telecommunications. comcast was trying to buy nbc. so comcast needed my support and if you are going to go against my support then you are going to my own television station. televisionted station, magic johnson had a station.n

it creates that kind of opportunity. chicago, but also across the city. i do not want to see this. i do not want this to turn into you are older members preaching fires. that is wasting her time. i have seen it held to the fire. you are wasting time asking us about our commitment. you ought to know about what has happened. and tryto stay on point

to deal with the agenda. we will talk about solutions. >> let me ask you this. from thequestion national pta. called the national emergency summits. july 4ke about the weekend here in chicago, $1000. this is about immediate intervention. what immediate intervention do you suggest or support to help protect our men today and tomorrow while we provide the long-term intervention. work and athis from home. would you recommend military protection? >> it is an emergency summits.

today?s used i will tell you what i suggest. every block should have a lockup. every block should have a block club. the problem starts at the local level. interaction to deal with them. some of the most exciting times i have had in life was when i was a walk club organizer. holds many ofves the solutions to what ever it is that they call problems. ton you move from one level

the next. and from that level to the next. every issue that is not necessarily a great legislative remedy. takelegislative efforts five or 10 years even when you get them past. you work on an idea itt you put into a proposal may take five or 10 years. there are things individually's -- individuals can do right in this neighborhood and you can not always be looking out there somewhere for the solutions

that can be found right here. >> i wish a young man had not walked out. i can understand why they are there. iny have some issues right front of them, right here, right now. fear of being killed. all right? what we're focused on right now is a dull problems. we have more than our children are having. we have some still in the room. we are talking about adult issues. why can i not get money for my business.

twist the agenda back to the this is talking about the children. what we are going to do now and tomorrow about the killings that are taking place as the sit in this room. we do not have the capacity and the self interest to look the on the problems of the children and follow in on their issues. and expect them to solve their problems. .t is the instance it is the challenger of this. you have children on your mind

but you do not have them on your heart. children inhave your heart. let's talk about the children. >> i have a nine-year-old young man named jermaine young. >> at me as something. let me say that one of the answers is that we must use the word "emergency." one emergency is the flow of guns. one could be a national emergency response to gun trafficking. gun shooting range from chicago to washington to the west coast, east coast, south and north. we'll left washington we were bearing to teenagers.

if you go on my own time you can find the same thing. what did they use? then such are coming in. one of the things that can be done on a national level is to stop the flow of guns and start getting in the flow of gains or someone that wants to perpetrate a crime against you. whether someone wants to go into a grocery store. flow of to stop the guns. that is one of the things we can take at to washington. your addictions have good gun laws. guns are flowing in. there is no restraint to who can traffic guns because there are restraints put on the investigation by those who do not want to fund a crisis that stops the flow of guns. stop the illegal flow of

guns, get into our children's hands and causing them to kill or be killed. where looking for the young man. in the meantime i will ask you a question to the four of you. this question was why do you all still assumed that gang violence is from young youth gain banging. why do you assume that gang violence is from young youth banging?ing -- gang >> i heard something interesting today. i filled those are my generations. really that we are missing this. it was his reg out session on

violence. yourf the young guys said definition has changed. using the 1990 definition. more in control. it is more turf director. it is more turf driven. we will be following the media and it is talking about those who are doing good. when i heard that the first thing that came to my mind was

because the spirit has been working with me on this. i am thinking about this here in chicago. the migration of 40,000 i wonder about. the worst kind of housing you would ever want to live. it would not make sense to tear them all down. at the same time it is a channel that put them into west

chesterfield. it put them in the south door. what do you have now? those that do not have the foundation and the communities. they are trying to reconfigure that is why we have this killing. gangs anymore. ready yto deal [inaudible] and that is what is going on in this city. we have got to deal with that policy.

forcedthe largest history of this country. we had to speak to that and understand that. in the policyce juror at the violence. worthlowed just this year of closing over time. it is a war against our young people. real one.s on the our sense ofing community here in chicago. we have to deal with that. you go back to washington.

what is the plan? >> quite simply, what is the plan. when you go back to washington, and we certainly understand there is compassion for what you feel when you go back to washington, but what is the plan? you know the issue. decades.he issue for what is the plan? three or going to take four very can create initiatives and ideas that we will promote and try to convince as many other people to promote the very same ones. it is true that we know what

are.s are, what problems we even know what solutions are. we are not able to do is implement those things that can't solve and will solve the problem. everybody agrees that it's has optimum opportunity to get the very best education that they can get. i do not know anybody who disagrees with that. , making it work becomes the challenge. all of this might be another issue. the things that schools can do if we are talking about the there is of violence,

anti-bullying legislation that has been introduced. as a matter of fact sheila jackson-lee as well as myself have bills calling for curriculums to be developed that actually help young people learn that there is a way to resolve conflicts without resorting to violence. of the long road home. you have to take it. you have to make the use of it. of these other disparities that we know it exists. we are aware.

not only are we aware but the rest of society is aware. how do you generate the need to bringyou about the change that you are seeking? efforts are underway. every day. struggle is ongoing. every day. he met with success. the struggle goes on. we will be struggling for years and years.

there is no quick and dirty solutions. there are those easy answers. there are no panacea. there is no point to delusion ourselves into believing that there is struggle, strife, it and pain for the re-requisites for pain. i have close to a hundred questions here. i have read through most of them. there are some amazing questions here. want to be respectful of your time, certainly. >> can you hear me? >> i just want to know from the audience. someone asked what can we do?

the answer when someone says should we bring military to the block? i want to know what you think? should we bring state police? i am not saying i'm for it one way or another. people are afraid to sit on the -- orrson those kids send their kids to school. is it more disability? that is what i want to know? commit tod you all sticking around and talking to folks one-on-one after work? >> i had to catch a plane. >> can you hear me? let me build on what my members have said.

members are here. you saw many of them today. many of them flew in late so they could be part of caring about what is happening to our young will. we have the justice working group. your members are a member of it. i promise to you is that said something about gun trafficking. we have talked around it in washington. there is something to all these guns being around. thene is trying to break second amendment. cannot seem to get people to understand. we are having a universal background check. a ban on assault weapons. passing anti-bullying and prevention.

giving people a second chance with a job. the list of gun laws that many of us have introduced our simple. yet dealing with some of the ins that did not work florida. dealing with staying your ground. people who want to not do right can use it to avoid prosecution. one thing we have to concede is that we are not getting killed. .e're getting with killed he had to ask yourself where this is coming from. >> the congressional black going to ask the hard question, reduce legislation is also seek the resources.

there is nothing wrong with asking for children to be our priority from a federal double that deals with education and summer job. i will leave how things are moving around. we do know people are dying. we need to leave here with the burden of the members who put andther an emergency plan funding. no one up here is a wallflower. .his will be heard last week we have some really and --

brilliant strategies coming out of the community. we have some brilliant hoax. they need to be heard. when they come with their plan, whether it is organizations my members help fund whether it is the naacp or the urban late, what ever, they need to work hard. i am not going to read us the voting rights act. this has to do with how we have people representing interested in putting money and art -- putting out money and our children first. the want and anti-violence allda, you can be assured the members that came are going to take this back to washington.

this is old terminology. we all come up with something great that is going to do with ir children based upon what know my members certain what i will take away. do not let anybody say that we did not hear about what we're going to do about preventing gun violence in saving the lives of our children. i heard you. i got folks to work with. i meet today.or had a >> do you want to leave us with closing words? >> i would. >> i just want to say to those that have been here, whatever time you have been here, i really thank you for coming here to chicago for this.

they have come from there districts. i know how tough it is to come into another city. i really appreciate this. robin, i really appreciate the opportunity to work with them. everyone here. those who participated in that bring trust. this has been a pretty remarkable day. not only for the conversations and our breakout session but the conversations in the cafeteria on the sidewalk in the hallways. and lots of conversations going on around this particular issue.

when we start having conversations we are well on our way, when we do not talk to each other, that is when the problem will become more intense. let me leave you with two thoughts. is that i do had not know how many are new here and have volunteered to really spend any time in your church, in your schools, on your block, on these issues. the love andneed support and the time of adults. story aboutell the

a young man who was in my office. he would come in with this particular group. they came in to see the congressman. me questions about legislation and my position on legislation. i asked them, i said i have two questions i'm going to ask you. what is your biggest problem? so what is your biggest problem? they said i think this problem is fear. fear is our biggest problem. of being shot.

you're being stabbed. i think this problem is fear. it stunned me. we have in our community our children. it was a major problem. i said ok. what can we as adults do about it? they said give us some of your time. they didn't ask for more money. they didn't ask for a law to be passed. they didn't ask for president obama to create a commission. they said you must move from your time.

if we were to of been more time we would stop this violence. the second thought i had was this was a national movement. it is not just at the epicenter. i do not know where the tv cameras are. here and read about this. what are they doing in chicago? they would take a lot of time and effort. this before the national march on washington. ,ugust 28. we got one month

the 27th. we've got one month. we had two days. if you and i can agree on this, why don't we work over the and 30 days e-mailing sending the face of an asked for a national day of nonviolence. i am not saying that is going to solve the problem. it will make a difference in some communities. it is just that simple idea.

it is just that simple idea. you get into these communities. day of a national nonviolence. let's make that happen. they will be empowering ourselves to take more. >> take it home. >> we put this together. there is not a lot of notice. a lot is a lot about the choir. where osco -- we are also asking them to get more. proverb.old andill take us and you

many different entities. i want to say thank you so much. it does not determine your opportunity. we have this for 10 years. >> this has been an incredible. we have had the mayor. we have had several local officials. we had community groups. they make this.

i want to thank all of our university for never ending involvement, their cooperation. they were in washington. this is something that we heard commitment. that they would convene themselves.

there are continuous organizations. quite frankly, it takes all of that in order to make something happen. it has been very productive. what happens as a result? what happens as a result remains to be seen. the answer to that really becomes a question that each one of us will answer. we got we were family -- barely -- fairly bright. there was a man in our town named uncle joe who was known as the wisest of men. the idea was that it we could ask him a question that he could not answer then everybody would know that we are smart.

