and half american. brit, i think? american. ok. he writes about the upstairs and downstairs syndrome. his story appears in the new yorker. he wrote a book. it has a catchy title. he wrote the reluctant fundamentals. the filthy rich in rising asia or something like that. it is the same structure on both sides of the title. the book talks about how the underclass lives in these societies. he talks about chauffeurs. that is like a class in itself. what time is it?

>> [inaudible] >> we will take quick questions. >> and wondered what the proposals are in the campaign and now for the economic problems? what is this program? >> stock market in pakistan went up when he was elected. there's a lot of confidence in him. he's a businessman. i do not think he has put forward any plan or agenda. but there is a perception that if there's anyone good for the economy, it is him. he is a pragmatic guy. he knows how the system works. i do not know of any plan that he has put forward. >> we will know tomorrow. he will make his first address

to parliament tomorrow. it previews where he will say about the economy. he will cut government subsidies and cut back on the size of government by combining various ministries. at the same time, the analysts have noted that in his budget you has increased the budget for his own private cabinet multiple times. we will see. [laughter] >> that is the best answer. we will see. >> could you say briefly what is happening in terms of education, secular, religious

education? especially of the young people. >> it is hard to keep up with population growth. i'm not very sure about the extent of religious schools. i will tell a little anecdote. a woman organized discussions. this was a discussion on gender in islam. you can see young men were there. they were lower, middle class. they have this discussion with woman who is conducting this. they were scholars of islam.

one of them was going to the islamic university. theyhad open minds and were willing to discuss. minute issues i was not aware of myself. the speaker was well aware of what they were talking about. that was such a positive thing. here are these young men who you think would be responsible for the taliban attacks. they want to hear this woman talk about women issues. they had open minds. they said they would come back again and again. >> to reinforce that point, which is a good one, right after 9/11, we have this notion

that all terrorists were bred in thousands of questions about it. over the years, we have done some research. we know a lot more about where the terrorist come from and how they recruit and how they are educated. the studies revealed that the majority of suicide bombers are educated in public schools. they are educated in public curriculum. has a lot of what we would call hate language. a small percentage of suicide bombers came from -- thet number two, most of young people in pakistan today are not even educated in schools.

they are educated in private schools. it costs less. they still probably follow the same curriculum, but the government in the past has provided three percent of the national budget for education where 60% of the national budget goes to the [indiscernible] investmenty not the of pakistan. thele have had to go to private schools. >> even sometimes the three percent does not get spent. that is education crime. one more question. in the back.

>> my question is about youth as well. you talk with great enthusiasm during the election. i wonder at this point whether the youth is disaffected it is the party did not win over all? or is their satisfaction that the party did quite well nonetheless? >> i think it is a bit of both. there was a huge amount of disappointment because of expectation. they thought there would be an upset and they would upset the election. there was disbelief. how could this have happened. that was never really in the cards. i think the people in pakistan are happy with the way this election went. i think there's a huge amount of anticipation about things changing. we hope that will happen sooner rather than later. thank you. [applause] >> i want to say our president has a whole collection. [laughter] with her permission, i will pass this on. thank you. we want you to come back. thank you. terrific program. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] [captioning performed by

national captioning institute] >> we will bring you live coverage of the gerald ford journalism awards on c-span 2 monday at all -- 1:00 p.m. witnesses in the subcommittee program include danny worthall and j russel george. the irs is now facing a lawsuit. you can watch it live at 3:00 p.m. eastern over on c-span 3. >> next, the future of the marine corps with, and don james amos. he talks about the automatic spending cuts and the drums in afghanistan. from the brookings institution, this is one-and-a-half hours.

now general james amos discusses automatic spending cuts and the challenges he is facing because of them. >> good morning, everyone. welcome to brookings. on behalf of my colleagues, we would like to welcome you and especially welcome general james amos, the commandant of the u.s. marine corps, to be here today. the format for today is that the general was before 10 or 15 minutes, summarizing some of his spot on some issues that i know our interest to you as well. then he and i will have a conversation here, and then we will turn to the crowd. we have c-span you are covering and some other tv. if i call on you in the course of that conversation, please be sure to identify yourself, wait for a microphone before doing that, and then we will proceed.

