tv Defense Secretary James Mattis CSPAN January 20, 2018 5:17am-6:08am EST
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we can't get that vote tonight, but i'll going to ask consent to have that vote tonight. i move, mr. president, to table the motion to >> c-span's washington journal live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. coming up this morning, your reaction to the latest on the debate of funding the overnment. and a discussion of president trutch's campaign promises made and kept during his first year in office. be sure to join us on sunday as we look back on the one-year anniversary of the women's march on washington. >> defense secretary james mattis spoke friday at the johns hopkins school of advanced international studies.
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he discussed the implications of a potential government shutdown on military operations and urged congress to provide budget predictability for the defense department. this is just over 45 minutes. peter: good morning. i'm peter lewis, vice dean at the johns hopkins university school of advanced international studies. before making my brief introductory remarks, i think we will start by asking everyone to silence or turn off your cell phones. we just finished our holiday season and i had the opportunity to go to a couple movies so i am
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very mindful of turning off cell phones and silencing our devices. it is a great honor to welcome you to today's presentation of the national defense strategy. the nds is the foundational document that determines how the department of defense will contribute to the president's national security strategy which was released in december of 2017. this nds is the first in a decade. it is highly anticipated not only because of the amount of time that has passed since the last nds, but also because its author is the 26th secretary of defense, our guest, jim attis. as many of you know before he ecame secretary on january 20, 2017, secretary mattis had a long and distinguished career in
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the united states green core, commanding at every level from second lieutenant to four-star general. he completed his remarkable service as the commander of the u.s. central command from 2010 to 2013. following his military service, secretary mattis was a distinguished visiting fellow at the hoover institution, stanford university and sat on several corporate and nonprofit boards. and as the scholars in our audience will know, secretary mattis is also known for his love of learning and research and has co-authored a book on civil military relations which was published in 2016. this is secretary mattis' first ublic address of 2018. one logistical item -- at the conclusion of the presentation, we will answer questions from
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the audience, or secretary mattis will answer questions from the audience. for this portion of the event, we ask that you write your questions on the note cards that are at your seats. our student workers will be passing through the audience at two intervals during the presentation. as questions occur, you can send those down and we can collect them. we hope to get to as many as possible. following secretary mattis's address, catherine standridge will pose the question to the secretary. we are glad to incorporate different members of our community and this distinguished event. mr. secretary, john hopkins is honored to welcome you. please join me in welcoming secretary james mattis. [applause]
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sec. mattis: good morning and thank you all for taking time to come and listen to us here. again, this is the national defense strategy, but what it really is, this is an american strategy. it belongs to you. you own it. we work for you and i will tell you, dean lewis, it is a pleasure for you hosting me today. it is a pleasure to be at a school named for the gentleman that this one is made for. i will tell you he was so wise and how he could select eople. he picked a young man once and gave him a townhouse to help him when he first got into national ecurity affairs. that young man on his couch was none other than george schulz. that says something about his ability to see talent at a young age. there is a lot of talent that comes through here. you all look like promising young men and women because you
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are all young compared to me. he was also a great and avid scholar. you could agree or disagree with him, but you would not find him flat-footed intellectually. i bring this up because national security document, or report number 68, was a guiding light during the cold war. was it perfect in hindsight? no, it was not. we don't look for perfection from young people, we look for excellence. he served as secretary of the navy so we have a sense of ownership of the men for whom this school is named. the background you have here makes this a fitting place to introduce our unclassified summary of the classified document. parts of it are classified because we owe a degree of confidentiality to the troops. our nation's first national defense strategy in 10 years.
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i believe it is a moral obligation for leaders to layout quickly to their subordinates in the department of defense what it is we expect of them. it is designed to protect america's vital national interest. this defense strategy was framed, as noted by the dean by president trump's national security strategy. just to show you what i mean, that it is inside the framework of that national security strategy, specifically where it states to protect the american people, the homeland and the merican way of life. it goes on to say and to reserve peace through strength. those are words that of the national security strategy and we carry those themes inside the pentagon where we say what does that mean for us? national security is much more than just defense.
