white house correspondent talks about the week ahead in washington. and the author anthony clark talks about the tax players role -- taxpayers role in the president's library. join the discussion. >> james comey testifies thursday before the senate intelligence committee investigating russian activities during last year's election. c-span3 has live coverage at 10:00 a.m. eastern. you can watch live online at c-span.org or listen live using the c-span3 a radio at just radio app -- radio app. >> general david perkins, head of the army's training command -- in salt lake city, utah about developing leaders. this is an hour and 10 minutes.

>> as a proud army brat, it is my honor to introduce four-star army general david perkins. as the commanding general of the u.s. army training and doctrine command, general david perkins is it possible for selecting and recruiting every u.s. army soldier, training and educating professionals, and designing the future u.s. army to support national security. a graduate of the u.s. military academy at west point in 1980, general perkins has had numerous senior leadership positions over his career. these include special assistant to the speaker of the house, 104th u.s. congress, battalion commander beating over 1000 personnel during operation able sentry, brigade commander

leading over 3000 personnel during the invasion of iraq in 2003, executive assistant to the vice-chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and division commander leading over 10,000 personnel during the transition of u.s. forces from iraq 2003 2011.q from 2010 through on november 2011 through february 2014, general perkins committed the u.s. army's premier education and leadership institution at fort leavenworth. responsible for training development and support, developing the u.s. army doctrine and the synchronizing leader development, all of which provides foundational elements for the u.s. army to conduct its mission. general perkins is a native of new hampshire. behold the master degree in -- he holds a masters degree in mechanical engineering and university of michigan, and a masters degree in national security and strategic studies of the naval war college. please join me in giving a round of applause and a warm welcome to general perkins. [applause]

gen. perkins: thank you. thanks folks. don't get too far forward, or you will get feedback. no need to leave your eardrum injuries tonight. my appreciation to all the folks who worked, the folks at westminster. mr. ambassador, being a big supporter of this and everyone involved with ucct. it's a great chance for me to get out and talk to you all, the american people, because as the senior leader in the united states army i would say you are the board of directors. we are your army. it is always great to come out to the board of directors, the american people, and give you an update on what we are doing and get a q&a. i need to change direction or anything, don't hesitate. i'm looking forward to the q&a as much as anything else.

i really do commend you all for as the charter is given to sort of the proactive citizens and our democracy. our democracy is based on that. as i travel around the world in some less than garden spots i think when people use the term democracy and what is involved they don't realize the responsibility put on the shoulder of the average person to pull that off. i do appreciate the fact you all internalized that it stayed -- internalized that and stayed engaged and tried to be informed citizens as well in this very complex world. i will talk about -- as i was coming out here, i think it was developing strategic leaders for the future, etc. i will talk about that. understanding we in the army don't make policy.

we execute policy. it is our job to understand what the policy is. more importantly, prepare ourselves for that. as you can see on the big slide behind me i command you say to -- i command the united states army training and doctrine command. most folks have no idea what that is. it is tradoc because the army loves acronyms. it does a number of things for the army. i will highlight some of them so maybe you can get a vision of that. it may cue up some questions you have and may make sense, the topics i'm talking about. i will kind of hit some of the tips of the iceberg of what we do for the army, and then i will pull it all together on what that means for the future and what we are doing about that in the army to prepare for the future in this very challenging world we find yourselves today in. probably more so. one of the things we do is called the architects of the army.

we design the army. we are looking out to the years 2025 to 2050. you may think that the long ways out, but when you are building an army like hours of 1.2 -- like ours of 1.2 million people that spans the entire world that is not too far around the corner. what are organization does is we try to describe the operating environment. what are the geopolitical situations we are facing around the world? what are the demographics, the economics, the challenges we will face? what are the competitors we will face? what are potential adversaries possibly going to do to us? once we have that figured out in the crystal ball we designed the army. as i said, in our role as architect without the concept of what we want the battalions and brigades and divisions to be. we write the requirements for the next helicopter or the next

tank and we basically put together a blueprint for the army for the next 30 years. this is what we want it to look like. these are the first capabilities the army is to have, the kind of equipment we want, etc. that is one of our responsibilities. another thing is we recruit the army. i spent today with -- down at a recruiting statement here downtown. when you drive and you look at the strip malls and assess armed forces recruiting, that is tradoc. we recruit the soldiers to the army. another thing we do is we run it at command. there are some great rotc folks in the audience. i just spoke to some not too long ago. we generate the majority of the officers of the run connect command. we run basic training. our beloved drill sergeants and those folks that leave a lasting

impression on young soldiers. we run advanced individual training and all the army school systems. armor, infantry, aviation, and any school the army has in the process we write the doctrine we teach in the schools and then the lessons learned and informed the doctrine. that seems like a wide range of topics. when you link them together it sort of makes sense. with the army has done is taken one command and they say you're the person you design the army. then you go out and recruit the soldiers and officers. once you require that, i want you to build that. you send them to basic training and flight school and then i want you to constantly improve the army. new doctrine, the lessons learned, sending folks to the academy, etc. make the army better. we design the army. we then go out and acquire the army we design. we build the army we acquired. and then we constantly improve the army we built.

