the real problem is that the democrats and the republicans have run people out of their party. there is no place for the people to go. the speaker pro tempore: the house will be in order. the chair lays before the house a communication from the speaker. the clerk: the speaker's room, washington, d.c., march 7, 2016. i hereby appoint the honorable thomas j. rooney to act as speaker pro tempore on this day. signed, paul d. ryan, speaker of the house of representatives. the speaker pro tempore: the prayer will be offered by the guest chaplain, reverend katrina sulter from st. patrick's episcopal church in washington, d.c. the chaplain: god of all love

and understanding, you called your prophets through a flame in the desert, in the mouth of a cave and on the wings of a descending dove offering your universal love in exchange for peace between brothers and sisters for service above self and for the protection of the earth. help us to rekindle our own call to serve, renew in our hearts the faiths to make a difference for others, guide us to consent this compassion and communion. open our hearts to remember the suffering of the world, especially the most vulnerable, and to see all people as children of god. we thank you above all for this beloved country, the united states of america. in the name of peace of justice and of our loving god, amen.

the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to section 2-a of house resolution 635, the journal of the last day's proceeding is approved. the chair will lead the house in the pledge of allegiance. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. the chair lays before the house a communication. the clerk: the honorable the speaker, house of representatives, sir, pursuant to the permission granted in clause 2-h of rule 2 of the rules of the u.s. house of representatives, the clerk received the following message from the secretary of the senate on march 7, 2016, at 10:03 a.m. that the senate passed senate 2276, appointment, board of trustees of the american folk life center of the library of congress. signed sincerely, karen l. haas. the speaker pro tempore:

pursuant to section 2-b of house resolution 635, the house stands adjourned until 11:30 a.m. on thursday, march 10, 2016. >> his campaign 2016 continues, three primaries and one caucus are taking place in several states tomorrow. at 8:00 p.m.nning eastern on c-span for live coverage of the election results, candidate speeches and

your reaction, taking you on the road to the white house on c-span, c-span radio, and c-span.org. >> during campaign 2016, c-span takes you on the road to the white house, as we follow the candidates on c-span, c-span radio, and c-span.org. >> tonight on the communicators, it will examine the 1996 telecommunications act with two of his chief authors, the former energyf the house committee, and the number of the commerce committee. they say the act is dated and should be rewritten. places like hulu and youtube are part of the culture, but

they were impossible to be created before the act. nothing is perfect, but one thing that we did do was remove not only our own country but the world from analog to digital, and our goal was to take away the land -- lines of demarcation that prevented competition. >> by unleashing the competitive forces created the investment that is needed to bring us to this world today. communicators, tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern on 2.pan this week on q&a, senior fellow robert kaplan. he discusses his book, in europe's shadow. and romania and beyond.

brian: robert kaplan and your new book -- you started by talking about books. why? robert: i think the ultimate goal of travel is to create a geography. beautiful landscapes and treating landscapes of you do to books about them to explain their past. those books be due to other books. often very obscure ones. we travel to learn and we can only learn by reading. the relationship between travel and good books is inextricable. brian: why a book about romania? robert: i have had a third of a century long obsession with romania because it is where essentially i started my professional life.

where i realized i was finally doing what i wanted. brian: 1973? robert: my first visit was in 1973 as a backpack after college. i stayed in youth hostels from east germany down to bulgaria. that journey taught me that all these countries were the same. what i found in 1973 was at they were all extremely different from each other because even communism could not erase their ethnic histories, geographies, cultures. that trip did not really start my obsession with romania. that happened later. it happened in 1981. in the fall. i was getting out of the israeli defense forces. i was in jerusalem. i found a book, a seemingly obscure book by a canadian

author and expert on central and eastern europe. he talked about all of the countries of the region the way i had experienced it. an idea came into my mind that i would travel through central and eastern europe but israel only had direct flights to bucharest, the capital of romania. that was the only country it had diplomatic relations with. i bought a one-way ticket. i had little money. i had a few phone numbers. i left for the black-and-white engraving of november. i did it because in the middle east, there were hundreds upon hundreds of journalists all covering the same story, which was the subsidiary of the cold war.

when i got to romania, there were no journalists covering the main story of the second half of the 20th century, which was the cold war itself. brian: i have to ask you about being a member of the israeli defense force. you were not born in israel. how long were you in? robert: i traveled through the middle east in the 1970's. i arrived in israel with little money. i liked the country immensely. i stayed. i was drafted into the military but over time, i did not -- my liking for israel did not dissipate but i did not want to spend my life there. i had wanderlust. i wanted to see other things. brian: what did you do? robert: nothing particularly interesting. guarding, things like that, for

one year. brian: the fact that you are jewish means you can serve automatically? dual citizenship? robert: yes. i left in 1981. later, i renounced my citizenship in order to serve in government. brian: in the united states. where were you born? robert: new york city, 1952. brian: you were here for book notes in 1996. i want to run a clip from that and see what you think about your prediction back then. [video clip] >> for most of the people in the world, things have gradually been getting better. one of the messages of this book is that a critical mass of third world inhabitants, things are going to get tumultuous amand violent over the next 20-0

years. a long-range future may be bright, but the next 20-30 years and a significant part of the globe may be very bloody. it is not because of poverty so much. people do not go to war because they are poor. these places are rapidly changing and developing and developing is always violent and uneven and painful and cruel. [end video clip] brian: how did you do? robert: i think i did fairly well. i like the way i look then better than now. a journalist cannot predict the near-term future. so many decisions are made and it is figuring world wind of human passion and individual action. journalists cannot predict the long-range future because who

knows what the world will be in 50-75 years? the best in journalist can do is to make us a bit less surprised and shocked by what is going to happen in the near term. in the middle term future -- i should say. five years. if a news story or a book makes you a bit less surprised about development in a given country 5-10 years out that is the best a journalist can do. brian: you told us to had been to 75 countries. how many more since then? robert: i have stopped counting, i have stopped counting but i never really covered latin america much. i never really covered many of the pacific islands much. there are places i have never been. i have never been to st. petersburg. there are other places. there are holes.

brian: you travel alone? why? you want to be face-to-face with the landscape and you do not want your ideas and reactions conditioned by somebody with you. because once somebody is with you, you will enter into a relationship with them and that will act as a block to the landscape. you do not want to have your ideas and opinions conditioned by others s, however, you cannot completely travel alone. often you need a translator, someone to make arrangements for you, especially as i get older. but the idea, the goal is to be as alone as you possibly can. brian: 1973 you are in romania. robert: i stayed 10 days and

those were a 10 days that changed me. made me think differently about a lot of things. from there i went to bulgaria, kosovo, which was then part of yugoslavia. i went to the kosovo, serbian, and croatian parts of yugoslavia, into hungry, into czechoslovakia and east germany. brian: how many times have you been there since? robert: i went back to romania in 1982, 1983, 1984. after 1984 i published an essay in the new republic called romanian gymnastics, why it is like stalin's russia. i was no longer given a visa after that. so i did not go back until 1990, four months after the 1989 revolution. i spent two months in the country in 1990. then i was back for another month in 1998 for another book. then i went back for an extended visit in 2013. i made four extended visits in

