announcer: c-span's washington journal, our live forum involving you to discuss the latest issues in government, politics, and public policy, from washington and across the country. coming up thursday morning al

weaver covers the newly elected u.s. senators in the upcoming cedar -- capitol hill reporter julie grace abruptly provides an update on the latest house race contests and the battle for control of the house. c-span's "washington journal." join in the conversation live at 7:00 eastern thursday morning on c-span, c-span now, or online at c-span.org. announcer: on thursday, jerome powell holds a news conference to talk about interest rates and monetary policy actions. that will be live at 2:30 p.m. eastern c-span, c-span now our free mobile video app, and online at c-span.org. announcer: discover the heartbeat of democracy with c-span voices 2024 as we engage voters ahead of election day asking what are your thoughts on

this election cycle. >> i'm excited about it. i love seeing the passion come out of americans and their true love for this country. it is one of the most passionate things that people all over the world hear, respect and feel. >> i would say it is going to be a game changer for the united states for sure. i think either way, the united states is going to change, no matter which way it goes. >> i think it's divisive and it doesn't represent our united states very well. >> i think that we are at a pivotal moment in america where we have to make a decision to speak up and speak out. this is the time to do it. >> i feel like it is very important. i feel like our country needs a lot of healing and i hope that the people are able to come out and band together and our voices are truly heard. >> i think this is one of the most important election cycles i have lived through. there is so much at stake with

our economy and how we live on a day-to-day basis and all sorts of personal rights. i have never really felt an election where it seemed so close and it is so important. i hope everyone goes out and votes. announcer: c-span's voices 2024 be a part of the conversation. announcer: next, a conversation about media coverage of -- for over 40 years. it is hosted by the nonprofit military reporters and editors. >> we will start over again. you have covered 40-plus years national security. every major conflict the u.s. has been involved in. start off by just telling us which one was, in your opinion, the most difficult to cover?

>> the most what? >> the most difficult for you to cover. >> that's easy. it is a military operation that most of you probably may not have been alive for. in 1983, my first year on the job, the u.s. invaded the island of grenada. i say that again. the u.s. invaded the island of grenada. at the time it was viewed by the reagan administration as the second coming of fidel castro. there were a whole bunch of medical students who went to an offshore medical school there, and there was some concern -- not a lot of concern -- for

their safety, that they might be taken hostage. so the reagan administration put together in the course of five days, an invasion plan, and executed it. and the invasion plan did not have any provision. there was no embed, it was all done in secret. and after it started, the military threw up a cordon around the island. they came -- that lasted for, i think five days, which was also as long as the fighting lasted.

there were no reporters on the ground through the course of the fighting. and afterwards -- and it was a very, very screwed up operation. and really led to many of the military reforms that took place during the 1980's and 1990's. but afterwards the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff said that his biggest mistake was not coming up with a plan to embed the military. so, from then on, they did. the next major operation was panama in 1989, and the u.s. military was embedded for that. >> just to follow on that a little bit, you talked about the difficulties with getting in bed

with all those issues. how would you rank today's transparency we are seeing with the military and pentagon officials? how does that compare with some of the other stuff you have had to work around throughout your career? >> i would say transparency peaked in about 2004. as the war any rock started to go -- war in iraq started to go bad. then the embeds started getting harder and harder to come by. today, embeds are basically a thing of the past. they almost never happen anymore and when they do happen, they happen for less than a single

day, 12 hours on a ship, on a carrier, for instance. the bell curve peaked in the early 2000's. i think we are still on the downslope. >> i know we have quite a few reporters who want to ask you questions but i have a couple more before i open it up to the audience. when you left us at the pentagon, you said about three months ago something i will never forget. you said your military career has been one long lesson in the limits of military power. can you tell our audience, what were you thinking about when you wrote and spoke those words to us? >> first, i was thinking about my own experience. i graduated college just as the vietnam war was taking off. i sent off as an officer on a destroyer in the gulf of tonkin.