that's what keeps us busy, at least until noon on most days. training and doctrine command is a large and expensive organization. we are in 1634 locations around the world. we don't hit every one of them every year. today we happen to get here in the utah area doing a number of things with recruiting. this venue has afforded us the opportunity for me to report back to the board of directors, the senior leader of the army. now that i've laid out what we do for the army, what i want to focus on is what we are looking forward to the future, how we describe the future, and what we are doing about it.

that might be of some interest to you. maybe it will generate some questions. if you could put up the first slide please. i only have three slides and mostly they are pictures. so, when i was growing up in the army, when i first came into the army and graduated from west point it was the height of the cold war. i was a young officer. tanks and mechanized infantry. i was sent to the german boarder like all good armor officers should be at the height of the cold war. i would pull duty along the west germany-east german border. i can remember that. our whole army was designed and focused primarily on being able to deter and defeat the soviet union in the central plains of europe. i came in the army in the early 1980's, the height of the cold war.

we focused our army on being able to deter and/or defeat the soviet union, in the central plains of europe. that was a challenge in and of itself, but we designed the army that way. this is a picture right out of the manual i grew up with called fm100-5. this is a picture out of the one on my desk. i keep it there today since i'm in charge of writing the manual. i'm always told that the gold standard, so i refer back to it. a couple of things jump out at you. one is if you are standing looking east, he would look eerily similar to this. what our army did, and these are units in the army. this is a diagram of how we would arrange the army. we sent one of the things if you're looking to the future,

you are going to build an army, you have to describe the environment it will operate in. this describes the environment i was brought up in. we have a known enemy calmly -- we have a known enemy, the soviet union. very well-known. we know a lot about it and our mission was to know even more about something we know a lot about. we knew exactly where we would fight the soviet union on the central plains of europe. it would look like this. we knew what coalition we would fight that enemy. it was nato. in that coalition, it did not change very often. it was not like, well, the country would say i would be in nato on monday and get out on thursday and maybe get back in next week. we went for decades and you did not change who got in or who got out of nato. we started thinking about it. what we have is a challenge. the army focused on the soviet union, a well-known enemy.

focus on the central plains of europe, a well-known location. we were part of nato, a well-known coalition. we built an army to deal with that. what we did was build an army to deal with a known problem. when you build an organization to deal with a known problem, you build it a certain way. ok. you buy certain kinds of equipment. you buy equipment a certain way, and you train people in a certain way. this lieutenant perkins, since we had a known problem and on location, said he will take your tanks and you will dig them and 1500 meters. this is your location. the first echelon, the soviet took them over and you will do

with it. the way will train you is every 90 days you will go up to this same location, the general defense plan. you will go there and recon it again and again and again. you will learn more about something you already know a lot about. you are going to rehearse it over and over and over. you will have a little battle books with maps and acetate. you are going to line on it were your routes are and where you would cash amo and things like that. we are expecting that at the balloon goes up, world war iii, you just execute the script. open up your battle book. you execute the script you have been reversing every 90 days. -- been rehearsing every 90 days. that is how you build an army to

deal with a known problem. you completely rehearse over and over again a script and that's a you train as lieutenant perkins. when i came in the army. the chief of staff of the army said the world is changing. look out for 2050 and describe the environment and build an army for that. now, what i have come to understand and experience throughout my career is we are not particularly good at predicting the future. we are not good at it. the only thing we get right all the time is we have a perfect track record of being wrong about who we will fight. a lot of people, looking up to 2050, we've took that into account. when i speak to groups, they say you are the future guy for the army. i guess so. well, when they say tell me about 2050, what they want me to do is give them a prediction. well, what are we going to do in the mideast, the balkans?