2013 and 2014. brian: i want to run some video from 1989. we will have you explain what this is. [video clip] [crowd chanting] [speaking foreign language]

[crowd chanting] [end video clip] brian: who was he? robert: nicolae had been in power since 1965. he replaced the previous dictator. the previous dictator brought stalinism to romania. he was a brutal tyrant. what nicolae did was to add the north korean element to romanian stalinism in terms of the pageantry, the personality cult. they went to north korea and

most people were shocked -- but they were impressed. they said, we can do this in romania. that was the moment when the crowd turned against the dictator and the facade of dictatorship collapsed and from then on, a helicopter took him from the top of that building to an area north of bucharest. it was there a few days later where he was executed. brian: and his wife? robert: his wife was executed. the decision was made by several reform communists who were fallen into disfavor. among them was a man who had worked for -- a stalinist in his youth, who worked for nicolae until 1987.

i asked about the decision to have him executed. he told me, we decided that they both had to be executed or else they could have gathered the security and intelligence around them and we might have had bloodshed going on for months. we had to stop the chaos. then i asked a naive question, did you have to execute her? and he looked at me like i was a fool and he said it was almost more important to execute her then to execute him. brian: what impact did that assassination have on romania? robert: it calmed things down. people knew that they had turned a corner. the violence stopped. order was restored under officially a democracy but in fact it was reformed communist

s who took power. they ruled in what you would call officially a democracy that really a gorbachev-style reformed communism until the mid-1990's when full democracy finally came to romania. brian: in the middle of your writing this book, there had been major corruption trials. some people say it was the most corruption in the world. can you explain that? robert: it is a good thing that it is being exposed. romania was endemically corrupt. institutions that were based on bribes and double-dealing. this is nothing new. this shows the romanian population has

grown up and become more sophisticated and is demanding clean government. it is its number one demand. klaus iohannis was elected on the pledge that i will move closer to the west and i would develop clean institutions as humanly possible. brian: who had they been trying and convicting? what kind of people? robert: often people in business. i am not sure about the exact people but basically, what was going on is a lesson is the old way of doing things will no longer work because we are going after you. brian: when did you finish this book? robert: i finished at the end of 2014 which was about 15 months ago. brian: what you want somebody wandering in a bookstore seeing your book to know about this book? why you would read it if you don't know anything about romania?

robert: it is a deep vertical dive. so many of my former books were horizontal studies. countries across a region. here, i look at one country in depth and i use it to explore great themes, the holocaust, the cold war, the challenge of vladimir putin. romanian speaking moldova have a longer border with ukraine than poland has. the challenge and also about empire, the cause is where the austro-hungarian -- the habsburg empire overlapped with czars to russian empires, the soviet empire, the turkish empire, the byzantine empire. to study romania is to study the legacy of empires.

brian: what is the relationship now and also back in 1989 with this country? robert: in 1989, romania was a pariah state. when i published that article in 1984, romanian gymnastics, what i was reacting to was the fact that there was a miniature news cycle in 1984, the los angeles olympics, when nicolae sent a team to compete while the rest of the soviet bloc boycotted the olympics so nicolae was a hero to uninformed americans. the purpose of the article was to disabuse them of that notions, and show that he actually ran the most oppressive state in the soviet bloc.

after the revolution, especially into the 1990's, romania felt very insecure like other countries and it trusted the united states more than nato in brussels. it had to prove that it was a loyal ally to the united states. so romania sent troops not only to afghanistan but also to iraq and it sent troops to several u.s. military exercises in africa -- wherever the u.s. wanted allies, the romanians came along, as did the poles because they wanted to say, we are there for you in a matter -- please be there for us. brian: what was our relationship with nicolae? robert: we tried to use him because this is very subtle. romania was always different than its neighbors. it didn't speak a slavik language, it spoke to a latin language. it always had much worse relations with russia,

historically speaking, then the other countries of the warsaw pact, save for poland perhaps. nicolae was in a vague way following romanian tradition of separating himself from the soviet union by having what was called at the time a maverick foreign policy. he had diplomatic relations with israel. it was very superficial. he was no threat to the soviet union because he ran the most lockdown stalinist state in the block. the soviets were annoyed with nicolae and gorbachev was especially annoyed because gorbachev was all about liberal open-minded communism and so gorbachev -- the romanian revolution that killed nicolae in december 1989, that may have been the only one of the revelations that gorbachev revolutions that gorbachev

actually liked. brian: how did they kill them? robert: firing squad. brian: you met with his son? robert: i never actually did -- i refer to him in the book but i never met him. brian: what happened to him? robert: his son went into exile and died a few years later of cirrhosis, some disease related to drinking. brian: how big is romania? robert: 23 million people. poland is in high 30's-40's. it is about the size of oregon or something. what is important about your question is romania is the demographic and geographical organizing principle of southeastern europe to the same extent that poland is to northeastern europe.

it is sort of the poland of the balkans in terms of its geopolitical importance. brian: how did it change between 1981-2013? robert: in 1981, the colors were black and white. 2000 13, it is multicolored. in 1981, it made a profound impression on me because of the long bread lines -- literally bread lines, people waiting in line for stale bread. a mile long and it was the only communist regime in eastern europe that start its own people. 2013, bucharest is glittering, it is a mishmash, a lot of bad new architecture -- some good new architecture, beautiful new plexiglas vancouver-like buildings right next to vacant lots because this is part of the

corruption. the property regime -- who owns what after communism has still not been resolved in many places, so you have vacant lots because nobody can legally determine who the owner is. it is a mishmash. but that is very humanizing in a way because it doesn't have some archetypal millenarian utopian belief. brian: in world war ii, what country was it allied with? robert: nazi germany. romania had oil. the fields near bucharest. hitler needed the oil. romania had a dictator -- a very interesting man.

he was in the terrorist, a nationalist, a realist, and authoritarian. he was not strictly a fascist because he purged the fascists from his regime early on. what his rule showed was that even realism, militaries and, authoritarianism taken a bit too far can be to hundreds of thousands of murders. brian: we have some video of his death. how did he die? who killed him? that is him. robert: he was executed -- brian: you will see that. in a minute. go ahead. robert: he was executed by firing squad after being convicted of war crimes. this was a prison fairly close to bucharest.