you would start the day operating with two aircraft carriers launching strikes against north vietnam and you would end the day off the coast of south vietnam shooting away at targets real and imagined. a mile away would be a battleship lobbing 2000 pound shells into targets real and imagined. overhead you would see the contrails of b-52s on their way to carpet bomb the border area and then a few minutes later the whole horizon would just erupt with the flashes of their bombs. he would sit there on the bridge and say there is no way anybody could stand up to that, but of course they did here in my mind you fast-forward to 1991, the first gulf war in which the u.s. scored as clear-cut a victory as

we will ever score. it was just really between stealth fighters and precision guided weapons and armored tank columns rolling across the desert, it was about as perfect as a military operation can get it it succeeded in its objective which was to evict the iraqi army from kuwait. and president george h.w. bush said we kicked the vietnam syndrome at last. you could argue that that war and the presence of 500,000

american troops in saudi arabia is what set osama bin laden off. and of course 9/11 is what set george w. bush off and let us into iraq and afghanistan. if you compare 1991, when the soviet union had just collapsed and we had scored this amazing military triumph, u.s. was number one and there was no number two or even number three. look where we are today. i think you can give the military credit for having no further attacks on the homeland, but what we have today is certainly not a pox americana. >> i want to shift a little bit because we cover the wars but we also cover the people. you and your producer mary walsh have produced, without question in my opinion, the most poignant reporting on medal of honor

recipients. some of these reports played a role in my wanting to cover the military beat. i'm thinking of dakota meyer. these are moments where they are talking about often cases the worst day of their life. a lot of people didn't make it back. how do you prepare for an interview like that? >> well, what you have to do is not let yourself get blown away by the bravery of the person. because the bravery is usually asked an insane level. that is really just them responding without thinking to what they have been trained to do. and they just happened to be put into that situation and their training kicked in.

it is admirable as hell. but you have to keep telling yourself that behind every medal of honor, there is a screwup. because those guys only ended up in that position where it took extraordinary courage because of some screwup. one of the first stories i did on a medal of honor out of afghanistan, these guys had been sent out on a foot patrol as opposed to being helicoptered in, because the helicopters had suddenly been needed for an operation somewhere else in the theater. and in the course of hiking into their objective, they got

ambushed in a firefight -- and a firefight ensued. a bunch of them got killed. i think this was a posthumous medeal, one guy had charged the enemy. when i put that fact in that there had been no helos available into the story, the commander of that unit was furious with me. because i was attributing the bravery in part to what had gone wrong. but that's the fact of these operations. you need to take that into account whenever you are doing any of those stories. and it does not diminish the bravery of what they did. it just puts it in better

perspective. >> i think you actually did have the military come out and talk about helicopters not arriving. there were reprimands put out. since there are reporters here, how do you go about getting the military to talk about their mistakes like you do? >> well, one is just having a track record. after you have covered the place , being on television, you cannot hide your track record. you are who you are. you develop a reputation that is either good, bad, or indifferent. the one rule i always abided by was, never to do a false flag

operation. never say hey, i want to go someplace to do that story when i really wanted to go there to do that other story. because i think once you lose your credibility from being a straight shooter, you are to lose your access. so, my fundamental principle was just to be upfront with what i intended to do. i just found it worked. they can usually figure it out. it is not like you are telling them anything they don't know. but it really just helps establish your credibility. >> i have a few more questions that i would like to give the audience an opportunity to ask some questions for david.

does anybody have any questions for him? we will bring you a microphone. >> thanks for joining us today. with the benefit of some time away, at least every day, what looks different to your eyes now in terms of the way the building functions, in terms of the way the press core functions? and if you were to suggest any changes, does anything come to mind? >> i am glad you asked that question. i have only really been away from the daily beat since july. but it really gives you a different perspective. because all of a sudden you are not immersed in the daily battle of scoops. you are not chasing other people's stories or you are not

trying to be first. and you start to see more clearly how the administration in general, and the pentagon in particular, are really pretty good at controlling the narrative. a long time ago during the clinton administration, the white house press secretary was a guy named mike mcclary. he said his job was to tell the truth, slowly. that is basically what the pentagon does. tell the truth, slowly. that allows them, one, to get their facts straight so we don't hammer them for giving us inaccurate information. it allows them to do all the congressional notifications and

