initiative recently held a daylong foreign -- for him on national security and foreign-policy issues. one of the segments included lieutenant general mcmaster, rector of the u.s. army capabilities integration center. he talked about the importance of probably -- properly integrating technology and using military history to help create national security strategies. this is just over an hour. mr. moyar: good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. if i could kindly ask you to move towards your streets for what will be the final -- towards your seats for what will be the final time this afternoon. it is always a pleasure to reach the culminating discussion of the day.

foreign will be a wonderful conversation between lieutenant general mcmaster and our fellow and the director of our center on military history, mark moyer. before we get started and if you will forgive me for taking a moment, i want to take an opportunity to say thank you to a few members of the fbi team before we wrap up. in particular, elaine stern, lindsay markel are our excellent government relations team. at the fbi, very little have an's if not for them. and daniel barrow is our operations director. the three of them have done much of the great work that has made today happened. i am very grateful to mark for everything he has done as well. it is a new effort. in the summer of

2015. after she came to us from joint special operations university. prior to that, he had been in the structure at emory or university. the frequency with which she is publishing books is quite stunning. forthcoming history coming out next year. and at the end of 2018, he will have a sequel to his well-known and excellent book "triumph forsaken: the vietnam war." are fortunatepi to have him on the team and we are looking forward to this conversation he will have with lieutenant general mcmaster. thank you both. [applause] mr. moyar: and inks chris to you as well. i am dr. mark moyer. i am the director of the center

of diplomatic history. we have heard today about the reasons why we need a center like this. there are problems on the supply and it might side. -- and demand side. military history is out of fashion at civilian universities which is why you have a defense staff and a lot of phd historians who are not teaching at universities. and on the demand side, there is a deficit of knowledge about history here in the policy world and also to some extent, a lack of interest. we are trying to rejects both of those problems. politicalentists, scientists will often tell you that historians do not know how to do anything but tell stories. that is silly. fidel castro does not do anything besides provide help to the needy.

but i am going to start with a story because it is an effective way of getting people's attention and after a day of bombarded with speeches and as being the last place, i thought it would hopefully help us provide a point of departure. eight years ago, in this same town, there was a lot of talk about a new idea called "smart power." one of the key elements of smart power was using nonmilitary means to alleviate conflict and it was said that under the bush administration there had been an overreliance on the military as an instrument of power. to usenow going nonmilitary instruments of power because these problems have roots that are not military. we will have civilian agencies taking on more work and the

military is going to be doing less. in. it soundedory, appealing. we saw this put into practice in a number of places. afghanistan. the obama administration decided to increase the development aid in afghanistan from 1.2 billion dollars to $1.4 billion. they undertook a civilian surge which took 500 civilians in afghanistan up to 1300. they set about trying to a smart power approach in afghanistan. unfortunately, the results did not live up to the billing. some of you here saw this firsthand. for one thing, we saw the state department, u.s. aid to not get there experienced people to go to these countries so they had to bring in contract or's and

temporary employees. the vast the geordie of those people never got out into the countryside because it was dangerous there and the civilian unions did not feel they were obliged to go there. we then did not have oversight where huge amounts of cash were going and they often ended up in the hands of the enemy or corrupt officials. you were actually exacerbating conflict rather than alleviating --and you also had a problem if you wanted to do and a project, the taliban were there and they were going to kill your aid workers and governors. there was counterinsurgency gains but it did not have much to do with smart power. it had everything to do with military power. it was where the u.s. military went into the areas, and brought the afghan government officials with them. hugel argue that this waste of resources could have been avoided had we paid some attention to history.

if the obama administration had looked back, not far, back to the clinton administration to find some of the same ideas. if you think columbia in the 1990's -- we had a lot of the same ideas. we were going to use nonmilitary power. we would not give money to columbia's ministry -- military. we were going to get it to law enforcement. crop substitution programs. same thing happen though in afghanistan. people were getting killed. it was not until the government in both countries decided to put a heavy emphasis on the security side that you made progress. wheres just one example there are some clear indications from history that the different policy should be reviewed. oftentimes not so straightforward. what we often see is a situation

where there are multiple presidents. a classic case would be in iraq in 2003. after we took down saddam hussein, we looked for ideas for rebuilding the country. we focused heavily on nazi germany. argue and in hindsight we probably should have looked at some other cases like japan in 1945 or the reconstruction in the american south after the civil war. we could have learned a lot from there. history will not necessarily fall into your lap. it requires a lot of serious thought. i would add that we cannot ignore, at times we had tried to do foreign policy without any ledory at all -- that has to disaster because it is based on unfounded assumptions. the question is how do we use history effectively?

