johnson. somebody who has impeachment swirling around him and is not able to heal a racial divide in the country. >> there is animosity between the press and presidents as early as john adams. he is the person who is pushing for the sedition act. what that does is actually tries to prevent criticism of the government. the weekly on the free c-span radio app or wherever you go for podcasts. >> with the new congress with the new congress starting in january, the brookings institution hosted a discussion on how the makeup of the new members could impact the defense budget.

michael: good morning and welcome to brookings. i'm michael o'hanlon with the foreign policy program. thank you for joining us to talk about the u.s. defense budget in the aftermath of big changes, including the midterm elections, but also rethinking within the administration about how much they want to spend on the military. we have a fantastic panel to discuss this today and we will have a logical flow in how we do it. we begin with our discussion here, before we go to you for questions, with elaine kamarck, the far left, at least physically speaking, who is one of the people who helped redefine the democratic party as not being far left. she is one of the people who helped to bring the democratic centrist movement to power in the 1990's, a longstanding associate of bill clinton and al gore. she led the gore reinventing government effort, and is now at brookings, as well as at the kennedy school at harvard. and we will ask her to talk about the politics of where we stand on both sides of the aisle, after the elections, after the first two years of the trump presidency.

and with the 2020 presidential campaign only moments away. i'm sure we are all enjoying our peace and quiet before the campaign begins, because we all know what is coming and it is not far away. next is maya macguineas, who is in my mind the conscience, the physical conscience of washington and sort of what is left of it. we used to have some company back in the day, when we had the great -- of the world and some other people, bob rice shower, so many people have retired or gone on the better places. and we still have some greats, like alice, carrying the water a bit, but maya macguineas has become responsible for the federal budget, the most important voice on remembering the importance of fiscal discipline at a time when neither party is really listening. but we probably cannot afford

not to listen forever, especially if interest rates rise. the big debt will hurt someday and probably hurt our kids and grandkids even more, so she will help with the defense budget debate in this broader fiscal perspective. next is jim miller, the undersecretary of defense for policy in the obama administration. i see my friend dave mosher in the back, we used to do studies for jim miller 25 or 30 years ago at the congressional budget office when jim was on the armed services committee staff. he has had a long career in government, worked on a lot of issues. one of the reasons i am an admirer of jim is because of his understanding of technology. so a lot of times the undersecretary of defense for policy knows the world very well, and all of its hotspots and strategic challenges. he is on the defense science board. and you will see from his bio, that he was on the stanford a tennis team. some people know that he was on the stanford tennis team at the same time as john mcenroe, but many people do not know that they were teammates in intramural basketball, three-on-three.

that was during the same time that john mcenroe was heading for number one in the world. i have no idea why he subjected his body to the punishment, but maybe it is because jim miller could protect him and get the rebounds after john mcenroe missed his shots. but in any event that is a little bit of biographical perspective on jim miller. and finally frank rose, now a senior fellow at brookings. he was recently in the state department for president obama as the assistant secretary for arms control verification and compliance. and do not forget that last part, because frank has a hard edge, even though he is a nice arms controller at one level, he is a tough arms strategic thinker at another. and so he will, with contemplating changes in our missile defense portfolio, be sure to emphasize the importance of a robust defense capability, not just trying to maintain fiscal discipline and arms-control pursuits. in other words, we have a panel of open-minded people who wrestled with these questions

for a long time and i will begin in a second with my first question to elaine, which will be simply, how have things changed in the last few weeks, and how should both parties be thinking about defense as they fashion bigger, broader messages to the new congress? and for the looming 2020 campaign. but before i do that, i will go through one list of numbers to try to structure the conversation a little. i will use very round numbers. people here can correct me and be more precise if they wish, but i think it is important to remember what we are talking about an overall perspective. the u.s. girth the mystic -- gross domestic product in 2019 i believe will reach $20 trillion, but that is a good number to keep in mind. it will get there, but it will be borderline. $20 trillion gross domestic product. a 4 plus trillion dollar budget, maybe $4.4 trillion for overall federal spending.

federal revenue, substantially less. so if federal spending is a little more than $4 trillion, revenue is a little more than $3 trillion, we still have a trillion dollar deficit in the u.s. and it is heading upward. and within $4 trillion of federal spending, what you could define as the entire national security enterprise is about $1 trillion, but i am counting in that not just the national defense budget, but also veterans affairs, homeland security, security assistance, everything that could be broadly defined as relating to national security. but what is called the national security budget, the department of defense and the nuclear activities at the department of energy, that is now $716 billion. so, pushing 70% of $1 trillion. and that is the part we are here to talk about. should that part keep growing, as general dunford and secretary mattis and last week's

independent national defense strategy commission have argued, should -- and as last year's budget argued -- should it -- because, which seems to be were president trump and john bolton and others within the administration are today. should it plateau? should it go somewhere else? that is ultimately where we want to get in the conversation and we look forward to the second half of the discussion and your questions as well. elaine, if you could help us frame this politically in the aftermath of what we have just seen. elaine: thank you, michael. nice to be on this panel with everybody else. i suspect as the panel goes on, i will have less and less to say as we get into the details here, but let me start by saying that obviously you know the headlines -- the democrats took over the house. one interesting thing about the election was that i have ever sat through in election where the lead grew so steadily and it took a solid week for us to

realize that this was a major wave. although on election night, and some of us who rushed to publish election night now are saying we were way too cautious. this was a big victory for the democrats, they have a lot of new seats in the house. let me talk a little bit about some of the things that will change in the house. the big one of course, is congressman adam smith from washington state will now become head of house armed services committee. and he does have a reputation as a budget hawk. he had told us back in the spring to prepare for a lean future, ok? so i think that we need to see what he is going to do in terms of overall spending. um, one of the issues batting around is going to be the space force and how big or how small it should be. i think that the budget issues

are going to be very much front and center with a new leadership in the house armed services. he will be buttressed by some new stars. so let's talk about some of the stars. one interesting thing about them is that several of them are women veterans. so a lot is be made about the diversity, the first native american woman, etc, but we also have nikki cheryl, a navy helicopter pilot. as was my son. we also have chrissy houlihan, former air force. a navy warfare officer. and they are going to be really interesting for a couple of reasons. first of all, i think the press is very interested in women vets. this is really the first generation where we have a lot of women veterans. and there were some others, amy degrasse, who lost in kentucky