we thought we would catch ourselves a mockingbird. we would ask if he knew what we had. we hadred he would know a mockingbird. then we would ask them if the bird was alive or dead. if uncle joe said that the bird was alive we would squeeze it open our hands and everyone could see he was wrong. if you said the word was dead, we would simply open our hand in the bird with flyaway. we ran to him with our plan. he said we want to ask you something. do you know what we've got in our hands? he looked and said little boy, in your hand is a mockingbird. we punched each other and said

well we got him now. can you tell us if the bird is alive or dead? uncle joe acted like he was about to answer than he looked at the two of us and he says the answer to that is in your hands. the success of this weekend is really its success in all of our hands as we leave based upon what we do. we thank you for coming. >> that is a beautiful way to end it. i have one piece of housekeeping here. there is the congressional makes good help my

reality. they will all be there. it will be a town hall on health. i will say this. i want to thank sheila jackson- , robin kelly,is corrine brown for being with us sittingbeing -- and here. i thank you all for being here. and his childhood story, on august 28 he asked us if we would commit to a day of nonviolence in the city chicago and across the nation. you are preaching to the choir.

we know the answer to that western. in leaving us in a celebration if you will cut may to that day and to every date would you please stand up. let's have a safe evening. god bless the city of chicago. god bless the united states of america. thank you so much. ♪ [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013]

>> the senate gaveled an earlier

to continue work on the transportation departments. they are also debating the nomination of james cone me to be next rector of the fbi. follow the senate live on c- span2. the house returns tomorrow. on the edge in debt, funding the transportation and housing department and a bipartisan compromise. it is live on c-span. my thesis is that the thing began this. carriedthis has been on its head largely due to commercial pressures that have changed the course of the internet to magically. unless we arrest those pressures and redirect the internet the futures will not be as glorious as we want to thought.

>> the future of the internet .ith robert mcchesney that is tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span2. be chairman of the white house council of economic advisers. he spoke earlier today about the u.s. economy and the debt limit. to return to a teaching job at princeton university in the fall. 8:05an see his comments at p.m. eastern here on c-span. thehe first lady reflect schism about what women are supposed to do today. re: supposed to be mom and chief? are we supposed to be first mate? if thegate that president is supposed to be head of state and head of government, is the first lady supposed to be

the ideal fashionista? is she supposed to be mom and chief? , that meanstime that she really has to understand what is going on in the administration. she has to understand what is going on in the country and her husband's political agenda. you cannot really separate how the first levy -- lady present herself -- present herself in the conflict and expectations the country still has for working wives and working mothers. >> as we continue our talkrsation, historians about the role of the first lady and this move from traditional home and family to activism on behalf of important issues in the transitioning from public back to private life.

>> ray 40 or no -- oh dear no discussed budget cuts. he also talked about the rate of a increases. this is one hour. >> thank you for joining us for our second in the joint chiefs of staff series, the conversation with each chief. we are lucky to host ray odierno this morning, particularly because, as chief, depending on the way you look at it, he has very few bosses -- chairman, deputy secretary -- or has very few bosses. this week all of his bosses are

out of town. we are grateful for his time. we will be very casual. we will engage with you. my name is mackenzie, i and a fellow here for national security. ray odierno is a west point graduate, a field artillery officer, 38th chief of staff appear before he assumed this job, he had both senior positions running u.s. forces, multinational in iraq, 2006 to 2010, including the surge of u.s. forces which i am sure he can speak to at length. just about hitting his two-year mark as chief, now more senior and ready to talk about these issues at this rare time to be chief of staff. certainly will be in history books. we welcome those live on-line.

you can reach us through #aeijes. you could also use our handle to reach as with any questions and we will try to get them to general odierno. we will also be having microphones throughout for you to join is in the conversation. i will kick it up with a few moderator prerogative questions and get the chief warmed up for all of you. i want to start by welcoming the chiefs back to the states. he just returned from a trip to india. this is a country that has had two recent visits from other officials, including one from china, where the premier made his first overseas visit to india.

then there was an unofficial visit when chinese forces crossed into indian territory this spring. i think these two events encapsulate a lot of what we are watching and seeing from afar in the region. there is the hope of better relations, peaceful prosperity, but also a quiet risk of old fashioned power politics. i would love for the chief to talk about his trip, what he saw, thoughts about how he can work with india to advance our policy in asia. >> thank you for having me. i am pleased to be here and having the opportunity to discuss lots of issues. we could probably talk for eight hours. it was my second time in india. the last time i was there was about five years ago, at that time, military adviser to secretary rice. very different time back then. that was 2005, 2006. for me, it was a really important visit. my first visit with my counterpart, general singh. i had the opportunity to talk about a variety of issues but we realized we have so much in common, the two largest democracies in the world, based

on two very professional armies. there is much we can do to learn from each other. so we talked a lot about the way ahead in the region, the importance of operations in the region, and then they took me up to their northern command, which is their most important command, which is responsible for the borders of pakistan and china. i had the chance to meet with their staff and commanders, and what really caught me was the fact that, what they have been doing for the past 20 years, is what we have been doing for the past 12, counterinsurgency, protecting their space, a lot of lessons learned. there is a lot -- a lot of knowledge we can share.

that will be the basis of the continued relationship, the sharing of information about what they face on a day-to-day basis in the kashmir area, with pakistan, as well with china, a minor incursion not long ago. there is a lot we have in common, sharing professional development, understanding techniques on what we see will be potentially prominent as we deal with future problems, not only around the world, but there and in the middle east. the other thing i would say is, as is in many of the asia- pacific countries, the army is the dominant service in those countries. india is a prime example. by far the largest service, by far the most influential. it is important for us to build army-to-army relations as we continue to rebalance the asia- pacific region.

>> i have a feeling some in the audience will want to discuss the army's role in the asia- pacific region, what will it look like going forward? it is a good segue to the next topic, one which you are all familiar with. the drawdown of the u.s. army. this was a decision made over a year ago, now well underway. you are personally and wrote -- overseeing that. you recently announced a reduction of 10 teams, a total of 80,000 active-duty service members. one of the biggest organizational changes since world war two, and you are the one in charge. i worry, as a follower of defense policy, that in the circles -- with the people whom you speak, and whom i speak, there is often not enough awareness about the fact that this but the decision is the result of the budget drawdown

that preceded sequestration. some of that includes the budget control act. all of these services are busy observing the first cuts under the bca and additional reductions that started in 2010. it has been on a downward trend since then. this is the fourth year of defense budget cuts and reductions, three of which predate sequestration. this is a significant change for the army. if sequestered continues into next year, 80,000 may look like an overwhelming number, and that could be that there is more. what is the impact on troops and their families, what are you thinking about as you implement this?

>> you are right, these initial cuts are the $487 million budget reductions we agreed to prior to sequestration. the initial cuts were due because we have increased the size and the army because of our presence in iraq and afghanistan. although it was a difficult decision, it was one that was somewhat in line with our new strategy. as we now look ahead, looking toward sequestration, there are a couple of problems. if you even agree that we needed to cut the military to the extent we wanted to, according to sequestration, the way we go about it is really not right. it is so vast that it gets us out of balance. my responsibility as chief of staff is to maintain balance between proper modernization to give us the best systems possible, to make sure our soldiers are successful. second is to make sure we

maintain a level of readiness so that we are ready if called upon. the third piece is the end strength that we believe is appropriate. you have to balance all of that. you want to have the capability and capacity to deter what i would call miscalculating decisions, based on their belief that we do not have the capability or capacity to respond. that is one issue. the second issue, based on sequestration, we have to come down so fast, we cannot take enough people out fast enough. as you take people out, you have to pay benefits as you let them go, so there is only a certain number that you can take and every year, otherwise it cost you more to take people out. so we have this in balance or it will affect my interpretation and readiness. so as i look ahead, people often

ask me -- people ask me what keeps me up at night. if i'm asked to employ 20,000 soldiers summer, i cannot guarantee that they will be trained to the level where they should be because of the way that sequestration is being enacted. that is a concern to me. that means we will still send soldiers, we will train them to a lower level and will be individually ready, but they will not have been able to train collectively the way we would like. that means operation would take longer, and important, would probably mean more casualties. so that is the concern. even if i said, let's do sequestration, it would have

been written differently to give us time to execute it properly, so that we can do it in the back years. let us get there in the right way so that we are not taking so much risk this year, next year, the year after. the other comment i would make, i do worry about the size of the cut. in order for us to keep it balanced -- one thing that the secretary of the army and i have been clear on -- we are going to have an army that is ready and modernized. we have to keep reducing the size. potentially, i believe, we could get to such a point with size that we will have to completely we look our strategy and how we think we can use the army in the future. those will be continue discussions we have as we go

forward. >> i know the budget impact is particularly severe on the army. once the reprogramming requests were approved, the airport's -- air force were able to get some ground forces back in the sky, and i know the army is not able to quickly turn around as quickly. i know the furlough impact has been significant on the army workforce, and i sympathize. three years ago, i staff the bipartisan commission known as the qdr independent panel, and in 2010, president obama's first year in office, a request was made to change strategy, cancel a lot of modernization initiative that were under way at the time. 50 major programs, budget reductions continue from there. this commission looked at the pentagon defense strategy and budgeting and, it was remarkable, that was stood up when the president party held congress. they thought it was important to

that. we helped to think about a lot of the issues. the panel was very concerned about the health and the viability of the all-a volunteer force. this was three years ago when party started changing. -- priorities started changing. we took on stress tests of the volunteer force, and i want to read a couple of finding that the commissioners issued as part of the final report. there was concern back then, and you recall this is the beginning of the recession. nonetheless, it was not where we are today economically. but there was reason to doubt recruiting and retention in the military could stay as strong as it had in previous years once the economy started to recover. some specialties and in portions of the country were same weaknesses in recruiting and retention. there was concern among the