history gives us familiarization. context. a counter confronting narcotics situation for example, it would be useful if you spent time studying five or 10 historical cases. when you go to the next one, you at least know what questions you will ask and you will have an idea of what solutions might actually work. doing events, a variety of events to try to bring historians from around the country to interact with the policy community. we are doing a number of venues. some public events. this is the largest one. some that are specifically targeted for private government offices like to the pentagon, capitol hill, foggy bottom. expect that we are going to fundamentally change u.s. foreign-policy doing this

but we do think there is a lot of value to getting historians and the best ones to talk to people who are making decisions today. by we also think that beating the drum on history, that we will get people in the national security community to spend more time looking at history and to think historically. you do not need a phd in history to think historically. we are fortunate today to have someone i think who is perhaps the best possible person to convey this message. sitting next to me, lieutenant general mcmaster who has a phd in history and at the same time, and incredibly distinguished practitioner. he first came to public attention during the gulf war in 1991 when he commanded an at the cavalry company battle of 73 east in which he

routed a much larger iraqi tank force. this was a textbook study in new forms of armored warfare. 1890 seven, he published a book based on his phd dissertation called "dereliction of duty" which immediately became mandatory reading across the armed services. in 2004, he was the commander of u.s. forces in iraq where he was able to achieve success against insurgents at a time when very few americans were succeeding in that regard. in afghanistan in 2010. he took charge of the international coalition, the anticorruption test worst. he is now at the army capabilities integration center where he is in charge of planning army capabilities for future conflict as we go forward. he has done a lot of other great things. but in the interest of time, i will leave it with that summary.

i would like to turn it over to lieutenant journal mcmaster. lt. general mcmaster: thank you so much market. what a privilege it is to be with you. how many history majors are there? there are still some people to convert. i thought maybe it was just an audience of fellow historians, all of whom are talking about how underappreciated we all are. [laughter] but i think this is such a great idea. the idea of the center for military and diplomatic history for all of the reasons that mark identified. what i thought i would do is talk about how i think the center can help us make us better, better at defending our nation in particular. better at defending -- anticipating the needs. and addressing the threats that are growing. growing to our nation

and all civilized peoples today. i will try to be super brief because what i would like to do is see where you would like to take the discussion and hear your ideas and thoughts. but this is an important center. from our perspective in the army and the military, thinking clearly about diplomacy and national security is fundamental. only fundamental to protecting our vital interests and preventing conflict but also ensuring that our military is prepared to respond to threats to national and international security. and to be able to resolve crises at the lowest possible cost. in lives and blood and treasure. but thinking about future wars often neglected. done superficially. remember the orthodoxy of the revolution in military affairs in the 1990's? in the 1990's, it became

traditional wisdom. the future war would be great, cheap, efficient. from standoff distances. leave on a high note after doing some cool, military stuff. that people fight for the same reasons. identified.des the inherent uncertainty of war. -- you can find it on the internet. it has its own wikipedia page. if you type in "shock and awe" henry the four conditions we were going to be able to achieve which included total control of everything. it did not even acknowledge any kind of agency or control of the future course of events by one's adversaries. warit did not acknowledge

as a contest of wills. and our ability to prevail strategically in peace and in war depends on knowing who we are. and knowing our values. in academia do not want to study war in part because they confuse the study of war with advocacy of it. do is thinkought to about war and conflict in the way that raymond bradberry thought about it in his purpose of writing "fear and hundred one." an interviewer asked him if you was trying to predict the future. and he said -- hell no, i am trying to prevent it. neglect as i mentioned continuities in the nature of war and locust exclusively on social or technical -- technological