ally consultations. oh yeah, it's classified. but i have found over the years that classified is really just the cover excuse. it's classified now but it will be unclassified as soon as we make our congressional notifications, or it will be unclassified as soon as the president gets to take credit for it. when you are immersed in it every day, you are just beating on them to give it up. but when you watch it from afar, you see they are giving it up. they are just giving it up as much as they can on their own timetable. it allows them to control the narrative. the purpose of controlling the narrative is to maintain public

support for whatever your policies are. so, big counteroffensive in ukraine is a bust. ok, we are still making slow but steady progress. and that will remain the talking point. if we cut off aid to ukraine in a new administration, i'd bet you the talking point will then become how corrupt the ukraine government is, and how much it wastes our money. there is a talking point for every policy, and that is how it got to become a policy. and they do, in my estimation, too good a job, or we don't do good enough a job of taking that narrative away from them. and that was happening while i was there. i am not monday morning quarterbacking since i left. >> thank you for doing this.

you came up in an era where conflict journalism -- first of all, it was three networks, there was a format, there was kind of a style, a tone to that kind of reporting. yes, the personality, the correspondent was on camera often in these settings. but wasn't the conduit for the information -- but was the conduit for the information. wasn't the story, wasn't look at me in this setting. with the growth of other media outlets and formats and styles of reporting, there has been an increase of the correspondent as the story, as the center of attention in a lot of the reporting. i am not going to name any

names, but we have all seen it and we have all seen that kind of journalism. i am curious what your thoughts and reflections are having seen that coming through the conflict of conflict journalism is about keeping the focus on the conflict, the humans can't and it, not in the correspondent. yet today there is so much correspondent-centric journalism in these places. >> is kind of like tom brady doing play-by-play. the story is not the game but tom brady doing the play-by-play. and he is good or bad depending on your point of view. in fairness, when i started, the name of the game is for you to establish yourself as somebody that will make people tune in cbs.

that guy mark is on cbs, we have to tune in to see what he has. i never saw any evidence that ever happened, in my case. but the one clear case in the 1980's during the reagan administration was sam donaldson at the white house who is famously combative and he was the one who began the practice of shouting the questions at the president as he walked away. and people did decide to watch abc because sam donaldson was covering the white house. i guess the first time i sort of noticed celebrity journalism was the first gulf war. there was a guy for cnn, his

first name was kent, i cannot member his last name, but he became known as the stud. arthur kent. he was a good-looking guy. and he happened to be on air when a skud attack came in, and the patriots launched right next to him. he did that, and he became an instant sensation. you fast forward to the second gulf war and oliver north and geraldo rivera were as much of the story as what was happening. what can i tell you? the battle for eyeballs is so intense and it only gets more

intense as the media landscape gets divided that you will go for every advantage you can. was the second gulf war covered any worse than the first gulf war? i don't think so. at the end of the day there are so many stories out there that it just kind of evens out. in one or two people become hopeful as a result of it. on my watch, the first gulf war, wolf blitzer became a household word overnight. but look at what he has done since. he obviously was somebody -- i

should say he has earned his status as a household name. >> i want to bring it back to the story is real quick. just talking about the people reminding me of all the places you have been, all the places you have reported from. you have been on a navy submarine carrying nuclear weapons. when you look back at the stories -- not the ones you are preparing to do, but when you look back at over the 40 years of all the stories you have covered, which one or two would you point to as the most consequential? >> consequential to me? >> i was thinking just consequential in getting action from the u.s. government or the military. but i'm curious to see what is consequential to you too, since you brought it up. >> first, whenever you go

someplace, it is always different than you thought it was going to be. our member the first time i went to haiti, i thought that would be the scariest place on earth. and it wasn't at all. people were very friendly and you would wake up in the morning and, yeah, they would be a few bodies in the streets, but it was basically a warm and friendly place. those people just did not deserve what was happening to them. i think that is still the case. the story i did that had the most immediate consequences was after -- i did not go anyplace, i was in the pentagon. it was after iraq had invaded kuwait.

