>> next week facebook ceo mark zuckerberg will testify before a senate and house committee on facebook's handling of the user information and data privacy. tuesday at 2:15 on c-span3, a joint hearing before the commerce committee's. and on wednesday at 10:00 a.m. on c-span3 before the house energy and commerce committee. watch live coverage on c-span3 and c-span.org and listen live with the free c-span radio app. earlier today, undersecretary mark s berg discussed army readiness at the heritage foundation. here are some of his remarks. [applause] >> i retired as a lieutenant colonel. good morning kit digital making a way over here at heritage this morning. recently, the army has begun to thatut a new vision includes a priority and modernization for grants that deliver on time.

>> include service as a deputy assistant secretary of defene in the office of the secretary of defense. significantly, secretary s berg is a heritage foundation alumni, having served as our chief of staff 20 years ago this year, from 1996 to 1990. back he wasng delighted and have to want his best wishes great and is a former army officer graduating from 1996. .e served

he continued to serve in the army national guard before retiring in 2007. [laughter] [applause] [applause]

you could think about the following. the first consider the longest conflict in our history is ongoing, there is tension between defense and domestic spending. social turbulence and political disharmony. moscow is suspending its influence in seeking to take advantage of the united states while distracted. have the same time, the army face many challenges. we are strained by unpredictable budget. our equipment is aging. to paygage the future for today. recruiting has also become more. does the sound familiar? if you're old it was 1973 to.

this was an affliction point for the army. the nature of conflict was changing. high-intensity battle was back and there were many lessons learned. the army sent teams to study that conflict. they set out in vision for the army and it was very simple. we built an entire army beginning in 1973 along those lines. bigresult was organizational changes that brought into existence with zero commands, forces command, and trade-off. it willrelevant because be talking about. i ended up with major systems of our era. we have the big five weapons

systems and the concept of airline battle. the all volunteer force. at the time it was considered dubious and uncertain. we do not know it me for the army in our country. we still have the army today. there were some differences between 1973 and today. russell, we have a very supportive congress. --y generate presley generously give us a good budget. we have a very professional all volunteer force. the future is increasingly uncertain. and russia have been identified as strategic competitors.

modernized and eroding our overmatch and they are improving our ability to garner interest. syria and, crimea in china is increasingly aggressive in the south china sea. we expect sina corporation of the weapons by others. whether it is terrorist groups are proxies around the world. we also face the character dirt of war is changing. cyberspace and information warfare and space. the army vision that we developed for winning this environment outlines a few things you must be able to do differently and better. we have to be ready to a ploy -- to employ rapidly. we have to open -- overcome our

adversary is the fences to maintain that access and employ success. we have to maneuver bowlby and deliver overwhelming effects through every domain. we must do all this faster than the enemy. to achieve the vision i will out wine, outline, we have to presume three major ways of efforts. we have to do this with a high and fights. meal --nd is we need a a new talent management system focused on talent management and we need

programsodernization and also haveasis

delegated the importance of army command to do -- two great leaders. they have driven us very hard stand thiss to summer. all of the progress they are making over priorities and much of that has been enabled by some legislative changes done by congress and allows us to use andr transaction abilities bring items much more quickly. done.s much work to be we have to continue the processes and we continue to work on organizations are we have been successful thus far

and reduce layers from 12 to three when it comes from those teams. at the end of the day, will be is the importance of speed, the importance of managing risk, taking some risk in making smart choices that put product over process. monthse are about six into the fiscal year. a lot of times we built the schedule based on the optimistic view of the world. inwe get into a situation 2019 were the money does not flow until the third quarter, does that put anybody at risk to are six months into the fiscal year and will see money soon.

i believe that will be coming for it with regard to the modernization money, that is three-your money, so we had to spend it well. i'm assuming the budget agreement with regard to fy 19 will come through. what we have to do is continue to look beyond 19 because these are multi-your programs in some and make sure we are doing everything we can internally to reform any number of things, processes, how we do service contracts, how we stop our headquarters, because my aim, one of the three focus priorities i had coming into this job, is to look everywhere we can do free up time, money, and manpower. my view is -- you fix your roof when it is sunny out. right now, it appears to be sunny for the next couple of years. the natural reaction is for folks to get back on their heels and relax a little bit, but i'm pressing forward. the chief and i and others are

pushing for others to be on their toes and look for ways to find savings. we have to apply those dollars -- the budget is unpredictable, much like it was in 1973. we have to do our best to find those dollars so that we can apply them back to our priorities. lt. gen. spoehr: changing gears, at the end of the cold war, the u.s. army active component was 780,000 soldiers. 2017, the active army was 476,000. in 2018, the army was authorized to grow. then in the 2019 president's budget, he requests an active-duty size of 487,500. growth of another 4000. steady growth, fairly modest. two-year growth of 11,500. it is coming at the same time people in congress and elsewhere are saying the services are really going to have a hard time recruiting to these numbers and that maybe it does not even make

sense to increase the size of the army if they cannot recruit to it. variety of factors playing into that. six months into 2018, i was wondering how recruiting is looking in 2018 and whether you anticipate the army being able to recruit that they need to. sec. esper: very good question. first of all, we are on track. i'm confident we will meet our goals. our retention rates are higher than they have ever been. that also take some pressure off the recruiting end of this. i would see the bigger picture is this. when i outline the vision last week, speaking to the details, what i said is we need to get to be over 500,000 soldiers with appropriate growth, associated growth with guard and reserve. the supply of troops, forces is right now insufficient to meet the demands.