panel about the ability to recruit in the future, the 16 to 24-year-old age group -- 26, actually, the key target for all services, particularly the army. more were choosing to attend college, the propensity to serve declining and the number of influencers talking to them is declining. i know that is something that you think about. finally, the rise in traumatic brain injury, post-traumatic stress disorder, other things that affect cardmembers possibility to -- that affect member's current ability to deploy. talk about wanting down iraq, iraq and afghanistan twice, and still engaged with the u.s. forces right now, of starting

four years of defense budget cuts. how is that going? >> first, the demand has gone down quite a bit from 2010. the peak was in 2010 because we were in gauged in iraq and we were just beginning the surge in afghanistan. that was one of the higher points of numbers of people deployed. 2008 might be higher. that was the highest stress that we have had on the army, specifically, since we were carrying the largest burden of both wars. a couple of things i would say, as i look back, and then forward. the all-volunteer army has

performed superbly in the last 12 years. yes, there is stress, there is posttraumatic stress, tbi, some problems with families, but as we have gone back historically to when we did not have a volunteer army, the problems are not much different. the volunteer army has held up. we have to make sure -- my worry is we cannot forget that we have these issues. there is a lot of attention on ptsd, a lot of attention on tbi, a lot of attention on making sure our wounded warriors are taken care of, attention to make sure we have programs in place. i worry about five years from now, 10 years. we know that part of this generation will be affected for a very long time and we have to make sure, with the budget cuts, that we keep our attention on

this. the one good thing that has happened, in all of this, the v.a. has not been subject to sequestration. they will be the ones responsible 10 years, 15 years from now, to take care of these young men and women who sacrificed so much. one of the indicators that i look at and a look of the help of the force.

>> we do watch the economy very closely and the bell weather for us is when unemployment gets below 6%, we start having a bit more difficulty in recruiting. the last two years has been in terms of hour we measure quality, the best quality we've had in a long time. we are seeing a propensity to continue to serve. for the first time last year, we turned some away. part of that is because of the downsizing that we're going through. for now, we're okay but the issue becomes three years from now, four years from now, five years from now. we have to continue to make sure that we remain in the

consciousness of our country, understand the importance of service and make sure we have young people interested. the other piece is officers. west point this year has had more applicants it ever had. then the quality of the applicants is higher than it's been. the number of reasons for that, west point scored very high for academic standing in the country. it's recognized as probably the best leader development institution in the country if not the world. i think there's people who want to serve and there's young people want to serve. one of the reasons, obviously, women are becoming more important in the army is because we want to make sure we make the opportunity available pool of qualified men and women. we have to make the best use of

that talent as we move forward. for us it's really important that we increase those opportunities so we maximize the talent that is available to us. i think over all the health of the force is good. the next couple years though we have to watch it carefully as we come out. suicides are still higher than we would like obviously. we're making some progress but not as much progress we like. we have to continue to monitor and ensure that we have the right care for our young soldiers who have the have ptsd. >> well, i share your concern about needing to keep awareness for years to come not just right now while the debt ceiling is in the news or something. these issue that's are going to persist for you. thanks for coming today.

help keep in the consciousness of members of congress and their constituents throughout the future. i know you will be watching the unemployment rate closely. not just the impact on recruiting and retention when our economy turns around but also the impact within the budget which is the services cut recruiting dollars in that environment. usually you want to ramp them up. 23% are eligible that means 77% of the youth are ineligible which is a remarkable number. it's something we should be concerned about. last question before we kick it off to all of you, is briefly back to your trip to india and note that you recently momented head of the u.s. army pacific to a three and four star position. you mentioned this is partly due

to unpredictable of korean peninsula. in the mine time, secretary of defense announced an initiative try try bring down headquarter staff but particular emphasis on headquarter staff. if you can talk to us a little bit briefly about the position and why you elevated it and what you think concluding thoughts about the army's role. >> first of all, we are going to reduce our headquarters 20% we're working that very hard. we're making some decisions in the army that will probably go down to two star level headquarters. and reduce all of them by about 20% if not more. we're doing a review of that and we'll look at how we go about doing it.

in terms of pacific, first of all, the navy and air force had -- we reduce significantly the amount of our general officers in europe. we used to have a four star in europe and that's now three star. we eliminated a headquarters in europe. we are in process of eliminating general officer positions. we reinvested it based on the parties, which is asia-pacific. there's a four star korean, what we needed was a four star who can work the rest of the asia-pacific region and be on par with their counterparts. whether it be in china, thailand or japan or india. we thought it's important for us to have the representation that allows us to work the many tough issues we have in the

asia-pacific region. they play a major role in development of policy. they play a major role in development of cooperation agreements between us and other nations. i think it's critical that the army is able to go talk army to army and we have the capablabilities to do that as we move forward. the army has 82,000 soldiers. what's happened over the last three or four years, lot of them were serving in afghanistan and iraq. in 2013, will be the last year we'll are any units out of the pacific serving in iraq. we will continue to do that as they continue to conduct several important engagements. we have one going on now. first core, which is a sign to

u.s. army pacific is being certified as a joint task force. we conducted airborne operations with our partners this week. we have significant amount of activity going on in the pacific to help bilateral relationships. to help develop country's capabilities. the other thing that allow us, it ensure us access. those are some of the key contributions as we support. >> you're correct, 82,000 u.s. army soldiers in the asia-pacific is not a well known statistic. and significant contribution that you're making through efforts there. i will stop talking and open up the floor to the rest of you. please just do me the favor and wait for the mic. let you know your name and state your question and the answer if the form of a question.

>> sir, good morning. my question has to do with total force. last year at brookings the question came up about cuts in the national guard. you said we got what we got now but future cuts come out the air force will be on the table. cutting back on the guard went to matt and congress. last week the language came out was the can't -- cancellations. we need to look at militia construct go ahead and increasing the national guard and reducing active duty forces.

your comment. >> first, my job is to make sure prepared for the next conflict. in order to do that we have to have the right balance. they all play a significant role. clearly large majority will come out of the active component. the talk of any increase in any part of our force now to me is unrealistic with the budget cuts that we face. we're trying to do just sustain that right balance. what i wanted, i need a certain amount of the force. i compare it to football. the guard gets practice 39 or 40 days out of the year. you want a football team that can do one practice a month and have two weeks spring training. there's a difference. we need the guard. we need them. we proven that over the last 12 years. we're going to continue to build an army that is built on a total

army concept. what we should be looking at is what's best for our future. for me it's maintaining the right balance of forces. we've already taken 80,000 out of the active component. we're going to take a significant amount more out of the active component based on sequestration. we're going to have a little bit out of the guard reserve. the over all percentage of reserve component will be higher than the active component. where before the active component was higher than the reserve component. i think that's the right balance. we got to look at how we're going to employ them not just rhetoric about certain parts of the force. i think we've been working with them very carefully through all of this. we will continue to work with them. my job is to make sure we develop the best army possible for the future and that's what we're going to do. >> we'll take some more

questions. >> hi. sydney freeberg. let me ask your india trip. it's impossible to talk pacific and even india without looking at china. we have a long and kind of convoluted history of the u.s. and india and china and not always happy triangle. unlovely triangle you might say. they fought each other in the past, they still get annoyed when somebody puts a map with the wrong border in the himalayas. how do we engage with especially super power like india but with any partner on the land in the pacific. vietnam comes to mind as well, without getting the chinese worried that we are containing them, that we are try anglelating against them? >> first it's how you go about

doing it. one of the things we have to remember is, we have to make sure they maintain their strategic autonomy. we do things in line with them to help build capacity. where you getting possible containment when you start having land forces forward stations in countries. that's not our plan. our plan is, on the west coast of the united states sign a pacific command. we'll continue to build partner capacity. we'll continue to do exercises ranging from mission from humanitarian assistance to disaster relief. it's about building cooperation. we can work together to resolve and continue to move forward together in the asia-pacific region to include china. this policy is not excluding china it's to work with china.

everyone has the opportunity to continue to move forward. it's about economics. it's about making sure everybody has the right access to the economic capabilities that reside in the asia-pacific region. ours is not to contain china. ours is to build relationships, to build better support for the commander as he intends to ensure we don't get into conflict. we don't build animosity between all the major powers in asia-pacific. our strategy will be built around that. we'll develop it as we go along. again, this is about supporting the pay com commander. i'm making sure he has the army capabilities necessary in order for him to shape his environment. in order to prevent conflict, to prevent raising tensions in the pacific so everyone can continue

to move forward economically in other ways. as we move forward, we learn from the lessons of the 10 or 12 years. we'll continue to apply those lessons and we'll work with other countries in discussing what these lessons have been. >> timothy. i want to follow up on the questions on the asia-pacific. what the capabilities for the army contributing. potentially the army developing -- what are the options and ideas that the army -- >> think obviously, missile defense is key as we go forward. the requirements around the

world are growing for ballistic missile defense capability. we're working through how we do that in innovative ways and cheaper ways. for the army in the future it's about how we scaling and tailoring our forces in order for us to be globally responsible to move quickly, to meet specific needses. that's what we're working towards now. as you see as we go forward, you will see us deploy smaller packages to meet a variety of motions whether it's missile defense or put small element on the ground to do work to protect some u.s. interests. that's what we're looking to do. i'm not looking to form hundreds of thousands of soldiers in the pacific. that's not the intent at all.