but who got quite a lot of attention. and of course, the sally mcgrath in arizona, who may end up in the senate, even though she seems to have lost. i'm sorry, it is not sally mcgrath, what am i talking about? it is martha mcsally, you still may end up in the senate even though she looks like she has lost her race to kyrsten sinema. so there is going to be a lot of women officers in the u.s. congress. and the question is, what effect will they have. there is not much evidence on this, because the number of veterans in congress has been decreasing from a high of 71% back in 1971, to around 19% now. and this does not seem to have changed very much with this election. but we do know a couple of

things that they might do. maybe right off of the bat, i think they are going to question president trump's putting troops on the mexican border. ok. already today, it has been announced some of them are going home for thanksgiving. and has been called a stunt, ok. and i think that that is going to be front and center and you can probably see many of these new veterans taking the lead on that. so something that is not quite as obvious, and something that congresswoman elect nikki cheryl talked about is gun control. she has a very powerful speech where she takes her audience through all the different weapons she was trained on, that she can clean and shoot with, then she talks about being a prosecutor. and how is a prosecutor in new jersey she spent a lot of time trying to get those same weapons off of the streets.

so i think that you will see some very powerful voices coming from veterans, when it comes to gun control, arguing that weapons of war are not what we should have on the streets. finally, i think that you are going to see there is a little bit of evidence from a political scientist named danielle lipton at colgate, who studied the voting patterns of veterans in congress. and one of the things she said made them distinctive, regardless of their political party, is that they were more interested and more active on congressional oversight when we were deployed somewhere in the world. and i think that that is very, very interesting, particularly with this new crowd coming in who are afghan vets, and given

how long we have been deployed, especially in afghanistan, i think that you will see much more serious oversight than perhaps we have seen in the last several years, over the nitty-gritty. why we are deployed, what we are doing their, etc. and finally, i think we know from some of these veterans and their campaigns, and from some behavior of other vets, that they will not be shy about standing up to donald trump when he does some of the more outrageous things he does, like insulting military leaders. so his assault lately on admiral mccreevy, right, sorry, who led the operation against osama bin laden, his assaults here have really hit people the wrong way and i think that with more veterans in congress you will

see them standing up to the president and disciplining him. and every time he takes on someone, whether it is john mccain, as he was fond of doing, admiral mick raven, whoever it is, i think you will see these veterans up front and center. so that is where, it is always difficult -- in conclusion, it is always difficult to say that some group or another is going to have this effect. of coarse, many people are talking about this with all the women in congress. but, and party affiliation, party loyalty does tend to trump most things. but i do think the experience that this new group is bringing to congress is going to be invaluable. and i think that their sense of loyalty to mission and public service is going to really help uplift the tone of congress, which has not been as we may have seen, very uplifting in the last couple years.

michael: before we go to maya, i want to ask a follow-up and maya may want to comment on this, you mentioned adam smith is a relative fiscal budget hawk. but my question i guess is, do you really think the democratic party, in the congressional leadership or upcoming presidential campaigns, is likely to want to cut the defense budget a lot, because it strikes me that if the democrats made that argument they would risk giving a big issue to donald trump, which he could say i am the guy who fixed the military and i had general mattis do it, and it seems like democrats are more likely to fixate on the issues like the border, tone of discourse, but do you think that most immigrants are likely to maybe, you know, try to curb the defense budget growth or shrink it, but not really engage in a big debate about big cuts? elaine: i cannot see them engaging in a big debate on big cuts.

as we look at the composition of the democratic caucus right now, with a little bit of change to come, but it looks like if you -- there is about 90 progressives in the progressive caucus, so they might be inclined to do some cutting. but it looks like you have about 95 in the new democratic coalition, and about another 20 among the blue dog democrats. the blue dog democrats are the most conservative democrats. they tend to come from southern states. there were pickups in that group. so i think that the balance of power within the caucus will probably keep the democrats from doing any large-scale cuts. and focus them more on things like the wisdom of the deployment at the border, which they have called a stunt. and also with all of the new women in congress, i think you

might have emphasis on family issues, which relate to readiness. which is military family issues. and i think you might see more of a shift in that direction. but no, i do not think there will be big moves to cut. michael: ok, maya, on that question, and how should we think about defense in this fiscal mess we have gotten ourselves into? maya: thank you. and mike, thank you. it is nice to be on the stage with you. and i liked how you framed the whole beginning with those numbers, which is really helpful. it is nice to be here at brookings institution, one of my favorite think tanks in town. i will start by saying, if there is one thing i love it is spreadsheets. i really love spreadsheets. and yesterday my 12-year-old daughter did not have school and it she went to the office with her father with the purpose to learn how to use a spreadsheet. i was like, can i come?

how did it go? i have a coffee mug that says i love spreadsheets. and my policy director has a monthly that says, i love spreadsheets more. so that is the starting point. so i do not look at security policy as a spreadsheet exercise, this is something that you clearly want in terms of getting the right policies, setting national priorities, looking forward and figuring out what the most effective ways to meet those objectives are. so i do not come into this as saying, because i am a budget expert i should have an opinion about how security policy should work. what i do know is that we have incredible fiscal challenges facing the country. and that means we have to take budgeting more seriously. and defense is a huge part of the budget. so let me start with the fiscal situation. we are on the precipice of having trillion dollar deficits a year. what is stunning about that is that is not just a number, it is relative to gdp.

those are very large and unusual to have them when our economy is doing as well as it is. that comes on top of a time when the national debt, relative to the economy, is the highest it has ever been in this country since right after world war ii. and we had just fought a world war, said that is why it was so high and it came down very quickly after that, as the economy grew and spending trunk. -- shrunk. right now, the debt is projected to grow faster than the economy every year forever. so there is no way to overemphasize the fiscal situation we face, it is not only challenging, but it is a characteristic and i would say inappropriate for a time of strong economic growth. what you want to do is have a budget that is manageable over a business cycles, deficits shrinking, or at surplus during

economic strength, so you are prepared during times of weakness. and in all likelihood, we will have a recession in the next couple years, just because of the length of the business cycle. it is unlikely we will be able to go for much longer. second thing i would point out is that many leaders in the national security field have pointed out that one of, if not the single biggest threat facing our country, security threat, is. our debt situation so there in many reasons one cares about the debt. high levels of debt, slow economic growth, at a time when we need to worry about economic growth because of the aging of the population. high levels of debt means interest payments in the budget are pushing other things out. right now, interest payments are the single fastest growing part of the budget and that means we are pressure on all other parts. and high levels of debt the view unprepared for the next recession, so that is where we are now, so when he recession comes we will not have the same tools to fight it that we normally would. and that means we are

vulnerable, depending on what else is going on with the global environment, we do not have the tools to fight our own recession and national security priorities. and keep in mind, we borrow roughly half of what we borrow from overseas. regularly, not from people where our security interests are completely aligned, so that seems like another vulnerability that has not gotten sufficient attention. if you look at the notion that we are approaching a trade war with china, it seems to me that given that we borrow a significant amount of our funding from china, and in that gives them a lever that affects us economically and throughout our security agenda as well. so i would say that, not that i have any idea with the right level of defense spending is, i would leave that to the experts, and i think there are some things that are luxuries in a budget and is something that our valueable, but national security as a public interest holds its own space and we need to get that level right.

