about the annual white house easter egg roll which began in 1878679 and the changes that have been -- 1878, and the changes that have been made along the way. this weekend on the c-span networks. >> next, remarks from brigadier general roger turner on the current situation in afghanistan. he recently led a teem that trained and advised the afghan national army and discussed that earlier today at the brookings institution. this is an hour. >> good morning, everyone. welcome to brooblingings -- brookings. happy holiday weekend. i have the privilege of introducing brigadier general

roger turner just back from afghanistan where he's been working to restore u.s. presence and mentorship in the helmund province, one of the crucial provinces of the country in the balances of the last 17 years. we're going to hear from general turner with his initial presentation. he's got some slides. which will be nice for situational awareness and for repositioning us inside that afghan space, understanding the he geography and military topography of helmund province. he'll talk about what's been happening there over the last year. then he and i will get together for a conversation on stage before we invite your questions. we'll do all that in 60 minutes. a couple of brief words about general turn iter whom we're thrilled to have. we have been exchanging stories about the different times he's worked for the generals kelly, mattis it, and allen who continue to be prominent cross-town and brookings. we're thrilled to have such an important marine general. watch out for where he may be headed given where the pedigree has been going of late. where he's headed in the short term is to california to help

train marines which is near and dear to his heart. he has been in the marine corps since 1984 through the rotc program and going to the university of maryland and infantry officer. he's a young man by my standards, but he's old enough to have been through almost all the big missions of the last 20-some years. starting with operation desert storm. quite active throughout a the broader pacific region, as most marines are at one point or another in their careers in the 1990's. then for the 10-it year period of sort of operation iraqi freedom through the early 2010's, he spent roughly half that time by my calculations in either iraq or afghanistan. he then came back to the united states for a while. brought as i say spent over a year in helmund province as a mentor. and the lead american advisor to e afghan military in helmund province. without further ado, please join me in giving a big brookings welcome to general roger turner. [applause]

brig. gen.turner: good morning, michael, thank you for the gracious introduction. just like to it thank the whole brookings team for really just being welcoming host to us this morning. i want to just take a second to introduce a couple members of my team that are important. you may have some questions. first nassar was our cultural advisor. he's got about seven or eight years in the helmund province. just obviously recently returned. if you are writing about helmund or researching about helmund and not talking to nassar, you are missing a golden primary source. offer that. then captain hill hemrick who was aide decamp but also an intelligence officer and key to the team between these two and our ability to it interface with the afghan leaders and kind of connect to the lead elements and the like. really greatly increased our

effectiveness. i'm indebted to those two individuals. the rest of the team has now een disestablished and moved back to other things. as we were -- we were relieved by another marine task force. task force southwest which we were part of back to other things. as we were -- we were still exi. there are about 60 or 0 days in -- 70 days in. the good part of that is they have been able to maintain or even increase some of the success that is we saw. -- successes that we saw. 'll make comments with that in mind. certainly our contribution was not unique. it's been sustained based on brigadier general watson who is now the commander there. what i hope to do today is to kind of maybe ramp down a level. there's a lot of mind. certainly our contribution was not unique. discussion about the south asia strategy. there's been lots of discussion of late as the secretary and chairman and general nickelson

have been talking about where we're six months in to the south asia strategy. and about a year into the -- some of the changes that have been made in afghanistan and really kind of where we're with that. i'll try to do is bring it down a level to talk as the tactical level and how tactical success in helmund connects to operational objective for both the alliance and for the united states in particular. we'll kind of touch on that. i' down there's also a lot of discussion about kind of partnered operations by, with, and through is kind of the popular vernacular. buy a partner with a partner through a partner. but part of the piece on that nobody knows, what's under the hood? what's the method of that? how do you that? how do you create capability?

