can continue this bipartisan support.

they've got to do their share. ally, they've got to do a lot more of the heavy lifting than we do, but if they do, then we have an obligation, i think, moral obligation to help them. but i believe it's cost-effective and the right thing to do given that our addiction to drugs fuels the lawlessness and instability in that region. we also have to work with international partners to crack down on smugglers and traffickers who exploit migrants. i've been impressed, for example, with the units i've seen during my trips to the northern triangle where our agents, our officers work side by side with foreign officers to target and break up criminal trafficking networks. and of course, as the cartels become more sophisticated, we must also work and evolve and take action here at home. that's why i support common sense and cost-effective solution tease strengthen border security, including technologies like drones, which used effectively can be a powerful force for agents and others, as you know. it includes resources such as horses. horses, we saw, boats, all kinds of boats which cannot be as

high-tech, but can provide agents with greater visibility across the border. another common-sense solution is fully staffing our ports of entry and making smart investments in our aging infrastructure. and comprehensive immigration reform can also be a critical force multiplier. i believe it can be and it should be, the idea of a worker program where a lot of people down there, they don't want to come in, they'd like to be able to travel back and forth, work and go home again. and some cases they get stuck up here and frankly find it hard to get back down there and back up here. so, comprehensive immigration reform would help on that. as republicans and democratic administration officials have testified over the years, immigration reform would create bigger channels for migration, shrink the haystack of unauthorized travelers, so border agents, your folks, can face on the most significant security risks. lastly, comprehensive reform would also strengthen us economically.

according to congressional budget office, not me, none of us, the congressional budget office is non-partisan. comprehensive immigration reform would provide a 5.4% boost in gdp. we could use that. more than $1 trillion by 2033. it would also help keep us in mind as we head into the next congress. thank you for being here and your leadership, and mr. chairman, thank you for pulling this together today. >> thank you, senator carper. i would be remiss if i didn't also thank you for just your partnership over the last two years. you know, as ranking member and as a bipartisan committee, we actually keep track of this. we passed 83 pieces of legislation out of this committee, most of it unanimously. we're up i think over 30 pieces of legislation having been signed into law now in some way, shape or form. that's a pretty good record. i think certainly valued the example that senator lieberman and senator collins set when i first joined this committee, certainly which you and senator coburn set, and i think we've continued that tradition. so i'm going to miss you as my

ranking member. i look forward to working with my next senator mccaskill is my next -- she's not here, but apparently, she's going to be my ranking member. and certainly wish you well in your new assignment as well. >> thanks. i promise not to go far. >> okay. >> it's been a pleasure to be your wingman, you bet. and to serve with everybody. it's a good group. >> we have other members, chris cabrera and members of the customs border union, and appreciate their attendance as well as looking forward to working with them, again, to make that commitment to secure the border in 2017 and beyond. it is tradition in this committee to swear in witnesses, so if you'll both rise and raise your right hand. do you swear the testimony you will give before this committee will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you god? please be seated. our first witness is mr. mark morgan. mr. morgan is the current chief of the u.s. border patrol at the u.s. customs and border protection within the department

of homeland security. chief morgan is the first person from outside the agency to be appointed chief of the u.s. border patrol. he began his career in federal law enforcement in 1996 as a special agent with the los angeles field office of the fbi. during his tenure, he held numerous key leadership positions, and in a little more full-blown biography here, i see that you supervised an fbi hispanic gang task force that focused on the emerging presence of two organized and transnational gangs in southern california, ms-14 and the 18th street gang. i think that relates directly to border security, so we'll probably want to ask questions on that. so, chief morgan, i yield the floor. >> good morning, chairman johnson, ranking member carper, and distinguished members of the committee. thank you for the opportunity to

allow us to talk today about the united states border patrol. during my first four months as chief, i've had the privilege to travel to 11 sectors to meet with thousands of united states border patrol agents, staff, and leadership from the northern, southern and coastal borders, as well as the united states border patrol academy headquarters here in d.c., the canine training facility, and our special operations group in el paso. all of these interactions across the country, one thing was consistent and abundantly clear -- the men and women of the united states border patrol have one of the toughest jobs in federal law enforcement. they are the most assaulted federal law enforcement in the united states. more than 7,400 border patrol agents have been assaulted since 2006. that rose in fy '16 by 20%, and year to date, we're seeing an increase of assaults of 200% from the previous year to date. it's a dangerous job. and since my short time here,

two border patrol agents have already been killed in the line of duty, agent manny alvarez and david gomez. they are faced with unforgiving terrain and weather, limited resources, long hours, adverse conditions, and they're often called upon to go above and beyond what they've been trained to do. they are tenacious in their pursuit of getting better, they're innovative, and they have a can-do attitude. they're dedicated to the mission, this country, themselves, and doing something greater than themselves. i'm honored to be serving with them. these are my first and most important observations in my first four months here. therefore, one of the focuses during my tenure will continue to be the relentless advocate to provide them with the tools, training and resources and common-sense policy that they need to do their job effectively and safely. over my 30-year career, the current challenges we face in 21st-century contemporary law enforcement are unparalleled. the united states border patrol team, we're committed to identifying how we can get better and continue to evolve as an organization to address the challenges we face.