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this is our part of the responsibility. america's military reclaims an era of strategic purpose. we are alert to the realities of a changing world and attentive to protect our values and the countries that stand with us. america's military protects our way of life and i want to point out it also protects a realm of ideas. it is not just about protecting geography. this is a defense strategy that will guide our efforts in all realms. the world, to quote george shultz, is a wash of change increased by volatility, with great power between nations becoming a reality once again. we will continue to prosecute the campaign against terrorists that we are engaged in today but great power competition, not terrorism is now the primary focus of national security. this strategy is fit for our ime.
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providing the american people the military required to protect our way of life, stand with our allies, and live up to our responsibility to pass intact to the next generation those freedoms that all of us enjoy today. adapting to today's realities, the strategy expands our competitive space, prioritizes preparedness for war, provides clear direction for significant change at the speed of relevance, and builds a more lethal force to compete strategically. this strategy makes a clear security environment with a keen eye on america's place in the world. this requires tough choices, ladies and gentlemen, and we made them based upon a fundamental precept, mainly that america can afford survival. we have faced many powers. nations that seek to create a world consistent with their authoritarian models, seeking
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veto authority over other nations security decisions. rogue regimes like north korea and iran persists in taking outlaw actions that threaten stability. oppressing their own people and their own people's dignity and human rights, they push their work to views outwards. despite the defeat of isis' physical caliphate, violent extremists like hezbollah or al qaeda sew hatred, destroying peace and murdering innocents cross the globe. in this time of change, our ilitary is still strong. yet, our competitive edge has eroded in every way of warfare.
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it is continuing to erode. rapid technological change, the negative impacts on military readiness is resulting from the longest, continuous stretch of combat in our nation's history and defense spending, because we have been operating for nine of the last 10 years under continuing resolutions that have created an undersourced ilitary. the role is to keep the peace for one more year, one more month, one more week, one more day to ensure our diplomats are working to solve problems from a position of strength. this confidence is underpinned by the insurance that are military will win should diplomacy fail. but unveiling national security strategy, president trump said weakness is the surest path to conflict and unquestioned strength is the most are means of defense. we have no room for complacency
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and history makes clear that america has no preordained right to victory on the battlefield. simply, we must be the best of the values of enlightenment are to survive. it is incumbent upon us to feel a more lethal force of our nation is to retain the ability to retain ourselves and what we stand for. the defense strategy's three primary lines of effort will restore our competitive military advantage. they are going to build a more lethal force and will strengthen our traditional alliances and building new partnerships with other nations, in at the same time, we will reform our department's business practices for performance and affordability.
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doing this will learn the trust of american people and congress if the defense dollars or well spent. i want to start with legality. everything we do must contribute to the lethality of our military. the paradox of war is that an enemy will attack any perceived weakness. we in america cannot adopt a single preclusive form of warfare. rather, we must be able to fight across the spectrum of conflict. this means if the size and composition of our force matters, the nation must feel sufficient capable forces to deter conflict. if deterrence fails, we must win.
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we will modernize capabilities, recognizing we cannot expect success fighting tomorrow's conflicts with yesterday's weapons or equipment. investments in space and cyberspace, nuclear deterrence forces, missile-defense, advanced autonomous systems will give us what we need to win. changes are forces posture will prioritize readiness for work fighting for major content, making us strategically predictable or our allies and operationally unpredictable for any adversary. increasing the lethality of our troops requires us to reshape our approach to managing our outstanding talent, reinvigorating our military education and honing civilian workforce expertise. the creativity and talent of the department is our deepest strength and warrants greater investment. to those who would threaten america's experiment in democracy, they must know if you challenge us, it will be your ongest and your worst day. work with our diplomats, you don't want to fight with the department of defense.