general ams is a combat aviator from the great state of idaho where he attended college. corps been in the marine for his entire 35-year career. he is a senior member of that illustrious body, a top adviser to the president in all matters of national security, and of course the marine corps's top planning budgeteer and so forth. in 2006, he and general david petraeus teamed up to write the counterinsurgency manual for the u.s. military. prior to that he had been instrumental in his role as a war fighter in the early stages of the invasion of iraq. prior to that he had a number jobs deployed around the world,

as all marines do, and as we will discuss further today. one of the important priorities is keeping the marine corps global and responsive, which is a big part of the services ethos. although still there were several thousand personnel in afghanistan as we speak. without further ado, we are delighted to have you here, the commandant of the marine corps. [applause] >> thanks for the kind remarks. if i had only been in the marine corps for 35 years, i would probably looked a hell of a lot bianca. my wife and i have been married for 42 years, since right after i joined the marine corps. this is all i have ever known. but thank you for the warm welcome. i have just a couple of bullets here. i will not read my remarks but i have a couple of things i would like to talk about here in opening. i get asked often, what is the main thing on your mind that keeps you awake at night and that you spend time thinking about? to be honest with you, it is how do you get through this

austerity? it is real, it is upon us. all of you in this room have done it, gone back to look at historical downturns after major combat. sometimes it is 30%, sometimes 29%, but from the peak to the bottom of the trough and where it begins to turn back up, that is somewhere around 9-10 years. and it is historical. i would hope that this time is not the case, but you don't know. i try to prepare the marine corps for the future. i look at that historical

downturn, and how can we as the senior leadership of the marine corps, and myself as a, not, how can we shepard the corps through that period of austerity? i want to remind everybody that as we gather in here, there are 30,000 marines that are deployed around the world. they are on the marine expeditionary unit, some are out in the gulf of aden, doing our nation's work. we had marines in the gulf, flying in the gulf, and we have a significant contribution on the ground in afghanistan. turning the world on its axis, going out to the asian-pacific area, we have a large amount of

marines out there. we have a marine rifle company down in australia, our nation's first installments for that renewed relationship between the government of australia, there are me, and the u.s. marine corps. so we are optimistic about that. focusing more specifically on afghanistan, even though our nation is weary of war, i am mindful, and i would ask you to be mindful, of what is happening in afghanistan. allen have talked to john when he was still the commander, he would say exactly the same thing. if given the opportunity to complete the mission, not just to pull the last force out and

live, but to complete that mission that both of those officers, and they know more than any of us who anticipate success. success is defined by all of us in different ways. let me focus on the helmet province which is where your marines are today. there are about 8000 u.k. forces there and two battalions of our georgian brothers. the republic of georgia, not the state of georgia. we have jordanians and australians on the ground with us. bahrain has been with us for a long time for biting a service. whicht helmut province, was one of the most dangerous places in all of afghanistan -- and i go there frequently. i will be there next month.

we spent christmas there. i have watched this progress to the point where i can tell you with some level of confidence that things are going particularly well. behave every reason to confident that if given the opportunity, we will be allowed to complete the mission and be successful in afghanistan. is it going to be in your mind what success is? probably not.

in my mind, the way i define it is we will give the people in the helmut province the national security forces and army police and the central government of afghanistan the greatest opportunity for success for the future. the conditions will have been set. it will be up to them to seize those conditions and proceed on. i feel very good about what is happening. we are done with offensive combat operations. we do not write operations orders, we write supporting orders in support of the afghan

national army that are there. we feel good about how it is going along. avenue provincial governor and he is doing a terrific job. we have a courageous corps commander down there. they are doing well. these are tough times we are in right now. it is not a tried statement. i want to remind everybody that i am also a taxpayer. i pay taxes like hopefully all of you in this room. here we are in this unprecedented time where we have the longest war nomination has been in. we have a fiscal crisis that is real and is upon us we are drawing down forces in afghanistan after 12 or 13 years of combat between iraq and afghanistan. we are downsizing the poor so that we can pay your bill while facing frustration, which is the $500 billion bill over the next 10 years. that is on top of $487 billion that had been passed a year-and- a-half ago in the budget control

act. under bob gates, we found another $200 billion worth of bills that we had to pay, and it is called efficiencies. i don't recall the marine corps getting any of those deficiencies. the bill is $1.20 trillion, for the purpose of discussion. that is real money and it will have a real impact. let me give you my sense of what the world is likely going to look like over the next two decades. i see much of what we are going through right now -- i don't see any of it going away. i do not see major theatre war over the next two decades. i see what i call it difficult, challenging, -- not necessarily technology intensive, but human intensive kind of conflicts and challenges over the next two decades. i often call them the nasty little things that happened around the world or in the international community, not just the united states of america, has a responsibility to around the world. global responsibilities. to what degree is yet to be seen. i sense that the world is not getting any nicer. i don't see any indication that