he was convicted by a pro-soviet regime that was installed in the wake of stop's victory in eastern europe. brian: we are watching that not only did they shoot him, they came up with a pistol and shot him again and again. was that a video available -- what year did he die? robert: 1946. antonescu met with hitler 10 times in east russia, austria, other places from the very beginning of his dictatorship to the very end. his last meeting with hitler was in 1944. antonescu came back from that meeting very depressed. he started being depressed after stalingrad when he realized for the first time that the nazis may not win the war. where does that leave me? because up until that time he had been murdering hundreds of thousands of jews outside romania in what is today moldova which is

east of romania in what used to be the soviet union. but after 1943, he changed. he kept hundreds of thousands of jews from inside romania proper from going to the gas chambers in german-occupied poland. it was what scholars have called opportunistic mercy. he saw that hitler may not win the war and he started to change his behavior. as a way to survive himself. when he came back from the last meeting with hitler, he knew that his days were numbered and he was overthrown in a palace coup in august, 1944. then romania switched sides. romania is interesting. it was the only country even more so than italy that actually switched sides in the midst of world war ii. hundreds of thousands of

romanian troops fought ferociously for hitler at stalingrad and by the end of the war, hundreds of thousands of romanian troops were fighting ferociously against hitler in order to regain transylvania from hungary. brian: what is transylvania? robert: transylvania means be on the forest. it is the region to the northwest of the carpathian mountains. it was part of the austro-hungarian empire. before that, the habsburg empire. central europe. gothic, baroque architecture, with its cafe culture, the culture of the dessert, civilization, cosmopolitanism. a connotative many good things. it is also a place with a large minority of ethnic hungarians

because the region had been part of greater hungary until romanians got it back at the end of world war ii but actually i am telescoping history because the region changed hands many times. brian: how many jews were murdered in the holocaust from romania? robert: basically, here is the record. over 300,000 jews were murdered by antonescu's troops with antonescu's bureaucratic fingerprints all over it. in the regions outside romania but occupied by the romanian army in the midst of hitler's operation barbarossa to capture the soviet union. romanian troops got as far as odessa, the port in the middle of the black sea. i believe the number was 375,000 but it is in the book

specifically. all of this is the work of some real trailblazing scholars who have really solidified the record following the release of the soviet archives, the romanian archives after 1989 in the 1990's. inside romania proper, there are about 300,000 jews who are being kept from the gas chamber but nevertheless they were, there were 15,000 jews killed by antonescu's troops inside romania -- the most famous event being in 1941. brian: this is your 16th book. when did you decide you want to do this book? robert: i had been thinking about doing a book on romania for years and years but i wasn't sure. first i thought, i will do a

project. i will start in the black sea, romania, and i will travel up to estonia and you a travel book of what used to be called by a polish leader, that before between the seas. so i started in romania. i want to romania in 2013. but i got so swept up in it. i said, wait imminent, and maybe i shouldn't do another book about six countries, there is so much here, what am i write about what i really know about and are accessed with deeply interest keep it to that even if it is less marketable so to speak? brian: 16 books, which was at the best sellers? robert: baltic coasts, of course.

it sold so far about close to 400,000 copies worldwide in many languages. the ends of the earth to a lesser extent. warrior politics, the coming anarchy, the revenge of geography. brian: your relationship with the publisher, is at the same one? robert: i am fortunate that random house has published my last 12. brian: how does that work. your idea? robert: i used to in the very beginning talk over ideas with editors. as i got older i kept more and more to myself. it is scary self generated, very personal. a book is something that you should have to write your digital be something -- i'm

going to write a book if i can get a lot of speaking fees awry can make a lot of money on this -- what is a good topic -- you know, that gels in the marketplace, books are hard to write. you don't know how they will be received. you do not know what news cycle will be when the book is published. i had a book published in the presidential election in 2000. you know it happened then. the florida recount. so all of my interviews were publicity interviews and they were canceled. the book did well but it and not have that initial burst so because of all of these on globals, you are better off just writing that something you are possessed with, you have to do, that way you will have no regrets. brian: which bookend the most impact on politics? robert: probably balkan ghosts. brian: what happened? robert: what happened was that i started covering the balkans and it is in this book, the early part of this bill, i talk about balkan ghosts.

i started covering the balkans in 1981, i went back to romania every year until 1984 when i was persona non grata but i kept going back to yugoslavia every year right up through 1989, every year of the 1980's -- >> the balkans include what countries? robert: they traditionally include romania, bulgaria, the former yugoslavia, greece, south eastern europe. what used to be called turkey, the former ottoman empire with some overlapping with the former austrian habsburg empire. in 1989, i was a deep in the midst of writing this book and i finished it at the very beginning -- no, i finished it in mid-1990 in the yugoslav crisis was still in the future, so to speak. and i had a long piece in the

atlantic monthly before the berlin wall even fell in 1989 saying that the balkans will shape the end of the century just like vietnam and afghanistan did in earlier decades. then the berlin wall fell in the media was writing heavily about the new concept of central europe, which had emerged as a new -- and old new trendy concert. central europe -- i wrote this in the wall street journal -- central europe is the latest concept that the media is feeding to death but there is another concept that will arise because of great instability called the balkans which the media will soon discover and in that article i described the coming ethnic breakup of yugoslavia but i also was not fatalistic or deterministic because i wrote that if yugoslavia followed reformist notions from slovenia and others he can avoid this fate. fate has yet to be determined. as possible to alleviate. balkan ghosts was published in

1990 three. the same month i published a long piece in reader's digest which then had a circulation of 14 million where i said that we have to do something, we have to stop this, but the result was that the clinton administration took the book reportedly and used it as an excuse not to intervene in 1993, did not intervene until 1995. to me, this was ironic. if i had been arguing for intervention from 1993, in public forums -- you could say, isn't that a contradiction to balkan ghosts which paints such

a depressing, dark view of the balkans and how inseparable they are? i would say no. it is precisely because of that that we have to take action because it is always the darkest human landscapes where intervention is ever

contemplated in the first place. it was a direct connection. brian: what was the first time you got involved with the government? robert: i only had a very brief superficial experience with the government. i served on the defense policy board for a short time. that was just the board that meets several times of year. robert gates appointed me. i thought it would be a great opportunity to learn. i learned an enormous amount. i think i learned more from them and they learn from them and they learned for me. the meetings were very insightful. brian: you have also had other jobs besides writing. what are they? what other jobs have you done since 1996? robert: i was a fellow at the new america foundation and that think tank started. he was basically a foundation that it tends to be nonpartisan and tries to bring journalism into the think tank world. that is a fair description. i believe anne-marie slaughter is now the director.

then i have been, i have stayed writing for the atlantic periodically since 1985, actually. i am now a senior fellow at the center for a new america security which is a boutique security defense-oriented nonpartisan think tank -- >> who runs that? robert: the former undersecretary of defense for policy. the president is richard fontaine, former advisor to john mccain. he served in the national security council. brian: what do they expect of you? robert: they expect me to write about defense and security policy and to mentor younger fellows. i have also been, i wrote a column for two years for geopolitical company based in austin. brian: i want to show you george freeman. robert: i worked for him for two years. i found that writing a weekly column was not for me. brian: here's some video from 2014. [begin video clip] >> kaplan said recently the russian danger is not the military, but the voice of action.