changes. the neglecty, it is of diplomatic and military history that perpetuates deficiencies in understanding which in turn can make war more likely. --t is lacking sorely today is depth of understanding. we achieve new heights of superficiality in terms of our discussion of what is going on in the world and what we might do about it. of thent years, many difficulties encountered in strategic decision-making and operational planning and reinforce development have stemmed from shallow or flawed thinking enabled and large measure by the object neglect of history. i think this center will help policymakers and leaders overcome the tyranny of the daily crisis because when you are thinking and reading about history, you are freeing your mind of the daily chores and

engaging a subject more deeply. but i also think it will help serve as a correction toward a tendency of wishful thinking. it makes the future of easier. usthis center, it will help go beyond what we should inc. about particular issues but i think the huge contribution will be helping us understand better how to think. what can be center do in particular in terms of how to think about problems? all, it will of help us understand better how to do as clouse would suggest that we do -- to take what seems if used like big problems and break them down into their constituent elements. engage problems we are dealing with including isis or

transnational terrorist organizations. and engage it on its own terms and recognize the complexity of these problems sets. the rightto ask questions. asking first-order questions. sometimes we skip that stage. we go right into what we should do about it. and we confuse activity with progress. we don't properly frame the problem. what is the nature or character of the conflict? what is driving the conflict question who are our enemies and adversaries are smart what is their strategy question sometimes we skip right into -- it is the enemy organization, how do we go after them? how to understand historical events and circumstances on their own terms . how to trace event back to their causes. how to apply an interdisciplinary approach to the problems of diplomacy and war that includes anthropology,

literature, philosophy, economics, and signs. history is inherently injured -- interdisciplinary. and how to think in time consistent with the historian carl becker's observation that the memory of the past and anticipation of the future should go hand in hand into friendly way without disputing over priority and leadership. -- whenevere someone talks about the deep future or leap ahead of, run for the exits. something crazy is coming after that. is groundedly need projections into the future. a focus on solving real problems, addressing real threats, real adversities -- adversaries. we have learned that the countries that are prepared are those that think clearly in a grounded way. who think about the future as

the ancient greeks said we should -- walking backward into it. paying attention to what is going on today and what has gone on in the past as a way to think about the future. without the depth of understanding that history provides, the center will help provide, we will remain to what the philosopher of war warned against -- the tendency to regard war as something autonomous rather than an instrument of policy. misunderstanding the kind of war in which we are embarking and tried to turn it into something alien towards very nature. in short, this center and the history that the center promotes is important. it can provide a strong antidote to future folly. why historians have to make a special effort. and be unabashed about connecting historical knowledge

and understanding to contemporary strategic and operational problems. about that.e humble historians should be particularly humble and duly qualified any analysis or historical analogies. but we must not hesitate to help. military officers -- civilian officials use history to help think about concrete contemporary or emerging problems. so apply history to understanding the problems of today and tomorrow is just as important for citizens though as it is for diplomats and defense officials. i'm glad this is more of a public forum here and i think the center reaching out to our to bens is going particularly important because citizens have to possess a fundamental understanding of war and of warriors if they are to remain connected to those who fight in their name appeared and if they are to hold our governments -- right? -- our

governments accountable. it could become increasingly difficult to maintain fundamental requirements of military effectiveness or to recruit young men and women into military service. and the connection between our military and our society something we might focus on as well. preserve theyo were very those, too let when -- to let men and women to see themselves as part of the asus and in a covenant that binds them one another and the society that they serve. an absolute understanding of war and what it takes to fight it, popular culture cheapens and if thosehe warrior spirit a further separates warriors come often portrayed as flawed, fragile or traumatized human beings from their fellow citizens. so while the humility of the

historian and historian sensitivity to the limits of reasoning by historical analogy are important to preserve, historians must engage on contemporary issues. so this conference, the work of the center, is important because, unless we access history in a purposeful way, it's lessons will, as warned, lay inert in unread books. so i am looking forward to see where you want to take the conversation. what a privilege it is to be with you. thanks. thank you for those terrific remarks. you brought a few more points to my mind. you talked about taking the time to free your mind and that's when of the things we are try to do, to get in with a senior person, a role model for our project. i first met him in 2007 and he was working on on iraq.