it's about having a small scale or capabilities that allow us to gain access and to build capacity and build relationships that allow us to move forward in the asia-pacific region. >> we're going to go tom in the back. >> i can't believe we gone two-thirds of way in the conversation and haven't talked about the middle east at all. that is unprecedented. even though we're withdrawing afghanistan and have done from iraq, the region is hardly peaceful. force provider and guys of the steward of the army, what are your thoughts about what you should be trying to equipping and scaling the army to do in a region that's still very violent and uncertain? >> as part of the defense

strategic guidance, right behind that very closely is continue to maintain stability in the middle east. obviously it's an important mission. as you said, i talk quite often credible uncertainty now. a lot of it is in the middle east. probably most uncertain i've seen it in my time in the service. we have to to be prepared for that. as i prepare for scaled and tailable operations in asia-pacific, we have to prepare for capabilities in the middle east which could end up being a bit larger depending upon what we're asked to do. we have to be able to maintain that capabilities. sometimes we look at syria and we look at what's going on in egypt and look at what's going on with iran. they're all somewhat interconnected. we have to watch it very

carefully. i think -- as we look ahead -- one thing i don't want to do is make the mistake we made back in 2003, not understanding what we're getting involved with. one of the things i'm absolutely focused on is making sure our leaders as we prepare ourselves, understand the socioeconomic and other factors involved within the middle east. they are quite complex, they are quite difficult to understand. for me, as we prepare, that's one of the important things we need to do. is make sure we understand what's going on in syria, what's going on and the impact on israel and impact on lebanon and iraq and impact that egypt could have on the rest of the middle east. we're looking at closely at tunisia and what impact that

could have. all of these things we have to look at very carefully. one of the things that i worry about is this precursor to the sunni shia fight we're seeing going on across the middle east. we have to be very understanding of that and be prepared. we think about that a lot. we are training to understand that better and we will maintain the capability, if necessary, to conduct high end operation. >> all the way in the back by the window. >> i work in study here in this city. thanks a lot general, good to see you. very personal note. i was three rows behind you

saturday. one of my seat mates was the 85 years young ed damonish of massachusetts. he wanted to thank you and you and the joint chiefs and the services in general for all the accommodations and especially for the young junior running around with trade of water making sure people don't fall out to follow up on the issue of india, you just came back, you had a 25 briefing over there. you learned about the 50,000 troops stood up on the border. you likewise also heard about the contest of china against india and india's explorations. how do u.s. interpret those remarks and actions? >> i think again, i think as you look at asia-pacific, it's about competition for limited resources. it's about making sure everyone

is able to sustain their own sovereignty and meet their own interests. the conversation we have is how do we go about military perspective, how do we look at this and how do we be prepared to respond. the discussions we have are really about where can we help each other as we look ahead on how we try to ensure that some of these issues don't get blown out something much bigger than it needs to be. i think those are kind of discussions i report. military to military relationships are very important especially if times of crisis -- in times of crisis. for me going over there establishing relationships to help us when a crisis occurs, we familiar with each other and we can have conversations and we can talk about difficult issues.

for me that is worth a lot. we see that going on a little bit in egypt today. because of our strong military relationships, we can have conversations. we can talk. they'll make their own decision on what they do but at least we have the opportunity to have these discussions because of the relationships that have been built through the years through us helping them develop. the large majority of the indian leaders are all educated here in the united states. but it was the army war college, that helps us to understand each other as we go forward. for me, that's the kind of thing we have to do as we tackle some tough problems that you just mentioned. >> great questions. was this a sporting event on saturday? >> yes, it was the korean -- actually let me comment on that actually. incredible event recognizing 60 years of the end of the korean

war. the sacrifices, incredible sacrifices that were made in korea. these men are very proud and women are proud of their duty in korea. unfortunately like they were over looked for a very long time. we thought it was important we recognize it. also there were some lessons in korea by the way. we struggled when we first got into the fight. why? because we reduced too much after world war ii. we didn't have enough capabilities. we didn't invest in our capabilities. it cost us thousands of lives when we first went into korea. it took us a year to recover in order for us to get in there properly and push back the north koreans and chinese. there was a lesson there that we should not forget as we look ahead to some of the budget cuts. we face. >> absolutely. the task force is something

symbolic. it's something we never want to see repeated. >> i wanted to ask you about the ground combat vehicle. knowing what's coming with the budget. are we considering the reality now that the army won't have the ground combat vehicle. >> because of the sequestration cuts we have to consider everything. as i mentioned to you, i have a two and three year problem with modernization. i'm going to have to look very hard at all of our modernization program. i'm very concerned. we need the ground combat vehicles. we have to have it. now, we might have to delay it because of budget cuts. i don't know, we haven't made a decision yet. we have to review it. the bradley fighting vehicle just didn't perform the way we wanted to in both iraq and afghanistan. our soldiers were vulnerable. we need somethin than

that. the ground combat vehicle is what we need in order to do that. the issues are going to be how quickly we get there now because of budget cuts. >> before we go to ron, i have a quick online question. i already know the answer but i will let you be brief. i will read you the question. are any of the strategic choiced made public? >> first of all i leave that you to secretary of defense his review. it's okay for us to have internal discussions to understand where our decisions will be in the future. that's what occurred. i think, i leave it up to him to decide whether he wants to release those discussions. they were good discussions, they were difficult, very difficult

discussions. because we're talking about significant cuts to our department of defense. there are no easy issues. we're trying to do the best we can to ensure that we have the most ready military possible. >> i know congress is interested in it sense the national defense will be reviewing those finding. ron right here and then kate. >> just following up on the comments around korea and the lessoned learns. there's been a lot of study the around healthcare expenses and things of that nature. how do you think about balancing that with structure anded and -- modernization. are there problems you can't touch them and that important. >> one thing i didn't talk

about. the other thing we look at is modernization and compensation. the issue we have is, we have to have the right package of compensation that allows us to continue to move forward with an all volunteer force. the issue we have is the rate of compensation is growing too quickly. it's not necessarily -- we don't have to necessarily end some of our compensation benefits but we have to reduce the growth. we have to get it back in line with what is reasonable. if we continue along the way that we are going now, we believe by 2023, 80% our budget is going to be uncompensation. we can't operate like that. right now it's about 46% of the army budget and that's high. we like it about 42.

what happens is, if that impacts modernization, readiness. with modernization programs, there's a couple things. there are some things that we think are -- we have to sustain some of our procurement programs and some of our new development that's are absolutely essential we will do that. where we don't think we have the science and technology yet to make that next leap, what we want to do is invest in the science and technology to help us try to get to the next leap. so when we get the new capabilities or technologies developed, we can invest in those and move quickly in developing new programs. that's the kind of thought process we'd have. what is necessary for us to sustain the right procurement levels we need. what are the most important systems that we need immediately and then how do we invest in science and technology to allow research development to allow us then to pick the right new

technologies that will help us make a leap. we can't do it all anymore. we used to be able to do all of it. we had enough money where we can invest. . we're going to have to reduce the number of programs. we probably have to reduce r&d a little bit and we want to continue to focus on that. the other thing is how do we leverage off the shelf capabilities outside of the military. i.t. is one that we're trying to leverage because that's moving faster than we are in the military. it's new ways of doing development and procurement we're going to look at as well. >> a point near and dear to our research hearts here at aei on these issues so that you can keep that balance. in the town where we have a lot of numbers flying around and

dates. i would just reiterate the remarkability of your statement that in 10 budget years we're already in fiscal 2014, the debate about to enter that fiscal year. what you're saying that compensation could double for the u.s. army. >> they did over the last 10 years. they doubled since 2001. >> absolutely agree with you sir. we're here to help in that conversation about how to get things moving. >> i wanted to follow up on the question about egypt right now it is in a crisis situation. we know that secretary hagel is talking to the military chief and general dempsey made phone calls. does the army or yourself have been involved in any way or what role do you see going forward or have you played leading up to? >> first of all i traveled to egypt about six or seven months ago. i had a great visit.

what we don't need is too many people talking to the egyptians. what i do, i obviously have conversation with general dempsey. it's important that he be the lead in talking to egypt. i think what we have to do as an army, for example, we're still preparing to conduct that exercise. we're focused on that now and the army is how we prepare ourselves to execute that exercise. we'll see if it gets executed. we're hoping it does as we move forward. i would say with still have strong relations. during period of crisis, we need only a couple voices talking. we tried to allow them to do that and we will support them.

>> u.s. and egypt bilaterally. >> it's a significant exercise for egypt. we're just one of the partners. it's a combination of all joint capabilities. >> excellent. >> i want to say it's october. i'll get you back. i think it's october. >> this fall. andrew? >> september 15th. >> thank you. >> we make a squad level sensors. our company was born out of d.a.r.p.a. in the 1990's and early 2000's. my question is, with regard to moving forward cuts to science and technology, research and development. i know you mentioned an increase reliance on cox items. one of the concerns i see in the bill that the house passed. i believe they cut almost a

third from what was planned r&d. how does this sinc with military needs not just one or two years equipping by five and 10 years of equipping. i see that as a risk i'm curious how the army like to address that? >> again, we watch what the n.d.a. pass. our position is more that we think r&d is important now. as we go through these times, i mention transition, we think r&d, s&t investment as you look to the future is critical to us. again, we're not going to be able to buy everything we want. we want to develop the technology that allow us to jump when we get back in line. although, the next two or three years is going to be tough in modernization. we think 19, 20, 21 will be a

bit more aligned and be able to get back increasing our investments in modernization. during that time it's important for us to develop r&d. we do need to find out what are these new capabilities and leverage some of the work that's going on both out in the commercial community and within our own r&d community. >> in 2004 and 2005, the military pay raises becoming? >> that depends on congress. i think our recommendation is not freeze pay. we made a recommendation this year to military pay raise to one percent it was the recommendation we made. i think the house passed 1.8. i don't know what the senate

passed. i don't think they made a decision. that sounds like a little difference. it's a huge difference throughout the years, it's billions of dollars talking three or four or five years from now. we think what we can do is manage the pay raises at a bit lower level for a few years which enable us to save billions of dollars in compensation. that's the kind of thing -- we're not looking necessarily at pay freezes. we're trying to work with congress on this so we get the right amount. if we continue to have higher level pay raises, it's going to become a problem for us. >> just under two weeks related to your question, the white house should if they intend to exempt military personnel from sequestration, we'll have to make a notification number by then. >> good morning sir.