and the big question was whether the u.s. was going to do anything about it. come to the defense of saudi arabia. secretary of defense dick cheney had gone to saudi arabia to meet with the royal family and he was on his way back and everybody wanted to know, well, what happened? i found out what happened, and i found out that they were going to send troops, and in fact by the time i found out they were already sending troops. they were en route. the last person that confirmed

that for me said to me, but please don't report into they get there. we've all heard that before. we had this great military consultant. military consultants today, it has become a cottage industry. i didn't even know we had a military consultant until that day. his name was george, he was just bigoted arlington this monday. -- just buried at arlington this monday. he was a former satcom commander. i told my bosses, yeah, we had this story, we got it confirmed, but they are asking us not to go with it. we asked george, is it safe to go with this? and what we were saying was the 82nd airborne and a squadron of f-15s. of course that was just the beginning of a very big military buildup. and george said, yeah, there's no danger in reporting that.

saddam can't do anything about it. and so we went on the air and did that. and at the time it was a world scoop. and colin powell was chairman of the joint chiefs, he went through the roof. he called george and said, what the hell are you doing? he was comfortable with his decision. the next day when george h.w. bush announced the deployment, one of the questions he was asked was, did the leak so, chris had made the perfect call for us. but he had started this cottage industry of consultants, and now consultants are just influencers. they are used by the pentagon as influencers. i remember in the early stages

of the invasion of iraq, for some reason i needed to know what the vice chairman was doing that day, and i went in to find out his schedule, and they said, he is meeting with military consultants right now. he cannot talk to. i said what do you mean, military consultants? he should be talking to me. and the head of public affairs said you guys walked right into that one. so we brought those guys down upon ourselves >>. >>anybody else -- ourselves. >> anybody else have a question? he is bringing your mic down. >> i have a question that is near and dear to me. i nearly took the buy out a couple of weeks ago and decided

not to. when you came to the end of your career, how hard it was that, and what thinking went into it, and what do you want to be remembered for, or what do you think you want to have people know about the work you did over those 40 years? mr. martin: you know, it was really hard, and if i had not been to push, i would probably still be there. but the fact is i am 81 years old. and, you know, i really sympathize with joe biden. [laughter] and so, and i was becoming alsmot -- almost functionally illiterate when it came to social media, and they had to recognize that about three years before when they sent a young

woman over there to sort of help me deal with the social media. she was in first grade on 9/11 and had her first email account when she was in the third grade. she lives in that environment, and she really did keep me afloat the last three years, but you just -- you need to go. you lose your hunger. you really do. you have seen it all before. you have heard that story. you have checked that out before , and you know what is going to happen. one of the first questions that always gets as when somebody is killed is what is the name? so after 40 years, i have become totally comfortable with abiding by the 24 hour period of waiting for release of names, but it is not written in that law anywhere.

it is just custom. after a while maybe you have adopted too many of the customs, and you are just not as adversarial as you should be. as for legacy, i did an interview with bob woodward about his new book. in the last question -- he is my age, so i asked him are you going to write another book, and he gave me a non-answer, and then i said are you worried that another book you might jeopardize your legacy, and he had a great answer which i'm going to guess from now on. he said, you know, in this business you do not worry about your legacy. you just realize that being a

reporter is the best job in the world. >> i would like to say that one of the legacies stories i think that you have done and married together with the 60 minutes piece you did on the cold war were you got into strategic command, and since i have you here, how on earth did you get camera access into stratcom? talk to us a little about how you gained their trust and what that process was like. mr. martin: so that they used to do -- i remember when i first started covering the pentagon for newsweek back in 1979. one of the first places they took me was in that command center just to show me the big map, but obviously that was without cameras.

you know, there is always something in it for them. they are not doing this out of the goodness of their hearts, and what was in it for them was -- this was 2015. this is when they were starting to get serious about this new $1 trillion nuclear buildup, so they started trying to bring attention to the fact that there is still were all these missiles pointed at the united states and our systems were getting older and older. and so it was not hard to get access. the hard part was to get the commander of stratcom, who was about as low-key as a commander of that rank can be to do a good

interview, because he was our main interview. and they talk in such jargon, extended deterrence, mutually assured destruction and all of that stuff, and if you have not been steeped in that for half of your life, you do not know what the hell they are talking about. and i remember meeting with him before i went out there. he was in town for congressional testimony, and i took a transcript of his congressional testimony, and i highlighted every single piece of jargon that he used, and i said if you use that in the interview you were just wasting your breath, because it does not mean anything to people. and, you know, by the time i got out there, she was really surprised -- he was really