but we do need to budget, and we do not budget in the country anymore. what we do is we say, we want to spend it something, or if we want to cut taxes, we are going to borrow to do so. and over the past two years, we have had a massive tax cut, over $1.5 trillion that made the deficit situation much worse, and we borrowed for that. and right after that, we had a huge spending increase. we will talk about this, probably, but we had spending caps that were arguably way too low and have cramped security spending, but instead of lifting the caps and offsetting the cost with other savings, on the revenue side or the spending side, we lifted them. and this is the question about the republican and democratic part, we have what is basically the only kind of bipartisan agreement we seem to be able to get in town these days, which is one side, republicans saying we want more security spending, and democrats saying we want more domestic discretionary spending,

and both saying, let's do that and i will not pay for mine, you will not pay for years, and-- and that a lot of backslapping on the spending deal with little discussion on how, if you extend the spending caps, that will rival the tax cut in terms of the size and additions to the debt. so the spending increase was massive. so the point i would make is, if -- and this is the basic point of budgeting -- is that if in the defense budget we decided something is worth doing, then we decide it is worth paying for. but what we have to stop is the we decide it is worth paying notion that we can have it all because we do not have to pay for it. we will hand the bill to the future and that makes everything seem worthwhile, because if it is free there is not nearly the same kind of trade-off you go through to evaluate whether this is right, and it applies to all parts of the budget. so what i will argue for is a return to actual budgeting, which the country has stopped

doing. not only do we often run without budgets in place, which for the biggest entity in the world is unforgivable, the notion that budgets are about picking national priorities, determining the best way to achieve them, and ultimately figuring out how to finance them have to come back to the first principle of budgeting. michael: i will ask you a follow-up, which is -- you have been very polite and kind and gracious to let the defense crowd do what we think is right, and then -- maya: we do not live in a world where i decide the defense budget. michael: but reading this independent commission that secretary angelman chaired, they said we should keep growing at 3%-5% in the defense budget and things like entitlements and tax reform should be what gets us to fiscal discipline. and with all due respect to secretary edelman, isn't that too fast of an argument in a

world where it is easy for democrats to say, let's do more tax reform that increases revenue, easy for republicans to say let's reform entitlements, but these things are hard to do in practice. and even if we did them both, we would not be closing a trillion dollar deficit. so isn't there a counter argument -- a need for defense to look for where it could tighten its belt? maya: it is true -- then the economy. the starting point has to be everything is on the table. when defense is a share of your budget, it has to be on the table. there are many things in the defense budget or due toutdated entrenched interest. it is also clear there are new

needs that we have to take seriously. in many ways the budget is looking at past threats. which is very common in budgeting. there is no question, i have worked with experts over the years. there are many areas where we can have reform including the entitlement programs. there's a lot that can be done in terms of the benefits. revenues and entitlements have to be a piece of this. so this the single biggest discretionary slice of the pie. question,he overall to the extent we need to prioritize more than we had to, how do you propose we think about doing so? jim: president trump has been fond of giving grades to himself and others. for yourve you an a

opening and the framing of the issue. i would give an a to secretary mattis for the national defense strategy. it gives focus to power competition. it articulates something that has been underway. for reference, under the obama budget forion, the other operations was reduced by the billion per year, number of troops in iraq and inhanistan down from 180k whenl year 2010 two 14,000 president obama left. that number is now back up. down, away from counterinsurgency occurred

during the obama administration. wellal moves occurred as with the so-called pivot to asia. ukraine,sia invaded the european reassurance initiative. those changes were underway. what is different is secretary mattis has articulated these parties clearly and with the increase in the budget for fiscal year 19, there are the resources to apply them. as you look at this shift from strategy, will the administration put its money where its strategy is? of optionshree kinds to consider. current operations versus future operations.

readiness and modernization. obama made to the big reductions i mentioned before. and now this administration increased spending on research and development by about 23% . that shift is occurring. readiness is moving up. i would encourage this administration to continue that. positive andh overdue. thinking about current versus future operations, thinking about capacity versus capability for quantity versus quality. we have seen a mixed story. the air force said it needs more fighter squadrons of multiple times. the army continues to look toward infrastructure and the navy additional ships.

my judgment would be focus on quality over quantity. invest in that research and development, innovation and focus on areas where we have relative advantage. undersea,vy, more less on the surface. has to do with capability areas. followsdministration its strategy, it will protect nuclear modernization. not to provide new capabilities for war fighting, to recapitalize the triad. it will, and frank will have something to say, it will want to invest in improved capacities , not justresilience in the department of defense, but elsewhere. including nuclear forces,

long-range strike, and it will want to invest in space resilience. there is a bill coming for the space force. my judgment would be setting up a new space command is a good idea. it is perhaps overdue. a new space force is a bad idea. if you look at those trades, today versus future, quality over quantity. still need to prioritize within the defense budget, whether it is 716, or 700, or 733. my final point would be the numbers we are talking about for defense are in the range of 3% or 4% of gdp. and when you include other operations, closer to 4%. the nation can afford 4% of gdp for defense, it needs to spend it wisely and focus it on the

great power competition that the strategy has said we will. and it needs to make the hard choices that truly are difficult to make, but involves reduced structure, more quality versus the focus on quantity. michael: uh, one question is going to be -- let me do it in two chunks. are you comfortable with the possibility of a $700 billion national defense budget in 2020? the number we are starting to hear from omb and a national security advisor, it would be about $33 billion less for that year than was expected. again, we are at $716 billion in this fiscal year, which has already begun as of october 1 and the expectation, as many know, others may not, is that we would be at $733 billion, that is the combination of the base defense budget, overseas contingency operation and nuclear activities. and now we are hearing talk that we would be around $700 billion. you may not love the number, but is that one you think you can live with?