you know, really, as i look at the future, what i'm saying is it is unknown. i don't know. they are saying, so that's it? you're just giving up? no, the future is unknown. you are not going to do anything more about it? are you stupid and lazy? i won't argue that point, but the issue is that's all i need to know. i don't need to predict the future. what i need to do you build an army is described future. there's a difference. when you predict the future you get to a level of specificity that becomes dysfunctional because you become so specific if it doesn't happen, you've optimized the army for an event that will not unfold. but we have focused on doing is describing the future, describe it in a way that provides you with enough clarity about how you start putting the pieces in place for an army that you're

pretty sure you're going to need. i said that's what we're going to do. that is what we did with our last operating concept. i grew up with a battle, this one. when we published it last october, i said, ok, we did exactly the same thing they did when they did this. i was told that the gold standard. -- told that was the gold standard. we did exactly the same thing. we came up with exactly the same product, only it's completely different. exactly the same, only completely different. what? this is ours. to win in a complex world. it is tradoc pamphlet 525-3-1. i am sure you all know that. it is the army operating concept. this was the concept i grew up with. the one we just wrote.

i said is completely the same only completely different. to clarify in case any of you are naval academy graduates, the first difference is this is in color and this one is in black and white. [laughter] gen. perkins: that's more than just a slick marketing ploy. i described this one here. i said, so, the first concept has to do with described the environment you will operate in in the future. we described this year with the word "complex." it is unknown, unknowable, and constantly changing. unknown, unknowable, and constantly changing. for the physics major is like the heisenberg principle. measuring something in and of itself changes it. that is my view of the future as well. if you know something about it, it will almost assuredly not happen. if you know what will happen,

you do something about it and it will not happen. did we ever fight the soviet union in the plains of europe? no. why? we knew a lot about it and we did a lot to prepare for it and it was part of the whole to -- the whole deterrent. it never happened. what i tell folks, this describes the future. so does this. they are exactly the same thing , only a completely different answer. i told you this was what? the soviet union and the central point of europe. nato. complex is unknown, unknowable and constantly changing. both of these ascribed the future in general terms. this was describing a known problem. this was describing an unknown problem. i tell folks there is a guy who is supposed to design the army. i only have to know one thing about the future. it is a known future or an unknown future. that's all i need to know. that is describing the future. not predicting it.

i can't tell you what's going to happen in the middle east, korean peninsula, all he knows future now or unknown. -- is the future known or unknown? if the future is known you describe one kind of army. you write a kind of doctrine. this kind of doctrine. if you describe the future is unknown, to come up with a very different army with very different capabilities and you train people very differently. i get asked this question a lot. to put it in perspective i was at a venue once. we had -- i was the token land guy. the army general. we had a navy admiral and an air force general officer. they were talking about the future. they are going down the panel. i was the last guy. they talk so the air force general and said tell us about the future of the air force. he explains we will have stealth

fighters in space this, and all this kind of stuff we will have. i'm reassured because i want to be in a country that has that air force. it sounded very good. in the navy admiral says we will have undersea this and stealth and these kind of things. i want that kind of maybe. i'm feeling good because i like what the air force guy set in the navy got. ok, perkins. you are the future guy for the army. tell us about the future. what they really wanted me to do was what? predict the future. they said sometimes you army guys are shortsighted. we want you to look out 50 years. look out 50 years and basically predict the future of what is going to happen. i paused for a moment. one of my previous times in the army i have done stuff with media.

they teach you if you're in an interview and some he asks you a question and it's a tough question, just respond with another question. as we say in the army -- ok, perkins, predict the future 50 years from now. i paused. i say, look, is that really the question to be asked here tonight? buys me a little bit of time. i said i don't think that really possible. i don't think it's very useful. let's assume i was here 50 years ago and you asked me that question. you're asking me to predict that the years out with a level of specificity i think is not useful, but you keep pushing me on it. let's assume this was 50 years ago. you are asking me this question. my answer might go something like this. remember, 50 years ago the world

trade center was not even built. i said -- 50 years from now? will happen? i don't know. 10 years from now we will build these two really tall buildings at the tip of manhattan. they become the financial center of the world. i'm sure some he said, why is this army of talking about these buildings? a civil engineer or something. let him go. we are going to -- i'm predicting the future, you are very specific, 10 years from now will build these buildings. we will build these two tall buildings. whatever. 20, 30 years from that we will have a very large attack on the continental united states. the result of that attack will be such that it causes more death than pearl harbor. more casualties than pearl harbor. they are thinking, what is this guy talking about? one of the other result is that

the two tall buildings we are going to build 10 years from now, 30 years from now they will come crumbling down. you are telling me to be predictive. i'm looking long-term. we don't have any buildings yet. we will build some buildings. 30 years after that the united states will undergo an attack of which they will be more deaths than pearl harbor. and one of the results of that will be these two tall buildings that don't exist now will come crumbling down. i'm sure people are sitting there like where is this guy going? i could see the first question being ok, general, you are saying the united states will undergo an attack of which there will be more deaths than pearl harbor? right. what is the enemy going to be armed with that will cost thousands of people to die on the continental united states? like death rays, neutron bombs, laser guns?

