-- it was all taken as a very hostile manner. now, the predominant opinion in russia is that nato is an alliance that tries to take the ground that was liberated and left by the soviet union and russia. they want to come to the russian borders and prevent russia from exercising its legitimate interests. second, nato wants to become a global. -- become global. >> before i turn for the last question, i was reminded, and it is a point that you have made a number of times.

that, first of all, the only nuclear arms control experience in the world is between the u.s. and the soviet union and the u.s. and russia. the treaties and the experiences that we have had thus far have never actually verify the the part that goes boom. . . briefing members of congress a few months ago and i realized they did not realize that arms control had never dealt with the part that goes boom. that's how i explain it. there is the part that flies the thing and a part that goes boom. we have destroyed this parts that fly but never dealt with the parts that go boom and he said, you are kidding. i said there are weapons that have been dismantled, it just was not verified and counted.

many of the lights when you turn on your lights in your state, the power is supplied from the fuel by that. and he said you are kidding me. >> you are talking to children this way? >> and member of congress. [laughter] >> at some point, when the experience of arms reduction, what it goes further beyond the u.s. and russia, we will be into this new domain of trying to count warheads and verify warheads which has never been done and raises these issues are very complicated and intrusive you are referring to, including the people's healthcare alignment and i'm sure that all work great. last question. >> there is a lot of attention focused on the upcoming review

conference. apart from the statement, which is to is there anything the russian federation is planning or you would recommend as an initiative to achieve consensus of this review conference, for example, at the last one of the mother was a russian proposal with regard to converting the middle east into a zone free of weapons of mass destruction. >> you are a great authority on that. i feel a little bit awkward discussing this subject. however, as far as i know, russia will not come with any surprise to the review. nuclear-free zones, safeguards,

multinational fuel cycles, the usual menu of things which are to be discussed. if you are asking what i would recommend to the russian government, my response is i would recommend to the russian government and the p-5 government to concentrate on one issue and push it through instead of discussing 10 issues and having another document of buried general character. that would be possible on the basis of this achievement of the new start treaty. the political position would be fortified. my choice of all the issues would be to universalize asian -- universal was asian --

universalization. let's leave the discussion to others, but let's target this particular subject. let's try to pull for a resolution that would recommend to nuclear supplies group to link all future deals on nuclear transfers, technology transfers, and material contracts to citing [unintelligible] . that would mean going forward in the regime and rap -- than just having another general discussion of all the great problems associated with the regime. >> thank you. i would like to thank all of you

for coming. i think russia is lucky in the world is lucky to have someone as talented and thoughtful. i think you understand why i say that. we're very grateful you appeared with us today and it might invest. thank you and i would like to thank you all for coming. [applause]

hamre, the president and ceo at the center of strategic and international studies. dr. hamre? [applause] >> good morning, everybody. gosh, it just shows what a free breakfast will do to bring out a crowd. i can't imagine on good friday having an audience like this. but ash, it's got to be you. it's the only reason. no, seriously. i'm delighted to have you all here. it's an important -- such an important topic. i used to quite regularly go out to national training center out at fort irwin. you know, i'd see the -- you know, the brigade commander beginning, you know, and i'd see

the after-action. he really whopped and it wasn't because of material he hadn't kept track of. and it's such an important part of the world. and we don't pay public policy attention to it. i had a conversation with ash about this. and we were -- i guess i was probably teasing about the endless tanker process. and he said i'll come over but i don't want to do anything about tankers. and i said well, let's do something about logistics. and he said i'd actually like to do that. i spent far more of my product time so ash, thank you for agreeing to do that. ash and i go back a very long ways. and i will tell you my first experience with ash is when he was at -- what we called pnae and now we call it cat or cape. ash was interviewing me and he decided i was not at all

qualified to be working for him which was -- and he was right. because he needed far more technical competence than i had. and he's brought that technical expertise to every one of his positions. and i think now he's just doing a fabulous job. ash, we're delighted you're here. this is -- you know, it is an unusual thing to be having a conference especially with this sort of a turnout. the quality of this audience is remarkable. and i think it's a testament to you and the topic. ash, why don't you come and join us. [applause] >> thank you, john. and csis for having me. my -- i've learned so much from john hamre. and every day i look around the department of defense and there's one of his managerial accomplishments, one of his managerial creations in front of me. one of the best, most skilled stewards and coos the department's ever have.

i see jack gansler a predecessor who added l to at & l. and among many other things jack did. jack, i have to tell you my children are already dismayed at the length of the title. they tell their father is undersecretary of defense. of course, no one knows what an undersecretary is. and it sounds very beneath. so underneath, underwear, undersecretary. and then it's acquisition technology and logisticses way too long and obscure for an 18-year-old and a 21-year-old to explain. they always say why can't you be cia director? [laughter] >> it's got some zip to it. i'm very grateful to have the opportunity to come here. it is a pleasure. and a welcomed relief to talk about something other than the tanker competition or the joint strike fighter.