things are going to settle down and become peaceful. newspapers,major you can see it on your daily paper. everything on what is happening in syria, you see it on the nightly news and in the morning news. we are not sure how it will play out. is not clear precisely what is going to happen in syria, and yet the whole world is focused on it. what about hezbollah? there was something in the paper about a just this morning. threats from syrian fighters. you better quit supporting the regime. it is always challenging, our relationship with iran. i look at iraq, having lost 851 marines killed in action in iraq. we have an investment. in addition to the monetary investments and the years and the sweat and toil, there is also our most precious commodity, which is the currency which is our young men and women. so i have an investment in iraq, and i have lived a very close attention to it. you watched it last night on the news, and solid again this morning. there is no indication that that area is going to settle down. turn the world on its axis to a month and a half ago with the 30-year-old boy leader of north

korea. personobably the oldest in this room. i distinctly remember nikita khrushchev in the 1960's taking his shoe off and banging the heel at the united nations. the united nations in new york city threatened thermonuclear war against the united states, we are going to wipe you out. yet just a month and a half ago, he now calls himself the supreme leader of north korea, he will destroy the u.s. with thermonuclear war. likee not heard rhetoric that since the 1960's. that is just the highlights. tensions territorial

and lots of things going on around the world. i was in the u.k. last week speaking to command staff and talking with some of my french brothers about mali and what is happening there. a very courageous stance from my perspective on what the french have done. sooner or later, the international community is going to have to address some of these thorny, nasty, tacky things going on around the world. we may think we are done with them, but they don't

necessarily the -- they are not done with us. let me switch from that and talk a little bit about what we do with this environment. now we have this brought down, this tension going on inside a coronation. not just the department of defense, it is inside our nation, how we are going to pay our bills, reorient our focus back to the united states. it cannot ignore that world that i just described. you cannot turn your back on it because it is very dangerous. in some cases, depending on the threat and who is involved in it, the international community does not address some of these threats, we may find those threats in washington d.c. we may find them in new york city. we may find them in the major cities all around the world. dosomebody has got to something. there has to be a sense of presence and a sense of engagement. that is why you have a u.s.

marine corps and the u.s. navy. that is what we do. it is paid for. there are still bills out there and we are still building new pieces of equipment, but this is what we do. we do not need an air field. we'll need to step on one of our allies sovereign territory. quite honestly, we sail around the world and interact with nations and build relationships that cannot be surged in the time of conflict. relationships are important to build trust right now. that is what we do. and things become a little bit questionable, we can pull off the coast. there is nothing that sends the same signal as three amphibious ready ships full of 2500 marines. not necessarily doing anything, but everybody understands the seriousness of what could take place. in my experience, it has a calming effect. so there is an engagement responsibility, that our nation needs to acknowledge. while we are drawing down and

we want to come back to the u.s. and reinvest ourselves inside the department of defense and inside our nation, the question for me is, what is that balance between the reality of the world and how you deal with it and how you live in that reality, and then how you pay your bills. how you rebalance, reset your service. my service, probably more than any others, we took our equipment to the war in iraq and most of it we left there. we bought for maintenance facility so we could refurbishing it. most of the equipment we had in iraq actually found its way over to afghanistan. the equipment coming out of afghanistan now has been in that part of the world for a long time. so the challenges i have right now as a service cheek is the reality of the budget. sequestration is real. ladies and gentlemen, the bill

was signed on march 2. i take it as rally. i am not in the nile on sequestration. israel and we are working on a plan right now that will pay my bills. congress down the road elects to change this, the american people decide that we need a better way to do business than this sequestration, which i think is a terrible way to do but is certainly has an effect. if they change, that is great.

but for right now, we have been working on a plan for about 90 days on how we will pay our bills. and i know precisely how we will do it. the key is for us as a nation now, how much is enough, and how much do we need to have going forward, because we have responsibilities. we do have responsibilities as a superpower. you could argue with me and say there are other superpowers out there, but this is not a prideful statement. i think the united states is the most significant superpower overall world. we do more things right than we do wrong. we work pretty hard to try to provide peace and stability. some of you may argue with that,

but i think we do. so the issue is, what is our responsibility as a global nation? just turn to the asia-pacific area. we have five major treaties in the asia-pacific area, and they go back decades. we have responsibilities. nationsargue that many in the asia-pacific area rely on the president of the united states. i don't think we can ignore those responsibilities. as i put in my -- i take my comment from the marine corps hat off and i think about the nation and what is best for the nation. the balances, how do we fulfill our role as a global superpower. and then as a the part of the fence, what is our responsibility in that?

more specifically and more tightly focused, what is my responsibility to provide capabilities as the, of the marine corps. with that i think i will stop, and mike and i will jump up here and take some questions. thank you. [applause] >> thank you, general. i would like to pick up with a couple of the scenes that you usually begin with. let's get to the sequestration matter in more detail. i will begin as a for early skeptic might.