i'll spend a little bit of time on that because i think it's important. like strategicically as we face the possibility now of great power, great power competition it, we also have important regional actors that are serious threats to us, and then -- the violent extremist problem's not going away. how can we address violent extremists and groups that are going to take advantage of these ungoverned spaces? how do it we do that in a way that's sustainable for the military and also sustainable for the economy? and then be able to tackle the violent extremist problem, but still have the capability to go after regional actors if necessary or compete at the strategic level if it necessary. i'll just ask that as foreshadowing. as we get through it there may be things you want to bring up at the question and answer period. i will also caveat that my

experience has only been in helmund. i served there as a colonel, a regimental commander, 2011, 2012, and again just now. i can't speak at all about what's going on in kandahar, kabul, the effects of the national unit government except for it -- where it connects to helmund and that piece. i can't speak of the country as a whole. that will be important as we get nto the "q&a." i think the bottom line up front is we're seeing great success in helmund over the last year. deployed last april and got into the situation there and over the course of time we were able to effectively enable our partner to steal the initiative from the taliban and really once that initiative was taken, our

afghan partners with keen to maintain it. they have maintained pretty incredible tempo against the enemy. i'll show you some of the results of that. they with our help have put the aliban on the back foot, which is really critical. let me get into just -- i want to just touch -- ok. for those that aren't familiar, i just need to spend just a minute on orientation. so i'll do that briefly. the area in red lined out was our area of operations. helmund province on the right side of that. and that's about 200 miles or 300 miles from kandahar -- kabul, and 60 or 70 miles from kandahar. bordered by iran on the west, pakistan in the south. and then kind of connecting in

to the mountainous areas. the next slide really shows you the helmund province. not the whole thing but the key areas. helmund are different than the rest of the country. most people conjure mountonous and things like that when they think about afghanistan and snow and things like that. it's not that. it's very flat. very, very dry desert. with the exception of the green areas which is really the prominent feature and lifeblood of the areas, helmund river. running north to south, starting hooks in down and then and goes in. up in iran which is key to some of the agreements that the government of afghanistan has with iran on the water rights. most of you also are aware about the u.s. up in iran which is key to some of the agreements that aid project that greatly expanded the terrain. in helmund province it was built in the 1950's and 1960's.

the dam and canal project. so it probably quadrupled the size. the helmund river would have just been a little sliver of irrigation through the province and just basically flood irrigated by locals. but the usaid project that was built and still works and maintains really greatly enhance the amount of air and land in the province. that became important. so that's kind of -- that's one of the reasons. then the pop paw lation at garesk is another major urban area. we'll talk more about central helmund. it is the most important to the government of afghanistan. we'll talk a lot about that. that's the most important -- that's where most of the

population lives. that's where the universities are. the hospitals are. the airports roads. things like that. that's the most important bit. next i think it's important we just kind of a brief piece on the history here. and why helmund is important and kind of what the history of our involvement has been there. i won't go through a lot of it. helmund is important because helmund and kandahar, that's where the taliban get their start. so just a little bit to the east , as you move on, that was where the taliban was founded. that became their home. a lot of the taliban leadership is. today are helmund it's a power pace for the taliban. the 9/11 attacks were trained and ordered from helmund and kandahar.

this is where the pre-9/11 conditions that gave us 9/11 attacks and the like. it came -- emanates right from here as well. the history of the -- our military involvement there has been significant. i won't go through the whole thing. between 2010 and 2014, there was about 30,000 coalition forces in helmund province. about 20,000 marines, about 10,000 brits as part of the mission. we enjoyed great success in helmund during those years. and so that's kind of where we sat at that point. as you know, the previous strategy was a time-based strategy. rather than a conditions-based strategy. that basically had all coalition forces were removed from the helmund province in 2014. that was based on the -- based on the numbers of forces that

were going to be allowed to stay in afghanistan. and then because of the location here, it was unsupportable to keep coalition forces in helmund. so that pulled back. then what happens then is a fairly rapid deterioration of the forces, which then leads to our going back last april. we showed up there last april and we really found that our afghan partners were completely on the defensive and really demoralized. they had suffered defeat after defeat. they didn't feel like they were being supported by the government or anybody else. and then -- so they were in great difficulty. what we did have that was important was the afghan government had inserted some new leadership. new corps commander, new provincial governor and zone commander. the zone is the minister of

interior force that is are there. coupled with our cape inters. we come in with a purpose built force built from the ground up to train, advise, and assist our afghan partners to help the afghan government expand population control and also pressurize the taliban. what unfolds over the next year is that the afghan leaders that we worked with, they were unwilling to accept the status quo, which was really -- they were really just for treysed out . totally on the defensive. and the taliban had the rest of the province. most of the green areas that you see up there. airports were closed down. roads were mostly impassible. situation was really bad. the afghan leaders we're working with, they weren't willing to accept that and they wanted to do better. then once we -- coupled with our ability to effectively able