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the second line of effort i noted was to strengthen alliances as we build new partnerships as well. in my past, i thought many times and never did i fight in a solely american formation. it was always alongside foreign troops. as winston churchill once said, the only thing harder fighting with allies is fighting without them. we will be stronger together in recognizing our military will be designed and trained and ready to fight alongside allies. history proves the nations with allies thrive and approach to security and prosperity that has served the united states well and keeping peace and winning wars. working by and with and through allies to carry their equitable share allows us to amass the greatest possible strength. we carried a disproportionate share of the defense burden for the democracies in the post-world war ii era. the growing economic strength of today's democracies and partners dictates they must now step up
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and do more. when together, we pool our resources and share responsibility for the common defense, individual nations security burdens become lighter. this has been demonstrated right now today by over 70 nations and international organizations of the defeat isis campaign that has successfully conducted operations in the middle east. again, the 40 odd nations that stand shoulder to shoulder in afghanistan. to work with more allies, our organization's must be ally friendly. the department will do more than just listen to other nations ideas. we will be willing to be persuaded by them, recognizing that not all good ideas comes from a country with the most
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aircraft carriers. this line of effort will bolster an extended network capable of decisively meeting the challenges of our time. we are going to make the military more lethal and we are going to build and strength traditional alliances, as well as go out and find some new partners, may be nontraditional partners as we did as the greatest generation did coming home from world war ii when they built the alliances that have served us well. our third line of effort serves as the foundation for a competitive edge. reforming the business practices of the department to provide solvency insecurity, getting the full benefit from every dollar spent, in which way we will gain and hold the trust of congress and the american people. we are going to have to be good stewards of the tax dollars allocated to us and that means results and accountability atter. to keep pace with our times, the departmental transition to a culture of performance and affordability that operates at
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the speed of relevance. success does not go to a country that develops a new technology first, but rather to the one that better integrated and adapts. our current bureaucratic processes are insufficiently responsive to department's needs for equipment. e will prioritize speed of delivery, continuous adaptation, and frequent modular upgrades. we must shed outdated management and acquisition practices, while adopting american industries best practices. our management structure and process are not engraved in stone, they are a means to an end, empowering our work fighters with it support needed to fight and win. in the current structures inhibit our pursuit of lethality, i expect the service secretaries and agency heads to consolidate, eliminate or restructured to achieve the mission.
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deputy secretary of defense shanahan is leading this third line of effort to leverage our scale of operations, driving better deals for equipping our troops. this national defense strategy will guide all our actions, aligning the department's three lines of efforts to gain synergy. we recognize no strategy good long survive without necessary funding and a stable predictable budget required to defend america in the modern age. failure to modernize our military risks leaving us to the force that can dominate the last war, but the irrelevant to tomorrow security. let me be clear, as part is the last 16 years have been on our military, no enemy in the field has done more to harm the readiness of the u.s. military than the combined impact of the budget control acts defense spending cuts, worsened by us operating in last nine of the 10 years under continuing resolutions, wasting copious amounts of precious taxpayer dollars.
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today, as our competitive edge over our foes erodes due to budgetary confusion, even with the storm clouds gathering, america's military is operating under yet another continuing resolution. for too long, we have asked our military to stoically carry success at any cost as they worked tirelessly to accomplish the mission that is now inadequate with misaligned resources because the congress could not maintain regular order. we have performed well is a credit to our wonderful and loyal troops. loyalty must be a two-way street. we expect the magnificent men and women of our military to be faithful in their service even when going in harm's way. we must remain faithful to those who voluntarily sign a blank check payable to the american people with their lives. as speaker ryan said yesterday, "our men and women in uniform
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are not bargaining chips." the consequences of not providing a budget are clear. without a sustained budget, ships will not receive the required maintenance to put to sea. the ships already at sea will be extended outside of port. aircraft remain on the ground, their pilots not at their sharpest. eventually, ammunition, training and manpower will not be sufficient to deter war. i'm optimistic that congress will do the right thing and carry out their responsibility. i may be in the minority in this room when i say that. i'm an eternal optimist. as senator reid said last november, we need bipartisan investment in our troops to enhance military readiness and help us meet evolving national security challenges. under our constitution, it is congress that has the authority to raise armies and maintain navies.