surprised to learn that, that people do not know what extended deterrence means. so by the time i got out there with the camera he really had spiffed up his act to make it a more accessible to viewers. and i have now sort of adopted that anytime i go anyplace is try to talk to them ahead of time about putting this damn thing into english, and the first time you hear an acronym you just stop. we are going to start over. some guys cannot help themselves. >> we have just a few more minutes. i will take a couple more questions. >> i am michael. i want you to ask a similar question to sean, which is over the course of your career combined with the changing media

landscape, do you think differently if at all about the question of objectivity in journalism? remaining objective in your reporting. that is something at least from my perspective, younger reporters -- it is a lot different than it used to be, and i was wondering your thoughts on that? mr. martin: you know, i never change my opinion on objectivity. objectivity does not prohibit you from having a point of view. you know. i mean, i will admit it. when the u.s. military is involved in a war, i want the u.s. military to win. i am not going to say that on television, but i'm going to say that i will be reporting from a point of view that if the u.s.

military takes an objective without any losses, that is a good thing. and i am going to report from the point of view that if they take an objective with prohibitive losses, that is a bad thing. and that will be exactly opposite of what reporters in other countries might do. and i think one of the biggest changes has happened in the press corps in the last 40 years. first, the biggest change is women. there was one woman on the beat when i started in 1983. now on any given day there are more women than men in the pentagon briefing room, and that is a good thing, because basically what has happened is now the recruiting pool has

doubled. you are just going to get a better press corps. and the other thing that has happened is there are so many foreign news organizations that have assigned people to cover the pentagon on a daily basis, so now when you go into the briefing room come the most interesting part of any pentagon briefing is not what the briefer says. it is the questions. the questions from al jazeera. and it really helps you realize that there is another point of view on this stuff.

and you do get caught up in wanting your side to win, but you can be objective about that and you can report screw ups. you report screw ups so they did not happen again, right? but you have this overall point of view that you do not want the united states to lose, and that means you were going to be considerate of classified information. i think we are altogether too considerate of classified information, because as i said earlier i cannot think of a story i tell that would have made a difference if i had to gone with it, but you just feel better not having something go wrong that you might possibly a better responsible for. i don't -- i mean, you tell me. is the mainstream media less objective than it was 20 years ago, or is it all of the other media? the cables definitely have their political points of view, but was barbara starr, she was

objective, right? at the same time, from 7:00 until 11:00 every night they were bashing trump day in and day out. she was totally objective. the two can exist in the universe at the same time, and if you are looking for advice on which to be, i would advise you to be objective. >> let's take one more. any questions? well, good, i can take one more then. i do not want to put you on the spot, but when i started working at the pentagon, i had to been there for a few months, and i was overwhelmed, and i came to david's door, and i asked him. how long does it take you to know this to beat, to know where

everybody is, you know who to go to outside of the pentagon? do not want to put you on the spot, but do you remember what you told me? mr. martin: no. >> straightfaced, he looked at me and said three years. i had been there about three months. i said i am never going to survive year. what advice would you give for new reporters in the room or watching this about how to maintain relationships, a, so that people keep you on their radar when they need to get information out or you need to go for them information when you are covering such a large beat as the military beat? mr. martin: i had an advantage, because i spent three years in the navy. that did not mean i knew anybody in the pentagon when i showed up in 1983.

that was 12 or 13 years after i left the navy, but i knew those guys, and they were guys then. they were just people like me. they were wearing uniforms. i was wearing a suit, and that was it. so it was very easy to relate to them. i find people who come over to the pentagon and fail fail for two reasons. one is they viewed the military as an alien species. and you are just never going to develop a good relationship with an alien. you have got to see past the uniforms and see that they are people just like you. and then the other is not to let the acronyms and the jargon slow

you. the person i saw who landed fastest in the pentagon was katie couric. she was already slated to be the star of the today show, but they were just trying to run her through some washington beats to give her more gravitas before they made her the star of that show. and from day one she just knew what to do. to go around and talk to people and ask questions, and if they told you something that you did not understand because it was too embedded in jargon and acronyms, just say, hey, what

are you saying? tell me again. and she was quite a lot to compete against. it did not hurt that she was so attractive and vivacious. i would literally come into my office in the morning, and my booth was right next to hers. and i would have to push my way through the crowd of people at her door, officers waiting to see her and tell her something to get her interested in her