do you see that happening in romania? >> traditionally the russians have operated through subversion. kaplan is my good friend. we disagree. i look at the ukraine and i see a massive intelligence failure by the russians. their intelligence and what was going to happen in kiev was bad. in this region, there is a sense that the russians are 10 feet tall and can do anything. in fact, the history of the past 40 years of russian intelligence has been a failure after failure. [end video clip] robert: george is always insightful on europe. there are few people who have been more insightful about europe than george. george saw the coming european union, the economic crisis years

in advance. he has always worth listening to and he is right. he was in part an intelligence failure because vladimir putin's intelligence services have said do not worry about ukraine. turned out they cannot handle it. i think he downplays the power of russia in a country like romania because you can do a lot through purchasing media, third parties, subversion, intelligence operations, the building a network of natural gas pipelines that tie in central and eastern europe turned russian natural gas. romania is a bit stronger in that regard because romania is unique in that it has natural gas of its own to a degree that other countries between estonia and bulgaria do not. brian: when you were here back

in 2005, the first question led to this answer -- can you talk about journalism and what you think it is in your book? [begin video clip] >> you have been described as a world affairs expert, anthropologist, a travel journalist, and a realist. how do you describe yourself? >> i am a reporter who not only reason about the area in the history where i report from because history doesn't begin the moment you landed a country on a plane, it has been going on for a long time beforehand. not only do i read about the history but i also read about relevant political philosophies that are affecting the area. [end video clip] brian: a journalist, reporter, in today's age, what do you think a journalist is? how close can you get to the government? robert: i think what a journalist needs to be is

someone who goes out reporting things that are important but which until then are unreported or not reported enough about. what a journalist has to do whether it is in africa, east asia, nigeria, the south china sea, is to not only go and report and develop sources but he also has to read seriously but the history of the area, the geography of the area, and about, as i said, the relevant political philosophy and let me just give you an idea about that. if you read hobbes, hobbes is unfairly maligned as a depressing philosopher. hobbs was actually in some way and optimistic philosopher because he believed in rescuing the chaos of the dark ages by creating a strong state and a strong state can lead to a better life for people.

he called that strong state the leviathan. hobbes was somebody with answers. one of the points that he makes is that between, the difference between good and bad, good men and bad men, the just and the unjust can only be decided if there is some coercive force above it. in other words, the u.s. is not in chaos. it has a complex legal system. you get into a car accident and exchange insurance information. it has electricity, agriculture, all this stuff because there is government. first you need order -- order comes before freedom and in

foreign policy interest comes before value or values can only follow provided you have interest but without order, there is chaos and there is no justice for anybody at any point in that is what i kept in mind reporting from africa, for instance, which was, where is the order? where is the bureaucratic institution order? anyplace can hold an election but it is building institutions that matter. brian: how many countries have you lived in? robert: i have lived in israel, greece, portugal. now i live in western massachusetts my wife and i have been there for 20 years. brian: when you were here in 1996, your son was 11. what happened to your son?

robert: he is 31, married, we have a granddaughter. he works for morgan stanley in boston. he is not interested in being a journalist. he carved his own path. brian: you wrote, i am a liberal in the 19th-century sense. actually -- i apologize -- that is not you. i thought, i wondered if that reflected on what your politics are? robert: from the profile i write about of the romanian philosopher, i am sympathetic to him. brian: from that follows my belief in admiration of 20th century liberal philosophers. robert: close. deep down, i am a conservative. many people say this, the real pillar of enlightened conservatism is edmund burke because he believed in pacing, he believed that revolutions are bad.

revolutions do not solve anything. all they do is create another form of authoritarianism. burke was horrified at the french revolution as was edward gibbon. burke believed in gradual systemic change and that is what i believe in. i have suspicious of overnight change. often leads to unintended consequences. brian: that to your book, when was the first time in history romanians voted for their

leaders? robert: spring 1990. the ceausescus had been dead. this began the area where romania was officially a democracy but the people running the country were essentially communist and not as extreme or stop in a stick as the ceausescus. that was the first time that i can remember in our lifetime where romanians went to the polls and actually voted. there were elections in the 1920's and 1930's but like other countries and eastern europe, democracy in that region between the world wars was stillborn. it produced chaotic, corrupt, uni-ethnic, anti-semitic governments. it opposed cosmopolitanism and humanism of the habsburg empire. now, it's democracy is as good

as can be expected. it has a 4% economic growth rate. it has a government, middle-of-the-road. it has got a president, klaus johannis, who is an ethnic saxon german. the elected an incredibly repressed minority under the area of nicolae ceau?escu. even know he was underfunded and considered a dark horse, they elected him because of his message.

and his message was, even closer relations with the west and moving forward to developing a government institution that is clean and transparent. brian: romania's relationship with nato? robert: their relationship is unambiguous. romania wants nato to be as strong as possible. they have been a member since 2000. there are two things here. one of the understated reasons we have never said openly why he was elected was because they had another experience with another german who ruled romania from 1866-1914.

he built the modern romanian state. he built the institutions. he started them from scratch and romanians associate his role with a strong rule that built a modern apparatus and there was this vague hope that here we have another ethnic german who can take this next stage. brian: in the middle of this book, you wander off, look at the mountains, and you bring up music. you bring up bach, stravinsky, and haydn. why? robert: i am a lover of classical music, particularly chamber music, baroque classical music.

other travel writers will write about food. they will go on pages about food because they are chefs, cooks, they are good at that. i love music so naturally comes to mind. brian: were you able to use the music while you are traveling around? robert: i solved out music a few times. and not constantly repeated. i do not listen to music -- like i don't have an ipod. i do not travel like that. i want to hear the noises. it is part of traveling. if you go to a cafe as i did in one town, in romanian moldova, they're all this into what i consider the most horrible music i have ever been that was part of the experience. brian: how close is romania to russia?

robert: they have a long border with ukraine which was the former soviet union so it doesn't have a border with russia per se but with former soviet russia and the ukraine. we will go clockwise from the black sea. it borders the black sea. it has a long border with bulgaria separated by the danube river. then it borders the former yugoslavia. then it borders hungary. then it borders the former yugoslavia. then it borders hungary. finally, it has a border with ukraine. and finally, with moldova, formerly a socialist republic inside the soviet union. brian: if an american wanted to go to romania on vacation, and they have ever been there and didn't speak the language, what would it be like?

robert: they would have a wonderful time. brian: what about the language? robert: english is widespread in romania, particularly since 1989. that is the language to know in people have a working knowledge of english. they would fly to bucharest, they could rent a car and drive north, the beginning transylvania and go through the carpathian mountains and drive up through the painted monasteries to the northeast and northwest to the wooden churches. it is lovely and it is visited but it is not yet on the international tourist map so that you will not encounter hundreds and hundreds of tourists.