them, they really stole the initiative from the taliban starting in about may of last year. and then once they stole the initiative, they maintained it. we were able to kind of convince them, and they realized that they were -- by holding the initiative and by using tempo as a weapon, they could outpace and outcycle the taliban and they were much more successful and took far less casualties employing their force that is way as opposed to letting the taliban pick the time and place of an attack. the other thing that's important here is that the taliban in 2017, i think some of you may have seen t. they came out publicly, it was their operational plan for last year. in that they said we're going to take the rest of the helmund province and we're going to take it the exap d make of afghanistan. that's their -- make it the

capital of the caliphate. what we find is they are losing terrain. and they are ineffective. they are not only achieving their goals. they are losing terrain critical to that which was a great blow to them. we'll talk more about that as ell. really four key lessons that we learned during our time there. i'll talk about these briefly. we can can talk more about them in the question and answer. afghan forces, when we say afghan forces we're talking about not just the army but the police as well. if they are properly enabled, i put that in bold, can and will defeat the taliban to the point of attack. we found that over and over again. and they demonstrated that capability. properly enabled.

we'll talk more about what that like. for us the afghan certainty of graphity -- gravity is their confidence. we viewed their confidence. at first it was very low. they were -- they didn't think they could win. they didn't think they were -- that they had the capability to beat the taliban. as they started to do it, and as they became more effective, they became increasingly bold and increasingly ambitious and that had basically a synergistic effect on the problems set forth. we viewed their confidence as the most important thing. it wasn't necessarily their capability or how much combat power they could bring, it was the confidence. and advising activity, the way i view it it's really a nonkinetic effect. coalition s or advisors, when they are with the partner force they change the

dynamic. it changes the environment. and we have to recognize kind of that piece. then if you talk about advising activity, there is three a big brig. gen. turner: advisors can enhance a partner's war capability, you can build me partner -- the partner's capacity and -- can conductplace we advising activity. prioritizing the war fighting capability is the most important thing. this is the logistics capability, connecticut truck capability -- 00 genetic -- kinetic control capability. forces can reverse the momentum of the campaign and create a dependency on u.s.

forces. our afghan partners need not need or want american by their side. they were willing to do it is properly enabled. we build their confidence by demonstrating capability. as they became more confident, they became more ambitious. as they became ambitious, they opened the taliban up two additional targeting from -- to additional targeting from us and afghan forces. do not be a reductionist. do not say it is all about the authority and the rules of engagement -- it all comes together. -- ok so i just touched on this briefly.

this map represent central helmund. --represents central helmund. off to the west is where we were located. this is the most important bit. if you ask me afghan -- the afghan government, central helmund is our focus. whatotted line represents is the line of control of the afghan forces. since we left, the afghan leaders expanded this a bit. this is where the afghan government controls. when we got there, the television were trying to hold terrain and -- the taliban were

trying to hold terrain and govern. which is something new. they then realized they did not have the capability to govern and hold terrain with the capability the afghan forces have right now. you will see this district. a very traditional afghan, tribally, very homogeneous tribally and has traditionally supported the government. they held knowledge district -- nawa district and early in the campaign, we were able to work with our partners to take back the district. it is a very large district. very important. it was key to facilitating some

of the airports and reopening. it became a guadalcanal moment. in that guadalcanal was the first victory in the pacific in world war ii, the nawa victory represented a afghan success. in 2015, when the taliban said we will take the rest of helmund province --they are losing the nawa district right in the face of that. it was important tangibly and the information affected had on the enemy was very critical as well. all right. is --as i discussed earlier, by, with and through partnered operations. isw we hear a lot of talk about that. hat --we hear a lot of talk

about that. how do you do that? our approach was afghan-led. we never approached our objective into any of these message. --these missions. we want to go here on that day and hour advisors would work on a plan -- and our advisors would work on a plan that would be executable and work how we wanted. wanting anans were objective, as long as it achieved our goals as well, we were for it. it would take a few weeks to get these operations together and on game day, a would look something like this. on the bottom left represents an afghan maneuver element that wo uld be out there and this would be afghan army, afghan police,