what kind of futuristic weapon will they be armed with the cause more casualties than pearl harbor? i said box cutters. really? some folks with box cutters will cause more deaths than pearl harbor? yes, that's my prediction. holy cow, this guy is really out in left field. ok. i am sure there will be some worldwide command and control mechanism that somehow is going to bring together and focus hundreds of thousands of box cutter wielding assailants

. you are telling me that some ise in a cave in afghanistan going to coordinate somebody with box cutters to create more casualties than pearl harbor? that is what i'm predicting. all right, know it all general, what is the united states, the sole superpower of the world, going to do about this guy in afghanistan who created more death than pearl harbor? it will be obvious. we will invade iraq. i'm sure at that point they would say this guy hit the happy hour too soon.

the problem is i would've been close in the production. who would believe me 50 years ago that is what would happen? that's the problem you try to predict the future. you can't get it right. there are so many nuances and so may twists it is impossible to do. you start making decisions based on a bad prediction a cynical sense of assurance you will know what's going on. that's when we wrote the new operating concept we said we're not going down that road anymore. we will not build an army for that. 50 years from now we will face a problem that anonymous could even in our wildest dreams make up. i am convinced of it. what is going to happen to us a few years from now, none of us, even if we all wrote down on paper what we think will happen, may not even be close. once you come to that conclusion that you do not know the future and you cannot know the future, you go down a different path. you go down a completely different path. if you think you know the future andy serkis sub optimize -- and

andstart to sub optimize make decisions. if you think you will not know the future, you expand the options available. you keep as many options open to you and you try to find an asymmetric capability that can withstand the test of time. this is generally not a material solution. it is generally not a material solution. in many ways that is the road we have gone down. we are saying, you know what? if you take a look at a linear kind of approach with very specific kinds of formations that very specific tasks today very specific things, begins a very specific enemy. that against a very specific enemy. this is an any part of the world for no part of the world. it takes all the domains, cyber, air, space, maritime, the land, we have pretty special operations forces, nongovernment organizations, indigenous people, and we have to pull this together in a way that we can do it better than anybody else.

what we have to do is be much more innovative and adaptive than the enemy. the world will change so much and so quickly is not necessarily he was most prepared at the beginning. it is he who adapts the quickest and can animate the quickest. -- and can innovate the quickest. you have to have very agile organizations. you have to buy equipment that is multipurpose. most importantly you have to develop leaders that can think this way. that is the topic of today's presentation, leadership for the future. you have to describe the future before you know what kind of leaders to make. if you have a different definition of the future, you will develop a different kind of leader. go to the next slide please. this is the mission command philosophy. it gets to the kind of leader we want to develop for our army. it is based on our description

of the future. as i said, this lieutenant perkins was developing an army in which we thought we knew what the problem was. we thought we would fight the soviet union in the central plains of europe with nato. what we did with his lieutenant perkins is he rehearsed has an area over and over and over again so in the dead of night he could do it with his eyes closed. in the future of today's army we can't do that with the lieutenant perkins of today, and there is a lieutenant perkins today. we can't tell lieutenant perkins today we don't know if he's going to the baltics, the korean peninsula, the mideast. we don't know where he is going to go, number one. we have no idea who the enemy is. we have no idea what the rules of engagement is.

we have no idea what the caveats are. we have no idea what the coalition is. when i grew up it was nato. that was it. there was no coalition of the willing. an attack against one is an attack against all. article five. now there are no coalitions. we don't know any of those things. really think i know for the lieutenant perkins of today is he will not recon every 90 days. he will not go out there reconning. probably the first time he is there is when he is in combat. how do you develop that lieutenant perkins? you have to have a different philosophy of leadership. you have to have a different philosophy of leadership. the army has completely changed its philosophy of leadership. we are the proponent for the leaders and element in the army. we had what was called command and control. command and control is issuing the order. control is ensuring compliance. in the army i grew up in it was assuring compliance with the command. we said that is no longer our

command philosophy and no longer our worth fighting function. mission command exists. what we want to have happen is we want our soldiers to seize, retain and exploited initiative that exploit the initiative to relevant advantage. whether he's a private or general to look out there, figure out where the need to be at any given point in time to be in a position of relative advantage and export the initiative to get there. that might be a position of advantage fighting the taliban. it might be a position of advantage dealing with hurricane sandy. you might be an advantage and get humanitarian supplies. a position of advantage dealing with negotiations or whatever your mission in, there is a special place and time and maybe

a geographic place and time, as well as maybe a position of coalition building that puts you at an advantage. but it is what we call qualitative advantage. the future is unknown and constantly changing. whatever is a positional advantage today may not be one tomorrow. it will change. that is why you don't always seize and retain initiative. you must exploit initiative. you have guts to always be one step ahead of whatever your problem set is.