jim: i can live with the number, i do not love it. the test will be, if you look at the difference between the 733 budget, $733 billion and $700 billion, did the difference come out of core structure, readiness or future capabilities? so if the answer is to do a cut across all accounts, that is not strategy. if you are going to have a strategy driven budget, including the lower number for defense, you should be emphasizing the capabilities of that support and the quality of forces that support the strategy, which is rightly focusing more on great power competition. michael: so the question follows naturally, but just to get it on the table, there are some numbers out there, a 151 ships, which i think is a growth of 70 with the fleet today. and the air force would like, secretary wilson announced a desire for 386 operational

squadrons between the active and reserves, which would be up from 312 today. and the army wants to grow more modestly to more than 500,000 active soldiers, relative to 480,000 today. so those are the kind of numbers that should be challenged and re-thought if we have to make tough choices. jim: exactly. michael: frank, you have been patient. i know you have a lot to say. pick up where we have left off in terms of the strategic portfolio. frank: michael, thanks so much. it is great to be on stage with these other panelists, including elaine. i was actually her intern 25 years ago, so for all of you interns out there, there is hope. [laughter] i want to focus on the strategic capabilities portfolio, because in the upcoming congress i think that there is going to be quite a bit of friction between the democrats and the house in the

administration and on these issues. let me focus on three issues -- nuclear modernization, space security and missile defense. starting with nuclear modernization. believe it or not, during the obama administration there was bipartisan consensus on the need to modernize our nuclear delivery vehicles and infrastructure. despite the fact that many on the republican party had accused the obama administration of not paying enough attention to nuclear issues, obama was able to do what the bush administration was not able to do, create a bipartisan consensus in favor of modernization. and that was also attached to arms control. i would argue the new start treaty in 2010 was very, very

critical in building that bipartisan support for the modernization. had we not had the new start treaty, i think it would've been difficult to bring on board many congressional democrats. and jim played a big role in the negotiations on the new start treaty. and i really commend him for his work. jim: thank you. frank: however, that consensus is beginning to fray for couple reasons. one, of the potential price tag of the modernization program. i have seen dave mosher in the back there. and david and his colleagues at cbo came out with a report earlier this year, saying the modernization will cost $1.2 trillion over the next 30 years. that is a lot of money. and when you compare that with all the other challenges, i

think that there are legitimate questions about whether we can afford it. secondly, in the 2018 nuclear posture review, the trump administration included a number of new low yield capabilities. and that has gotten a lot of pushback from some congressional democrats. and thirdly, and i think that this is a really important point, is there is a view amongst many democrats that the trump administration is hostile toward arms control. their decision to move out of the jcpoa, the iran nuclear deal, and the recent announcement that the united states intended to get out of intermediate nuclear forces treaty, and the potential for not extending the new start treaty.

my personal opinion, having spoken to people and having worked on the house armed services committee, is if you new start is not extended, i think the trump administration is going to have a very difficult time maintaining that consensus for strategic modernization. if the administration is smart, i think there is a deal to be had. and that deal would be as follows -- the administration would move forward with extension of the new start treaty. and in exchange, democrats would support the strategic modernization program. now, shifting to space security, there is no doubt that russia and china are developing a full range of anti-satellite capabilities designed to deny the united states access to space derived information.

indeed, in the obama administration we began a major initiative to enhance the resiliency of our space systems in order to deal with this threat. we have heard a lot about the space force. honestly, the space force is not as crazy as it sounds. like jim, i do not think it is necessarily the right solution to the problem we face. however, i think it is a legitimate issue to discuss. and it really should not be a partisan issue. unfortunately, president trump has made a partisan issue. where did he announce the decision to establish the space force? at a campaign rally. and right after that, his reelection committee sent a fundraiser email out on the space force. he is taking what should be a nonpartisan issue

and he has turned it into a partisan issue, and i think that is going to present challenges when the space force is debated next year. and finally on missile defense, i think one of the biggest questions in the national security community right now is, when is the missile defense review going to be released? the world wonders. we do not know if or when it will be released, but i think there are two issues that we need to watch to see how the administration handles them, because i think it will have political implications. first, how do we use missile defense to address russian and chinese strategic capabilities. in the previous several administrations, both democrat and republican, there has been a consistent message that u.s.

missile defenses are not designed or aimed at dealing with russia or china's strategic deterrent. however, we have seen a number of analysts and some in the administration start to question whether that is the right approach, or whether the united states should assume a "damage limitation" strategy. that is a question we will need to look at closely. the second issue is, space-based missile defense interceptors. over the last year, we have seen a number of senior administration officials, including the undersecretary of defense for research and engineering, saying the united states needs to develop a space-based layer of its missile defense capabilities for intercepts.

i do not know how much support there is for space-based missile defense amongst the democratic caucus. when i was on the house armed services committee from 2007-2009, there was not a lot. and my gut tells me that there will not be a lot of support for space-based missile defenses amongst the current or incoming caucus. so those are a couple of issues to watch, but fundamentally, if you ask me where the friction points will be for the upcoming congress, i think it will be in this area of strategic capabilities. nuclear modernization and arms control, missile defense and space security. michael: two follow-ups. and then i will go to the audience, because i managed to get my questions in. and if the panelists want to comment on the others' remarks, i hope that you will leave those

in. first of all, space-based missile defense, that has been around as an idea since ronald reagan's 1983 speech, if not sooner. and the technology is better than it was then, but is it realistic to talk about that now? and my second question, within that $1.2 trillion nuclear modernization agenda, are all things really created equal? are there some areas we could prioritize, for example, the idea of creating more capacity at the department of energy nuclear security energy, to be able to produce 80 plutonium -- a year, when last i saw we were confident that the ones we have would hold up for decades to come? frank: on space-based missile defense, this has been a controversial issue for a very long time. i would argue that there are a lot of technical, as well as fiscal challenges to moving forward with space-based interceptors.

however, one area where i think there could be consensus is that is improving space-based sensors. giving us the ability to better track incoming missiles. indeed, the bush administration and the obama administration had programs designed to improve our space-based tracking capabilities. with regards to the modernization program in the rack and stacking, what i would say is this -- i support the triad, but as i have said publicly on numerous occasions, it is going to be really expensive. and we will probably need to make a trade-off. from my perspective, number one priority would be the submarine, followed by the bomber, and the long-range standoff nuclear cruise missile.