brian: how are the accommodations? robert: they are better and better. there are boutique hotels spouting out in the countryside. brian: you wrote, the ultimate purpose of human existence is to appreciate beauty and beauty requires a spiritual element, and intimidation of another world. robert: an intimation of another world -- brian: i'm sorry -- robert: it's fine, it's fine. what is consciousness? it is to appreciate beauty, beautiful art, music, landscapes. that is a tie to the spiritual. other writers have written that it is a call to action. that by contemplating a beautiful work of art, can energize someone to take moral action in some personal or political sphere. it is ultimately all about

beauty in one form or another. brian: i will go back to the beginning. if you were talking to a college professor who was teaching government, political science, and he or she said, why would i want my students to read this book, would you tell them yet robert: if you read this book, you have a better nurse any of the holocaust, the cold war, vladimir putin, of history. people have -- one empire or another and, not just in the west but throughout central asia, china, sub-saharan africa, before the british and french canada sub-saharan africa there were sprawling indigenous african empires. this is a book that is a laboratory in one country.

brian: last question, was dracula the impaler a real person? robert: vlad the impaler was a real person who fought the turks. bram stoker used him vaguely for his dark, gothic novel about the figure we are familiar with, but the myth of dracula is nonsense, essentially. brian: next book? robert: next book is a sequel to the revenge of the revenge of geography, dealing with american geography and its relationship to foreign policy. it will be published one year from now. brian: our guest has been robert kaplan. the book is called, "in europe's shadow: two cold wars and a thirty-year journey through romania and beyond." thank you very much. robert: thank you.

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>> good morning, everybody. i'm probably the first person in washington woke up at 4:00 in the morning etc. about this. this store is my blood and i most enjoyed being in the department. planning, programming and budgeting. innovationmanagement brought to us by mcnamara.

this was 45 years ago. it's the list the foundation for the decision-making in the department. people don't realize the important significance of this process. it has strategic coherence and one of the reasons why the defense department budget is quite coherent. a 97% able to wrap up success rate getting support from the congress but it is a very deep process that we put ourselves through. it is efficient. it consumes thousands of hours a how do you bring together department that has to manage 70 years of technology? who have to keep b-52s flying and keep on a plan that goes on for the next 40. has the largest

day care center provider in the world. it has the largest -- any institution pure how do you bring all of that together and make it coherent? that is really what these three gentlemen do professionally. we thought it would make for a very interesting program to bring them together, especially since no one in the government is doing anything these days. we have to do it for them. this is what we need the american people to know some delighted to have them here. todd will lead the way. he will introduce them and we have a sequence to go. this is going to be refreshing. would you please welcome these colleagues with your applause? [applause] >> thank you, dr. henry. i really want to thank our distinguished guests for joining

us this morning. i think this may be the first time we have had this brain trust at a public event ever before. start -- we will go in order. planning, programming and budgeting. from my left to the right. we will start with bob come assistant secretary of defense for strategy, planning and capabilities. it will not fit into a tweet. we will let you go first and give us the strategic framework behind this budget request. >> happy to. i'm honored to leadoff. we would like to thank we in policy and strategy lead off and frankly with his secretary, i will make the case we have. thanks to john, todd for bringing us together.

when you go through this process, when secretary caught her -- carter got here, it was clear -- there was a new security environment and wanted to figure out how do you change and adapt the budgeting process for dealing with that new security environment? he really gave us a clear direction on the strategic imperative of putting for a budget that ensures our military is postured to deter when the nation -- he was very clear about ensuring we look at five evolving challenges. i hope you have read the transcript from his testimony. some great stuff. we need to be able to drive these risk planning and budgeting, looking both near-term and long-term issues based on those five challenges.

as i think everybody knows, irana, china, north korea, and counterterrorism globally. you cannot choose which one is more important. one of the key areas to focus on, he believed, great power conflict is something he had not done as much work on as he had done on other issues in the past. you want to have a focus on that. time, they point in u.s. should expect some of the people should expect the department to deal with any of these five challenges. we need to be able to say we can do more than one thing at a time and address all of these challenges. he consciously did not want to prioritize. i will give a quick overview and take a look at talking about

security environment and handed over. the budget you will see and we will talk about clearly reinforcement to make the military more full spectrum. while we have 15 years of dealing with an almost singularly focused on very conflict,rules of doing the wars in iraq and afghanistan, it continues the trend more directly and more consciously on understanding we have to look at new things, new ways of doing things to do with great power adversaries and the security environment we have. another big focus which is in the budget and outside of it that i want to talk about is the innovative ways new concepts -- how you deal with this is going to be have to be different. we will not have it the same way

we always thought about fighting them 20 years ago. we have to be innovative and look at new approaches. third, you will hear about balance. in two we look at this different ways -- one, a balance of the mix of capability, capacity and readiness for each of the military services. direction was when in doubt, bias or modernization will be readiness. that was not universally applied because everything is different but it is based on what they have done. that was a general focus. the second part was balance between resources and preparing for the future threats. key to this is we will not be able to prevail in a future conflict against the great power if we don't start thinking, planning about it now and today.

abouthe secretary talks budget and the joint force, he is talking about being able to deter and prevail against our most advanced competitors. that relies on having and being seen to have by all the ability to dominate a conflict that any aggressor which used to initiate. there has been a lot of talk about this. were fighting posture is not intended to be at the expense of global presence. global presence is critical to assure allies, to be able to understand what we need to have in the region to be able to bring forces into the region from elsewhere. these things go hand-in-hand. way to makedible sure you have the deterrence is to know you can win, but to know how you win, who you work with and how you get there. the other piece of this is the

budget looks at things we're doing today. we understand we are engaged in many fights today. there is a gradual shift in relative terms from a force focused solely on today to one that will deal with future risks. as a look at the multiple regions, part of this is figuring out how you do more than one thing at a time. you need to be able to deal with multiple conflicts at any one time. these keyprioritize posture pieces and investments where we've had the ability to make modifications. some of these key capabilities are focused in threats, including investments in posture in europe, attack aircraft. research and of element and these other things that we will

talk about. know, offsett i strategy. i think this budget reinforces the secretary's guidance to figure out how we offset some of the key capabilities that are potential adversaries are building and how we can get over those sort of problems we face in either numerical issues or competition. can we come up with new technology but also operations and organizations to achieve advantages that significantly challenges the competitors desire to not allow us to have access to those environments. -- i can talk more but we have a lot about allies and posture and how we are working with allies and what our parser looks like. some of the most notable stuff going on in europe, but

continuing posture issues in the asia-pacific. let me quickly get to each of the five challenges. this budget took stock in the shift underway in the european security environment and what russia is doing to undermine the territorial integrity of neighboring countries. figuring out what we do to do with russia in the near-term and long-term was a huge focus. we have to work with our allies and partners. the strength of the nato alliance is something that has shown its work throughout the years and we will continue to do that. a lot of what we're doing to support the near-term is through the european reassurance initiative. while this was started last year, it bumped up over 300% in terms of budget figures for this coming year. above -- we did 789 million last year.