you can't be content with thinking know what's going to happen. you don't know what's going to happen. you always have to be positioning yourself to be able to be in the right stance to deal of what could happen down the road, or you could be shaping it. now, as i said, when i grew up

our philosophy was command and control. that won't work for the future we are talking about because that assumes you know what to command somebody to do. what we are no longer focusing on is controlling compliance, but empowering the initiative. you don't control the initiative, you empower the initiative. how do you empower initiative versus control and compliance? we come down here. understand, visualize, subscribe and assess. understand the problem. we just talked about some folks about a bring in folks from across the world and have discussions to understand the world and culture and various things like that. all of our soldiers need understand the world they are in, understand the situation you are in, understand your caveats, your resources, the culture, all the relationships with variables. once you understand that, visualize how you will take the resources you have available in a time and space base in your understanding of a problem such that your visualization results in a position of advantage with regards to the resources you have available. once you visualize how you will get to a position of advantage, you describe your visualization to your subordinates and the people left and right have you, members of the coalition. you describe visualization so you come to a common understanding of the problem. then, once you have this common understanding, you describe the visualization to everybody involved. the result of a common understanding. you then direct, lead and assess. you will still give direction,

but you don't give direction until you have done this part here. this is generally the most difficult part. especially in a complexity of the world we live in today and probably be incomplete -- increased complexity we will have in the future. what we have to do today with our young leaders, our privates, sergeants, lieutenants, train them to understand, not just comply. just complying with the active control is no longer adequate. when i was a lieutenant they pretty much wanted me to comply with the command given. and then succumb to the method of control. we say now that is no longer possible because we really don't know what the command that -- command them to do to any level of specificity. we empower them to exploit the initiative.

that is a very difficult way to run an army. that's a very difficult way to run an army because it requires a huge investment in people. you have to spend a lot of time developing people. first of all so they even know i do understand the complexity of the world they are in. and then, two other things. develop teams in your organization inside and outside organization, and then form and influence people in your organization and outside your organization. and so you may well as a young noncommissioned officer lieutenant, having to be both building teams and influencing people, they are not even in your organization or the army or even americans. they could be nongovernmental organizations. if you're the 101st airborne division and sent to western africa to deal with ebola, you are working with doctors without borders, the world health organization. how do you describe what you are doing to them?

if you're in an infantry platoon, you can describe your military mission to second squad. you know how to do that in a way that resonates. can you describe your mission to the world health organization in a way that resonates with somebody who has no idea what an infantry man does? how do you describe it then? do you know those organizations do? you understand what role they play in the area you are in? you understand what their objectives are? that means you will have to build teams within your organization and outside your organization. you have got to figure out how to inform them as to what you are doing and how you will influence people. this is a very tough way to run an organization, especially in the united states army. 1.2 million people in 160 countries of the world. you can only attempt this if you have a very well-trained, well disciplined, and well led organization. if you don't have a well-trained, well lead and well disciplined organization, you don't empower that.

what you do with the no trade, for the lead, ill disciplined organization? you control it. i spent a lot of time traveling around the world thinking about other armies. the less professional the army, the weather focus on control. the more professional the organization, the more you focus on empowerment. i can tell in the united states army as ago from unit to unit to unit. units whose primary method of getting some gun is extreme amount of control is generally a less well led unit. units that are very much about empowering subordinates, generally are better trained, better disciplined and better liked. i grade leaders not only how much control you have, but how much empower people. i can figure that out and about five minutes. see how they interact with people. you can't fake it.