and last of my list would be the ground-based deterrent or intercontinental missiles. if i was going to take risk, that would be where i take my risk. michael: jim, any comments? jim: i would add, nuclear command control needs substantial investment, so it is resilient, survivable and supports our capabilities. and second, as you look at where to go with icbms, the potential for reducing those forces over time it buys them , additional time and the first investment. and i believe looking at the possibility of deploying a small number of silo-based single warheads, those lighter ones that are less expensive, and having them about research and development program makes sense, because what we want to do is ensure that we have a survivable

leg in sea base, and a hedge against that, with any problems with the land-based and air based legs. and on space i want to add one thing, if i may, to any technical or fiscal concerns, which i think both are far left from where were they were. two minor points with the interceptors. one is you blow space stability out of the water. the incentives to -- for russia or china to go after the interceptors, whether through kinetic or electronic warfare are overwhelming, because otherwise we have space superiority. that is untenable for them. and second, if those interceptors are effective vis-a-vis russia or china, or have the possibility of being so, it is an invitation to a nuclear arms race. frank: can i come back to jim on that? i think he is absolutely correct.

what i have said and what i've written is that be assured, russia and china will do whatever is necessary to maintain an assured second strike capability against the united states. and if we do move forward with the space-based interceptors, i am very confident that they will have countermeasures. michael: and i will add one technical thing and then we will go to you, do not forget, to be effective as an interceptor you typically have to be in lower orbit, relatively low, which means you cannot stay stationary relative to the points on earth, which means you need more satellites in space to have one in the right place. so you have this absentee ratio problem, which adds to the cost. let's start here in the second row. both gentlemen, and then we will have sandy, then go to the panel. then i will work back. starting on the far side by the wall. please identify yourself before

asking your question. >> tony, inside defense. thank you for being with us. i wanted to ask about the audit recently the pentagon completed. they did not receive a clean opinion, no one thought they would. how should we think about that politically, fiscally, and then sort of in terms of managing the department -- was it worthwhile, is it worthwhile to keep doing it? they did not find the pots of gold that some critics wanted to weaponize politically thought they would find. michael: harlan, please. >> my question is to you mike and jim. the commission on national defense strategy is a polite, but scathing critique of the national defense strategy, in particular calling into account the fact that there is no operational concept for deterring or defeating russia or china in a war, which basically says this is not a good idea, in the absence of civilian control

of the military, which you may agree with or not agree. my concern is if you take that report seriously, and the expansion and growth of the services, you need to budget closer to $800 billion a year than $700 billion a year. i would argue and predict we are heading toward a hollow force. if you look at the readiness of the forces, it is in great decline. training accidents are higher than deaths in combat. so i agree with jim in terms of prioritization, but the department of defense has always been bad in doing that. so how do we discipline the department and the process, because if we are looking toward something we need a smaller ready force. but getting there is going to be increasingly difficult, especially in terms of the blended retirement plan that is now in place. and also internal, uncontrolled cost growth of about 3% to 5% for everything from people the pencils to precision weapons. so how do we make sure that we

have a force that balances capacity and capability when a hollow force is descending quite quickly? michael: over to sandy, please. >> thank you. sandy, csis. military installations and infrastructure have long been bill payers, which commanders can easily dip into to find a training. how should feature budgets and the process solve that problem, and in particular reduce the risk of mortgaging installations and infrastructure for the future? michael: before we go to the panel, i think we will take a fourth question, if anybody has a question in broader terms that could be directed toward defense, so if we can get a hand on that.

the gentleman in the fifth throw. >> good morning, jamie gatz. in world war ii, afterward world war ii we had the arms race and we basically forced to rush into bankruptcy. is there a risk of that happening here? michael: i do not know if that is a good question for you. let's go from elaine downward. elaine: i am not sure i can answer that question, but just to go back to what the political impact is, nancy pelosi talked about her new members, some of them, as majority makers. majority makers tend to be people from marginal districts. it is one of the reasons we took so long to see the actual majority in the house. you want to look at those people carefully district by district. you want to look at the jason crowes of the world, you want to look at conor lambs of the world.

you want to look at their districts, because those are the people that the new leadership of the congress, and i expect it will be nancy pelosi, they need to protect those people and keep those people. that means that -- and i think michael has the right idea, the same as mine -- that means the correct strategy for the new congress is to be critical, do oversight, but not make any far left broadsides against the military establishment. i think that is -- what it will do is it might make a solid blue districts happy, but it will put into jeopardy those 30, 40 seats where, as we have seen, the results were so close, so narrow that we have taken more than a week to figure out actually what the majority in congress is. so i think when you think about this going forward, you are going to put yourself in the shoes of the leadership. and the leaders are going to be

very careful to structure decisions around areas where they can gain political points, like wasting money, not to mention manpower, this silly build up at the border. they will get points there. but i do not think you are going to see the democratic leadership taking them down a road where they are massively critical of a lot of things that the pentagon is doing or wants to do. michael: and maya, do you want to go into the audit question, for the fiscal question, or both? maya: one thing is how we think about what we can and what we should be spending on our defense budget. you mentioned earlier as a share of gdp, as a share of a budget, over all defense spending relative to the economy is more on the low side. so that would make the argument, we can afford to be spending more, or spending more on other priorities. i am not at all convinced that is the right metric, in that as

our economy grows it is not clear we need to increase at the same ratio our spending on national security. it depends on how much is centralized, a lot of different questions inform that decision. i do think that one of the useful things the administration has focused on, is because defense is a shared gdp as a useful metric of what we can afford, is looking at allies and what they are spending and i think that has been a helpful thing to think about and put forward. of course i would love an audit, in no world i would not love the idea of auditing more, more accountability. we have failed so dramatically to really account how the dollars are spent and every we can do to make it work better is something i think is long overdue, very important and we should learn what we do not learn each time and try to make a better. similarly, kind of the question of how you do not steal from

other parts of the budget. one of the biggest budget gimmicks we have had in security has been the overseas contingency -- so we have left that up to compensate for what is going on, when we have spending caps in place and we have had like a three card monte, stealing from one to another, and that is what it has provided us for way too long and we need to be much more specific about how the dollars are spent so you do not have spending cuts, you are spending certain initiatives and that is where the money actually spent. one of the interesting things that got me thinking is the question about the cold war, because it seems like it would be a bad idea for us in so many ways to sort of engage in cold war mindset. one, our fiscal situation does not look to me to be strong enough that i was not clear who you thought would win or lose in that situation, but i am not so confident the u.s. would fare