afghan intelligence forces that would be maneuvering. our advisors would be plugged in to as many afghan commandos as wiki get on. -- as we could get on. that is key to the effectiveness of the force. the more places you can touch and be more command and control knows he can put advisers at, you can --command and control act, you can put advisers the better you can respond. that is plugged into our joint operations center on the top. we would be using a mix of afghan intelligence gathering capabilities and american intelligence gathering capabilities. we would blend their intelligence capabilities with

ours and it was not like we had the misinformation and we were trying to share it with them -- had the information and we were trying to share with them, it was the other way around. we had afghan capabilities so wouldad a29's and we integrate them into the fight. we would try to pursue afghan solutions at first and we felt as increased over time. we had a number of americans are theort assets, b52's and like. that is where the authorities and where the capabilities are important for us to be able to do it. with this methodology, we were able to create a way for the afghan forces to meet the

taliban any day of the week. we were there about 250 days and they conducted an operation that looked something like this often in multiple places in the province simultaneously. we were challenged to support our partners because as they became increasingly confident and ambitious, their tempo was impressive and it was difficult for us to keep up. that is under the hood and we can talk more about this if we have additional questions --if you have additional questions. that is what i wanted to offer as far as opening comments but i think it is important that the south asia strategy announced last august. these are some of the effects we are seeing. our partners are clear that our presence is not time based, it is condition based.

we are starting to see the leading edge that the taliban realize that in the face of a force, they are not going to be able to achieve the objectives they have in the past. i look forward to your questions. thank you. [applause] >> i know that secretary mattis has decided not to share as much information about how many districts are held by the government and the enemy. i have my qualms about holding back that data because it makes it hard for the rest of us to analyze the campaign. you mentioned specific places where things have improved. are there any numbers in your

head about what percentage of populated areas are backing government control? how close are we to getting to the objective desired? brig. gen. turner: i do not have a specific number in mind. you get into this thing, if the government controls the district center and some areas are being contested, is it under control or not? it becomes very difficult to define. the effect we were able to achieve in central helmund in particular. now,u live in the area you're confident you can get back and forth to kandahar without being attacked. if you want to fly out, the airport in kabul is open. the city is somewhat peaceful. there are attacks that to take place. things are functioning down the province.

this time last year they were not. the roads were impassable, the airport was closed --we were able to achieve some good affects but there is still clearly work to be done. about 50% of the population of helmund lives in that district. it is within the afghan capability to maintain that in the face of the current threat and if the threat goes down, they will have more capability. >> before you arrived, at that point, from what i am hearing you say, less than a quarter of the population lives in a way that was relatively safe from taliban interference and control and now it is closer to 50%? are those rough numbers wrong? brig. gen. turner: that is probably close. the 50% number. et is hard to quantify becaus

if you are in central to rest garesh right now, you might be safe but if you venture into the countryside, it might be dangerous. >> you did all of this -- as you say, the afghans did it, you help them. you did this with about 300 marines. brig. gen. turner: those numbers crept up a little bit during our time there and the current force that is there now has more that allow him to do that i could not do because he can persist at lower levels. ow has the ability to projected to lower levels -- to protect it to lower levels. -- project it to lower levels. how many different marines

and how many different locations? brig. gen. turner: general watson has the ability to persist at at least 2 or 3 additional locations i could not. that gives him the ability to make progress faster. it is a nongenetic -- thekinetic activity -- when advisors can plug in at a certain level, you can make progress faster. >> you were at several locations yourself already? you showed a lot of american air power and american artillery but you mentioned the afghan air force is being built with the a 29 aircraft. feel for overs a

the next two or three years, what additional fraction of the air power can be provided by the afghans themselves. brig. gen. turner: we saw good success with it. the were most capable -- md530, which is an attack helicopter. they had that resident inside the corp. they were able to support their maneuver forces with that and do that. the a29 to we were effective in getting them to do what we consider to be a frontline, afghan controller that we would be directing aircraft in support of their maneuver. we saw growth over time. it is still a difficult task, as you can imagine, as they try to

grow aircrew and maintainers and special skills all simultaneously. , theord that the air force work being done to increase the air force is important work. we are seeing them to be more and more effective but it is a difficult --the degree of specialization and maintainers. those are hard capabilities for us to maintain. we are challenged, even in the american military to maintain --se high skill sets >> you recognize that there is an important and one of the dilemmas we had is pulling back too quickly and being