you can't fake that because it takes a huge amount of effort, time and investment to make that happen. i don't want to be rude -- what we have? we are good? what i would like to do so i can finish up -- can i go to questions now so i have time at the end? i we set up to do that? ok. while we are setting up for questions, so, to recap. talking with the leadership aspect, this is pretty revolutionary for the army. even those in the army don't realize it. our first field manual, the first doctoral manual was

written in 1904. from 1904 until last october, just about every piece of army doctrine is written to deal with a known problem. this manual was specifically written to deal with an unknown world. that is sort of a gamble we are making. we are putting our bets on the fact the world is unknowable and cost of the changing. 20 years from now if the world is exactly as unity predicted today, this is the wrong book. this does not optimize an army to deal with known problems. we are banking that the world will become more unknown and change more quickly. as i go around to organizations and do a lot of leader development stuff in the army to get ideas, a lot of people in organizations have never come to that conclusion. they are developing their

leaders but they don't know what for. they are taking the latest book. there are some organizations or you may develop leaders are regularly than others because it depends on what the organization is for. they take the latest management book and think it's one-size-fits-all. i argue it is not. i'll be ready for official questions? now we can start asking questions.

i will say little time at the end to wrap up a couple of things. right here. >> this command unit you are in charge of, did it exist before the second invasion of iraq? if so, did it have influence? and what was that input? you probably were not there then. gen. perkins: i was the brigade commander during that. 2003? yeah, tradoc was formed in 1973. an interesting story about how it came to be. it was pulled together in 1973. where was the united state army in 1973? coming out of vietnam. the army as it was coming out of vietnam was sort of pivoting back to central europe. the army leaders took a look at the army and said the army we have is probably not the army we want to deal with the soviet union. we are coming out of vietnam, although we had some unbelievable heroic activity on the battlefield we are consumed the noncommissioned officer corps in vietnam. we do not have training, and modernization program. our leadership said we need to change the army.

we need to change it from a we had in vietnam to something to deal with the soviets. they formed training and doctrine command. as we went back into iraq in 2003, i was a brigade commander at the time. i tend to reserve criticism for myself and the organization i'm associated with. i was an armored brigade commander at the time with the lead force that invaded. i could tell you probably one of the problems we had as i look back on it was we thought we knew what we were dealing with.

i was pretty sure i had good intelligence, satellite photos, things like that. i had a false sense of understanding of what it was. i will leave it at the level i was as a colonel. you start developing a battle plan based on your sort of false understanding and your sort of level of assurance. one of the reasons he get to that -- you get to that is you take previous experience and you artificially set it on top of your current experience. that's a common problem. you should look back in history to become informed but not be captive to it. i would say at my level we were probably captive to the experience of desert storm. which was a very different situation. interesting enough, i am not a

desert storm veteran but i saw it on cnn like everyone else. i was an instructor at west point at the time. i had never been in combat before i was a brigade commander. it was my first time crossing the line of departure. my battalion commanders had been and so had my subordinates. desert storm lasted only 100 hours. we did this in this. it's human nature you will face your less experience on this one because everything seemed the same. it's in the desert, the same guy, etc. what a lot of us failed to do was understand a lot of things have changed. this was a little bit different. it are pushing summary out of the country versus going in. certain assumptions are made. at my level -- probably not questioned the red team. second and third order affects. but we found out early in that invasion is it would not be like last time. some things were dramatically different. the republican guard and things

like that. the good thing is, and at the tactical level, our soldiers were good at adapting and innovating in dealing with it pretty quickly. they are making the best of about situation. but if you make a couple of fatal assumptions, you then really have to quickly make up for that and get ahead of the power curve.

one of the reasons we have written our new concept now is informed on what we have seen in iraq and afghanistan. we had not written a new concept like this before 2003. in fact, honestly i went into iraq with basically doctrine similar to the formations i had seen that we had, basically did you look more or less a known situation. this is an outcome of that. we try not to say we will do the 2003 invasion better. we are saying their first order principles that come out of it. if you start looking at the future as if you cannot predict it, you focus on different things.

you focused on indications of change versus confirming something that you think is a certain activity out there. when we do our intelligence preparation, we lay it out on a template and then we cross with intelligence to confirm what we think is that the known answer. you try to put all the pieces, you think you have the right and then you are crosscutting intelligence, that's to confirm or deny that you are setting pieces right. one of the common mistakes is you are trying to confirm the value of a variable, x = thing, -- equals something --the human brain does not like to deal with unknowns. the kind of world that we would have been better served with 2003, instead of confirming a template of why no, what i focus on is the relationship between the variables. i don't care what the value is,

i care about the relationship. if this is happening with this regime and the republican guard does this, what happens? that kind of thinking did not perceive that 2003 -- proceed that 2003 activity but we are trying to take those lessons learned. >> [inaudible] gen. perkins: no, in fact, but we are working is a concept very much with the air force, navy and marine corps. we just briefed my chief of staff, the secretary of the army, the chief of staff of the army and the combat and marine corps together. one of the things i point out here is, if you take a look at this, the world that i grew up

in, this is army stuff. if you take a look at this, we have semper fi activity going on here, navy here, air force here, in fact, the thing that is missing is a bunch of army stuff ngo's, the unhcr, none of that stuff is on the other here. we are approaching this as a joint, will be called combined aspect. i was over in europe talking about this stuff last week as we work with our allies. we need to have a different vision of how the world unfolds them the one -- than the one who grew up in. i will let the mic folks decide. i think we have one here.