i raised the issue in terms of the debate we heard last year. secretary panetta and others were saying that sequestration is allowed to happen, this guy's going to fall. now we are a couple of months into it and this guy does not seem to have fallen. i am not trying to defend sequestration, by the way, but i think a lot of people will wonder why such a hullabaloo is made of this. so much rhetoric was devoted to this, but it has happened, and we seem to be doing ok, at least in the short term. can we keep in place and keep the cuts over 10 years as opposed to just suffering through sequestration for a few weeks or months. why did this guy not all? >> it is because it has not taken root yet. justd this in the paper like all of you do. i would say that is probably a great question. the fact of the matter is that the issues of design and marine

corps to live with it. all those services are doing it. and that is revealed, which was to be when the president he is satisfied with the planning we have done. when that happens, with that sense of what sequestration will do and is all about, will begin. that will be significant. the fact of the matter is we are in fy13. everyone else is on a continuing resolution. it has not taken root yet, but it will. i would predict that it will within the next six months. >> how are operations and training regimens changing, starting about now, if i remember -- what are people not going to do this summer that they normally would be doing? how worried about that are you? >> i have made a decision that we would take monies out of

other accounts for this year move it to what we call readiness. we have taken money out of facilities. all the buildings and the barracks that our marines live in, places will work in and that is one area where i reached in and touched. i also reached in and touched those areas -- i pulled money out of those units for training. i have gone through and pulled money out just about every town i can to maintain readiness this year for those units that are deployed. they are the highest priority. as we approach the end of this summer in august and september which will begin to turn the course over in afghanistan. those units will be at the high state of readiness. i effectively mortgaged near- term readiness, to pay for that. here is what the impact will be

of nothing changes and we roll into sequestration and a continuing resolution for next year. i don't think we should turn our back on that. that is the reality of what will probably face for 2014, the continuing resolution. i predict as we go into january, a little bit less than my combat units, but the infantry and the guys that support them, will be little less than 50% combat ready. the half my forces will be less than ready to deploy to combat. i want to be clear something

happens, we are going to go. if something bad happens around the world, we are going to go. that is not the way we train and not the way we like to deploy forces. i am not optimistic that things will change. then the sustainment we have order this year will roll into next year as compound interest. >> on your major equipment modernization efforts, that has to be a big concern, too. just to remind those who are not always studying the marine corps. you have your amphibious vehicle you like to replace. you cancel the previous version and you make sure you dealt with that program. you have a few other major programs and a lot of smaller ones. how are all those programs bearing and how did you explain this sequestration both now and

into next year? >> we have taken the osprey -- i probably remember beginning at 2000. we are well beyond that right now. the airplane is doing incredible. that is going well and we anticipate that we have bunnies in that contract for the multiple years. the amphibious combat vehicle which is a replacement for the tractors that we currently have -- it is not a farm-all or a john deere. is ashley and a previous the nicolette's winds to shore, loaded with combat marines inside of it. our vehicles are little more than 40 years old. we have refurbished those and added and a service life extension on them twice. you come of an amphibious ship one of two ways. you either fly off of it or swim off of it in one of these vehicles. that is it. we have some transport

connectors but that does not hold all the marines, so we needed. we have been at it for 2.5 to get that right. i am only going to get one more shot at getting this right, so i take it very, very seriously. the industry has helped us out with this thing. we will make a decision this

fall with regard to the speed and capabilities. what i am looking for right now is just a good forward f-150 kind of vehicle that is reliable and can move our marines around. please don't just think this is a vision of a vehicle that is an amphibious assault. one would take 700 ships to haiti, it was our amphibious tractors going back and forth. they are a utility fighting vehicle for us. the replacement is doing well. we will have 16 airplanes next quarter and by the end of the year. it is the only short take off than vertical landings being built in the world. you can ask yourself, why do we need something like that? envision the amphibious ships as carriers. anywhere around the world, like in the gulf of aden, it can fly

off the ship and go out and do the bidding of the nation. die, just let the harrier we would have 11 large deck carriers which would just be helicopter platforms. those programs are funded, i have accounted for that and to keep those programs alive.