or any of the other acquisition programs. and it's particularly welcomed to me because what i want to talk about today is something very dear to my heart which is the role of acquisition of technology and logistics support in the current wars we're here. so when john gave me the opportunity to speak about that subject, i leapt at the opportunity. last january 5th, it was, that secretary gates offered me this job -- and one of the things he said to me at that time he had said publicly many times which is, ash, the troops are at war and the pentagon is not. and especially at & l. and i took that on board. and i've tried to make it a priority of at & l to support the wars. and i'd like to share with you the ways in which we are trying to do that.

first with rapid and responsive acquisition support to the war fighter. secondly, with management of contractors on the battlefield, contingency contracting. third, the special case of countering improvised explosive devices, ieds. and then fourth and for most of what i have to say, the topic of this day's conference, which is logistics. but let me say something about rapid acquisition and contingency contracting. and counter-ied first. i'll start with the question that secretary gates posed in his foreign affairs article about a year and a half ago. that jack gansler had posed before that in a very important science board study on the same subject. and that was, why is it necessary to bypass existing institutions and procedures to get the capabilities needed to

protect u.s. troops and fight ongoing wars? why is it necessary to bypass the existing institutions? i experience this every day. and we are -- to get back to dave and his alligators. busy fighting the alligators but also trying to drain the swafrn. -- swamp at the same time and fix this same problem in a more structural way. let me describe the catch-22s that one comes to as a department in trying to respond rapidly to urgent needs from the theater. the first is a catch-22 to get over is how do you know what the requirement is? how many uav caps do we need? how much persistent surveillance do we need? how many mraps do we need? in many cases for an ongoing and

evolving conflict and a piece of equipment that we're just beginning to learn how to use, that's an unanswerable question. when one embarks upon the acquisition. we don't know. we know we need some. we don't know exactly how many. and yet we have a system that won't get started until it knows what the final answer is. and i'll give you an example in a moment of getting over that. that is if you don't know the reqmi)%g'ra@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ n

next weeks and months in afghanistan. so something that's better that delivers next year or the year after i'm not interested right now. so the 80% solution secretary gates says is something one has to learn to manage to in the case of support to rapid acquisition. the third is, well, we could get this but? -- but is this something we want in the long run, to fit in the long-range vision of the marine corps table of equipment? maybe not. maybe it's just for this fight. which if we win the fight, it will be worth having something that doesn't quite fit in to the long-range future. and the last, of course, is how do we get money quickly? congress provides the money. congress appropriately keeps a close eye. doesn't give us open-ended

ability, open funds and so forth. and so there's a constant interaction with the congress and an urgency in what we're doing and when we're able to do, then we don't have to hold the delivery to the war fighter. an example i would give you in getting over these are four catch-22s which every day this is blocking and tackling. i say my job is -- i guess thomas edison said of his job 90% perspiration, 10% inspiration. i'll give you an example of the mrap atv which is the all-terrain vehicle mrap that we are fielding right now in afghanistan. and just to show you how fast the system can go when we really light a fire under it. we completed the source selection for the mrap atv in

july, last summer. the first atvs arrived in afghanistan in september. and we've already accepted more than 5,000 atvs. and almost 1,000 of them have actually been fielded, that is in the hands of soldiers by now. that's very different from your 10 and 15-year program of record. that's less than a 10-month program of record. vehicles actually fielded and in the hands of the soldiers. initially when we set out to say how many are we going to buy and how many are we going to produce per month, the -- our logicians were saying and the commanders they could only field 500 vehicles per month. the reasons for that are -- you

logicians will understand it's for want of a nail phenomenon. you can't bring the vehicles in because you don't have a place to park them. you don't have a place to park them because you don't have the concrete. you don't have the concrete because they don't make concrete in afghanistan. you got to go to pakistan and get your concrete and truck it in. so you have to have the trucks. you have to have the parking lot for a truck and around and around and around you go. everything is like that in afghanistan. and so it wasn't that we couldn't produce more vehicles. it's that at that time we didn't think we could absorb more. nevertheless, i decided that we were going to produce them at a rate of 1,000 a month anyway. if we had extra vehicles in charleston or at oshkosh or in kandahar or at bagram, okay. better an mrap without a soldier than a soldier without an mrap first of all. second, we could use the excess vehicles for training so that every soldier -- and this is now

the case in afghanistan. the troops that are arriving have their driver's license on the mrap. they don't have to be brought out from the field, taught to drive the vehicle and then sent back out in the field with the vehicle. they arrive ready to go. they fall in on the vehicle. it's a familiar piece of equipment to them. so i thought we ought to buy them for the training ranges. so out at fort irwin where i was at a couple of weeks where john mentioned earlier there are mraps and 29 palms for the marines there are mrap atvs. they are there so the soldiers can learn how to use them. so i wanted to buy more than we thought we could field. and we did. and i also had in the back of my mind, you know, i'll bet you we'll figure out a way to increase that number from 500 per month to a larger number. because i think when the troops get them, they'll like them. when the commanders see them, they'll like them and they'll