>> given those more jointly operation things you are describing, could you talk about working with nato and the efforts with poland? gen. perkins: the unit in poland is my old unit. that is very much in conjunction with of this, -- with this, we are rotating the division, poland one of our great nato allies.

we're trying to provide options as well as a deterrent for fierce competitors in that area. as i was coming into the army, we had formally -- we have forces firmly station in europe -- stationed in europe. the station in poland is from for carson, colorado -- fort carson, colorado. we move them around. they have been in the baltics, romania, places like that. it is providing a lot of different options. with that requires for the army is enough to have a much more agile army. when i was growing up, you were stationed here and you would fight in one location.

our army is smaller now than when i was a lieutenant but our requirements are even larger than when i was a lieutenant so we have to be more agile with our army. it have to have many more capabilities. no more one trick ponies. these are called icons. i cannot have units or icons that can do one thing. they have to be able to do multiple things. they have to be comfortable on doing lots of things. they have to operate in many parts of the world and move back and forth very quickly. the requirements are greater than they were when i was growing up. if i take a look at this, you see this is a much more static, linear formation. much more easier to command and control. this one thing is very spread out. you have all the domains, cyberspace, etc. and now one of the challenges is how do we connect all that together? both the tactical network with regard to to cyber and the physical conductivity. -- physical connectivity. do the soldiers here know how to

work with the united nations on refugees? will they cooperate with ngos? there is networking that is much greater and a technical networking that is much greater. this was complicated, this is complex. big difference. complicated systems have a lot of moving pieces. it gets back to that thing where i talk about the value of a variable and the relationship of a venerable. in a complicated system, there are a lot of moving pieces. -- it gets back to the thing where i talk about the value of a variable and the relationship of a variable. this is a complicated piece of machinery. you are looking at it, it has springs and years but a

gaseous springs and the gears -- springs and gears but a complicated system, the relationship with the their goals that -- the relationship with the variables never changes. if you're looking at a swiss watch, i configured out because the actions replicate themselves over and over again. every time that secondhand turns one revolution, the minute hand clicks one and when this secure titans, every time i wind it, the same thing happens. that is a complicated watch. if you have a complex watch, you open it up and you cannot figure it out and the reason you cannot figure it out is because of the relationship with the variables always changes. on the complicated watch, every time the secondhand has one revolution, the minute hand moves once. on a complicated -- on a complex

system, the relationship with the variables never represents -- never replicated health twice. if it is a complicated problem, you can take previous activities and translated -- and tesselate is on there. the minute hand moves once. on a complicated -- on a complex system, the relationship with the variables never represents -- never replicated health twice. if it is a complicated problem, you can take previous activities and translated -- and tesselate is on there. you know how to solve the problem but in a complex problem you annot duplicate. >> can you talk about how the army is planning for and preparing for climate hange?

>> on any number of things whether it is climate change -- what we do is look long-term and see what changes are occurring, climate, demographic --there are a number of things out there. i know there a huge discussion on climate change but we take a look at it the way we look at other environmental factors. we see increased rate of urbanization. more and more of the population of the world are living in larger urban areas. so what we do as an army, we are not going to change the demographic trend of the world to become urbanized, we're not going to change what happens with the climate, we say how am i going to build a capability to deal with that? we do not set policy, we execute policy. we have to try to describe what

are the things happening in the future and how can i operate in that world that has now changed. when you take a look at climate change, we have what we call the most dangerous, most likely, you say what are going to be some of the challenges? water storage is, food shortages -- water shortages, food shortages, where are the parts of the world your sing famine and rought, those are parts of the world where you could have complex. one of the requirements of the army is to operate in those parts of the world. what if we were asked to do a humanitarian kind of thing, do we have the capability? do we have the language capability? can we sustain ourselves medically? this world was we are only

going to operate in one part of the world and now this, we operate everywhere. what kinds of networks and the established if you're going to --what kind of networks are g oing to be established? what level of infrastructure is already there? is it isolated? is it landlocked? the army's challenges are not to solve those problems but to make sure we into the baby possibility of the. -- but to make sure we look into the possibility of that. >> my question is what examples s being done to help leaders