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as i stand here this morning watching the news from capitol hill, we are on the verge of a government shutdown, or at best, yet another debilitating continuing resolution. we need congress back in the driver's seat of budget decisions, not in the spectator seat of budget control acts, indiscriminate and automatic cuts. we need a budget and we need budget predictability if we are to sustain our military primacy. many in our room were born free in america completely by accident. all of us can live here by choice thanks to the veterans and patriots who served today in our military. yet, we today have an obligation to pass intact the next generations the same freedoms we enjoy now. that is an obligation we have. that is not something we can simply aggregate to someone lse.
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i believe this strategy, resource to properly, will ensure we live up to our responsibility. with that, ladies and gentlemen -- the dean said he will help me answer questions. i recognize that is a slip of he tongue. in this town, that can get you in a lot of trouble and i speak on authority. let's see where you are at. let's have a dialogue. we serve you. this is your strategy as much as t is ours. we had the responsibility to write it and it is up to us to defend it intellectually alongside you and in the face of any questions you have. let's hear what's on your mind. here's catherine at? >> thank you for your remarks. i'm a second-year student here. i'll be reading the questions that have been submitted by the audience. first question, building
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apability and capacity are challenging to achieve at the same time. do you see one of these being more important in the near term? sec. mattis: very good question. capabilities are what does the force bring. you look at every capability in a force. you look at changing times, what are the threats? we try to define the threats to a jesuit level of satisfaction which is tough indeed. and then do we need additional capabilities. and then you have capacity -- how big is the force you have. i believe at this time in this age, emphasizing the capabilities the force brings is probably the predominate effort that you have got to make. at the same time, capacity, the size of your force makes a different.
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there are nations that have stood by us for years and we look many times for support. some of those forces have been shrunk to a point that they no longer allow their diplomats to speak with strength. we have to make certain we keep a force of sufficient size. my emphasis right now is on building the capacity. we have the cyber troops in there. do we have the intelligence analysts in there that allow us to be at the top of the game when we make our grave choice to send our young folks into a fight? >> thank you. next question, how does the nds intended to modernize u.s. forces and prepare the u.s. for a conflict in some of the worlds rising powers? sec. mattis: first of all, you have to accept the reality and what the world looks like and what are those challenges to our way of life. there is nothing in here that presupposes war. the whole point -- you saw it well demonstrated with the nato
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alliance -- for how many years did nato stand strong, all the democracies together from europe to north america? how long did we stand together and what was a cold war never became a hot war on the plains of europe. the point is how do we create a military that is that compelling. what you have to do is you have to take the threats as they stand. you have to make certain you are integrated with the state department's foreign policy so we are operating with very much a depth to our state department, not outside the state department foreign policy, but inside. it starts with me having breakfast every week with secretary of state tillerson. we talk two, three times a day sometimes. we settle all of our issues between he and i and then we walked together into the white
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ouse meeting, that way state and defense are together. this allows us, as we look at a military that must adapt to its times, we are also in step with the foreign policy. you don't want to get detached from that and think you are going to automatically serve the needs of our country. then, when you get down to the discrete elements of military power, it is a much more straightforward process. you look at what capabilities other countries have, you look at what technology is bringing on board, you put it together, you prioritize based on the threat analysis that is done both inside the pentagon. that is never enough. i want an outside view as well. that is why we have a very close ink with the cia and foreign intelligence services. we also have officers assigned to other nations armed forces or
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on duty at the embassies around the world. they are also feeding more ideas in and certainly they are keeping us updated on what they are seeing potential adversary systems. you put it together in that manner and it becomes like a rubiks cube. you work with allies -- i am on my way to brussels and a couple of weeks to work with our allies. we look at nato capability gap. they are not all going to be filled by us. some will be filled by others. that is the way it should be when democracies band together to defend the principles we stand by. it is an analysis and an assignment of priority and an allocation of resources. you don't get the resources then your strategy is nothing more than a hallucination because without the resources, there is only so much great young men and women can do. >> continuing in a similar vein, how while linked is the nds to the budgets and the state department and civilian gencies?