story, so, you know, not everybody has katie couric's charisma, but everybody can go in and sort of just treat it you would treat any other beat, a police beat or any other beat in washington is just get other people, and to respect them, and treat them as you would anybody else you were trying to get information from. and, you know, some people -- i could never hit it off with fbi

agents. i was not very good at covering the fbi, but maybe because i had three years in the military i could talk with the people in uniform without any difficulty. that just gave me a head start. over time everyone can learn that skill. >> david, you are having such an inspirational career. inc. you so much for your time. it is such an honor to facilitate the conversation with members of the military editors and reporters. if you have any closing things you want to say -- we are actually over, but do you have any final thoughts on what reporters need to do to try to bring that parents terry -- that transparency back that you said peaked? mr. martin: whatever you can to

take back control of the narrative. when i started, cbs was known as the communist broadcasting system, and we were being overtly threatened for prosecution for revealing classified information, and the military was in a total fetal position. they had just come from vietnam, and they did not want to have anything to do with you. public affairs was just a buffer, a shield to keep the press away, and along came the first gulf war, and the military realized, one, that it had a duty to give the press access, but two, it realized giving the press access actually made it easier for them to tell their story. and ever since that has been the mo, is to take control of the narrative, and we too often, and i blame myself specifically, go along with the narrative. and the most glaring example is saddam hussein and weapons of mass destruction. and we, you know, we said it is a circumstantial case, but we never challenge that narrative

in a convincing enough way that it slowed the war, and look what it got us. and we never convincingly challenged the narrative that we are making slow and steady progress in afghanistan. how can you buy into that for 20 years? we did. we let them get away with it, and when i see we, i do mean myself included, so i obviously do not have a solution, but it is just not a good thing for our country when the government has total control of the narrative, because our country does things that are wrong.

it is not because they are mendacious. it is just because it is a complicated world, and you make better decisions, and then of course you give all of the reasons why it was not such a bad decision. so when these things fail, then we all come down from the hills and shoot the wounded and very intelligence failures and shoot the culprits. these failures are on us too, and we are in this daily little battle for scopps -- scoops, but there is this larger battle going on over control of the narrative, and we have to do not just for our sake, but for the sake of the country, a better job of contesting that narrative. >> thank you, definitely food for thought, self reflec. on everyone here, it has been an

honor. announcer: on thursday federal reserve chairman jerome powell holds a news conference to talk about interestates and monetary policy action. that will be lit at 2:30 p.m. on c-span, c-span now, and online at c-span.org. ♪ announcer: listening to programs on c-span through c-span radio is easy. tell your smart speaker play c-span radio and listen to "washington journal," important public affairs events, and we schedule washington today. just tell your smart speaker play c-span radio. c-span, powered by cable. ♪ announcer: attention middle and high school students across america. it is time to make your voice heard. studentcam documentary contest

2025 is here. this is your chance to create a documentary that can inspire change, raise awareness, and make an impact. answer this question, your message to the president -- what is most important to you? whether you are passionate about politics, the environment, or community stories. c-span is your platform to share your message with the world with $100,000 in prizes including a grand prize of $5,000. this is your opportunity to not onlyan impact, but also be rewarded for your creativity and hard work. scan the code or visit studentcam.org for all of the details on how to enter. the deadline is january 20, 2025. announcer: a look at strengthening the defense industrial base among the u.s. and its allies. this discussion focused on defense cooperation, navy

building ship program is -- programs. this is about two hours. >> good morning, and welcome to the hudson institute. i am tim walton, senior fellow at hutchinson for defense concept in technology, and i am delighted all of you have made the time to join us for what you to be i think an a limiting conversation with some illustrious leaders in the field. i will start up with michael, a deputy assistant secretary of the army for exports and corporation. a distinguished career in army aviation and served as an acquisition civilian in education, but also army space and missile goals -- roles.