and to meet the guidance, dod guidelines with regards to deployment versus home station time. we need to build and strengthen, we will continue to grow at a modest pace. it's important we can absorb the soldiers and make sure we get them through the training pipeline and also importantly, maintaining high standards. we have not lowered our standards. there is agreement among leadership that we will accept a smaller army if it means not compromising our standards. i have lived through. where we have dropped standards a little bit and you end up paying for it, so there is a unified commitment not to do that. we intend to maintain high standards going forward to lt. gen. spoehr: thank you. changing gears again, especially -- standards going forward three -- standards going forward. lt. gen. spoehr: thank you. changing gears again, especially

when the budget is tight, the army has its modulus relationship with the national guard component. the 2019 presidents budget increases funding for full-time support personal or the guard and reserve, has got funding for four national training center, ctc rotations for the national guard, which, in my spirit is unheard of, more funding for reserve component soldiers to come on active duty and support combat and command missions. as a former guardsman and now secretary of the army, can you speak to the importance of the guard to the army mission, what you are doing to make sure that relationship, which has had ups and downs, remains healthy? sec. esper: you mentioned one of the things i would begin with, one of the benefits i bring to the office, i have served in all three components. more years in the guard and reserve than an active-duty. i served in the virginia guard and a d.c. guard. i bring that perspective to the job as a guardsman. i know the challenges of being in the guard or reserve. i will tell you this much, when i entered the army, active-duty, 1996, the guard was a strategic reserve. over the years, it became an operational reserve, now an

operational unit. the guard and reserve have proved themselves exceedingly well over the past 17 years. they are currently serving around the world in any number of named operations and other deployments. in fact when i go around and , visit the army, before christmas i had the privilege to go to afghanistan. i was down in kandahar being briefed by a brigade combat team. by -- i would not have known it but they told me that sitting at the table was a mixture of regular guard and reserve soldiers. it was not until i looked around in solve their shoulder patches that was the case. it was seamless. everyone brings to the table lots of skills and different experiences. i'm very impressed by what i've seen. as i have traveled, i try to reacquaint myself with the army and reassess what has happened. one of the great joys is seeing how well come integrated the guard, reserve, and regular army are right now. it is very impressive for it -- it is very impressive.

i think it brings to bear the full weight and effectiveness of the total army. i'm very encouraged by what i'm seeing. i do not see the role of the guard or reserve changing anytime soon. lt. gen. spoehr: following up on that, do you and other army leaders make a deliberate effort to visit the guard when you are out and about? sec. esper: absolutely. first of all, i have been on the job four months and i've been out to the national guard bureau twice. i feel like i'm going back every time i go there. i have been out there to meet with the tags, discussing issues. i was out there last week walking around with the head of the army national guard to chat with soldiers and find out what's on their minds. when we go out, i try to find soldiers from the guard and reserve when i visit the troops in the field, i'm always surprised whether it's an aviation unit or soldiers from the reserve component. in fact, i'm traveling tomorrow to fort knox. i will see a reserve aviation unit. i try to make an effort

everywhere i go to find those soldiers, find out what's on their mind. they bring to bear different experiences but they also have different challenges being a guardsman or reservist. they have different pay structures, arrangements that need to be sorted out. they just bring different challenges as a critical component of the force. >> c-span's washington journal live everyday with policy issues that impact. discussedfriday, we with the military times pentagon bureau chief in former democratic congressman in virginia republican congressman tom davis on ways to make government more civil and must partisan. be sure to watch c-span's washington journal live at seven eastern friday morning.

>> monday on landmark cases, cats versus united states, or catses -- were trials transported illegal bets on sunset a little art in los angeles. supreme court's decision expanded the americans rights to privacy under the fourth amendment and change the way law enforcement changes investigations. -- both at george mason's universities antonin scalia law school. watch landmark cases monday and joined the conversation monday. follow us on c-span.

an interactive constitution and the landmark cases podcast at c-span.org. a look at hearings in meetings this year on combating opioid addiction for it then, president trump talking about tax reform. in former mexican president debating nationalism versus globalism. >> over the next couple of hours, a look at federal efforts to combat the opioid epidemic. we will show you portions of events that c-span has covered in 2018 featuring state