figure out a way how to get them. and it begins in oshkosh and ends up on a fob in afghanistan. every piece of that and tried to see if we could widen that artery and we have now. so we're now up to being able to absorb 1,000 a month. so it's a good thing i'm making 1,000 a month. but there's an example of not waiting for the final answer. but beginning to acquire and ramp up to the 1,000 a month level figuring -- we'll figure it out later. we'll figure out in a few months. we don't have to figure out everything in order to get started with anything. so the matv is an example that -- and i could give you many, many more examples where we have succeeded in supporting the war fighter. but it's always been by hot

wiring the system. rather than by driving down an open lane. and it's really true that we have an acquisition system which is -- still has the cold war vestage of it. namely designed to prepare for a future war rather than -- or to conduct a current war. and we're only still eight years into this learning how to have a system which can conduct current wars. learn from experience. respond to stimuli from the battlefield, adapt. and deliver what the current war fighter needs. we're taking some steps to put that on a more enduring foundation. maybe in another time i'll come back, john, and share our thoughts -- jack gansler had some thoughts on that already. i told the entire acquisition

community that responding to operational needs is their highest priority. if you're a service acquisition executive, if you're a peo, your highest priority is responding to those. and also giving them a menu of ways that they can work within the system but work quickly. so i think we're getting the mrap lesson into the acquisition system at large. i'll say something about contingency contractors. i don't need to tell this audience that the -- that our way of waging war brings with every soldier to the battlefield approximately one contractor. it's interesting to look back on the numbers. in world war ii, there was one contractor for every service member. in vietnam, one for every five.

in iraq, one for every 1.2 service members. in afghanistan, one for every.7. in other words, more contractors than soldiers. because of the heavy reliance we have now on building new fobs and construction required to do that, most of the transportation is done by contractors. so there are 107,000 contractors now in afghanistan. of whom about three-quarters are local nationals, which is not a matter insignificant of the economy for afghanistan. and i think it's fair to say that first in iraq and now in afghanistan, with these ratios, we have been on a learning curve about how to manage a contractor work force that large. and for sure everything has not

been done perfectly over these years. and part of that is because it was such a new thing to have so many. part of it is because in war you have to act. and part of it, i suppose, we kept telling ourselves it's not going to go on much longer. and we don't have to get good at this. we don't have to get used to it. we do have to get good at it and we do have to get used to it and we do have to learn how to do this better. and we are getting better. i won't say perfect yet. we have a number of very constructive oversight bodies. the commission of war fighting, they are going down the same list that we are to improve the quality of the -- the controls and so forth that we apply to contingency contracting without sacrificing effectiveness. i'll give you an example.

in afghanistan today, which is the use of cash. cash we used a lot of in iraq. and initially in afghanistan. obviously, that increases the vulnerability to fraud. in the last year, we've reduced our cash payments in afghanistan from 39% to 9%. very dramatic. how are we doing that? we're doing that by banking by phone. believe it or not, in afghanistan, many people bank by phone. and are willing to bank by phone. now we're paying them on their cell phone rather than with cash. greatly reduces the possibility of fraud. and made very dramatic progress in that regard in just the last year. i'll give you another example. many of you probably know what a contracting officer representative or corps is. the corps isn't the person who writes the contract. the corps is the person who make

sure that the contract is being carried out in the required way. any of us could be trained as a corps within a short time. it would take us longer to be trained as a contracting officer. that is to be able to contract on behalf of the united states government. and spend money. corps is easier and can be in theater a part-time job. we've been doing a great deal to improve contracting officer representative presence in afghanistan. this is not a mundane thing at all. i'll give you some examples. in the last year, since i've been watching these figures, in afghanistan, our contracting officer representing force which at the beginning was only 38% of the requirement is now 84%.

so we've got 84%. still not 100%. but 84% of the contracting officer representative posts filled that we should have filled. we are now -- on all the army and marine corps units before they deploy to afghanistan are training within the units, contractor cors. so they deploy with that skill because now it's recognized that is part of the skill-set required for a modern expeditionary force. so they deploy with people who know how to carry out the contractor part of their mission. we're giving them automated tools. little things you put on your laptop, which pull up the forms that tell them what they should do for a certain contract. what the requirements are within that contract for cor to help

them ease their way. the department has added 10 general officer positions to contingency contracting over the last year. a very important move so that senior 2 and 3-star positions that deal with contracting -- that senior positions are filled with 2 and 3-star officers. so this is an -- this cash and the contracting officer representatives are the kinds of things we are trying to get good that's part of an enduring way of war. ...