i'm a first class military academy working at usip over the summer. he a -- i have a question regarding civil military relation. the secretary defense said his biggest concern was looking for dod was growing military gap. pulling out of afghanistan in 2014 and with regards to the downsizing, do you see the military gap being an issue? >> great question. one of the great lessons learned over the last 12 years has been the importance of whole of government approach, comprehensive approach to solving problems. you got to have it. military power has its limits.

every piece of this puzzle has its limits but working together they can accomplish significant amount of forward progress. for me, it's one of the most important lessons we learned. we struggled with it in the beginning but over time we built it up. i believe the interagency -- as we look to the future, the most important thing is joint interagency, intergovernmental, multinational approaches to problems. a comprehensive approach. that's what we need as we go forward. my concern is the one you just raised. we're in pretty good shape now because we're been working together in iraq and afghanistan and intergovernmental context and multinational context which is to build strong relationships. the key now is how to we sustain it. from our multinational partners, the army is implementing a region. one of the reasons we're doing this is to continue to build

multinational partnerships. we will continue to train with our nato partners and allies and joint training center that we have is going to become a multinational training center where we train together with our nato and other close allies in order to work the multinational part. that's what we're trying to do in the pacific region. we're trying to build an exploitable capability so we can do evaluations. to me that's important piece of this. what i'm worried about is interagency piece. i'm afraid when we get done with afghanistan, everybody will go back to their corners. what we have to do is try as hard as we can to ensure that we continue. what i'm doing in the army is we're going continue to do a

sign what i call broadening assignments of officers. we're going to get positions in the state department and treasury and fbi and other places. so we continue to build a relationship of understanding each other, understanding how we work together as well as the governmental intel organizations as well. that's important for us. to me, it's critical. we have to have shared educational experiences. short and long ones that help us to continue to understand what we need in the future. what advantage we have is our lieutenants, our captains and majors will be in the army to carry us forward have been involved in interagency concept in iraq and afghanistan and understand the importance of it. that's a huge advantage for us. but we have to continue to make sure people understand that and we continue to say it's a priority for us to sustain that.

we're going to try to do that. it's going to be difficult. >> great thank you. our last question is right here. >> thank you very much. you discussed the possibility of pushing back procurements and modernization programs. obviously for companies such as mine, that worries us for the impact of the industrial base as it potentially creates gaps and production lines and lose skilled workers. i'm curious if the army is taking any steps to play advocate to help these keep those lines alive. >> two issues one, i just want you to know we look at this

carefully, what is the impact on the industrial base and how we sustain industrial base. those are key to us as we move forward. i will tell you, every trip i go on and many of our discussions with our allies is the fact foreign military sales and the ability for them to continue to purchase things that they might believe is necessary. for example, in india, they're interested in the apache helicopter. we're working with them. many other countries, we talk about m1 tanks and everything. we absolutely talk about this on a regular basis. there's a number of reasons why we want to do it. first, it makes it easier for us to be interoperable and it makes it easy to build strong relationships and it helps us with our industrial base. for me, that's a key part of our

strategy going forward is trying to make sure we are doing the west we can to increase foreign military sales, increase the use of u.s. military equipment in the international community. we think it's important for us from an operational perspective as well. >> thank you. i hope we were a little kinder and gentler than congressional hearing. we thank you for the hour of your time and to your staff for coming today. my gratitudes from aei. please join me in thanking him. >> i just want to thank everyone for coming. these are important forums. i actually really enjoy these because it gives me an opportunity to answer questions on other people's minds and sometimes they gets mixed up in the dialogue as you dialogue through many different mediums.

i want to thank everyone for coming and i enjoyed it very much so thank you for the opportunity. >> my thesis is the internet began with extraordinary promise making the world a far better place. some of the promises come true but much of it has been turned on its head largely due to commercial pressure. unless we arrest those pressures and redirect internet the future is not going to be as glorious we once thought it will be. >> the future of the internet with digital disconnect author robert mcchessknee tonight on c-span 2.

>> the out going chairman of the economic advisor. he spoke earlier today about the u.s. economy and the debt limit. mr.kruger turned to a teaching job at princeton university in the fall. >> the first lady reflects the schisms in the united states. are we suppose to be mom in chief, we suppose to be first maid. to navigate that if the president is suppose to be head of state and head of government, is the first lady suppose to be the ideal fashionista. at the same time if she's going to be the first help mate, she's

got to understand what's going on in the administration. she's got to understand what's going on in the country and she's got to understand her husband's political agenda. you can't really separate how the first lady presents herself and the conflicting expectation that the country still has for working wives and working mothers. >> as we continue our conversation on first ladies, historians black talk about the role of the first lady and is moved from traditional home and family to activism on important issues. tonight at 9:00 eastern on c-span. >> now a discussion on the jobs special operations forces and how individuals play a key role in u.s. national security. we will hear about the effect of sequestration on future of u.s.

defense. held at the heritage foundation, it's an hour and 10 minutes. >> good afternoon and thank you for joining us here in the auditorium as as well as online. i wanted to let you know that i prepared for my moderating assignment today by watching zero dark 30 on the way back to china this weekend. just kidding. this is a very important topic. i'm glad we're discussing it. lot of agencies looking at their changes in the way forward, the future in terms of the current security environment and what they expect in the future. the post 9/11 security environment the use of special operation forces has increased considerably. special operation combination unique skills. however, in attempt to focus national security objective. the soft community intends to return emphasis to its indirect missions. those that strive to prevent

conflict rather than engage in it. by working by, with and through, america's partner and nation performs exercise and continue to build relationships. we assembled a terrific panel today with long impressive resumes which i won't get into. they will tell us more about the way ahead for the soft community. joining us today is captain commanding officer. he's had a number of operational and staff assignments over the years at home and overseas. before his current assignment, he most recently served in the assisting chief of staff for strategy, plan and policy. he graduated from u.s. navel academy, go navy. >> beat army.

>> beat army. he also studied spanish. and received a degree in national resource strategy from the national defense university. also joining us is colonel steward, chief the expanding network. he also served in number of operational staff positions as the captain has at home and overseas in his career. he returned from a tour in afghanistan as the director of the special operation cel in multinational joint interagency task force with 14 nations and 8 agencies. the colonel is a graduate of citadel.

steve is a graduate of west point, received his mosters and doctorate from university of south carolina. he's graduate of u.s. army war college and the senior seminar of the state department. think ewe're going to start with you steve and we will go with the captain and then the colonel. >> thank you very much peter. i like to add my welcome to everybody that's here this morning. we appreciate you coming to listen to this very important subject. i'm the old guy of the panel. i'm going to give you a little history since i'm the closest one to it. i joined soft in 1980. that was a long time ago. when army special forces had two missions. we did direct action which is basically everything we did

alone, unilaterally. or unconventional warfare, which is everything we did with somebody else. it was a simpler life back then. direct action included everything from kicking in doors to carrying around little atomic bombs. we don't do that anymore. it included shooting, blowing things up. anything that american soft and we weren't call them soft at that point, did without anybody else around. unconventional warfare was everything from training gorillas to go behind the iron curtain, which back then we were still doing, to training countries militaries to fight gorillas say in philippines and drug operations over in latin

america. to be honest with you by volume and importance in the minds of the special operations community at that time, unconventional warfare was by far the most important of the missions that we had. it wasn't the direct action stuff. that was considered the one off kind of things that we did because either nobody else was available. we looked at unconventional warfare the ability to work with foreign militaries to learn foreign languages, to understand foreign cultures and move within them as what made us special. we used to joke, we'd say we were just the army school teachers. and people would say, oh, yes, i understand bucci, bloodthirsty killers. we go places and teach people how to do things. then the world started to change. the whole thing of terrorism

started kicking up more and more in the munic olympics and heavy raid and countries all over the world started developing what we refer to is special mission units. special units of the military and not the police, that could deal with these very high profile, very dangerous situations. it gave rise in our community of the idea, black soft versus white soft. really special secret guys and those of us who were just sort of mildly special even though they started out with countering terrorism and dealing with hijacking, over time, we added in things like counterproliferation systems, some very special domestic support missions that we basically did until the fbi

could pick up on these missions. all the way to we refer to little while, advanced unconventional warfare which is fancy direct action mission that we brought a couple locals on to help where they could. slowly that particularly post 9/11, the direct action side continue to grow and eventually someone eclipsed the unconventional warfare part of our environment. my old boss, second rumsfeld in some ways contributed to this. he did, at one point, after the war on terror began, wall in the commander of u.s. so com at the time and said i want you to run the global war on terror. that's where the focal point should be. that never occurred. that particular commander chose not to pursue that mandate that was handed him. and stayed in the hands of the

various geographic combatant commanders. another thing that secretary rumsfeld did that added to direct action of unconventional warfare, was the idea he saw those direct action missions kicking in the door, shooting the bad guy in the head kind of things, as much more difficult, requiring much more expertise. he said let's not waste the special operations guys on these missions of this training other people, working with the foreign military. anybody can do that. let's keep these guys on these much more important high profile missions. some people said had become a support organization for joint

special operations command. where all of the special mission units reside. they did a great job. they captured a heck of a lot of high value targets. that worked that end to the global war on terror but there was an enormous cost to that both in money and in lack of balance if you will. well, one of the reasons we're here today is to point out that the present commander of u.s. so com is trying to drag the community that he is now in charge of back to a position of what i think of is balance in these. he is trying to return to historical point of what made special operations forces special. he is trying to reconstitute the community for engagement,

preconflict, shaping and early conflict guidance for the military, therefore for our policy makers. i will tell you this is not a power grab on the part of u.s. so-com. it's just a special ops guy trying to get more control. that is not what's going on if you read the documents coming out of u.s. so-com. hopefully heritage will have a paper out that will enumerate this and describe it in ways that hopefully little more digestible by the general public and hopefully by legislators. that is not what's going on. nor is so-com trying to protect its assets at the time budgets were shrinking and many of the services trying to protect the

-- the navy trying to protect ship and therefore trying to protect the airplane. army trying to protect brigades. this is not what so-com is doing. i really believe this is a visionary return to the roots of the community with an acknowledgement of the present day situation that we are running short of assets. the world is more dangerous than it's been before with a lot of diverse potential threats out there. socom is offering our policy makers with ways to address those threats at a very low level with a very low footprint in ways that can hopefully diffuse those threats before they turn to violence before they turn into bigger crisis. it is a way that will lead to an improvement in effectiveness and i will add one caveat, that the only danger in this policy that

socom is pursuing is our policy makingers will love them -- makers. and will use them in ways that will cause them to be drone into a situation where they were not the answer. you get a bunch of highly skilled folks killed. i hope that doesn't happen. i hope the leadership in socom will be daily -- successful in this drive. but maintain the ear in policy makers she will be used when they are appropriate and where they were appropriate and not extend them beyond where they are ready to go. >> thanks very much steve for letting me come here with you guys. i work in san diego near the headquarters of the naval special operations unit.

right now one navy hat and one special operations hat. with my special operations hat i focus now on the men and women in the navel war their community. throughout my career, i've been closely aligned with stu and the rest of the special operations components. ....

we were really focused on maritime direct action, you need to mention all type things. he did not have a sense of unconventional warfare, training the g force.