here are just a few important areas of focus that i think we need to look at as we move forward. sustain and build the border patrol's most valuable asset, our workforce. focus on recruitment, retention, and diversity. continue to improve on our threat base, intelligent-driven and operationally focused strategy to increase our situational awareness and help confidence levels across every mile of the united states borders. evaluate current policies and laws which directly impacts our mission to protect our nation's borders with an emphasis on enforcement operations and increasing consequences for those illegally crossing our borders. reinforce our multilayered enforcement strategy and strengthen our situational awareness by continuing smart investments in infrastructure, technology, personnel and operational assets, the same

smart investments, and our facilities need to continue to be a top priority as well. we need to enhance our agility, focusing both on mobile technology and a mobile workforce. continue to strengthen our enforcement operations by expanding our intelligence-driven methodology, count our network strategies, air and marine operations, and integrated operations with our partners, both domestically and internationally. we need to expand and integrate our information technology systems. we need to focus on targeted expansion of our human intelligence base, our document exploitation capacity, and our collection and dissemination capabilities. we need to identify personnel needs across a spectrum of position classifications to ensure we have the correct balance of agents, staff, and intelligence analysts. we need to focus and determine alternatives concerning the allocation of resources and support of the current humanitarian mission united states border patrol's being asked to do in an effort to get badges back to the border. develop a proactive communications strategy in an effort to engage our internal and external partners and stakeholders, and we need to enhance performance mate ricks

to reflect our efforts toward our strategy, focusing on threats and our mitigation effectiveness. as we move forward, we will continue to focus on these priority areas, all of which will enhance united states border patrol's ability to detect, prevent and respond to threats along our nation's borders. we look forward to sharing our efforts with the committee in the future. i thank you for the opportunity to testify here today and look forward to your questions. thank you. >> thank you, chief morgan. our next witness is ms. carla provost. ms. provost is the current deputy chief of the u.s. border patrol at the u.s. customs and border protection within the department of homeland security. deputy chief provost is the first woman to be appointed deputy chief in the agency's 92-year history. in her 20-year career, deputy chief provost has held every position, including agent of the el centro sector. deputy chief provost. >> thank you. chairman johnson, ranking member carper, and distinguished members of the committee, it's a

privilege to be here today alongside chief morgan. this is a proud moment for me, as this is my first appearance at a congressional hearing representing the dedicated and hard-working men and women of the united states border patrol. though today marks one month into my current position as deputy chief, i've spent the majority of my professional law enforcement career, nearly 22 years, serving in the u.s. border patrol. during that time, i've seen quite an evolution. i entered on duty with the border patrol in january of 1995, and as an agent in the field in both urban and remote border environments, i worked alongside my colleagues to address threats ranging from illegal immigration, smuggling, trafficking, and terrorism, by targeting, detecting and interdicting potentially dangerous people and materials. i was also significantly involved with training and management aspects of border patrol operations across four different sectors in all four states along the southwest

border. instructing agents in law, firearms, bike patrol, directing sector budgets and human resources while overseeing operations. when i first came on board, there were less than 5,000 border patrol agents nationwide. we were still processing on typewriters and correction tape was worth its weight in gold. that year, we apprehended nearly 1.3 million people on the southwest border alone. as you can imagine, we did not possess the tools or technology that agents use today. back then it was common for the border to be marked by little more than a three-strand barbed wire fence, or in many places, nothing at all. we relied on 1960s-era aircraft for aerial support and sometimes homemade sensors and lighting to notify us of illicit activity. in 2000, we hit the highwater mark of 1.6 million apprehensions nationwide. with that came a renewed focus on border security.