well. for more than that, with globalization and intertwined economies, the notion that you can outspend your rivals to kind of lead them to a bankrupt situation, when we are so intertwined with the economies of those other countries, that would come back and hurt us. in a globalized environment, thinking about the interplay between national economics is also on a global stage. so i think that is clearly not the right model for trying to stay strong, these of the other countries. jim? jim: i will try to give an answer in reverse order. there is zero prospect that the united states will outspend china on defense in a winning strategy in the way we outspent the soviet union during the cold war. china's gdp is on a path to surpass the united states. their defense budget has increased by 10% per year. as secretary mattis has said, we

will have to use our brains, not our wallet if we are going to be successful in competing effectively and ensuring stability also vis-a-vis china and russia. part of that is to be more effective in so-called efficiencies in the department. having an effective audit is a platform for that. my recommendation is to keep working on department of defense, both as a matter of public responsibility and public trust. it is got to continue to be a priority. we need contingency improvement. what that leaves is the reality of hard choices, whether it is $716 billion this year, $733 next year, that is the future. there are hard choices. harlan, i agree with your assessment that it is not in the nature of a bureaucracy to want to make those hard choices. that will rest very heavily on the secretary of defense and on the white house.

and we will see whether they put their money where their strategy is. it can't all be addition. there's is not enough budget to make it all addition. if you try to do that, you will end up most likely with a hollow force. we have seen that the last couple times in the several decades. it is not a good approach. spending on installations and infrastructure fall in the same category, and for all of these issues that involve looking at trade-offs, congress should play a vital role. in my view, the fact that you have a republican-controlled on one side and democrat on the other, that will increase the likelihood those issues get discussed. they to start, as chairman mccain did last year, start at the level of strategy and look to the implications. frank: on your question about can we spend our way out of this, my answer is no.

i agree with maya, i do not -- we don't have the money. secondly, i do not think the russians or chinese will play that game. if you look at the russian and chinese security strategy, what has it been focusing on? developing asymmetric capabilities that can undermine u.s. strategic advantages, especially in the information security domain. and what we have seen is that both the russians and the chinese are investing heavily in offensive cyber capabilities, and anti-satellite capabilities. again, the objective is to deny the united states the advantages

it derives from information. so, i do not think the russians or the chinese will play that game. they will look for our achille'' heels and try to exploit that. michael: that is a great point. a couple times people have mentioned percent of gdp. let me just frame a couple more facts and figures people might find useful as they think through their own view on what the defense budget should be. we are at about 3.5% of gdp. that is not the v.a., not homeland security, but the department of defense, including contingencies and the nuclear activities of the department of energy. about 3.5%. in the cold war, we varied typically between 5% and 10%, depending with era you are talking about, always well above where we are now. today's budget, when you just for inflation is substantially above the cold war average. that is because our economy is much bigger and we can afford it, so that's why it is only 3.5% of gdp.

i say only 3.5% gdp, that is still pretty hefty compared to most countries in the world. it is similar to what russia spends out of its much smaller gdp. by the best estimates we have, it is about twice what china spends. china is going 10% per year. it appears we can't really compare exactly, but it appears to be heading at somewhere between 1.7% and 2.7% gdp. i'm not trying to minimize the chinese buildup, that i think it backs up frank's point. they are not trying to compete with us in every domain and they do not have to to make our lives complicated, especially in the western pacific. finally this last point i will make leads to the question of what to our allies spent. nato's goal is 2% of gdp. almost no other nato nation besides us meets that goal. the nato average is 1.5%. south korea is at 2.5%,

australia is at 2%, japan is at 1%. some people have said to man -- japan should spend more, but no one is asking them to spend more because the neighbors feared japanese re-militarization and we feel destabilization. everyone is happy with the 1%. the shinzo abe a buildup is no buildup at all. that may be more statistics than you wanted, but as we try to frame what is the right reference point, i thought i would put those on the table. without further ado, michael, over to you. >> i am michael gordon, "wall street journal." this national defense strategy that has been promulgated is not the most detailed document. the commission that studied the national defense strategy and their assessment pointed out that the classified version also contains a lot of assumptions that they thought were not well

defended and there were gaps in some of the logic, perhaps because it was done quickly. just listening to this group, what i hear you saying is you like the basic national defense strategy, but maybe the debate is over how best to execute it. should you have more things or more technology. and what i'm wondering, my question is, given the gap between resources and the threat, which does not seem like a good way to close that gap, should there be a more fundamental discussion about whether we have the strategy right, and is congress capable of conducting that kind of discussion should there be a look at nuclear versus conventional or, as mike o'hanlon points out, keeping stuff overseas as opposed to keeping stuff here. should there be a more deeper look at these kind of things or

is the debate -- we accept what mattis said, we will debate whether we should put the money in ships or into cyber or buy this missile or that missile? what is your take on that? michael: excellent. let's get a couple more for this round. we go to the gentleman in the fourth row. then four rows back more. >> this one deals with the accommodation of modernizing forces. if the navy invests in 365 ships, primarily surface ships, what happens to the columbia ballistic missile submarine, which would eat up the shipbuilding budget as it now exists? john grady, naval institute. michael: and then four rows back. >> rob levens, bloomberg. this is really for maya. national defense is not a fiscal decision, it is about the

priorities for the nation. but i wonder your thought on, we are now in seven or eight countries in combat, maybe a few more. there were a few classified contingencies that just propped up and we do not know where they are. the lack of fiscal constraints, we are funding these things on a credit card, allows the national security decision-makers to get us perhaps involved in places that, were there fiscal restraints or things like a that mightr taxes, restrain us for making choices. so it is not just our lack of restraint on the means expands the available ends we can pursue. thank you. maya: that is a great question. because i think you've hit the nail on the head with the problem of all budgeting. if you make the cost of something free, of course it is worth it. we are actually building a tool

called is it worth it where you look up what we are spending on, whether it's education, the environment, you see in terms of where you are and how much you pay in taxes, how much it is costing you and your family, getting a sense of what the costs are. one of the problems with deficit financing, and there are many, but one of them is that it does not allow us to go through the necessary exercise of is it worth it? if everything has to meet the hurdle rate of zero, of course it is going to be worth it. that is a huge problem we have in budgeting. i will expand my thinking on this security issue. i am not sure if this is going to work. but one of my problems with how we budget is we have always done it in a way that is too compartmentalized. we think about this category and this category. if you look at what is going on in our country, and i'm fascinated that so many of our threats come from asymmetrical warfare, the national debt reflects how broken our