shifts to an outward mindset to be able to influence others and recruit partners in this >> it is almost easier for me to answer what we are not doing. we have rewritten all our doctrine. every school in the army now teaches it and own all the brigade training in the army. we send out these scenarios and run people through it. we make them become critical thinkers. we make them have multiple paths to success and from the beginning we a colts rate of them to that world -- we acculturate them to the world. when you come into the army we acculturate young high school graduates into the orld of the military and the

army. had do we get people to think broadly, it happens very early on. when i was a young person coming into the army, i went to the rifle range for the first time and i remember there were two trucks parked in the parking lot, one you got on if you qualify and the other you got on if you did not qualify. all i needed to know was i need to get on that truck. and that is all i remember about rifle marksmanship. do not get on the ruck with the people who did not qualify. recently i was down at a basic training location and i sat down with these new recruit, myself and

my command sergeant major. they have been in for three weeks, so they had all the answers. i sit down in the metal -- in the mess hall and i said --i could not given to say anything. it is similar to that ma and m commercial with mythical igures. they were not afraid of me, they were afraid of the rill sergeant. i asked one soldier what you like best bout the army? >> he said i have never shot a rifle before and it was xciting and we just qualified.

said how did it go and he said not as good as i wanted. he said the practice was good said not as good as i wanted. but we went out to the rifle range i fired, shot at the target and then my drill ergeant went down the target and i had some bullets here and there and my drill sergeant said what he think is wrong and he said well, drill sergeant, i know how the trajectory of a round goes like this and since it was spread out i did not have good breathing. i will change this. he had already been taught, this is the ballistics of a rifle, this is what the effect is, he had all that background behind him and the drill sergeant said what are you going to do, how are you going to fix it. he said private, this is a problem, how are you going to solve it. that is not how i remember, get on

this a truck or that truck, i had no idea about the ballistics of a rifle. it is not like we explain everything into detail but we are getting them into the mold of how you need to understand how things work. you need to understand what you can change to make things happen and this is within the scope of their responsibility. we start early on. official last question, ight here. >> he talked about a battlefield that is constantly changing, very dynamic, very lethal and he talked about having to move every two hours o survive. to allow us to have that mobility, what is the process in marginalizing --

modularizing th ese systems so they can be deployed quickly? >> there are two big challenges in a multi-domain battle --the first thing is keeping it all connected network wise. we want this first unit yet mutually supportive. we do not want 15 separate things going on at the same time. it is not just about dispersion, it is about mutual support. making sure that they are not mutually supported and can be isolated. how do you develop a weapon systems that have the ranges to mutually disport -- to mutually support various locations and the can be isolated. how do you second thing is sustaining them. how do you provide

medical evacuation if someone is wounded? if you not have secure lines of communications, how do you get casualties out? maybe you will have to treat them closer to the front with more extreme measures. maybe you have surgical robots that can do surgery on folks. the two big challenges we have two operating in this dispersed environment is maintain the mutual support. the big challenge is how do i maintain mutual support while this first -- while dispersed and how do i supply sustainment to all of them. i'm coming to you as the oard of director of the united states army and i was talking to some young recruiters and

rct recredit -- rct recruits --i was reminding them that we are your army and putting it into perspective of their acrifice and the legacy they re upholding and the responsibility that we put in their back -- in their rucksack and their back. we are coming up on the birthday of the united states army, june 14, 1775. the birthday of the united states is july 4, 1776. that means the united states army is older than the united states of america. this country was founded on the back of the united states army and its soldiers, whether it is buffer

he'll or valley forge -- bunketr hill or valley forge -- the army our citizens serving is older than the republic they defend -- served in is older than the republic they defend. t is responsible for the country you are a citizen of nd all the great benefits we have. putting into perspective why i do appreciate the chance to come out here and speak to the board of directors as one of the leaders of the oldest institutions in the united states. thank you for offering your support. god bless you all.

>> ladies and gentlemen, i just want to be able to share a small token of our appreciation to general perkins and honestly thank him for the service and many of you in the audience have given as well. thank you for your time and dedication to the united states of america. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national able satellite corp. 2017] captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption contents and accuracy. visit ncicap.org

i'm not saying these are bad

companies. i'm just saying they make a ton of money off the internet and for them to go scot free with no regulation suggests to me maybe that's not the right approach. maybe we should look at who is making all the money and why are they able to take so much out of the system and it's because they're selling your information.