we will have money available to do that. we have money for research and development. of aden in the gulf today, performing national missions with carriers, you now have fixed-wing capability. have that, if you we are cutting ourselves short. paying for my share of the bills, i have accounted for that. >> he said a number of very

interesting things, one in particular. you said you did not seem major theater wars likely in the next 25 years. i would normally agree with you. i get the point, we need expeditionary force stunning things. of the big wars the you do not think are very likely, which do you think we would still have to be ready for? i do not know if this is too sensitive or hypothetical to talk about, but do you have an example of the luxury campaigns, ?f any >> and i said that i do not anticipate that, the one thing i would remind everyone is that we have actually guest wrong more often than we have guessed right in the past. it is certainly not perfect by

any sense of the imagination, but just looking at the proclivity of our nation, i have been engaging in combat. it is probably pretty slim. i do not think for a second that as a member of the joint chiefs that we should never think that it will not happen. war ii out of world thinking it was the war to end all wars. world war ii we really felt we were dominant. to be prepared for what we used to call a theater of war. we have to be. there has to be enough capacity for something happens -- the american people expect that.

it, may be struggling with but i guarantee that what happens the people, the congress, they are going to expect it. i do not think that this just becomes an expeditionary force that handles small national crises. we have to be able to do major theater of war. the bus in this room knew what would happen. not ons probably anyone's radar. all of a sudden it just blossomed and none of us knew how that would turn out. should an example of, our nation ever need to, we might have to have the capacity

to respond. >> i am going to start to wrap up here in a second. wese different pieces, talked about sequestration, modernization. can you help us to understand -- at what point budget cuts really make you, in a whole new way, fundamentally uncomfortable? you are obviously coping with sequestration in the short term. you have found some ways to compensate in the short term. in terms of longer term planning, at what point to these budget cuts become crippling to our ability? how do you explain it to a skeptical audience? $500 billion for year will be above the cold war average. some people of one to say -- why

can you not get by on that? it still looks like a pretty good military. is there any way the chicken linked a certain size of budget cut to a real fundamental pressure? >> i do not have a monetary figure for the department of defense. i know that as we look through how to pay the sequestration tol, we had the opportunity talk about this a couple of weeks ago. know what that look like for people, equipment, capabilities and capacity. a dollar figure in my service. you that where i worry,

this accommodation of sequestration, here are some attributes to that. i have an obligation to do my part and be prepared for the american people. happens, we will go to war and come home when the war is over. this is not something we are used to. off to the war in the pacific and four years later they pulled up in alabama. same thing with my dad. they are used to maintain forces. rotating squadrons and combat.

is not what is going to happen. that is the first thing that is the threshold. the force under sequestration is under one to two. they wait for six months, they deploy, they go on a ship. cooperation goes on an aircraft gone for sixs months. of whatgive you a sense ,hat means, during the height ground forces were on a one-to- one. months, home seven months. gone seven months, home seven

months. 30 days in the desert. you are only at your home for five months. we talkedx years ago about testifying in front of the house and the senate. one to three, one to for deployment. months ando for six the home for 18 months. building in the marine corps is going to be 1-2. the fact is that the marines will probably like that because we are a young force and like to deploy. our families will probably not be thrilled about it. there is a danger in that. these issues began to come back

to the home front. over, they will come home for us. it will be a turning around force on sequestration. ini am going to hold myself check and turn to you for one later. here in the front row, please identify ourselves. >> thank you for joining us. mike has been asking you about the future. you then gave some historic echoes. i am interested in applying that further to the history of the marine corps. is there a parallel that you think about in terms of organizational challenges and identity that you keep in mind

as you deal with these questions of the future? it the 1990's, the 1920's, the 1890's? >> the writings of the previous commandants, i have read most of what they wrote. they went through some challenging times trying to sort out what was going to look like. there was a period of time, as i recall, where the trick was to get it down to $160,000. some have been faced with a challenging budgetary issue.

nothing like " we are going through today. i do think that these are unprecedented. if you go back to 1946, this still astounds me, we were completely emasculated. after that war i realized we were tired of it, war on two continents. we were successful. had it not turned out that way, we probably would not be sitting in this room. things would have turned out dramatically different. as a nation we took the service and went completely into the basement. i look at that and i look at how quickly it turned around.

even some of the great general officers. i would argue that when we went to war in korea there was a lack of for paribas and readiness that probably cost us dearly early in the war. you read that and it does not -- and it seems inescapable. for anecdotal purposes, the marine corps has not been below $107,000 since 1950. no administration, no leadership in congress has taken at some 71. i do not know that i would say that that is the reason. i look at the challenging times

and after world war ii is the one that i would look at. we have different opinions about how much is enough. what we cannot afford to do is to get it exactly wrong. ok, take a everyone, deep breath, we will work caraway through the budget. from not lose the lessons that period of time. question, third row. >> thank you for your comments.