, since post-9/11, the guys and gals who worked for naval special warfare have come into their own in the non- kinetic world. all of our own forces have advanced light-years in all the areas, but more in the non-kinetic world. we are partnered everywhere in our partners from the army, navy, marines, and air force, agency, state- department, cia, and the rest. iu's time in afghanistan -- preceded him there, and as he mentioned there were 12 other countries, and that was an incredible rainbow of coalition sof, men and women,

people focus on a single task in afghanistan, like i had never seen before. we were the showcase for a lot ff joint foreign so coordination in afghanistan. it had positive effects and it continues. within the naval special warfare community we have a huge foothold on land. we have been interacting in afghanistan since 9/11. that has had an effect on our maritime skills. there expected to be premier maritime special operations force in the world, and i think we still are, alongside our airtime counterparts, but after 10 years of most of our guys in landlocked countries, or close countries,ed

the water skills have atrophied. now that we are looking at the end of the afghanistan, pulling out of afghanistan in a large way, we are able to rededicate ourselves to the maritime will realm, so that is an interesting area that the seal and thee focused on special teams, where are special boat operators are. the other thing i want to mention is the human capital. since 9/11, the signature of special operations and the seals has been a lot higher. right message being portrayed. it has attracted a lot of people, highly talented men and

women to our force. so we have got an incredible bank of talented guys right now still coming in the doors that we are able to do things with like never before. o's coming into the seal teams, a lot of them have four- year degrees, a lot of them have and 60% ofgrees, enlisted guys had college degrees. the demographics of our force is changing. they're coming in with expectations of the post 9/11 combat world. the reality they face is efferent and that, but their talents is such that we can aligned them and train them to do the hard jobs of the future, many of which will be non- kinetic in nature. is what i am working on.

the general is in cap but working, heading up the force management directive. where i come into play in san diego is the navy special operations world, taking advantage of the combination of a highly talented guys and gals we have in the community and trying to offer as many challenging education leadership opportunities for them to meet the requirements of today, post- afghanistan, and those opportunities are less and less. traditional military educations like the navy postgraduate school,, but we need some of our men and women to be extremely conversant and collaborative with the inter-agency, with our allies, and that

sometimes means sending them to other institutions in the united states and overseas, mixing with the people they will be working with that they will depend on for success in the special operations world overseas and doing it sometimes in the native language, sometimes with a deep understanding of the culture. if i had to say that one area we were focused on more is striving to increase the collaborative relationship of the agency and with the foreign sof allies. i came from san diego and we had a sizable symposium of our foreign naval maritime special operations guys out there in the training area where i worked, collaborating on undersea tactics and equipment and things like that. we had not done that in a long time, and these are people who

have been doing it for a number of years while the navy has been running around in the mountains of afghanistan. have a lot to learn from those be aand we -- it will not u.s.-only show in those countries. we cannot only do it successfully with a u.s. face, so a we are working through it, building capacity with these guys, and it works. our guys that know a little of the language that can go overseas and work with the areign sof allies in comfortable way comes back to us more than double. we see it down in the headquarters with stu. they are collaborating in a more substantive way, we allowed into the briefings like never before, and their badges work and they are up on the systems and it really works. networking global sof continues to grow. the special easy a's on is

moving overseas, with families, embedded in the headquarters, and it works like never before. to stu.urn it over the admiral and steve, thank you for allowing us this opportunity. i apologize for my boss not being here. well coming off a week of deserved lead, and for him, leave is not leave. , but it iser e-mails difficult for him to unplug at his level. thank you for allowing us this opportunity. i am the operational planning team chief for the global operational planning team. when the admiral took over in august 2011, the administration was in the process and in the final stages of releasing the defense just egypt guidance. -- hence strategic guidance. during the process of how he

thought sof should be supported and looking forward to 2020 the admiral formed four planning things. -- mine wasted designated to look at several areas, how to go the global sof network. when you come down to tampa, and show you a movie and we show you real word vignettes of all these disparate entities around the world and how they're connected to show you what the threat environment looks like, and it gives you a better understanding of why you need a network to defeat these types of networks. was tomy primary tasks take a look at the theater special operations command assigned to each one of the geographic combatant commands and figure out how socom could best optimize those commands to better support sof in 2020.

i was challenged with developing a strategy on how we would better interact and think in our sport inside of the inter-agency and how we would do that. another article peace to what we are trying to do. my boss -- i spent several years with the nato special operations coordination center. large part, what it did is it gave nato a special operations maritime, had a land, air component, and when it came to special operations activities, whoever followed tiered to be the lead nation for that is how it worked. that is fundamentally not how you go to war. in today's environment, when you ,re dealing with networks faster enemies, you got to have something that not only exists but is more a bubble and flatter so it can respond to these threats. we have created what was

originally called the nato sof coordination center, and it evolved into a headquarters commanded by the vice admiral and called the nato sof headquarters. my boss wanted us to take a look at that entity and see if we could do that activity in other parts of the world. i was also to look at holding communications systems that in short could tie in networks with our international partners and make sure we could do the information exchanges and sharing. a couple things have to happen first. everybody thinks it is great to have a degree in this. it is not often you can tackle something like this. we said what will it look like in 2020, and basically we will come back to tell you five years in they are pretty good. anything beyond that they are making stuff up. the accuracy is not there.

we had to be intelligent. we had to say, ok, let's look at -- we looked at a lot of reports, and we look at things like urban to rural flight, we looked at water, population densities, education, and i love are different reports and we went to think tanks and academia. these are spreadsheets there it in some academic's report that no one reads. what we said was they are all great indicators of exactly where future friction points i'd be. if you take a look hard -- a hard look at what those points might become it can lead you to an area where you think you might be utilizing sof in the future. one of the key things is we wanted to capture all that data and we wanted to be able to geospatial he depicted so you can juxtapose it against it and merge several of the variables together to see if you could lead you in the direction of

where you could possibly think there is conflict. i will tell you it is not easy to do, very hard to do. we just updated it. i saw at last week before i went sixeave, and we updated months, and it gives you an idea based on certain variables of where you think we should be postured and not where we are postured. the other thing is we had to go out to the geographic combatant special who owned this operations headquarters. special operations command had zero command relationship with the theaters of operations command, none, none. and so for my loss, to communicate and collaborate with those either special operations commanders he got her mission from combatant commanders, and in april 2012, we pulled them to table and put three weeks in there, grinding out how they in the theaters thought sof should

be postured. what we asked to do is a couple things. we want you to give us our three top priority regions, you got to prioritize them, and everything is not eight priority, and it is hard to do, and inside each reason -- region you have to prioritize them. could to make sure this withstand the scrutiny of congress and omb. we wanted to ensure what we were doing was rock solid, and we could defend it. three weeks we will never get back together, which it will not happen. it was very hard to do. what you do once you can do it quickly after that. we juxtaposed what they thought was -- they answered to the strategic variables i mentioned and you would be shocked how similar everything matched up, which was relieving because it saved us an additional two weeks that we might have had to work through to get that.

what did we get out of all that three weeks? were able to -- we enumerate combatant commanders' sof requirements. we made them put a hand on the map of each and every requirement and in each and every region. when you do that it forces you to think through exactly what it is you're trying to accomplish. one of the key takeaways from this is we were able to enumerate all the special operations requirements that were out there, and that is quite huge, because historically we looked at all the risk -- requirements regionally and did not look at it holistically and have not in short we were looking across the seams are all these networks tend to operate, and we were constrained by our unified command management. socom in its role was able to look holistically, and this is the first time.

we were also able to grind into it and get a little bit deeper than we had. with ourbout done second year of this. we do this annually. we have theaters come in tomorrow evening on a conference and validate this one more time. is tont -- our attempt validate it. we expect requirements to change, but every year we want to enumerate what theaters want and need and whiting need it. then we want theaters to be able to have that back to the chairman in writing to the joint staff and -- know exactly what is going on. if you look at the map and see all the pens in the world, none of those pens replaced by socom. those are all things that was requested do in support of the geographic combatant commanders. that was a huge part. in regard to building out, the regional software centers, we

looked if that was feasible. in june of 2012, he had international sof week in tampa, and brought in 94 different nations for a week in and we break them up into different seminars and we lay out different concepts and ideas to see where we are going and see that the regions think is important. one of the things they thought was worthwhile him a having a regional sof center along the lines of the nato sof headquarters. the reality that they thought something that was educational and in training so they could get interoperability, that was extremely important at the tactical level. if you do not have interoperability, you get people killed, and that is something you would think we are better at, but we are not. everybodyn sharing,

felt having folks there to be able to pass information and share information and make sure we were at least if nothing else different types of things, that would be a plus. the last thing is the human relationship. a lot of what we do is based on french. he have known our foreign partners for 20, 30 years. i vacation with a lot of them, and we are personal friends. my kids and their kids grow up around each other. i just spent five years in a multinational headquarters. we do things together all over the world, not just in afghanistan, but we find ourselves involved with the same folks, so we have personal relationships. it is the biggest thing that is being pushed as we build out the global sof network is you cannot search trust. if you want to have things function in the global sof

network, you got to make sure that you have personal relationships with the people that are on the ground, and you 20-theyet that by a visit, but it is a persistent resident where you build a relationship with allies that allows the ability to help them and to help ourselves. we think in addition to that it gives our nation much more credible options when it comes to crises. we also think the focus is in accordance with the defense strategic guidance to work with our key partner nations to help them solve regional problems to preclude regional problems from becoming major theater operations. that is the preventive word. 0e refer to it as phase shaping, with an phase one which is -- terms. i have my phd professor with me.