our next is rob smith, who served as innovation officer and helped stand up nato's defense innovation coordination and the innovation fund in his role as nato's first and inaugural head of innovation. lastly, we have mr. mike smith. served in various roles in you and -- in uad systems. he helped establish a joint venture in india. he is now the defense usa president and ceo. in terms of our plan the day i plan on picking up the conversation with a few questions for our panelists end opened it up to questions and

comments all of you may have. my first question has to do for each of you, on the topic of the unique contribution allies can bring. most of the conversation today is focused on what can allies bring in terms of defense and industrial capacity? driven by the war in ukraine and possible conflict in china, we are looking to allies contributions to either accelerate defense capacity here or across the broader defense industrial space. but i think it is feared to say allies have unique perspectives, either their geographic situation, security circumstances, technology bases can differ. i went to ask each of you would have some of your observations been regarding promising areas at each light has come up with regardless of their own

circumstances? >> certainly went we have seen here recently is just an unprecedented demand, and it is really driven by ukraine on innovation, on the sharing of technology, and just international agreements in general. it has been one of those things that we have had to adapt to, but the real benefit we have is we have more folks, were partners and allies with shared values that are contributing to our ability to take our weapon systems forward, to build a resilient supply chains, to go distribute at production facilities, so all of that are things that are beneficial. >> thank you, michael. >> let me pick up on that and take it a bit further. when we think about allies, and i am putting my old head on now having spent 10 years on that

nato secretary-general staff, there is very much a political element when you think about armaments, so perhaps while the logical approach is to have areas of specialization among countries, try to make things as efficient as one might wish to see, the politics of that makes that incredibly difficult and incredibly hard to of notions of sovereignty and the nationstate, how we operate as a country. i think how allies bring something that contributes to this, i think actually we have to recognize it is really unlikely to have some superefficient model where nations are all contributing their part to some beautiful picture. that is not likely to occur, so i think rather than look for efficiency, what we should be

looking for is effectiveness. does that mean it will be the most efficient way of doing it? it is certainly not. it is going to be sticky and difficult and fraught with some of the political elements that we heard on our last panel. but the other point i am trying to make in terms of specific capabilities is allies writ large have recognized that the cost of conflict is such that we perhaps collectively forgotten over the last 25 years or so, and one example of that is artillery shells. the cost of the 155 artillery shell and before the russian invasion of ukraine, approximate $2000 roughly. today, it's near to around $8000. so the point being that inflation associated to armaments when they are in quite

a challenge and supply level, supply days the same broadly thinking but does one thing, price up. what can allies bring is not just parliament the production of traditional things how he thought about this. i think there's entire world where we start to bring in capital markets, of the thinks come areas we haven't really considered at a proper detailed level in the context of defense and defense production. allied nations have a fast wealth of experience there, pun intended, which could really be brought today. >> a follow up on that but mike first over deeply. >> first of all good morning and thank you for having me. i think michael and rob are onto something but it also think we're all suffering from a field of creativity. let me be very simple. i think we have to demolish and explode what it means to be part of the use defense industrial base.

it doesn't need to be in conus in the continental united states. when we would think about we need to expand that did the westward where the threat is. we will not be able to shrink or vaporize the pacific ocean but we can diminish its influence on our ability to wage war to protect national security far to the west. what i mean is we talked about the rsf and that's great, an important part of all this. we need a people to work with partners to maintain, repair, overhaul forward. we didn't army pre-position stock. >> we done things like that, reposition the gear were going to need we also need to create production capacity. one thing we've done at hanwha is built of factories that produce for word and we're look finding ways to help the army produce in australia the things that it will need when it's time

to face china head on. so i think we need to kind of re-create and rebuild capacity. it's great we have incentives to get shipyard. i was chief operating officer so i know shipbuilding is great to have incentives to build commercial and naval in the single yard, but we don't to build the ships were trying to build no. we have to virtually create geographically dispersed capacity overseas. as we are thinking about it we need to think about doing it where we're going to need it which is in the pacific rim. that's my thought when you think about allies can contribute to the industrial base within the u.s. and national security. >> thank you. michael, continue with you if i could, the character of cooperation simply changing. it's accelerating picky spoke a little bit about that. can you expand on how else it may be changing. is it still the u.s. trying to

help of allies atop some its own concepts and capabilities or is going to be some nascent bilateral multilateral cooperation innovation? >> that's a great question. so yeah, in the past was really about us helping other nations. what we really found is other nations are catching up on oe on par with us, right? so our recent aukus agreement, that is an agreement overarching agreement between australia, uk and the u.s., where all of us are mutually benefiting from that agreement as we pushed different types of science and technology. we look at things like distributed production, facilities as well on a bilateral standpoint with some of our allies. so yeah, the nature of the has changed. and the ability, again, i'm not just look at production. we're looking more at