calendar-based. some have emphasized that the problem with working with the afghan security forces is the turnover and attrition. will we have to keep reinventing the wheel and at what point do we make durable progress? brig. gen. turner: starts with strategy first. the enduring nature of the strategy is very important. it is very important to our partners that they know we are going to be with them. just like i was saying about the aspect of winning. winning for the afghans, it has positive impacts in other areas too. when they are winning and they think they are being successful, their attrition rates go down. they took 40% less casualties in 2017 and they took the previous year.

less casualties, higher morale and you do not have as much challenge to get your highly skilled people inside the forces because the problem is not as difficult. it is important --we prioritize were fighting function enhancement to give us a sense offensivelity -- capabilities but the task we do for the generation as well -- >> let me ask two more questions --one about pakistan and recognizing you do not want to talk about the nationwide picture too much --you were bordering pakistan and we know historically a lot of the leaders of the telephone have

been based in -- leaders of the taliban have been based in pakistan. i know some of the taliban somership is in helmund, of it may be over and pakistan -- in pakistan. ine you seen any change pakistani cooperation, behavior or helpfulness in the month since president trump asked of the pakistanis to help us more and stuck running such of a double game as they have historically been doing. brig. gen. turner: the way i would try to answer that is the taliban in helmand could not regional support.

the second big component of helmand province is the poppy and opium that is growing their ofuires -- provides a lot support for the taliban. they get a source of income that allows them to have weapons and material that allows them to continue the fight. our components of our plan to pressurize regional players to isse support of the taliban an important component. if the afghans only had to deal with the taliban, they could deal with it but the taliban being enabled by regional actors creates --that is probably the reason we need to be involved in supporting them still. >> whatever help the pakistanis

are providing, we could use a of more --the president afghanistan has had a lot of thoughts over these past months. one has to do with the military campaign and the other with reconciliation. i wanted to ask about this --president ghani saying that r. in two or three years, 80% of the country will be under control of the government. current u.s. estimates are less than 60% of the population and territory are controlled by the government. roughly in the high 60's to 50%. that is down from when general dunford was in command and we had a much larger u.s. military footprint.

it was never 80%, even in the days of the search. how necessary is it to get into that 80% goal recognizing that you want to speak primarily from your own experience -- to what extent do you think that goal is realistic? brig. gen. turner: that number is important. we should drive for that. that is a good goal that obviously president ghani has articulated and we are supporting him as part of his four-year campaign plan. it is important that we do not do anything that the afghans do not have the capability to sustain. one of the lessons from the search is -- surge is that forces that pushed the taliban out of areas that the afghans did not have the ability to sustain --that was very unhelpful for them as we

withdrew our forces. there are good goals but consider the confluence between capability andan how the interrelationship between those things. what can they do? what is sustainable? what is the portable? -- what is supportable? if they go after 80% of the population but do not have the ability to hold it, that would be unhelpful. --we can bring down the year the taliban threat, increased capabilities and then set the goal there. that is where we need to be --that we getut something they cannot sustained.

>> great. we'll take a couple of questions. we'll start here in the front two rows. please.se together >> west morning with politico -- politico, left november you heard about new support against the opium -- not doing think of things that the afghans cannot sustained. based on this deployment and your previous deployment to helmand, what was your perspective on the importance of these counter opium processing d yours and what di partners make of it?

brig. gen. turner: thank you. ose are important efforts. receivedrity that we allowed us to target taliban financing and what was important was where we could see a clear connection between opium production and taliban. it is actually not hard to do oft in helmand because most arehelmand-based taliban derived from the opium trade and that is where they derive their support from. it is an important component but it is important because it was a combined effect. we were supporting afghan maneuvers to seize terrain from onetaliban and that was component.

special operations forces of doing targeting as well. partnered operations with u.s. special forces was another component and you put the counter narcotics strike on t op of that. the three of those things together created a pretty significant effect on the taliban. our partners were quite keen to do it and we had support from president ghani and the governor in the province. the afghan air force participated in these strikes as well. advisearmy has created and assist brigade they are sending into afghanistan and iraq. you pickedce with

selectively? level, i'm sure you had more senior personnel than you would in an infantry company. brig. gen. turner: we did not have a specialized force. 300 man force and about half was advisors and the other half was not. the have that was not was additional capability. those are outfits that you would be familiar with like a reppo company and artillery -- arapaho company and artillery.