and the tragedy of 9/11 only intensified that commitment. as i progressed, so did the border patrol. we began hiring new agents in earnest, growing our presence along the border dramatically. not only did this increase our situational awareness, but it also impacted local business and economy. growth in many areas along the border seemed to mirror our own. newer technology to include sensors, night vision and remote video surveillance began to improve our capabilities. new tools like tasers and pepper ball launching systems gave us new and different approaches to uses of force. thanks to congress, we received new patrol roads and fencing in strategic locations and saw improvement in many of those already in existence. here in washington, i led the stand up of cdp's use of force center of excellence, now the law enforcement safety and compliance directorate, dedicated to optimizing the safety, readiness, accountability and operational

performance of cbp law enforcement personnel by articulating use-of-force policy and supplying the highest quality education and training to our agents and officers. i also served as the deputy assistant commissioner of cbp's office of professional responsibility, overseeing compliance with all cbp-wide programs and policies regarding corruption, misconduct, internal security and integrity awareness. i am proud to have the opportunity to bring my field experience and perspective to the u.s. border patrol headquarters. i look forward to working with chief morgan and all of my colleagues in the border patrol, cbp, and our many partners, to enhance our operations to protect our nation's borders and ensure the safety of the public that we serve. thank you for the opportunity to testify today. i look forward to your questions. >> thank you, deputy chief provost. i'll start the questioning with chief morgan. yeah, obviously, i'm concerned

about the continued flow of unaccompanied children for a host of reasons. because we have not ended the incentives for people to come into this country illegally. they can continue -- children continue to take a very dangerous journey through mexico to come to this country, and lives are being lost, and they're perpetrated on and these children become real victims. talk a little bit about how the flow of unaccompanied children, how that overstresses your resources and how it distracts from other -- your other missions. >> yes, sir. i refer to the border patrol's involvement with uacs and family units as one of humanitarian at this point. we know that, basically, the otms, which now it's about 63% of our apprehensions, focusing on just uacs and family units

alone, on the otm side, it's about 33%-34% of our overall apprehensions. rgb alone is probably closer to around 50%. that takes an exorbitant amount of resources and funding to sustain those operations, knowing that, basically, 100% of those family units and uacs are released into the united states. that's why i call that a humanitarian mission. i refer back to midnight one evening. i was in a sector where i saw a 6-year-old and an 11-year-old holding each other's hands that had made the trek from honduras. i don't refer to that 6-year-old and 11-year-old as a nasa security or law enforcement threat.

but again, the border patrol is dedicating a tremendous amount of resources taking those folks in, processing them. at times, we really -- a lot of resources are dedicated to being professional child care providers at this point. and rgb alone, we've actually just established a second cpc, a processing center in rgb. each one of those processing centers takes about 100 to 120 agents to man, dedicated basically 100% to processing and taking care of the family units and uacs. we just recently opened up a temporary holding facility in torino to help with that. i know everybody's familiar with it. that comes at a high cost as well to be able to run that facility and provide the resources. recently when i traveled to rgv, the pack, the supervisor that was in charge said, you know, chief, we're going to do whatever this country asks us to do, but i never thought in my 20 years that i would be as part of the procurement ordering baby powder and baby wipes. actually, i just got from one

sector where agents, one of their jobs during the day is to actually make sure that the food, the burritos that were provided are being warmed properly. it takes a tremendous amount of resources to do this. >> can you talk about, you know, >> when you have 100 unaccompanied family members, the way they can be used as a diversion, whether it's drugs, human, sex trafficking, isn't that the reality of what's actually happening? >> absolutely smugglers use that as a distraction, yes, sir. i'm comfortable in saying the mission with the uacs, it is impacting our ability to

perform. >> when the chairman called a hearing on this, senator carper said how do we change the mind-set so parents will say i want my kids to have a future here. how do we do that? i would love to improve the conditions in central america so there is not the incentive, the push factor. if we put up our other chart of just uacs, we see of the children who have come here unaccompanied in 2013, 14, 15, 16, at least the last three years, we're returning less than 4%. so isn't the reality that if you

come as an accompanied children from central america and you get into this country. by the way, it's easy to come in here. you just walk across the bridge, turn yourself in. you're apprehended, processed and dispersed. it creates incentive. pay the fee. take the dangerous journey. because if you get into is america, you're going to stay. isn't that an aoe phorplous problem and one of the reasons why we haven't solved this problem? >> yes, sir. when we talk about push/pull, we go back just a little while. 2006. 90% of those we apprehended were mexican nationals. now we're at 36%. why? well, there's a couple of things that happened why we see that dramatic decrease. one is a solid consequence delivery system. there is a couple of things that happened. one, we instituted e.r.,

expedited removal. so individuals knew when they came they were being held and being removed. that was a consequence. they knew that. it served as a strong deterrence. >> let me just interrupt you. so that's with mexicans. >> yes, sir. >> orca tphaeud yanns. but talk about the difference between mexicans and unaccompanied children from central america. >> yes, sir. so what's happening with the uacs and the family units, the otms from central america is it's basic same thing. right now they know that if they make it to the border, they will be released into the interior united states. generally that's done through an nta, which i'm sure everyone is and notice to appear. they come to the borders and they are being released. that is sends is a strong