had an idea they were thinking of and they forged a relationship in what was going on in vietnam and that brought me into the vietnam -- into the pentagon for an hour to talk to him and other senior officials. i think you had some value to them. obviously, i can give them all the answers, but having a historical perspective was value. it's easy to get caught up in .he crisis of the day it's valuable that way. we talk about complexity. i think that is one of the advantages of history and historians. i think the social sciences in many respects, not all of them, but many of them over civil fight things, especially when they try to quantify things or come up with grand theories. history makes you understand how complex things are, that things are not linear, that you need to spend a lot of time studying something before you can really understand it. he also raised the point of

interdisciplinary work. we do actually support things that are the on up your history. i have written a couple of books in the put fence realm. we doing courage historians to use comparative history, where , maybetaking a subject you take five different administrations, look at their history for trends in certain areas. another thing that came to mind, i recently read a book called "super forecasting." it's an interesting book. .t looks at forecasting , the experts you see on tv don't really predict things any better than anyone else. they just say things better. they did this study to see if anyone can actually predict these things. they found this group of super

forecasters. is ukraine going to lose another 100 kilometers of territory in the next six months? so the answer stuff like this. what of the interesting things i was, after about five years, the super forecasters were not like anyone else. it raises the question of how can we really think about the in history, it indicates how often we get the future wrong. so how do we think about that? you talked about the futures of, but maybe you can talk a little bit more, your historical sense, your historical knowledge makes you think about the future. because in your position, he can't just say we don't do anything. so how do you work through that? lt. gen. mcmaster i think the first thing -- the first way we think through it is in the continuity's of war. these are continuities that make

war -- wars resemble each other more than any other human activity. so if you acknowledge what makes wageifferent, which is its for political outcomes, its political nature, the human drivers of conflicts, the interactive nature of war, it helps you resist simplistic analogies, like some of those in the 1990's. some of them had to do with moore's wall, computing power, for example. understandu continuities. of course, the character of war is always evolving and changing. so what we do is really look at four key elements. four keyhrough these considerations in armed conflict. the first is threats, enemies and adversaries in the future

operating environment. this is to make a grounded in -- granted projection a national security. we don't have to be super amended to these days, unfortunately. we are concerned obviously with therevisionist powers on eurasian landmass, russia and china, which i think are engaged war.form of limited and to replace the order with one that is more sympathetic to their interests. a verye pursuing sophisticated strategy that combines the use of unconventional forces under the cover of conventional forces. but also involves a very sophisticated propaganda, disinformation campaign, economic actions and lyrical subversion and so forth. so this is one threat set to look at both of those militaries are modernizing their militaries. russia in particular has been aggressive in its use of military in ukraine and so

forth. we are looking at russian , to see where our capability gaps are into better see where our strengths are so we can preserve and etc. i -- and accentuate those strengths. we look very closely at north korea. it's difficult to overstate the threat of north korea. iran has been waging a proxy war against us since 1979. and then this one the middle east is terrorist organizations that are striving to gain key control of territory, property and resources. look at each of these problems under our terms, but also recognizing that these problems are completely disconnected from each other. , enemies wills continue to calculate their actions and pay attention to where they might see opportunities associated with of

the effect others are having on us and our interests. but what is common across all these complex that we see and potential conflicts is that they are fundamentally about the control of resources. our potential enemies take -- they do four things that are common. they try to evade what they see as our strengths. will not be the passive receipts -- passive recipients of their military powers -- military prowess. they will disrupt our capabilities. they will come after what they think is our network strike capability with sophisticated cyber. they are concerned about our air power. russia has established air supremacy over ukraine from the ground. so these are the kinds of things

there, across different adversaries. the third is those enemies will emulate our capabilities. china has engaged in the greatest theft of intellectual property. finally, our adversaries will expand on other ballot bounds, began a, disinformation, political subversion and so forth. kind ofts, will missions we think we would have to conduct in the future to concert -- to secure our interests. the third is technology, changes in technology, but also understanding from a historical perspective, there's always countermeasures. so understanding that a ration in technology to gain an advantage. finally, history lessons learned . we can learn so much obviously from what's going on today in

conflicts we are still involved in. what's it like to be in this post were period? what postwar period are you talking about? we learn from conflicts and operations in other places. so learning from what's going on, we see around the world is important. russian operations we are paying attention to. that is the framework with recruit -- we think through. ofed on that understanding future armed conflict, then we describe how army forces in the future will have to be prepared to fight or how they would fight to secure our nation and our vital interest as part of eu joint force with multinational