government is. it reflects how unwilling we are to focus on long-term issues, hard choices, policy over politics, a number of things that are symbolic of what is broken in our government. part of that is also that we cannot look at where our threats are. our threats are both external and internal in terms of massive decisions and distrust and dysfunction within our own country. when we go to the question of what is security for this country mean in the budget, it is not just going to be defense. it is how you build an economy where a middle class is more content or people are less polarized politically. and i think whatever you are thinking about budgeting, it is not a spreadsheet. as much as i wish it were and i would be comfortable if it were, it is thinking about what a nation's national priorities are. part of that is looking forward to what threats we face. i would point out there are

a lot of threats coming from within which have been prompted from outside sources. we are seeing a huge ripple effect of that right now. michael: elaine, do you want to comment? elaine: i want to comment on the gentleman from the wall street journal's question. when a be interesting things i think we're going to see is how does the republican leadership in the congress take and internalize the lessons from this election? what do they do? do they decide to engage in the big debates you referenced, or they decide to continue on a path that has characterized them for the last couple years as basically opposition, opposition, opposition? i don't think we really know the answers to that yet, but i think that as the election results get poured over and they look at how decimated they were in the suburbs and the weakness that was apparent throughout the country in rural areas and

in republican strongholds, they may decide to adopt a different kind of strategy than we have seen. but we do not know yet. michael: thank you. frank, and then jim to bat cleanup. frank: yeah, let me respond to michael's question and then hit the shipbuilding issue. michael, i think you are fundamentally correct. we have a mismatch between strategy and resources. and i think the united states government as a whole needs to have a fundamental rethink of some of these long-standing strategies that have been in place. i do not know if congress is capable of conducting that debate. personally, i believe you will need presidential leadership, like president eisenhower used with the solarium project in the 1950's.

indeed, i believe congress approved a commission this year, the defense authorization bill, calling for a solarium-like to mission for cyber. that is what i think we are going to need. i also believe we can't do this on our own. i disagree with this administration on a lot of issues. but i think they are fundamentally correct in their assumption that we have returned to an era of great power competition. we are in competition with russia and china for the future of the international order. and therefore, that, in my view, makes our allies even more important. we have a lot of asymmetric vulnerabilities like outer space

and cyber. but one of our asymmetric advantages is our system of alliances around the world. and unfortunately, this administration has not taken advantage of that, and actually leading us into a different direction with our allies. and that needs to be fixed. with regards to your question about the shipbuilding budget, i fully agree. there's not enough resources currently in the budget to do the columbia class, plus all of these additional ships. so, priorities need to be taken. for me, being a strategic guy, the columbia submarine should be one of our top national priorities. because as jim mentioned earlier, that is the backbone of the u.s. strategic detergent. >> just for the generalist

watching, what does the columbia give us that we need so much right now? frank: the columbia submarine is the replacement class for our current ballistic missile submarines which provides us our second strike nuclear capability. it is really the backbone of our strategic nuclear force right now, and will likely be the backbone for us for the next 70 to 80 years. >> the key point is the older summaries are getting old and you cannot put submarines to sea forever. jim: i will just follow up on the columbia point. in my view the navy does not get to come to the table and say sorry, we ran out of money, so we are not going to give the nation a secure second strike capability. the navy needs to fit that bill. if not, the secretary of defense

needs to assure funding is provided. congress should start at that level of strategy. whether they are all well-versed in that at this moment is beside the point. they can ask outside witnesses , they can have commissions. that is where they should start. when they do, one of the key questions will be there is not an operational concept for success. let me be clear about something. anyone who thinks the operational concept for success with respect to russia is putting troops in moscow or for china, putting troops in beijing, is a lunatic. what is the operational concept? in my view it should be not that we want to devastate other country in a war, it is that we want to avoid a war with both countries. we need to do turn them and think about strategic stability in addition to the military capabilities we provide. that is particularly important as we think about the nuclear

balance space in cyber. it means that with our allies in each of those regions, we want to be able to frustrate their aims if they undertake aggression and/or impose unacceptable costs on them. that does not have to be an infinite bill. it requires clear prioritization and will require a massive investment in the resilience of both our space forces and i.t. infrastructure given cyber capabilities. frank: i will add one mundane point. i think we are in agreement that for structure, we need to think harder about how to grow it. we have to ask how to we get by with the current force structure or something like it. when the force is so tired, when it is working so hard. i think we will have to ask the service chiefs and commanders to

prioritize giving those people and equipment an easier but time when they can figure out a way to do it. within dod there is a culture of machismo that says always work hard and be tired. there's a time when you have to take the strain off. i would submit two specific ideas. not everyone here would agree with them. but the rotations we are making with army soldiers into poland and korea, in the latter case long-standing policy but with poland newer policy, i think we need to think about doing those with permanently stationed brigades. we do not have to think about rotating, which preoccupies multiple brigades, just up one in place. maybe you would agree with me on poland but not korea or vice versa, but i think that idea needs to be on the table. secondly, the navy does not have a carrier in the persian gulf an has not since early this year. historically, that is the sort of thing that if you would say to naval personnel but to strategists, they would have been horrified. the middle east was a mess

before we took the carrier out, and it is still a mess, but there is no big iranian aggression. i would submit that we can be more unpredictable and more flexible in how we do naval deployments. that may provide a way to get by with a slightly smaller fleet. that is just my soapbox for the final round. we have time for two or three more questions. i have not yet called on a woman but i have not seen a hand from a woman. my daughters will give me a hard time. right here. the third row. >> hi, ashley with jane's. how about for the army? they are undergoing a massive reorganization and modernization. racking and stacking their programs. what type of appetite do you think you will see from house or senate leaders as they examine these cuts, and will army leadership be held to account? like, how are these programs actually going to deter or be used operationally in combat with china or russia if it comes

to that? michael: and we had one here in the second row. and i guess the last one will be way in the back. >> i am daniel, i'm a graduate student at johns hopkins. since nuclear weapons have been brought up and since we have fought a number of wars over the last couple of decades, how relevant are nuclear weapons in this time? can there be a downgrade on the stockpile we do have, is that an area where cost can be cut? michael: and finally way to the back. >> i would love to take a crack at the question just asked. what i will resist the urge to do so. resist the earth to do so. -- the urge to do so. jim, you mentioned the nation can afford 3% to 4% of gdp. i would submit when talking about a gdp of between $21 trillion, there's a significant