this looks to do increasing military presence, army, team, aviation were great as well as service support and heel to toe fashion. looking at making investments in infrastructure, especially airfields to account for the rapid deploy ability we want to see. we are keeping some air force units. also, rotation deployments and exercises, we are trying to set that up to increase operability with friends and allies. capabilitiesvanced in the environment that i know jamie and mike will talk about. these are usable for both russia and chinese capabilities, but you have to sometimes tailor them to the environment, ground environment. there is going to be some to move forward.

work toe continue to ensure that part of our rebalance to asia, not all china but partly about dealing with a potential adversary we could see in china based on their behavior and their capability and what they are building. clearly, continuing to die access and restrict our movement in the area we need to take a look. we will continue to look at where we have advantages and way we can do things such as engaging targets and emphasize are under seen capabilities. that will be useful. we will continue and have continued to move forward on posture issues. we will continue with australia, -- it continues to be useful and we will work to

build more infrastructure and access along with our allies in the philippines. we will continue thinking about dispersing our forces around, and making sure we have multiple carriers and how to defend and look at hardening for survivability. iran and north korea, long-standing places we have looked at. we will continue to make these investments, specially targeted ones that are useful for particular problems. generally, we feel good about the environment and what we can it, which as well as -- what we can accomplish as well as potential adversaries. we do not forget about fighting global terrorism. we must have place a priority

focus and a lot of pieces in this budget, weapon systems, looking at the future posture of ongoingo with them generational conflicts in and around this area of instability. off that, i will leave it to jamie and others to continue. >> thank you. you organizing this event and certainly the introduction, an unprecedented talk. i think every talk ever has been done over the years. it is great to be with my two great friends and to have a chance to represent the second key in the process. this is a little bit of an odd talk for me because some of my friends in the audience will recall i started my pentagon

career working in the organization that bob leads in policy. my first job in the obama administration was the airport. i have had the planning and policy piece and strategy piece, but now i'm charged with the interstitial. the programming is least a millionaire -- familiar to folks not conversed in the processes. it is about connecting the strong goals of our strategy and of our operational planning with the capabilities, the capacity and the readiness that is required. it is about delivering for the nation to secure a beneficial piece for the american people and the world. is isence, what that means

have to argue with both of these gentlemen regularly. i have to argue with bob when he is not detailed enough and mike when he is too detailed. that goes down from broad jeff is -- brought objectives-- broad and it is a process we have been doing for over 50 years. it is a process we have been trying to improve. part of what we're trying to do which is that linkage part of why you see that three of us spending more time together than perhaps has been the case. details thathe make up the tying of resources and strategies >> as bob

indicated, we have to start with critical objectives and one of the things we had which was cycle,l in the budget that was just concluded, was clear and early guidance for the secretary of defense as to the strategic parity. he gave us that guidance early enough that we could charter some very specific and focused analytic efforts to get the critical questions that turns into the details of the budget. our deputy secretary responded to the guidance and chartered six strategic reviews last year. those strategic portfolio reviews were designed to reach across the different structures of the department to not limit it to one service, one domain, not limited to one weapon system or one appropriation -- it was designed to reach across all.

i will talk about one of these to give you a flavor of how those informed budgetary decision-making that mike led. i am grateful to the work of my team in the program evaluation. across,t stakeholders because this was the department analytical crown jewel. aligning resources to the most critical challenges. the one i would like to talk about is power projection. the reason we had a strategic portfolio on power projection this year, building on power projection analysis guiding the previous two cycles, is because we know departments have to field the right capabilities in order to provide that comprehensive deterrent for

adversaries and potential adversaries around the world. potential adversaries need to cognizant and be very of the capabilities the u.s. can bring to bear if we need to defend allies, american interests. whether or not it's capabilities can make that potential adversary think twice is really at the heart of global deterrence. there were three major findings in the power projection strategic portfolio review that got to the heart of how we can invest in our capabilities. emphasis one great the ability of the u.s. to deliver range. there is a lot of talk in washington and the military communities about what it means. are very real.

one way the u.s. can counter that is with long-range capabilities. the second critical theme is disaggregating complex systems, extremely expensive and valuable systems into simpler elements to carry out military tasks. more, you will see some speculative investment. it is to leverage areas of sex where. if others are seeking -- sanctuary. if others are seeking, it is important to be able to act where you enjoyed relative sanctuary. work in thed the department of the strategy. this power projection and strategic portfolio is not designed to demonstrate the

third asset strategy, you can get the same lines, some of the same thinking tying in to how we discussed the portfolio and the findings that came out of it. let's take through a few of the specifics. i think mike will talk about how things are in the budget in more detail. one of the things that the programming process brings to the table is the longer term at the future. mike and his team are understandably heavily focused on the budget and the execution and whatever requests in front of the congress which is a lot of things to keep your mind on. heavilyis really focused on a balanced project, sometimes five years or longer, ability to see new technologies and weapon systems.

i will talk a little bit about that. emphasize both the sanctuary piece and the delivering of long-range, what this program and budget can undersea. that is an area that is an advantage of the united states and we enjoyed relative sanctuary area where we have technological advantages built up over decades to give us extraordinary keep abilities. -- capabilities. you can see over $40 billion of additional investment in american -- that is an increase money5 billion and that building our state-of-the-art classes. it goes to me initial stages of modernizing nuclear deterrent. specificake some very

steps i want to highlight. one is extremely important which is the investment in the virginia payload. it is really an extended cab version of your standard virginia -- it is an extraordinarily high level. the run-of-the-mill virginia offers you 12 vertical launch, the vision payload module offers you 40. more than triple the shooting capacity and capabilities that support other special mission and systems. that is a big deal. for comparative small investment, each one will be enormously capable. recognizing -- you can see is investing in traditional upgrades to combat systems, improved acoustics and technology, for quieting.