-- as part of -- ofre's a whole family concepts associated with that conceptual foundation and the latest is in draft form called multi-domain battle. based on the conceptual boundaries in, we have to identify what are the required capabilities? then we learn through seminars, experimentation, wargaming. we learn through a framework called the war fighting challenges. these are 21st-order questions, to enforce -- to inform development. repetitively or episodically. in the army, we get. enthusiastic about things. -- we get enthusiastic about

things. if it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing in the army, right? counter uas, right? we have to learn under this framework in a sustained manner. we have to analyze what we are learning effectively and then bridge an implementation. i think there is a role for history in each of these phases. what do we read? we are reading history to understand better contemporary conflicts and threats. we are reading the history of technology and the interactions between technology and organizations and doctrine and so forth. a lot of great literature out there on technology.

literature on militaries that did innovate effectively and those that didn't. comparing and contrasting the french and the period.in the war and the history that applies to each of these. everything we do -- we have [indiscernible] from north carolina coming in history to talk about and the history avoiding war and had to think of a changes in the character of warfare. a -- i was going to say synopsis. of the first historians we had about two months ago was brian lane who has a new book out called "elvis is army." 50'soks at the army in the

and makes the point that a lot of the transformation that we imilar to what was being said in the 1950's and they ran into a problem. ultimately, the technology they wanted to introduce surpassed the capabilities of the military because you did not have sufficiently educated workforce within the military. though certainly a lots of talks these days of personnel tried to find innovative or snow word -- innovative personnel. isre would you say the army now terms of human resources and what further steps would you advise the army to make? lt. gen. mcmaster: so this is a big area of focus for us. we say in the army operating concept, in appendix c, it's awesome. wait until you get to that. was what happened next, right? -- our differential

advantage comes from a combination of resilient, well-trained soldiers, cohesive teams and adaptive leaders with technology. that's our differential advantage. we are at pains every day to say we don't man equipment. we acquit the man or woman. -- we equip the man or woman. from the very beginning, we assure we are congress of how the technology applies to the problem of war and warfare. how toalso understand integrate that capability into an organization that is going to apply it. so we have a rigorous experiment patient program where we get capabilities in the hands of soldiers very early. example, in fort benning --

there is a cyber equivalent that we do in new jersey. i think the getting that equipment in allows soldiers to see how to apply it and then he gives feedback and informs our requirements. for example, we are about to buy and field an unmanned system that fits in a soldiers pocket. and it has a significant amount of range. before you cross the street in where a area, an area machine gun might be covering, you can send this soldier born censor out and you have a real-time downlink of the sensor. package for employee that, where it can be distributed, and also the design changes came from early extermination. for example, it wasn't very good in wind. it went up and blew right back into the wall.

that is fixed now. the technology in and seeing how it applies help spirit of the second thing is to try to signify things. book calledreat "men, machines and modern times" written in the 19 sexy's -- 1960's. he said man has succeeded in creating these machines to help tame his natural environment. but in's -- but in doing so has created an artificial environment that is far more complex than the natural environment ever was. -- we we get to the point stress getting to the point where we are integrating technology that actually supervise things for soldiers. the iphone as an example of that. it's intuitive. it's easy to use. we are trained to involve a lot of our systems that way as well. and then there's training and education and bringing in the best soldiers we can come of the

best men and women in our society. i think that there is an untapped desire to serve in our country. iswhat i would like to see more young men and women volunteering to serve, increasing the pool of candidates so we can become even more selective. we are pretty selective already in terms of who comes into our army and our armed forces. that i think we have to do a byter job of attracting them a committee getting the rewards of service, which are less tangible and less visible than the sacrifices, right? and the difficulties of service. long separations, hardships, obviously the fiscal risk, the loss of comrades and so forth. parts of rewards are being bigger than yourself. being apart of something bigger than yourself, it are rewarding experience in an organization

that takes on the quality of a family. and then i think we have to stress more that our soldiers are warriors, but they are also humanitarians. we are confronting the enemies of all civilized people. with these groups like diester like dae-- like -- -- sh or al qaeda. they are taking action to protect innocence from this type of mentality. i think we can do a better job at attracting more in. 1958 "look magazine" article. the great historian jonathan shy is in the article as an army leaving.ho is so the theme is that you are bleeding talent. you can change the dates in the names and you could be talking about today.