the advising effort, we drew officers and staff, noncommissioned officers -- the whole force came out ofthe advip lejeune, north carolina and they were all mos qualifies marines. some had previous advising experience but a lot did not. the marine corps is building an advisory group and we are heading that direction but we took marines and sailors who were essentially out of the conventional force and did training to bring them to be able to conduct this. in some cases we make way too mu ch of this. if you are going to be an intelligence advisor, you need to be a really good intelligence officer. you need to know your trade, you

need to know the processes we theand a lot of interactions you have with your partners are common sense. the afghans, we easily strike, cause andtroke common build rapport. a lot of the soft skills, you talk about advising, we make too much of it. it does not require a great deal of specialization. the marines and sailors and soldiers we worked with in afghanistan, they took to this easily and really performed well and produced amazing effects. was there an increase levels --increaseders

level of interpreters? brig. gen. turner: a lot of our interpreters run under a contract. a mix of afghan local hires or some of the higher end u.s. citizens cleared for high-level classifications nad --and things like that. that is mostly a contract. if you're trying to build a force with multiple language capabilities, that is a hard thing to do. in helmand province, the afghan army peaks mostly pashtun, which is what the locals speak. capabilitylanguage inside the conventional force that will allow this, that would be a difficult thing for us to do. >> do you see more ability to recruit from the's 10 -- the

pashtun locals? brig. gen. turner: they are still challenged on the afghan army. the forces we employed were ministry of the interior forces and the afghan army was mostly from around the kabul cluster. the combined forces that come together is what was powerful. the police were very aggressive at the point of attack, knew the area, knew the locals well but they would not go unless the afghan army was going with them to combine firepower. >> in the back, about the 10th row. brig. gen. turner: general, thanks for the presentation. two quick questions. s able tothe afghan

get their goods to the market using the roads and where are the taliban getting weapons from. you have probably been able to track where they are produced, how old they are and what weapons are being used. anything. seen brig. gen. turner: the roads are important for people to move goods and services. the main road for people to go itm kandahar to the west, is full of traffic. other highways that would allow you to go places like nawa tow ards kandahar, those are open and not significantly challenged by the enemy. the major population centers are connected for good and services.

when you move into the rural areas, there will be challenges to those areas. as far as weapons of that flow to the taliban, i believe a lot of it comes from regional actors. andneighbors of helmand other provinces provide equipment from -- to the that theyand some of provide willingly by just giving it to them and others they are buying using the opium product profits. >> hello, general. profits.

you mentioned that once the afghan partner forces'confidence tempoased, their sired operations outpace your ability to survive --to provide support. is that something to do with your forces in the area? brig. gen. turner: great question. i expect that the current campaign, the 2018 campaign, has much more resources than what we had in 2017. the fight against isis in both iraq and syria was still going on when we were doing our operations. there were times we did not have enough and our afghan partners got close to outpacing our ability to support them. i do not expect that will be a problem in the campaign now. the campaign is well resourced toallow all of the forces

revive the capability i was seeing there. that will ratchet the pressure against all of the taliban across afghanistan. >> in the second row. >> hello. 7th marine regiment, i had a question about the afghans doing a mission on their own without coalition support and using that as a basis to judge improvement. is that something you guys are doing? brig. gen. turner: yes. there are plenty of times they did things completely on their saying, weke i was would not superimpose ourselves on it. medical.ample would be i have the authority to provide

american medical support to afghans, who rarely used it. even if they suffered a mass casualty event, they were proud of their ability to pick up casualties, flight back to the hospital and conduct surgery. we would send our doctors over there to see how they are doing and ask them if they need us, we can bring people over and they said we are good. they are proud of their forcelities so we do not ourselves into anything. everything we do we ask, do you want us to help and if they do, we can. they are proud of their ability to do things themselves. >> a quick follow-up. >> any dependencies that are forming, if we just wait long enough or if we just invade a

certain level of weakness, the marines will build their --will bring their f16's. brig. gen. turner: that is the art of advising. if you're going to do it for them all the time, then they will let you, right. the afghans are not unique in this. we have tremendous capabilities ces,capacities in our for great weapons systems and things like that. if you are going to absolutely do it for them, they will let you but the art of advising is to increase that and be aware --if i am doing this, and i building a dependency. -- am i building a dependency. the most important thing is their confidence.