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sec. mattis: it is somewhat late. i'm leaving to visit indonesia and vietnam this weekend. before i go, i sit down with secretary tillerson any sense to me in writing what are the foreign policies parameters, what are the priorities he has while i am visiting those countries. i think that probably the most important thing is to ensure that in everything we say and everything we do, we are weird forcing our diplomats -- reinforcing our diplomats. that is the way it works when we are implementing foreign policy. some of our tough young men put it, we do the last 600 meters of foreign policy. hat is a fair statement in terms of we are there first of all to back up the diplomats. push comes to shove and we are unable to of avert, we carry it
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forward. our job even that is to develop something better for peace. it is not justify a war. it is for a political reason that is established by state. we do work together. i have money that is allotted to me by the u.s. congress because of where we operate around the world. we spend that money already at the highest level of state and defense department -- we have sat down and prioritized that money together. we don't go off and spend that money without state department helping with defense to say what priorities we have. >> thank you. again, continuing on this track -- how is the dod working to encourage allies and partners to develop their own defense capabilities? sec. mattis: that is actually going better than i expected. i came here.
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i remember flying out of enver. i was going to confirmation and i was trying to think of how do i put america first in my mind in an alliance framework. as we were getting ready to take off, you all can recite it for memory. a stewardess was standing there in set in the event you lose cabin pressure -- you know what is coming next -- but your own mask on first and then help others. what we are going to do is restore america's economic viability because no nation in history has maintained its military power that was not economically viable and did not keep its fiscal house in order. the first thing was when i went into brussels on my first meeting with the most critical alliance we have, which is the 29 nations of nato, i said, i used that example and i said but i have to tell you -- i am
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speaking from the heart, i knew many of them. i had been a supreme allied commander in nato. i know many of you here. i said i have sat behind secretary rumsfeld when he came here and said you are going to have to pay more. you cannot expect the americans to keep doing this. i said i've heard secretary gates put his prepared remarks down and tell you any delay this on the line, that the american people don't want to continue to carry a disproportionate share. i said you have heard it from president obama's administration. i have heard it said then and now it has manifested politically in america. here's the bottom line -- don't asked me to go back and tell americans parents that they need to care more about the safety and security and the freedom of your children than you are willing to care for and willing to sacrifice for. we all left to put our shoulder
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to the wagon and move it up the hill. surprisingly, i did not lose the rapport that i really anticipated i would. that is a hard message, but i wanted to put it in human terms because this is a human situation. there is enough other things going on in the world. the argument is made for itself. the argument is made for itself. the cia briefed me when i came in that my first crisis would probably somewhere in the korean peninsula. my first trip overseas, went to tokyo and seoul. i will tell you they are two nations doing a lot for their own defense and very tightly bonded. it is a tight relationship. it is going well.
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the message has been received in positive terms. i do not have antagonistic or adversary terms with any of our traditional allies. we have new allies who are eager to start working military to military with us at this time. so far, it is going ok, but of course, these are all democracies we are dealing with. they have their own constituencies inside each country. that is a political reality. all politics are local, whether you are in the united states or n poland or anywhere else. so far, i'm very encouraged by hat i have seen. we could not be better served than by secretary-general jen stoltenberg in brussels with our primary alliance and the way he eads that alliance is one we
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all have to work together and do our fair share. >> thank you. that question -- how can the military institution allies and preserve counterinsurgency lessons from iraq and afghanistan as we shift to greater focus on rivals such as china and russia? sec. mattis: if i were to sum up the challenge that we have inside the department in carrying out this strategy, is threefold. it's how do we maintain a safe and effective nuclear deterrence so those weapons are never used. it as a nuclear deterrent. not a war fighting capability, unless it is the worst day in our nation or the world's history. that is the first one, priority. number two, how do you field in the modern age a decisive conventional force. it is expensive. we recognize that but it is less expensive than fighting a war with somebody that thought we were weak enough to take
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advantage. how do you sustain a counterinsurgency capability inside your force? why do i say that? i go back to the words of the near faultless strategist alive today, dr. colin gray, who said the paradox of warmth that the enemy will always move against he perceived weakness. we cannot marry one form of warfare if we are not going to do counterinsurgency as you would know it is going to happen. it is relatively a training and education issue. it does not take a lot of pecialized kits. it takes language skills.