but anot a new challenge, challenge. i think we are emphasizing this across all of our activities. chris: we've got about 15 minutes for questions. we start with the gentleman right here. >> thank you. tar heel native. the first off seems to be a reaction to the stalemate in korea. the second to the defeat in vietnam. the third seems to be in part where the reaction or not, they come in the wake of these conflicts. in the third to purgatory in iraq and afghanistan. extent are these bureaucratic responses that provide a refuge and often a technological refuge that isn't

exactly relevant to the roars -- the resources of our recent failures? lt. gen. mcmaster: that's a great question and that is a real danger. i think many of us are cognizant this couldger, that be a cathartic way. that war was really hard. let's go on to a war that could be a lot more fun or something that could be solved quickly and so forth. i think we are cognizant of that. we are engaging, for example, in a study for rush and generation -- for russian regeneration warfare. but that's not saying that is what all wherwarfare is going to be. we are looking at other capabilities and ongoing operations and efforts in afghanistan and iraq. conrad crane said it well. there are two ways to fight the u.s. military. asymmetrically and stupid. you hope that the enemy picks stupid, but they are unlikely to

do so. i think we have to be prepared to fight across a range of contingency operations. we have never been able to predict with any degree of certainty what the next conflict is going to be. not be so faro off the mark that we can't adjust once the real demands of the conflict reveal themselves to you. we are emphasizing it up ability, the ability to adapt quickly to circumstances, develop situation understanding incontact with these couplets problems. what we really have to do is recognize that there are no short-term solutions to long-term problems. ad if we try to take short-term approach to a long-term problem, that's guaranteeing that we will extend the duration of our effort and probably increase the scale of it. we are really emphasizing in the army the consolidation of military gains as an integral

part of war and warfare. it's not an optional part. i don't think we are try to support five things into some sort of effort to get beyond iraq or afghanistan into a much better kind of war. but that is definitely a danger. across the joint force and some intellectuale community, there was some of that. now.much better it's a multi-domain battle. we are on the right path now. there was it an insidious a, well, you know, the wars in afghanistan and iraq, those were aberrational.

chris: in the black leather jacket here. >> my name is keith hill. i would like to approach your answer to not the last question, but the one before in a different direction. i heard the army chief of staff mention the fact that the army is the only branch of the service where 51% of its the guard ors from reserve. that was done with general abrams when he was chief of staff. he wanted a situation where, the army went to work him a would be america going to war rather than just the army going to war. in addition to a lack of knowledge about history, wouldn't you say or would you say a more fundamental problem is the fact there is this

disconnect between the average american in the military? lt. gen. mcmaster: i think there is a big problem. is getting problem worse probably just because of the size of the army getting smaller. so those touch points being fewer. and fewer and fewer families having a direct stake. if you've got sons or daughters, brothers and sisters in the service. the guard and reserve is a critical bridge in our military and our citizens. identifyhe more we can -- we can create opportunities can identify opportunities to a broader population to serve, the better. i think there are a number of initiatives we can undertake to do that. i think one is, you know, and idea that we can have a multicomponent contracts for recruiters. for example, i think we should do more of those. if you're coming out of high school and you don't want to defer college or a job or a

civilian job that you want for more than two years, maybe come in for a two-year active duty enlistment and then have a three-year or four-year national guard commitment. there are some great incentives within national guard service in terms of tuition, relief and that sort of thing. i think there is a lot more we can do. the other thing is engaging more broadly in our communities. i think military leaders, our sergeants and our officers in particular ought to get out in the communities as much as they the post as excessive less possible. event thant a better a basic training graduation. it is unbelievable. you'll laugh. you will cry. way better than cats. almost as good as "hamilton," maybe. [laughter] it's amazing.