torpedoes for submarines. upgrading the mark 48 which is the core torpedo. we are also looking towards unmanned towards unmanned capability for payload module will give those submarines marketability. -- more capability. shifting from the undersea and you see threads of that strategic portfolio playing out in several other domains. you see things like the arsenal playing, which the secretary talked about. in the surface domain you see an important extension is the capabilities of the tomahawk missile, which is an extremely effective missile. announcedecretary has his that we will be upgrading a lot of fighting -- upgrading and modifying the tomahawk as a those through manufacturer in

the coming years to shift the tech capability. it is extremely important step deliverage this to series were waiting effects, should they be required. you also heard the secretary talk about taking one of our missiles,rface-to-air which is used for ship-based air defense, and converting it to give it an anti-ship capability. you have an extremely high speed, high energy missile that we are modifying for anti-ship capability, and the low-flyinglevel, tomahawk missile. a dual threat for anti-ship to taking what we have, and making modifications to leverage them to enhance deterrence. the second and final major point i would make today is falling

onto the point that debate about posture. we are constantly balancing our war posture with our presence around the world. what we have seen is that that's the force has become smaller, and as we have dealt with a the versol shift at come down in the middle east and around the world, we have an opportunity to reassess in relative terms of much of the force should be out and about at any one moment, which should be training and preparing to provide a stronger deterrent to a potential large fight. we are incrementally adjusting the balance. thatf the critical pieces fulton to that category or decisions the department made on the combat ship in this budget and program. we made a determination that we would reduce the inventory goals

of the program from 52 ships to dryships. then we would move toward a single vendor there. that is a ships that we had purchased to play certain war fighting roles of the most commonly to provide presence. we had size that fleet to essentially replace the mine countermeasures that we have, the patrol coastal votes that we have, the cyclones, and also the already retired. class frigates. perry class frigates. because of the way it was designed, it was providing incrementally more presence in historic fleet, because we were able to maintain a higher timber with those ships. a fleet of 40 of those is going to be fully capable of providing more presence than the legacy

fleet it replaces. the 40portant to note, ship fleet is fully adequate to perform the war fighting missions that we need that links to perform. you will see some discussion in the press, public commentary about where is the requirements on that? the navy has had for some years now it presence requirements and a war fighting requirements. the posture versus presence dialogue has led us to say we would like to go to the war dohting requirements, and the rest within this requirement. that should hopefully clarify some of the discussion on that. and it is a matter of balance. we need to make those adjustments to free up the resources to get the naval aviation enterprise done. to invest in some of those oppressive munitions programs that we talked about just a

moment ago, and in general, allow the department to protect readiness and invest in future capabilities. terms talked in broader about how we translate strategy into program, -- into budget. i have hopefully you -- have hopefully given you a few useful specifics. i look to talking about how the secretariesses this concrete thinking about the challenges to focus our resources. i think we have made important steps in that regard as well. my -- not turn it over to i will now turn it over to mike. >> thank you. i realized it did not actually introduce the doctor. .

>> thank you. it is good to be here with jamie and bob. it is unusual that we are here in public, because we meet and we work together all the time here we see each other just about every day. i am also happy to be here at an institution that is so well-known for thoughtful analysis and discussion. that is something that is always welcome. i'm going to ask a quick question -- >> you press the arrow. >> ok. i will recap a little bit and thatn paper the viewpoints have been made already. and jv senate, the primary thing was being responsive to the five

challenges he saw, and as bob said, there is a mixture of priority, and not priority in these five challenges. the prioritization is russia, china, veneer here challenges first. that is the priority. to onlys not acceptable be able to afford to do three or four of these. we need to be able to be responsive to them all. one thing that is striking to me is that the secretary of defense lives in the here and now, spending time responding to what is going on today and the current challenges. the secretary has us thinking well into the future, as jamie described. if you look at what we are trying to accomplish in this budget, it really does span the domain when you think about the five challenges in terms of geography. we are talking about eastern

europe we're talking about the middle east, we about the south china sea. it is a good bit of the world geography. both from the here and now from the fight against terrorism too well in the future of how we are postured against other near." competitors. i think we have not talked about this in detail yet, but we recognize that a considerable part of our effort has to go into our process, especially the programming process, going into these domains where we know we have to compete and win in their alsoacy and on land, but to cyberspace. every domain, every part of the world, from now to the future of the secretary, asking us estimating that we be excellent across so many ranges of geography, time and domain, something few, if any military would attempt to do what we do level of xls so much of it. those are the five challenges

through which we named any of the challenges of the budget. but we also talked about, this morning, but going beyond presence, which is important, and it is not one for the other, but it is both, and what is posture on top of resins, the ability to get there. there,ckly can you get how fast, how legal, how much can you bring. again we are not in an either/or method, but the relative emphasis is with the secretary was trying to get into this budget, and what we tried to capture. that is important is innovation is a word you hear a lot. there are four parts and what i am listing here on this life to talk about for a second. i think everybody's life leads to build you really think about innovation that is a part of it

-- everybody's mind links to technology when you think about innovation, and that is a part of it. nontraditional, people who do not directly do business with the unity in the ways that you think of the major defense contractors doing. innovation in the agenda that we have for this budget goes well beyond just the technology, as important as that is. the future is the phrase that we talk about to retire -- to attract and retain talent. our talent level is so high already, so there are some who asked why we need to do anything new, because it is working well with what we do today. that as youy feels look at what it takes to attracting retain someone today, and when it will take to attract

and retain someone in the future , that we cannot rest on our laurels. people do not necessarily want the same things that people wanted 20 or 30 years ago when they joined the current senior-level people. the interesting aspect of this is just last year, the great degree of cooperation between an independent commission, and the congress of the department resulted in a military form that has not happened in 30 years. it is in line with the secretaries thinking on what it takes to shape the thinking. it is years for benefits, like the economy has moved to in the last 30 years. many people do not take 30 years to walk away with more than they do now. that is one of the aspects, winning the secretary talk about the force of the future, a board you'll hear a lot is permeability.

how will someone come into this apartment -- into this department and serve your can onlyespecially we get part of your time to come in, come out. we have also talked about in recent days with some of those nonmonetary, station benefits. things that recognize that what attracts and retains impression is not always just a paycheck. in terms of our budget, these benefits are these changes are not larger drivers of the force of the future, but they are important, and they are well-placed. we have spent a lot of time on these at senior levels, deleting them, trying to think about what will lead us in the leading edge of the future. live, to the innovations if you use new tools and think

the same old way, you're not getting the most value out of them. how we think, and this is particularly violent area of reinvigorating wargaming is an important priority. new ways to use which already news -- new h new waste ways to use new things. secretaryy, houthi looks at the private sector and realizes that if we were successful at attracting new people to the department, but if we had tools that were slow, cumbersome, and is most sense, -- andd lose them again made no sense, we would lose them again. we try to get the best technology and the best people. these are connected in our vitamin that innovation is not just about new technology as important as that is. another point that i would like

to make is we have talked about the european reassurance initiative. it is natural and it is normal to focus on the new thing in a budget, the thing that is growing by the most percent. i would like to remind people that this is not the sum total of our efforts to counter. it sits on top of a presence that we've had for a decade. other things are important. new categories, new labels, highlighting particularly and remains -- highlighting particular areas of th emphasis. it is not the sum total, and it is also true, as conductor one gave a good example of the virginia payload bottle among others. are a few exceptions, most to counter north korea. most of our systems are capable