difference between 3% and 4%. that is not trivial. i want to get back to the question a few others asked earlier regarding the nds's emphasis on the return of great power competition and the implication that shedding structure not relevant to those high-end fights is something that should be done. jim, you got into what some of the trade-offs might be. fewer army infantry brigades. fewer surface ships. the lcs immediately comes to mind. not as many air force squadrons. the f-16 immediately comes to mind. but how do you convince congress to make these cuts? as you know, the previous administration went to congress with proposals such as shedding the a-10, which congress roundly rejected. some of these legacy for structure has political constituencies that say technology department does not have. how do you deal with that? michael: we will go down the

panel with responses to any question and any final concluding thoughts and then will wrap up. frank, we will start with you. frank: since the end of the cold war, u.s. administrations in of both parties have sought to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in our defense strategy. unfortunately, russia, china, and others have not followed us. so, i am one of these people who believe if we can do it in a way that is consistent with our security policy, we should reduce the role of nuclear weapons. unfortunately, as i mentioned just previously, others have not. so i think we are stuck with nuclear weapons. they are not going away anytime soon. therefore, it is critical that the united states maintains a

safe, secure, and effective nuclear deterrent that can deter threats against the united states and our allies. that is key. as much as we talk about wanting to reduce and eventually eliminate nuclear weapons, that needs to be closely connected to the security environment. and if anything, the security environment has gotten worse over the last 25 years. and let me leave you with this one last point. and that's that is that when you talk about nuclear modernization, do not forget the important role that arms control has played in advancing nuclear modernization. had it not been for the new start treaty, i am not necessarily convinced we would

have been able to put the bipartisan consensus that currently exists in favor of the nuclear modernization of our delivery systems, of the doe infrastructure, and our nuclear command-and-control. and that would be a lesson that the trump administration would be wise to pay attention to. michael: thank you, frank. jim, over to you. jim: i will pile on on nukes, first. the fact that no nuclear weapons have been used in anger since 1945 is the success of our nuclear policy, not a failure of our nuclear policy. that said, i firmly agree with frank that nations should continue to see to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in our military strategy and policy in that we should aim toward a no first use or sole purpose. the obama administration made a decision not to go toward that

in 2010. it should still be an objective to reduce the role, and in my view there is still substantial room for reductions in numbers while sustaining a robust triad to deter nuclear attacks. on the question of conventional forces of all varieties, more is better. stipulated, better is more better. ok? quality is more important than quantity when you get into a strategic competition but the potential for battle, and the selection of the capabilities that are able to survive first strike, whether nuclear or nonnuclear, to havecommand and control that is resilient and can provide a punishing response to deny the aims of the adversary and/or impose unacceptable costs. that is the capability that should be the principal focus of the u.s. military and i would put those nonnuclear capabilities as a high priority. because we do not want to be in a position where we feel we need

to go nuclear to prevent aggression. we want to be able to deter aggression through nonnuclear means. that investment is doable. as i said before, it involves a lot of resources going to space and cyber resilience and it will involve a new operating concept , if you will, for how we think about conflict. that is doable and congress i believe should play a fundamental role. i am hopeful that many in the group today will help to serve that role. michael: thank you. maya? maya: the point i tried to make is our fiscal situation is at a worrisome level. it is projected, if we do nothing, we don't do anything to make it worse, we get significantly worse. one of the points that anchor this discussion is the spending levels we are talking about in defense for next year, whether it is $700 billion or $733

billion, those numbers are ignoring the facts that we have spending caps that will be in place next year. we increase spending for two years on the fence. our spending levels next year are going back to $576 billion for defense. hearing talk we have about budget is the president has asked for a 5% cut. that 5% cut follows on a 14% increase that just happened that was not paid for. so the point i would make is that we want to get out of the habit of making this worse, we are going to have to find a way to offset the difference between where that cap is and the $700 billion and the $733 billion. that difference, again, is as large as the overall tax cuts, which in myssed, mind was one of the most fiscally reckless things we have seen. if we are about to double down on that by increasing spending caps, we need to recognize how

much we are unwilling to face up to the budget. i do not know the right number is $576 billion, my guess is it is not. i don't know. i know we have to pair it with our willingness to offset the minimum,h is just the not digging the hole we are in any deeper. michael: that 576 number in the budget control act, we gave ourselves a reprieve for the current fiscal year and the last one. but that reprieve will expire. which means the budget we are talking about the president will submit to congress in february for 2020, would have to be reduced within the confines of the budget control act unless there is a new get out of jail free card liz laois and -- legislation passed. that 576 would be without the contingency costs. when you add $70 billion for contingencies, we are talking about roughly $650 billion. maya: that's right.

the first two times we tried to offset them. this last time we did not try to at all. the question is when we let these caps, how much did it come from the budget. which was the original intent of caps. elaine: i think it bears discussing that as we listen to all of the discussion here, we need smarter processes. right? we need to be smarter about what we are spending, etc. so i would posit to you the following history. congress has been dumbing itself down. congress is not getting smarter because what they have done in the last couple decades is twofold. first of all, there's been a shift in their spending from committee staff to staff at home. and so they have moved their staff out to their districts. you can see this, there is a lot

of data on this. the second thing they have done is they have -- in an effort which is kind of amusing, because the total cost of congressional support is like, a quarter of a drop in the bucket of the money we're spending here. but between crs and cbo and all the support agencies that help congress analyze the questions we've been talking about, they have been reducing staff. now, senator mike lee from utah has been very, very good on this topic, but his colleagues need to listen to them. congress needs help. ok? all of the things that the smart people in the audience and the experts have been talking about, first of all, this is going to be brand-new stuff to the new members of congress, of which there are many, and secondly, congress has been cheating itself at making itself unable to make the kinds of hard choices we are talking about here.

so the best thing that might happen here is not $716 billion, $733 billion, the smartest thing that might happen here is $100 million for getting congress the kind of intellectual help and expertise that it has not had for many years now. and i think you see that in some of the ways that congress is basically taking these issues and pushing them to the side. michael: happy thanksgiving to all of you and your families and the families of the military around the world. i am sure you will want to join me in thanking them and thanking the panel as well. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2018] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy.

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