they get more accessible. any ideas you have, i'm easy to track down through these guys. any suggestions anybody has on how to connect better, we are all for it. >> a two-part question for you. you spoke and some of the other senior letters have said that this is the first time since world war i at the army has not had a new combat vehicle under develop. you've spoken about the personnel issues. can you frame for us the broader situation the army find itself in in a historical context? and also, had his recent army history impact your efforts to develop future capabilities for the army? greatn. mcmaster: questions.

old book called "massive command"? before the all volunteer force and everything. the army culture is a servant of the nation. we tend to have a streak of recidivism in us. can make do with what we got never thing on spam sometimes that prevents us from making a very clear argument for capabilities we need for the future. terms of army modernization, combat vehicles aboutexample of really army deferred modernization. there are a number of good reports on this. but i think the csi report from six months ago is particularly good come in which the author talks about the mmm he of army modernization. is that thehammy

size of the army has been severely reduced. it is a huge reduction, way that we had in the active army prior to the wars of afghanistan and iraq. those were breaking an active army. we grew the army. at the pick of the wars in iraq and afghanistan, we had 170,000 53,000 ofmployed, whom were reserve component, national guard and army reserve. of123,000 active in an army 570,000. so knowing you go to end of historicalere is a pattern.

after wars, your commitments go up to consolidate the gains. on,wars are still going first of all, in afghanistan and pakistan area, in the middle east where you have a rotational brigade inchoate in addition to the forces that are committed in ,upport of iraqi armed forces kurdish armed forces, turkish armed forces in iraq. and then you have a rotational commitment to korea and went to europe now because of russian aggression. one is capacity in the army. the second thing, in previous armyds of drawdowns, the had recently been modernized. we did a lot of important things to strengthen our forces for iraq and afghanistan. but those were niche capabilities for this particular fights that are not really the modernization priorities we need to deter conflict and respond to crises in the future, especially

against capable nationstates. both way ofhat deferred modernization and it is compounded by significant reduction in the modernization budget. so what you do? get the armyyou the american people are willing to pay for. have the means, the money you have, determine what you do instead of having the objectives drive it. the tendency has been come ok, the budget is cut, cut, cut, use spread less and less money over more and more programs and you get less and less for your defense dollars as a result. so we try to ruthlessly prioritize. where trent to make the case for investment in army capabilities. emagin going to the navy and say are you working on any new ships? no, where good. we like the ships we've got. [laughter]

we are of great income as you know, the bradley, the tank. the are not the same from 1980's. there's really so much you can do. when you look at the active protection come other network related demands in those vehicles, other protective ,apabilities, additional armor new infrared radar, you just overburden the vehicle. i think we've got to -- we've of a significant wave modernization. chris: over here. >> thank you for your time. i want to ask you about military history. to the average person, they may

seem to have their strong points in subject matter. he comespinion, when to military history, what is a conflict or diplomatic moment or war they feel that enough is been -- is being written on and needs more attention paid to. i would say,ster: just in recent history, i would say the iraq war. -- joel rayburn is here. seminaldrafted a operational history of the iraq war. i think with that is going to be is a tremendous jumping off point for historians to really dig into the aspects of that operational history in greater depth. a large measure, we've been distracted by iraq, but not by the wrong question, but a question we asked and probably answered, which is should we have done it? right?

the great question to ask is who the hell thought it would be easy? and why? and then how did the war progress from that point on? i think the iraq war and connecting it to what is going on today. those of this contemporary history's that will stand the test of time. what other complex need to be written more about? gosh, you know, i think there's always -- you know, as my said,r at north carolina dick allen, don't think there's too much written on a particular topic. because there is always another good book or a different

approach you can take or access to new materials. look at what rick atkinson did in world war ii. he took the storage approach of doing multi-archival research but also getting a journalism background. they got all kinds of new materials. look at what murray's book on the civil war the came out. brilliant in terms of not new materials, but a different analytical framework to understand the course of the war and the war's outcome. chris: time for one last question.