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it takes young men and women who want to join up and serve their country who have studied other nations, who speak the language. it takes not just cultural appreciation but it takes a kind of training that puts a lot of authority in the hands of 20-year-old corporals and 24-year-old, 23-year-old second lieutenants. the labor-intensive kind of warfare scatter among innocent people. we fight those wars so obviously among the innocent that it takes a very well-trained, well honed force. it is mostly training and it is mostly education that allows us to be counterinsurgency inside the great power competition force that we are composing. >> thank you. with cyber security arriving in both public and private sectors, how does the nds plan to address strengthening u.s. cyber security?
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sec. mattis: if you look back, put it in historical terms, we began fighting on the ground 5000 years ago. that is the first time somebody beat somebody else had, i guess. we went to sea, went maritime about 4000 years ago. about 100 years ago, a little over 100 years ago, world war i, we went into the air domain. we had a couple thousand years for a couple of them. 100 years to incorporate air and now in a matter of decade, we have added cyberspace as potential war fighting. the sentinels and centuries that guard america, we have to look at it that way. in cyber, what we are going to do is reorganize -- reorganizing the department to a degree. you are going to see eorganization of the fundamental organizations. the u.s. cyber command and the
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national security agency. there will be organized along different lines. we're going to have to then resource them with education, training programs, recruiting programs and mission statements so that the reorganized forces are working together because this is a wild west right now. as you know, people in their bedrooms could be doing things that are causing your bank account dire problems at this point. i would just tell you it will have to look at this problem more broadly than the department has looked at problems in the past. that means we have to be relevant to the security. everyone is looking at me right now, not just relevant to forces on the battlefield. i have to get some really bright people in and we have that on our board.
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they come out of places like silicon valley. they are the top of the line. they are an enormous help as we craft the specifics of this. most of all, we have to absorb now, this is a mission and we cannot say we just like to have our airplanes, tanks and ships. where this takes us there is a lot of things we have to look t. our founding fathers on cyber were very, very -- they obviously anticipated things. what is it? life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness. they knew that in protecting life, they also had to be protecting liberty. how do we protect life if cyber can shut down all the power in a
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part of a country that would kill people in hospitals or paralyzed economies that are required to keep people alive and that sort of thing -- how do we deal with that? that is not what you or i would call a military mission. we have laws that prohibit us from doing certain things in this country. you don't see any military person arresting anybody in this country. not our authority under the constitution. what are we going to do in an area that was not addressed other than fanatically that we must keep our constitutional right to life even as we protect our people? that is going to be something that i will not decide. we will all be helping us decide that because we will need you involved in this. do we decide we put up a domain and if somebody wants to they can go inside it and have a military force protect that domain and if you put your bank account in there, you get protection. someone who thinks we are up to no good, i am not getting in that, that is ok. freedom, choice. where are we going to go with this? i'm going to get more people into structure this thematically
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so we layout choices for you and see what congress decides the right level of military involvement or what we have to offer. a very complex issue but right now i am focused on just making certain our military can fight and support fbi and others when we spot a problem coming in from overseas. we will pick it up and notified law enforcement agencies. there is a lot more to be done. i have not got that. inside the military, we know what we have to do. more broadly, i am not sure yet. >> thank you. one last question. will a government shutdown have serious ramifications on military operations.
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we know what we have to do. more broadly, i am not sure yet. >> thank you. one last question. will a government shutdown have serious ramifications on military operations. if so, what are your plans to mitigate this? sec. mattis: yes. [laughter] sec. mattis: let me give you an example. this morning, or last night, young guys and gal somewhere in wyoming were driving up to do their weekend duty. there's any number of projects we have underway that keeping at the top of my game and our military at the top of our game that are handled by civilians. those troops will arrive at the armory's and told to go home. there is a government shutdown. they will then drive a couple hundred miles back home. they will suck it up and say ok. if they are navy reservist, they will say aye, aye, sir.