i apologize. these two guys next to me -- [laughter] this is where the defense strategic guidance is. if you have ever been to war and you have seen what has transpired over the last 11 years, it is amazing what our military has done, and it is a tribute to our nation. the reality is that she jiggly he have got to spend as much energy and effort and prevention in fighting these wars, and that is the big shift. we used to do these. our intent is to look at them from an operational lens and not a training and readiness lens, which is what we did before. we are in the process of delivering a campaign plan to the joint staff of the secretary. my boss will meet in september with his geographic combatant commanders and their intent is to do the final touches on this

before it is submitted to the joint staff. but i think what we have done is rate -- able to renew soferate teh he requirements. if it will allow us to move intent ofth the providing the geographic combatant commanders with hithe sof requirements they want. >> like you. i had a question as per our grid of -- purgative of the moderate. we are concerned about sequestration here. i do not know if any of you are involved, but i was wondering how sequestration is affecting your operational planning. is that above your pay grade? discussionthe budget because i am not that smart. my wife does all the money for the house. if you were around me, you would

know. impact.have at the end of the day, you're never going to have enough special operations. there is a line of people and dollars, so whatever the nation decides, what they want with special ops is what we will go with. it will require us to adjust the plan, but the reality is that you have a credible force. it is deployed quite a bit. significantly. i do not know -- we will not be able to do everything we wanted to, but that is a reality. there's just not enough money to do everything we want to do. we will never have enough people to do what we want to do. i think the staff could give a much better answer at that than i can, but it will impact us. >> one part that will affect them is as the middle -- military writ large draws down, the community from which they

recruit for special operations is smaller. everybody in special ops comes from the rest of the military initially. if you have a smaller pool, that eventually starts affecting these guys. i think the thing that i left as a warning, not the beloved too much, or hopefully work in favor of special ops and take it special ops is favored by the administration, so hopefully there will be some degree of protection and will not affect them too much. at a time like this with smaller budgets, with smaller military, sof will provide you more bang for the buck or more pound for pound more effectiveness than the conventional military, particularly at this phase jury come a phase 1 -- phase zero, phase one events. ask the community is not immune from the cuts. of hardhad a lot

discussions and it will be some hard decisions looming that will affect special operations. one of the hardest things i have had to do is sit down with all my civilian government service employees and discuss with them the furlough that is ongoing now through the end of the fiscal year. ed is a really tough conversation, and i have some employees who are close to living paycheck to paycheck and to tell them they will have to take a significant cut at the same time we are working so previously -- fiercely on preservation of force and family, it is a tough conversation. that is one of the difficult personal things that is affecting me. >> let's move to question and answer. we will bring you a microphone. stand if you wish. if us your name and affiliation, especially if you are a member of the press as a courtesy to our speakers. >> i go back to special ops to 1968 working with moonlight and general shulty.

now,versation going on talking about initiatives going ahead now, putting more assets on board when they deploy. lieutenant used to have seals on board the carrier battle groups. are you looking at going back to that capability, and you now mh60-s units. how are they being used and are you looking for enhanced mobility's for them? the last thing, when we did requirements, there was a 22's toment for 48 b- support the navy. that was backed off.

right now there is a large going forwardhed with b-22's. is there any dialogue going on with that now? >> if we could also stick to one question. i will leave it up to you what you want to respond to their. corpsan answer the marine one. the first question about getting back to the general amos discussion, it would be a mistake to say we were going back to the way we used to do it. we need to have strong relationships with -- special ops need to have to be embedded with the amphibious naval forces as well. that does not mean we have to put a large contingent of troops for longheir =--- deployments. you will see a smaller team of

guys probably called at first and integration team, special operations, network integration team, intel, to medications, and some type of officer to lead that team, to be the bellybutton and hideous group. the commander to special operations, command and the tsco's, what ever they are passing through, but we will not getting back to put large numbers of guys back to the a rcs. week wargame,ne- and that is exactly as steve said, we want a small entity on board that can tie into the rocker special ops community. the have a tremendous community and we want to make sure to give them the right assets. at this the direction they will head, and everybody walked away feeling comfortable that the

muse would have the access they need to get the right eight abilities they needed. right capabilities they need. >> i have been a soldier, no -- twoyoung, two cards wars. i recently came back from a six month business employment from saudi arabia. my question is going to be on ande building relationships the continual him's of those relationships. doesvation, the kingdom not yet know it is under severe threat. isbalcony of the kingdom bahrain. it is under threat daily. the arabters of

states, ministers of interior, have met, and one of their priorities is counterterrorism, counter-drugs, second one, third one is illicit immigration. the yemenis cross-border in saudi arabia per day. my question is going to be in inter-hc trusses, with foreign partner states, how are you working with those ministers of interior and their sub pre-pair,o advise, to in terms of leadership training, their capabilities to face him painting chaos -- to face impending chaos? to whoever would like to bite on that. i'm sure there is a lot to chew. >> i can speak in general terms.

invested1, we have heavily in our relationships with countries in the gulf states, are framed being one of them. we have a huge presence there. we have a joint special counselns task force there whose efforts are largely on phase zero, phase one operations, building orders of capacity with those countries in the re--- in the region, including yemenis, with whom we de huge inroads. we do not tell them how to do things. we respond to what they need. it is tailor-made under the commander of cencom. seal teams, seal

squad, special warfare to attachments, are heavily focused thoseking with each of governments, usually within the dod in excess, but more and more there is a lot more ministry of interior and host nation interagency played because it cannot be a singular military effort. sof is in theis lead in many ways in that world. we are not blind to that issue. is the you an abraded reason the admiral wants to move his command in the structure. this is the world we are living in. not just in the gulf states. it is all over the world. and frankly, the people who are intoat going in, moving that culture, because you cannot just come in -- it is the difference like when kids are

little guys and adults. you cannot treat these countries like they are little kids. to go in, you have to advise come a you have to get to know them. or they will not listen to you. you could give them the best advice to the world and they will not take it. if you build the relationships, if you do this that i had the time, if you prove your worth to them as a friend and a collie, and an equal, which is what the so good that,is then when the crisis starts, they will take your advice and will be prepared to deal with the crisis. this is the situation that is exactly what admiral mike raven is trying to get ahead of so we place with those relationships to deal with those situations. you said you cannot search trust, in order to do

that, it takes a lot of effort and takes a concentrated focus. it means some version of regionalization, having the same guys go back to the same embassy, same formations of troops, to speak a little bit of the language. arabic is tough, so maybe we did not have enough fluent speakers, but a little is a long way. understanding that the history so it makes a difference and it is reciprocated. when we get to that day when we invite the yemeni to socom, we will know who he is and he will be allowed into the operations center, will have a badge, and it will be a comfortable relationship. we're trying to do that everywhere because it works. >> back there. >> good afternoon.

i work with the international guard and strategy. started in special operations. i was socom in the early 1990's. the question i had come discussion about partnerships and relationships. as you know the air national guard is working on building partnerships, and they have 70 state partnership programs overseas. my question is, is there something going on that somehow would join the two programs, sof, as well as what the national guard is trying to do, realizing the guard has been a small slice of the pie with respect to the sof world. ineverything we do is support of the theater campaign plans from each of the geographic commanders. inside each region, this is a holistic. sof is a part.

there is all caps of aspects inside defense. from a country team or spectrum, none of these activities is done without the approval of the chief of mission, who has been looking at it from a country team perspective, and is looking from an interagency aspect. nflicted at the tactical level. it is not synchronized at a higher level. it is to some degree, but young people on the ground tend to work through all the dynamics and make things work extremely well. what we are trying to do as we build out this campaign plan is to try to make sure we did not have redundancy, can do it a little operational de- confliction. to answer your question, yes, all this is part of the country campaign plan, from the chief of

mission and the geographic combatant commanders. >> over here. next, but we will go over here next. my question is, how do you ae -- many people argue that big army, conventional forces, have become highly specialized force as a whole. where do you see sof playing into conventional forces growth from here on out? >> directed to anybody in particular? >> i would say they will continue to be in support of the larger conventional forces. that part of their mission is not going away because they are emphasizing this. should we go to war with the larger portion of the military, again, there will be sof along in front of them, around them,

doing all the things they have done. in the marine corps, you guys pick up some sof capabilities since 9/11, and are using that both in support of socom's mission and in support of the marine corp.. you will see that level of segregation between the conventional and sof forces. either group can do their mission as well as they would be a part as they do when they are together. paper,d you preview your just to let folks know? s of ourain focu paper is that sof is moving in the right direction, and part of that is not giving up all the old missions they have had, but shifting the focus back to one more balanced approach of the phase one,

capabilities, getting people out there in the world, doing these missions ahead of time, and in some cases that involved what some people will perceive as stepping on the toes of some of the geographic abbasid commanders, some of the ambassadors were nervous about aven hasd admiral mccr done it an incredible job, assuaging people's fears and doubts to let them know this is not something that harris -- nefarious. socom is trying to do the right thing to support these missions, and he has the trust that he needs and hopefully that will continue if not too many people in washington acre with it and try to help, we will probably get it done well. hopefully the paper will be out in the next week or two. >> do you have a title? >> we are holding on that. our interface with conventional force, even from a

has neverective it been as good as it is right now. war will do that to you. thewe see our support for battle space owners in afghanistan, iraq, we see the activities we are trying to do as we build out the global sof network the same, but we see the commanders as the battle space owners and the chiefs. our intent is to give them the best special op support we can give them, and i mean a focused and deliberate level of effort. i think we will be fine in that regard. it is different, though, putting such an emphasis on phase zero and phase one is new here it is not completely different. we have always looked at it from a training and readiness perspective. this is different. navy, nevers.

before have we seen the level of collaboration with the navy, just like big army, big marine corps. since 9/11 we have had more and more upwardly mobile naval fbverse is the part of our so formations, so now we have seals and admirals and submarine admirals and other high-ranking flight officers who know sof because they did a tour of duty there. there is a real familiarity now and respect and an understanding that you cannot overstate that helps us a lot. we have only a few seals. we depend heavily on the date navy and neighbors, general force enablers, and those people normally go out back into the paysavy, and that dividends for us.