>> back to the reporter's question or front around the army platforms. coincidencek it's that we haven't had a big five. i remember watching how the wargames went down. lt. gen. mcmaster: i rode a very entertaining monograph on that.

i really entertaining. it was pretty dry. but it was called "cracking the foundation." ,> the challenge i've noticed whether we have 450 or 570, take your number, we don't have a unifying threat, like we did when we came up with the big five. we knew exactly who we were fighting and that made it really easy to say we need a main battle tank with 120 millimeter gun and so on and so forth. , whether you want to talk about how many folks you need a harmony platforms you big challenge i've seen is what we a call future operating environment. who the hell are we fighting? given your role of army capabilities, how do you orient -- how do even approach building

an army when you are fighting the blob or a vapor in this case? lt. gen. mcmaster: i think we have really concrete processes now. i think it's not a problem at all. to mature opportunity our defense planning scenarios ined on concrete problems asia are broadly with the revisionist power. in northeast asia with unpredictable and armed to the teeth with conventional equipment. arms with north korea and russia and what russia has demonstrated already with its capabilities. i can go through those of you have more time. other scenarios as well. well developed scenarios as a basis for our wargaming and park spearman tatian. it is allowing us to establish a very clean logic trail between

the future operating environment , the future of armed conflict, scenarios associated with that, how the army has to fight us part of the joint national team to protect the nation against those threats and adversaries, the capabilities required of through ourhen learning a dedication of the capability gaps and opportunities to maintain overmatch, integrated solutions doctoral is asian, redevelopment , integrated and specific requirements. so what is an equal when it of the big five today? these are really capability areas that we think are immensely important for the future fight. i mentioned combat vehicles. all the trends we see in future war are making close combat war less likely. long-range capabilities are .hose that are in jeopardy

satellite-based medications. precision navigation and timing. the whole network strike capability. we are going to work out countermeasures, but the enemy has with a counter that now. they focused on it. so what are the trends that we see that we have to cope with? all domains will be contested. in the 1990's, everything was dominance this and that. we had full spectrum dominance. it was ridiculous. it was never going to happen anyway. but now all domains will be contested. we will not have air or maritime or cyber or no -- or electromagnetic supremacy. bet superiority will temporary windows across those domains. the second thing is that the battlefield is increasingly lethal in terms of range of weapon systems but also energetics and the democratization of destruction, with even networks, smaller forces having greater destructive power and give abilities.

the third is complex battlefields. the forces that all operations will be degraded. so we can build exquisite systems that fail catastrophically. we need redundancy and systems that degrade gracefully. so what is it mean for us in terms of capabilities? i mentioned combat vehicles. combat vehicles is tied to the larger problem set of advanced protection. that means area protection and also protection on specific combat vehicles and aircraft, you know, the so-called russian snow dome supremacy. overa has superiority ukraine from the ground. a third area of emphasis for us is robotic and atomic re-enabled systems that can do five big

things rest. if you google the robotic a autonomous strategy. this is the ability for army forces to be able to project power outward from land into the maritime maritime space and cyber electromagnetic domains. so we are already developing capabilities now that have , easing evenomise existing systems that will give us the ability to sink ships. if you have a fire's unit, they can do service to service, air to air or short a ship. other critical capabilities ,nvolve future vertical lift which is a pretty good program going out it will give us a lot more speed, haloed and legs so we can suck the play. dd you can bypass a two a

forces. and this is underpinned by soldier and team performance and overmatch. " that is getting more and more effective. we need to invest more. i agree with him in close combat capabilities that we are -- capabilities. but we are doing more there. developing shorter fire the first shoulder fire weapon has a ballistic solution and integrated thermal site. and it ends firefights. if anybody has read "the outposts" by jake dapper, i recommend it. we don't want to put ourselves in that situation where we are a taliban platoon with a sec of rpg's can pin down u.s. infantry

units. so we are getting those into the field pretty quickly. i don't think there's a lot of clarity at all. you see this, this best the big six plus one capabilities tied in that logic trail all the way back. chris: thanks a mature coming and spending some of your very busy day with us. everyone join me in a round of applause. [applause] and on that happy note, i thank you all for joining us today.

wish you all the best for the rest of the year. and a happy 2017. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2016]