across the spectrum of capabilities, and that is how we look at them. it is important to look at the broad range that we are bringing to bear. i want to talk about the budget in size, rather than its shape, which is what the discussion has been today. many people of heard by now the secretary described himself as grateful for the deal last fall. one was for the budget deal? for threeen stuck years prior to this deal at under $500 million in our base budget, and we are going to

lucas on the base budget inn restaurant. we were able to get through this and about $5 million per year. that is above the level we have been ouat. looking ahead to the future of course, there will need to be more budget deals, nor negotiations, more discussions in the future. question will begin of where we're going, so we're starting at a better life by having with you that we've been stuck where we were before. this is also a better jumping off point for the future. blueis version can see the bars on the bottom of the base budget. up about $25d to 2016, not15 quite as high as 2017, but an -- anant it agrees

important budget increase. the secretary, the point he is ,ade a couple of times compromise how we govern in this country. we found out our fy 16 was going through without that. the process but all of this represented with followed up by the time we got this guidance. we talk about how to get the best choices to meet this topline down and still recognizes secretaries priorities. doing so gives us near certain stability and that is important

for our troops. until you know where the budget is going, people will wonder if there will be a relatively simple duration -- a relative separation. will we be able to stay in or not? there is a certainty is that our .ndustry partners need is important for our troops, for our partners, for the planners inside the department to know what resources we have to work, and for our partners around the world. meanss what the secretary when he says he supports this deal. he does not mean it in a sense .hat we had to read it clearly

that is always a possible outcome when you're seeking a compromise. you may not end up with exactly what you wanted. , onecan go to master chart thing that i just want to say is an important part of this process is looking at our budget -- we made theon choices, as i described in the , with theof last year belief that are topless down a couple in the future. our profile that we had for the fy 15 budget, for the fy 16 budget and now for the fy 17 budget. other than accommodating the particular reductions in the budget deal from last welcome we have been remarkably consistent. both of these are better than any team i know of in saying euro the resources we need to and there is a reason for that. described, that we

like the rebalance, have remained fairly constant kohl's -- fairly constant goals across the past few years. ,he army has been reducing some the and states to which replayed to reduce our army has been pretty constant. that is not moved around a lot. therefore, the resources have all been pretty constant in our plan pretty stable. we have for several years been very careful about the level of resources we need to publish our tests and our missions, and we stuck with that. not get all that we wanted in this budget deal, that up from a big jump where we have been stuck for three years.

we do not get up to the 35 increase wear wanted, but we could well. the position protects your sick but we need to make another jump in 2018 about that rise to get to where we need to be, where those three lines overlap. we see the biggest risk in this budget, not so much as the choices we made to meet the short-term budget reduction in this budget deal, although we are happy to discuss and defend those, and i know we will be and we heardhem that followed throughout the year, the greater risk to us is the $100 billion that is the difference between those three lines, blue, verbal, and lincoln and the red line that is the budget cap. another leap up next year, the department does, whether any of us are still here

or not, to get up to that level that the department has been advocating. that gives you a good indication of where we will remain throughout the rest of this administration. wrap up and weme can talk about any individual programs and choices that we made them and i know there has been a long discussion as well. >> thank you for this great,. the student questions from the audience in just a minute. we have some hand feel mark held microphones in the audience. one thing that has been talked about a lot recently is this idea of improving the department's strategic agility. mean the ability to adjust is reverted all the world changes?

is russia rolling into eastern ukraine, isis expanding territory, the world was changing. the department of defense has to change to keep up with it. activeur visitors perspective. we obviously need strategic agility. are everye is a cutie i do not think anyone to take you look at night only time we do it. , ournt to our interest friends and allies within the strategic environment. to some extent we make the decision new year.

you keep looking through, and every time you see massive changes in the security department for mao zedong large extent that is what we feed into the processes that go to where are we making changes in the budget in terms of relative emphasis. that is an important piece, and something we always struggled with. how do you do a better job of what you're doing and where you are going? -- changing strategic guidance every year, that is not good for the department either. you have to have some level of consistencies of people understand we're not putting back and forth between multiple things. it is finding the balance that is the key. things that asof mike noted that are consistent with in the budget that we've been doing for a long time while you make changes on the margin. agile is on being more the focus on this.

this deputycus secretary has done about new things about how to operate from word operate in an environment where you are pushing a lot of that. there is money, specifically zing to incentiviz wargaming in the budget. understanding that some things are consistent. we have alliance commitments. we have things were always going to be a have to do to project power into areas. what is consistent while understanding that you cannot be so happy with the work you've done that you do not ever look to challenge that. >> a question for you. this goes back, he were an air force comptroller, and your been part of this and restrictions efforts to achieve greater efficiency about how these

dollars are spent. some has been successful, and some not because congress does not always agree. for you, looking forward, what legislative for policy obstacles are holding the department back from achieving greater efficiency in using these resources? mr. morin: it is not a popular answer, but base realignment and closure is an important piece of it. goalss been aspirational for several years now. we are now more than 10 years since our last round. the studies permit has done generally find 20% to 25%, sometimes more than a surplus infrastructure in most of our missionary is. forcern what part of the capability are talking about. it is substantial.

but big thing that place there is not so much the cost of maintaining facilities or owning more realist -- real estate, it is the people that come with that. force,worked for the air the rough quarter estimate was it took 900 and 80 a base, before you had any operational people in there. it was 900 airmen just to have. you can understand, as you shrink down the operational forces, as we get higher technologies, especially air force, the capital gets more expensive, because it is more advanced. constanterating with a infrastructure within a lot of overhead to maintain. base closure is an important piece. it is critical to note that the department is not happy with

what happened in the 2005 area with a rebalanced force. we think that the future background would have a much better reaction. we would model more on the earlier models in order to move this forward. but this is a difficult political topic. we understand that, but the department is going to remain consistent, saying we just need to move forward on this to enable a whole bunch of cost to take out, to drive more common capability out of each text. dollar. there is more than we can do beyond that. i think the department needs to look at, broadly speaking, agility in identifying and

divesting programs that are not delivering. as we look to an era where we have great power competition going on, it is important that we are willing take enough risk in the things that we develop and acquire commit to maintain that in the long run. necessitates a portfolio approach in which you do not expect that every investment you make is going to successfully come to fruition. we need to have a risk profile where we do some exotic room -- exotic work than we only have a 20% chance of turning into military capability. but if you do not use the committee will be -- use these, you will be locked into incremental improvement. you have to use a portfolio with higher risk efforts.

in that scenario that we are ,orking, and currently congress held understanding. it is difficult to have a portfolio approach with high-risk technology when you know you are going to be sorely punished for any failure, even if it was a conscious choice to take risk. as the secretary looks to models in silicon valley, you cannot assume that every investment is going to pay off. if that is your assumption is that is your planning basis, you're not being ambitious enough. mike has something he wants to add? mr. mccord: we have had challenging discussions as well on areas like health care over the years. i would say, on your first point about agility as well, that seeing that two of my predecessors,