we need to do enough to make them successful in this but not go overboard. if they had the capability, if 30's were going to support a maneuver, we would let them do it and if they achieved the success, they would be even more confident. >> a question on afghan casualties. one of the concerns has been a high level of afghan fatalities in police and army and the estimates have not been volunteered in a comprehensive way. toimated in the way of 5000 10,000 killed in action nationwide per year among afghan forces. do you see any improvement in those numbers and helmand --in it moreand make possible to build up the army and police with less loss.

brig. gen. turner: we saw a 40% decline in casualties in the afghan national army located in helmand. there's a big synergy piece to this. droppedol rates significantly. they would send soldiers on leave and then come back. if a soldier thinks he will not be supported and left to die in helmand, if he is going to go on leave, he will not come back. it is not just casualties, it is the awol rates, the morale factor and some of those are difficult to measure. >> two more questions. next row. then we'll come up front. >> thank you for your time.

leveraging harrison's question -- you are talking about how they are seeing results. could you talk about a time when there might have been a disagreement about what that looks like. brig. gen. turner: we were not successful without having the afghans all agree on the objective. theould typically be that collective group would come together and say this is the most important thing. a that lined up, we would hit home run every time. if there was a different in opinion amongst the afghan, they would say this is important for the army but the police do not agree and in some cases we would

still try to make things work like that but we very rarely succeeded in less there was a confluence of direction from them. so what we consider the afghan pilliars, which is the minister of interior, the army and the government, when they are yougether like a triad, have a high chance of achieving success and if there is disagreement, a low chance of succeeding. you have a high chance of achieving >> unless question. very front row. then we will have to wrap it up please. >> i am an afghan-american journalist. there has been along the years a lot of talk about where the taliban are getting military ly,port, weaponry main

recently there has been more allegations that russia is becoming more assertively involved and i will take your comments on that. onean media was reporting of the russian representatives laughed at this and saying it is from the afghan military. is buyl they have to do it from the afghan military, suggesting the level of corruption. what would be your main recommendation to the trump administration if you had to send a brief message about why the afghan population is anxious about his future with all the and notdowns of troops quite enough of a commitment to sustain a long term

bebility to grow and something to be handed over to the afghans for them to independently handle. what would be your main recommendation to the trump administration to maintain stability in afghanistan? brig. gen. turner: thank you. as far as the russian support, i do not know exactly -- where exactly they may or may not be involved -- we have never had anything that we could directly them but what they do that is unhelpful is they have a narrative that says the taliban is important to keep prices in check in afghanistan --to keep isis in check in afghanistan and the russians over blow the presence of isis in afghanistan.

it is an helpful for the region, unhelpful for the government of afghanistan and unhelpful for the alliance. part of the problem is of the confluence of opium production and external support by regional actors and that is the fat part of the problem in helmand and the thing we need to address. as far as advise we need to give there, it istime going to require a long-term commitment to get the afghan forces where they need to be. we need to reduce the taliban's capability and increase the afghan capability and be committed to the long term. we need to do something affordable for our country and affordable for the alliance and other donors. earlier, the

intersection between threat, capability and affordability -- we need to figure that out and find out what that investment needs to be in both resources and forces and stay with it until we achieve a level of success. >> i want to thank everyone on the team who helped set this up. ason't think i have learned much in 60 minutes in this auditorium for a long time. thank you for coming to the breaking institute -- brooking institute, general.

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of autonomous vehicles. be sure to watch c-span's washington journal live at 7:00 eastern saturday morning. join the discussion. announcer: earlier today, the law enforcement agency of customs and border protection held a briefing with reporters on the trump administration's efforts to build a wall on part of the u.s. border with mexico. this is 20 minutes. >> thank you, mike. thanks for joining us. we are going into the holiday weekend so i know you have taken your timeout to be here with us today. i want to update you with where we are on the border wall project. a lot has happened since we briefed you on this project