theuestion is more along training and education line. now the the force is looking forward with sequestration and budget cuts, how important do you see the skill set for potential missions moving forward as you try to rebalance training and education efforts? question.ou for the i think it is every bit as important in the next decade, based on the environment that i described, where people who can fill those kinds of engagements, sometimes they are actual conflicts. i think that the lessons that we learned over the last 10 to 12 years of war are critical in the future. it is language, in this culture. restarted using the term about a

year ago, human terrain. before that we talk about war among people. it is a lot of confidence building. the people of the most important part. we cannot afford to lose that. we might lose that in the marine corps. these residents schools for office -- officers and not- commissioned officers, as we go forward we will not lose the lessons of the counterinsurgency mind set. we forgot all about it. it took a while. probably right now, the principal ground forces are doing a better than ever before. aere are plenty of places

realm the world where it might be a small insurgency. or a legal one. how do you deal with that? is a classic case of trying to deal with something. to get by with a living. the international community touches those kinds of communities. theire to be mindful of culture and languages, the nuances. relationship building is critically important. i spent a lot of time with my brigadier-general in their relationships, because as you go ashore, some countries may have

the benefit of having been there before, perhaps we have never been able to announce the name of it, it will be the thing that causes us to be successfully help for not. so, we are sending them to the monterey right now. , because theyence can do it. >> congress and the , how will you

manage the manpower of downsizing while still trying to add another 100,000 plus to security. what are you doing in that vein. the questions first began about eight or nine months ago. embassies are the marines at? we are somewhere around 160 embassies or consulates around the world. half whereother there are no more marines. asked will be to do, the answer was we could not

do more with what we had. we needed to put more marines in. so, congress faithfully went after that. that was included in the language, as you are well aware of. discussions as we talked about that, marine security guard attachments were about one senior staff in there with corporals and lance corporals. highly trained, skills that the other marines do not necessarily have.

security clearances that are critical for their jobs. securing the classified material in there. providing a protective service as someone else travels around the nation. that is not their mission. how would we do this thing? we have developed training standards and planned into the discussions with congress. would you like to do this? the answer is yes. we do it as part of who we are. do you pay for it?

the original intent is that it would be above the force structure line. these would be on top of that, by a line out of congress. that was the original discussion. i want to be clear that this is a mission that is important and i think that the marine corps of to do it. i said -- regardless of how this turns out regarding money, we are going to do this. 18 2.1, or 19p of 2.1, excuse me. this match in front of the public is not good.

there are six indexes that every security guard attachment. we will slowly build up that capacity. when you put the marines there, there has to be a secure running around. when we did it, which is really important, we built a small force that could be rapidly flown in. that is called security augmentation units. we could fly them anywhere in the world. this is probably not an area the lavishes.

>> second, please. >> i am betting that sure ioc is going to be 14. you do not have to tell us unless you want to given that, you have got to start developing some common sense. how do you see 35 working with 22? how will it change how you work in the pacific in particular? >> it will likely be in 2015, not 2014. the definition of the 10 airplanes and crews, they were

all trained up in. trained to the missions of the airplanes. that is the definition of iowa city. the definition itself will be more than the full 10. back to the lessons learned, the concepts of operational employment, if you take a look at how these ships of late, i will take you back to 2003. of late let's talk about how they have been used. when we were under secretary gulf, pressed into the

dealing with the business of our nation in that part of the world, we still had issues in the gulf of aden. weapons where you could do precise targeting. flying off the ships became almost surgically a capability for the president and secretary of defense. has been usede it an awful lot in that regard. remember the terrible attack we had in last september? in support of the

coalition forces for some time. nato said -- what is it we should do. 26 expeditionary units, up the suez canal, they turned left. what are we going to do? no-fly zone? a no-fly zone reinforcement. we need to take it down from

europe. of the example flexibility of those airplanes. i was a wing commander. we had 72 of them, as i recall. pictures of them on highway one. landing out there right after i just got done of colonel duncan. i landed that helicopter along the highway. we said that i needed air support. a regular rotary wing, which is easy. we learned how to refuel them.

eventually we attacked baghdad. use areods that we will the stonewall aircraft. >> back to you, i want to pick up on the point made. i do not want you to get in trouble with your fellow chiefs. is that a mistake? should the air force be buying this aircraft? considering that there are some much more vulnerable? they approached me the answer

was yes. they were putting u.k. pilots back into the harrier squabs. these were navy pilots in each one of the squads. they are in it. as the satellite flies over the world. that is just runways. there are about 10,000 times as many.