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when they get to their car, they might mutter something not positive. i will tell you may need to activities will probably pretty much shut down. we will not be able to conduct any more of our gear that need maintenance. over 50% altogether of my civilian workforce will be furloughed. that will impact our contracting. it will impact obviously our medical facilities. it's got a huge morale impact. how long can you keep good people around when something like this happens? it is always a question that has to harbor in the back of my mind. i would just tell you that we do a lot of intelligence operations around the world. they cost money. those obviously would stop. i would just tell you that training for almost our entire reserve force will stop. you must understand the critical importance of our reserves. they are the only shock absorber we have. it is not like the old days where you can draft somebody in and 18 weeks later have them in
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combat with the skills. they are called infantryman because they are infant soldiers. they still need a year to train to be able to use the gear they have all them and have the ethical and tactical ability to deal with the battlefield today. it has a terrible impact. at the same time, the submarine put to sea last week will be out for three months. god bless them. the lads will not have any even a connectivity so they won't know what is going on as they cruise quietly out there carrying out their duties. the ships at sea will continue. the ones, our lads in iraq and afghanistan who are in the fight, will continue. the young people guiding the drones right now will stay at their desks. we will continue what we are doing. the value of the american
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military is grossly enhanced by the sense of the american model of government -- and of the people, for the people can function and carry out its responsibilities. i did not serve in the marine corps for 40 odd years. i served in the u.s. marine corps. accountable to you. as speaker ryan pointed out to you -- for those of you out in the air and in the room, the air force base, i tell you they deserve full support. we have got to come to grips with this as a nation. why don't we take one more? you choose. >> absolutely. this final question -- how would the u.s. deter adversaries in space? sec. mattis: how do we deter in space? it is philosophically, basically
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in the same way we would deter anyone else. don't try it because we could do more damage to you than any benefit you could gain. it comes down to that. what that means is we have to have capabilities to deny them what they want to achieve. in this regard, it's not just about what you might think of guns in space shooting each other. it can be nothing more than we have, for every satellite up, we have 100 more that can launch this day to take them out. we will take you down in the united nations and get economic sanctions. there is a way -- this is what i mentioned, expanding the competitive space. there is no nation that has a wider competitive space in terms of its moral or ethical or economic or military power than we could amass if we choose to use it wisely.
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so, in space, we will do our best to deter. we will come up with arms controls agreement at some point and start getting this under control. for right now, it is sizing up the problem. again, our diplomats will be negotiating from a position of strength when they negotiate. let me just say, thank you for taking time again to hear me out this morning. i hope it was of some value. the questions -- thank you for selecting. i know you had more than that. the questions i thought were very good. i would just encourage all of you, if you think we are missing something or on the wrong track, by all means, notify us. that are ways to get a hold of us through our public affairs. i get those. it is not all love mail, i assure you. i would just tell you this is a raucous democracy.
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our troops stand ready right now as we are all sitting here enjoying freedoms we somewhat, even i take for granted. they are out there right now ready to do whatever it takes to keep us safe. please keep them in your thoughts and prayers. know that they represent the very best of us. they are wonderful and really did sign that check payable with their lives, a blank check to everyone of you. thank you very much. i look forward to hearing from you. [applause] >> thank you all for joining us today. we will ask that you please remain seated as the event concludes. thank you.
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>> sunday on c-span's q&a, author and her for all school professor -- and harvard law school professor, with his book, "the three lives of james madison." >> the whole three-part structure of government, the way the government interacts in the way people speak each other, all of that is modest and -- is madison's monument. wherease in st. paul's christopher rants monument says if you seek him, look around you. >> q&a, sunday night at 8:00 eastern on c-span. the senate failed to approve a measure to fund the government through february 16 resulting in the government shutting down at midnight. as a senate debate took place, a rally was held outside of the capital
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