message to those folks in the country if you get to the united states border, woulder going to let you in. >> if we go back to the process of expediting, we move in. with humanity, bring the kids in and send them right back to guatemala, honduras or el salvador. skpwhr we went from 90% to 36%. we reduced that factor by instituting the system of consequences and expedited removal. >> deputy chief pro vote, we had a surge from brazil. the surge ended, is that correct? >> in 2005, we had a surge from brazil.

we delivered the consequence of the ex pedited removal. the incomes did decrease. >> thank you. my time has expired. senator carper. >> thank you for your testimony and leadership for a shorter period of time and a longer period of time, ms. provost. probably the best we have ever had. certainly the most expensive we have ever had because of the money we support the thousands of people who work under your leadership. i want to -- i talked with this before. i want to tell it again.

third largest county in the country. we raise more chickens than anywhere in america. a lot of the folks come from guatemala. so we have a significant presence in is sussex county. folks who show up try to provide some distance for them rather than turn a deaf ear to them. during my meeting they told me of a boy who had arrived in sussex county recently with his sister, his family. told me the story that he told

him. when he was 13 he was approached to be in a gang. he said let me talk to my parents. a couple weeks later, they said you don't want to be in our gang? he said i talked it over with my parents and it's not something i want to do. they didn't receive this very well. they said if you don't change your mind, somebody in your family is going to die. he talked to his family. they said join the gang. he joined the gang. his initiation, one of the requirements that he had was to rape his 13-year-old sister as part of the initiation. he went home and told his parents. they said you're out of here. we're going to get you out of this country. if any of us lived in that kind

of environment, we would probably want them to be out of guatema guatemala, honduras or el salvador. one of our witnesses. holly, you remember british mark sykes from el paso, texas. he shared this with us. he talked about a house and he talked about the fire department. and the fire department coming to the house and setting the house on fire. the fire department setting the house on fire and locking the doors and driving away. that's the analogy that he used. the reason why they have the kind of violence is in large part because of of us, because of our addiction to drugs and the flow through the nation. and the guns and money, as i said earlier. so what do we do about that? we have done great stuff on the border. we have had great representation. we can always do more.

in terms of our support for the assets. whether it's the wall, you name it. whatever. unmanned aircraft. all kinds of stuff. we know where jobs come from. in this country, 15,000 shut down because of extortion threats. that's just a loser. the kinds of threats i just explained from the stories i heard in person. that has to be part of the solution as well. it can't be just us. and 20 years ago, senator mccain, somebody started plain colombia. it was not the u.s. coming down is and solving all of their problems. it was you have a problem. you have to fix your problem. and we're going to help you because we're complacent with the drug addiction.

having said that, there is a reason why. you mentioned i think your first year on the job as a border patrol agent, 1.3 million people can come across your borders and are taken into custody. it used to be they were mostly mexican. now more are going back into mexico than coming out. what more can we do to make the needle in the hey stack story, we can make the hey stack smaller, needles bigger. some of that involves work that is going to take place. give us some advice. how has immigration reform helped particularly where there is a guest worker program, they can work for a while and go back legally. >> cir is definitely needed. we fully support that.

you just alluded to a couple of examples of that. >> cir being. >> comprehensive immigration reform. sorry. absolutely. there are definite push factors. weak government, violence, family reunification. those are all true. and i agree with that. i think from the united states border patrol perspective, again, i'm just looking at the facts. like i said, when we do institute a really thought out consequence liberty system we do see that in the flow, meaning it does go down. so that's definitely factual. we can show that over the years. i think we need to have a facilitated discussion but some current policy. i can give you one example, credible fear. so we know right now that smuggling organizations are absolutely using and exploiting incredible fear. we know they are coaching

individuals on specifically what to say when they come here. they just rattle off and memorize the magic words they need to say so that they will fall within the statute of credible fear. we think that that's been exploited. we think that it has been going well beyond the original intent of the purpose of credible fear. like the example that you just used, right? that's what credible fear is supposed to be used for. absolutely. but we know it's being exploited. so i think that is one thing we can do as part of cir is to take a look at the policies where it makes sense is and try to have a good facilitated discussion. are there adjustments that need to be going forward. from 2000 to 2013, less than 1% were claiming credible fear coming across. today it is exponentially gone. it has continued to rise. we see that as an issue. again, going back to the nta,