for us the places we will be operating are pretty important. the air force should buy the more not, i will not touch that. places where others either cannot or do not have the logistics' to sustain it. not need fancy air conditioning can. things to you can order every morning, that is bad for your health. we also need to be able to operate our equipment out there. i have got hundreds and hundreds of pictures of refueling airplanes and vehicles. >> thank you.

next question from the back. striped tie. >> general, i do not want to get you in trouble. but i'm reading a book right now that is a brookings book. really interesting. he talks about the time he served as secretary.to the present 35-year time. we have something like for additional undersecretaries and 12 additional secretaries in the defense department. he made a strong argument for getting rid of the secretaries. can you talk about the bloat and the pentagon leadership? >> you guys really are trying to get me in trouble. [laughter] it is recognized that there has been growth within the pentagon. the joint staff and the commanders. it is kind of but we called the

fourth estate. the folks that support the services. that is one of the things i'll be half -- that is one of the things that will have to be addressed under sequestration. i can do like my server secretary. i like what he does for the u.s. he is one of our greatest advocates. a formal naval officer himself. i'm actually very happy with where we are. which is what-- i think your question begs an answer to -- how much is enough with everything else? as the staff grows, the activities grow.

the services have to respond. we have to. we grow. our service headquarters grows in response to the growth of forces. it is a natural tendency. the question we are facing right now is how much is enough? we get into this thing of truth and tell.-- tooth and tail. tooth being what the war fighting capacity is. it's could be cyber and airplanes and ships. whatever that is. how much? there has to be some kind of tail. if you look at the department of defense, there is tail that will have to go under the magnifying

glass. it will have to be scrutinized. what we cannot have is continue to allow growth to happen at the expense of war fighting capabilities. we have a department of defense for one reason and one reason only. it is not to do paperwork and answer questions. we defend the united states of america and defend its interests. that is why we have it. we do not have a for a whole lot of other things.we just have to go back to that. we go back to sequestration and the empire -- and the impacts, the sequestration -- without telling you but we have looked at, i have looked outside and inside as well.i am looking at the headquarters inside of

my organization. next. the same row. >> thank you. i hope my question will be less less potential for it, so -- i'm wondering -- you mentioned how the post-world war ii brought on how we had to build back up for korea. does the marine corps have a plan for sort of being able to suddenly draw up if we get another strategic surprise? there is the possibility of it happening earlier. how would such plants be affected by sequestration? >> thank you. when secretary panetta called me

about six months or year before he gave up his job, this is when the budget control act was signed and sequestration was out there, as we do this and begin to reshape the force, there are several things we need to keep in mind. we need to build a taxable -- we need to build an agile force. we have to build a flexible force. as you reshape the force, you have to build in reversibility. that is that nasty, thorny stuff i talked about at the beginning. he also said, i don't want to build a larger force.-- off hello force. it is probably of worth talking i can take you back to

1990. we do not have to go too far back and talk about hollowness. he said reversibility is a key factor. what does that mean? a ship mate is worried about the industrial base. we do not have a lot of them anymore. the ones we have are pretty important to the nation. we do not have a lot of aircraft manufacturing anymore. that is pretty important to the nation. regardless, as you draw the force in, this matter of reversibility is industrial based and what i call blowing the balloon back up. there's some things if you decide if something were to happen any say, that is it, we will not do it, that is an irreversible decision. no one in the world is building

for short takeoff and vertical landings.nobody is. not another nation. we have built them. the u.k. did. the soviets built them. i think is called the f-28.when i was captain amos. but nobody else. there are some things that become irreversible. there are some units that we could blow the balloons back up in a reversing effort.maybe an infantry battalion would be one. you could probably rebuild. it would take you a couple years. we have experience in doing that. reversibility is in my miss national reversibility is -- reversibility is in line with --

what secretary panetta and secretary hagel were thinking. sequestration does affect that. one of the things on the wall is the term reversibility. or talk about people and equipment and capabilities -- when we talk about people and equipment and capabilities, we need to remember that we might get this wrong. we might need to turn this back around. if i'm going to take the capability away that needs to be purposeful decision, i need to say to myself, ok. i will never get that capability back again. >> next question. in the back. second to the last row.thanks. >> hi.