>> i've been waiting patiently over here. >> i graduated from the naval academy in may. [indiscernible] i will join the submarine community. you talk about how you cannot surge trust, and we saw that in iraq and in afghanistan. -- thoset going to be teams will not be having the same capacity. how are you institutionalizing the lessons learned and those best practices and promulgating those to the other teams? >> do you want me to answer that? >> you want to direct that to anybody? >> our 9/11 started long before

9/11. for most of us. if you heard the admiral, he talked about stress on the force and it has been there for a while. the biggest difference is in the rotations of war, the deaths and casualties changed the dynamics. they need to focus on the family's that steve can focus on better than i. as far as the counterterrorist team, everybody has elevated their game exponentially. i was in a multinational side of the house and steve can tell you if you go to iraq or afghanistan, from the breach point in, our key partner nations are as good as any operator we have. i mean that in all sincerity. u.s. does that the that is different than everybody else is we have an incredible intelligence platform, credible aviation assets, and we can bring the entire joint sheen to bear on an x on a map.

if you were to ask me 30 years ago when i joined the military, could we have done that, i would never have guessed we could have. i have watched my community involved like nothing i've ever seen before in my life. that is from a direct action side of the house. i will tell you that we have an awful lot of young folks out there living in small groups and that isocals, impressive. it is one of the most dangerous things you will ever do in your life, because you are a long way from health, a long way from help correct the fact that they are able to execute that really is quite impressive. i think the lessons learned are being captured. we are building the global sof network to make sure there is persistent that we do not stop collaborating. i went over to relieve steve in afghanistan, i went to visit a counterterrorism croup, an international meeting,

and the biggest fear of the lieutenant commanders and kernels with his at there will be peace declared and everybody would go back to their cylinders of excellence and the communication would dissolve. that was their number one fear. the intent of institutionalizing the global network, we do a lot to prevent that. you have to work every single day on a relationship, and this will be no different. >> to add to that, not quite as optimistically as stu, within the u.s. government, my concern is those silos of excellence are pretty darned persistent. as soon as the pressure is off, there will will be folks in other parts of the government that will want to go back to business as usual, at least what they perceive as business as usual. if we do not actively pursue socom is doing, there is a

real danger of us going back and forgetting all this stuff, because we realize, the hardest fight was not trying to convince dod they needed help from other parts of the government, it was trying to convince other parts of the government that they had a role to play on the battlefield, in this kind of conflict, because they were not used to it. they did not have the personnmel for it. they learned it was their game. i hope we do not lose that. it is a very perishable set of skills and perceptions, that if we do not work at it could go away and we will be relearning it the next time. >> [indiscernible] a few things that have been mentioned are some of the ways that we keep those relationships from atrophying when the diversity of combat is no longer there or not as president. centers,em is the rscc

tailored to that respective geographic area that keeps an withzation together strong relationships. pat is one way. the other way is the exchange of lno's. overseas,living embedded in the host nation headquarters, living with their families, speaking the language, going to work every day, at the embassy, but in the host nation special operations headquarters, and reciprocating here in the united states with foreign sof l no's, top-performing individuals, living in the united states with the families, with access to the right briefings in the right rooms, heating those relationships going. instead of an ad hoc team going over to trade for a few weeks and coming back, never talking again, we have a more sick

revised effort and more of a method to the madness. 11 or 12now we have folks out living it. livinggoing to 40 people with their partners. in my team we have 11 international partners. over thedd another 13 next year. we'll not be living in a coalition and village environment. we are putting them right in the socom of the headquarters command. that is groundbreaking. where doing it within rules and regulations, but it is a tremendous task to accomplish. >> let's take one more question, if we have one. back there. i'm a high school student. as you have been talking about this new program with the

initiative, will we see programs such as the police and initiative, i cap been in afghanistan? more bottom-up security across the globe? >> yes. [laughter] what you are seeing is a security forces dissidents building partnerships. departing on -- depending on which country team, the you do the military side before you do the diplomacy side, and there is always a catch there. i'm a believer you will not have good democracy without good security. there is a allen's there. sometimes

hopefully all the old nearsighted guys will go off and these guys who have had positive experiences will recognize what we need is a couple of guys to work with us. we can get a lot more done and we will get that kind of attitude. i am hoping that the nation does not miss this opportunity to really set the conditions for some positive movement forward so we do not have to fight the wars any time in the immediate future, that we can hopefully short-circuit as many have those as possible and do the stuff at the lower-level where it is a lot lower cost both in lives and in money. >> we have a good strategy. the new events should guidance is rocksolid. is something that we can definitely achieve. what we are trying to do is

trying to operationalize that, to get into execution mode to do that properly as our leadership wants us to do. toappreciate the opportunity bring this out and put it in the public discourse. there is a handout that will be more articulate than myself. i take that handout and if you have any questions, i will be happy to answer. >> a lot of the things people see when they see things about , killingperations osama bin laden type missions, and that is such a very small percentage of what we do. i did percent of our efforts are on avoiding kinetic action. every day our guys and men and women are in many different

countries try to avoid us conflict, so we do not have to go into any countries and conduct combat operations. you -- we are not the special operations of the movies. we're trying to avoid conflict. it is a lot harder to do that than the kinetic counterterrorism missions. is counterterrorism mission something the u.s. forces are good at, best in the world, but it is relatively easy compared to the other missions we spend most of our time on. has done a great job today. my only disappointment is we did not have a powerpoint. it was a traffic briefing. you have given us a lot to think about on this very important issue. thank you for giving us time and traveling here to discuss this with us. thank you for your service.

we're blessed to have so many brave americans to go into harms way. we are blessed in that way. them a roundgive of applause to thank them. [applause] i give the army guys a hard time, but i have a son who is a captain in the army. when you are at army- navy, go navy, beat army. we are now adjourned. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> secretary of state john kerry

named a former ambassador as u.s. special envoy for the israeli-palestinian glaciation's which began this evening in washington, d.c. the announcement came at the state department today and is about 10 minutes. >> good morning, everybody. as you all know, it has taken many hours and many trips to make possible the resumption of israeli-palestinian negotiations. the negotiators now are enroute to washington even as we speak. i will have more to say about the journey to this moment and what our hopes are after our initial meetings conclude tomorrow. this effort began with president

obama's historic trip to israel and ramallah in march of this year. without his commitment or conversations there and without his engagement in this initiative, we would not be here today. the president charged me directly with the responsibility to explore fully the possibility of resuming talks and in our meetings he conveyed his expectations for this process. getting to this resumption has taken the courageous leadership of prime minister netanyahu and president abbas and i salute both of them for their willingness to make difficult decisions and advocate within their own countries and with their own leadership teams. i would also like to recognize

the important contributions of senior negotiators on both sides. particularly, minister tzipi livny, who stood up in the face of tough criticism at home and use unwavering commitment made the launch of these talks possible. i look forward to beginning work with them tonight. going forward, it is no secret to that this is a difficult process. if it were easy, it would have happened a long time ago it is no secret there for that many difficult choices lie ahead for the negotiators and for the leaders as we seek reasonable compromises on tough, complicated, emotional, and symbolic issues. reasonable compromises has to be a keystone of all this effort. i know the negotiations will be tough but i also know about the

consequences of not trying could be worse. to help the parties navigate the path to peace and avoid its many pitfalls, we will be very fortunate to have on our team, on a day-to-day basis, working with the parties wherever they are negotiating, a seasoned american diplomat, who has agreed to take on this critical task at this crucial time as the u.n., u.s. -- excuse me, the u.s. special envoy for israeli- palestinian negotiations. assisting martin as his deputy and a senior adviser to me will be frank lowenstein who has been working with me on this process from the beginning. in his memoir about the peace process, ambassador indic quotes

a poem by samuel coleridge that says, "if men can learn from history what lessons it would teach us." ambassador indic brings to this challenge his appreciation for the history of the israeli- palestinian conflict and from his service under president clinton, secretary christopher and secretary albright, he brings a deep appreciation for the art of u.s. diplomacy in the middle east. that experience has earned the ambassador the respected both sides and they know he has made the cause of peace his life mission. he knows what has worked and the knows what has not. he knows how important it is to get this right. ambassador indic is realistic and understands the israeli- palestinian peace will not come easily and it will not happen overnight. he also understands that there

he also understands that there is now a path forward and we must follow that path with urgency. he understands that to insure that lives are not needlessly lost, we have to ensure that opportunities are not lead list needlessly lost. he shares my believe that if the leaders on both sides continue to show strong leadership and a willingness to make those tough choices and their willingness to reasonably compromise, then peace is possible. martin, i am glad to have agreed to take the lweave from your post that brings to serve in this most important role. i know you are eager to get to work as am i.. >> thank you. mr. secretary, thank you very much for that generous introduction and for investing in such important responsibilities.