lindsay cooper from the government accountability office. could you address the status of the acb? water speed requirements have not yet been addressed. >> can you we ask your question? taking out the ackerman -- the acronyms. >> sure. government accountability office. gao. can you adjust the analysis of alternatives and the status of it of the amphibious combat vehicles. my understanding is that water speed requirements will not be addressed until the fall. >> i will tell you where we are. the officer secretary of defense in congress directed that we do an analysis of alternatives last year. that was completed. it was held at the secretary of the department of

the navy was an active part of it. that completed in june of last year. what it did is that it confirmed the requirement for an the tractorvehicle. as i described earlier. capability you could use both in a combat environment and forcible entry kind of thing if he had to do that. it certainly became the follow- on.it is not an expeditionary fighting vehicle. it is a replacement for the current tractor.but it is a fighting vehicle. it confirmed that. we took a look at that and said, ok. it did not say anything about high speed or slow speed. when you have a vehicle like that, it had the capability to

get up on the plane.imagine a water skier getting up on a plane. once you got up on the plane, you could go significantly faster. the fighting vehicle was summer around 28 -- somewhere around 28 that gave you an awful lot of capability. you could leave the ship and go someplace where the enemy is not. the current vehicle we have is what we call a replacement vehicle.-- a displacement vehicle. it becomes a vehicle that stays and swims. youis not below the surface. get into physics here. you cannot push a heavy vehicle through the water any faster than about 8 knots.

let's go back. we only get one more by at this bite at this.we want to do it right. let's make sure we understand the difference between a high water speed and displacement vehicle. the analysis of alternatives is done. we are working with industry to get two corporate partners that are teamed together. they will report to the marine corps this fall and they will tell us what is possible with regard to our water speed versus displacement vehicle. ind also what the cost is. have made it clear to everybody that cost is a variable in this. there are host of other things. we want to get it right.

by the time we get to the fall, i'll have enough information to make an educated recommendation to the secretary of the navy as to how to proceed. my sense is that will make a decision in the fall and probably around the beginning of next year and released a request for proposal. we will have money available to do that.that is where we are headed. ofhave a modest amount money in the defense plan. we have money for research and development.we do not have any procurement dollars. it's just research and development. at >> to the third row. >> good morning, general. i wanted to ask about your special operations. you have been an -- they're moving in transition in a more

maritime field. what do you see the role being in the future? how about affect reconnaissance communities? >> thank you. the very proud of marine special it is in its six year now. strong.out 2600 it is based out of camp lejeune, north carolina. they are an integral part of special operations. we provide the marines. we provide all of the equipment, the standard equipment. we provide the salaries and all that stuff. we have done well. if the admiral were here, he would confirm that. the future is bright and that kind of decade that i described.

that's what i started with what the world would look like in the future. there is plenty of work available for special operations. we are partnering in it. i have got no intention of downsizing special operations. i think the value added for our nation is one of those things that is good for our nation. we are looking right now on a concept. we will prototype it this fall. training with special operation forces again with the units that will go to see on those ships. there was a time in the 1990's, really the beginning of the turn-of- the-century, every aircraft

carrier had a group of seals that would be aboard it. every marine unit had a team of seals onboard. it becamethat changed. a function of, well, there are other things. the war in iraq broke out. they became preoccupied. they have not and back aboard naval vessels except for unique situations.-- specific, surgical-type operations. we have agreed to a concept that we will try out this upcoming 15th murraye expeditionary units. -- marine expeditionary units. we will have marine special operations forces that will train. we've also put marine special operations teams -- excuse me, liaisons -- the theater command.

the theater special operations command. we will have a relationship and know exactly what is available in and out of theater. we will have special operators on board the ship. they will be our eyes and ears. our liaison. we will know their capabilities. we think this is a pretty good installment to provide relevance. ihat is where we are heading. think the relationship, to the fact that we are reemphasizing our amphibious roots actually pools very well with special operations. we will have to wait and see. my expectations are positive. >> we have time for two more questions. i will ask one of them and i will come to you.i want to get

to the issue of how you are thinking about china. i will do this in a specific way. obviously, the summit with the president and china. there's a lot to talk about. i want to get at this through more of a planning and budgeting that mention in line with your budgeting dimension.through the concept of air-see battle. it is not really a formal doctrine. it is getting a lot of attention. it is seen as a response to precision strike weapons. say it is note about china but china can't afford to buy more precision strike weapons than most. at i support the idea.

two questions -- one, are the services and allies becoming part of this concept is to mark initially it was primary air whate and navy thought. role, if any, is the marine corps playing in the air see -- in the air see battle? is it something that inspires you or that you look to for guidance? or was it a one-time air force and navy heyday? it harkens back to air-land battle. the confrontational sounding slogan that china seems to take a little bit of that reaction to. can you comment on how you're thinking about that? >> i have not thought about that.changing the name. you are probably right.

like a lot of things when first conceptualized -- to your point about the concept, it is a concept. i look at it as a phase of an operation. i think that is the safest way to look at it. by that i mean it is an anti-x is ariel do now how do you deal in an environment where they do by thent you to come in? way, that is not new. technology has become more advanced to push them offshore or back into the air.