coproduction and less co-a co-a simile. that is the other thing we have done previously where we're all using the exact same supply chain we are assembling in different countries. we've advanced past that to actually being able to produce and the second sources. >> there's always been agreement codevelop as rob was making sometimes it's difficult to narrow down your performance parameters requirements to the things that make sense for broad range of countries. is there interest in trying to find government reference architecture, other approaches by which we can facilitate that innovation is not just coproduction? >> there is, and i think they highlight it very well, module open system market architectures one a what if we agree on what the standard is we open up competition worldwide. so it's not just in the u.s.

it's also open to foreign companies as well. it's mutual beneficial to all of our international base. >> obviously rob you had some thoughts on the can maybe expand on your thoughts about specialization and had to be top of it as opposed to getting to scale? >> the point i think about this is kind of three mounts to try and climb. one is that you i've never worked anywhere ever weathered enough money, it's good, we got enough money, thanks. sink in my household as well, to my kids. always we did money come to figure that out. creative ways and that's my point how we think about that. the second bit, , we've all seen this, is the challenges of contracting, acquisition. if all the money from the sky drops tomorrow on the desk of folks in the pentagon or ministry of defense, could be spent? could he get out the door such

he could be used? maybe. the third bit is production. how do we reimagine production? i wholeheartedly agree with you, mike, the notion of pushing production far forward as possible. and not only does that make sense in terms of how you start to build resilience in your production line, strategic level, concentrate in one nation, for example, take. but also i think coming back to the notion of creativity and comes back to you like about open architecture we've got to be more creative have think about production. there are amazing copies in the united states who are probably the world's best manufacturing company. sort out any automated industry and the way they think about production is like nothing else. i appreciate yes their building cars and to put in for for ly and aston martin and mercedes

and so forth. it's not shipbuilding and i get that. however, the notion of putting production to the having seven, eight lined stitch together and to be able to print your own ammunition into component preps vehicles or whatever else it might be, that absolutely is part of this discussion as to how we start to reimagine production and the reason why that's important because it comes back to cost and the cost curve down. suddenly the marginal cost of production becomes incredibly cheap and fast. i think there is the political element to this with the course to on showing, where the production takes place at how the cooperation with statements and so on and so forth but equally there's an entire world of technological innovation here which really needs to be tapped into and i see that being, that suddenly part of open architecture results were to build on that, rob, sob

incorporated desha focus on kind of his codevelopment between operational concepts, technology and develop a new approach to fighting as opposed to maybe just accelerating the current approach. can you expand a lament about how you're trying to drive that innovation and how are you trying to avoid this just in more or less the marketing sector? many of the so-called innovation centers will be set up in other countries are marketing elements to bring industry and government really don't innovate but it sounds like you're pushing towards a different vision. >> i'm going to quote the late great peter drucker who felt the only thing in business that was worthwhile was innovation and marketing and everything else was cost. so i'm kind of cool with marketing. the point being though, down to san diego essentially it's pretty straightforward. i may for me british army ot getting the latest intossion the hands of operas as quick as possible.

it's no more complicated than this. what we try to do is put into cells in cynical very close to various parts of the u.s. navy, u.s. marine corps, navy seals, et cetera and will start to codevelop and work with that community and try to accelerate pace with technology. it's a cultural thing. this is a people business. business trying to build trust between the different entities. we don't see it as a sop special sourcing. this is our contribution. it's a community effort across national security and defense to try to build the level needed. it's really time to get as close in this case to the operator as possible and bring in amazing minds that are in california, not necessarily with traditionally worked in the defense sector but we have brought and doing things perhaps which has never been seen before. >> mike, i want to turn to bear i was doing amazing work -- hanwha is doing amazing work around the world.

working ships and aircraft and it seems like it's generating value across the portfolio of capabilities both in terms of developing effective systems but also quick delivery timelines which is i think increasingly of interest to countries driven by the wharton ukraine or prospects a conflict with china. as you look at the portfolio how are you trying to ensure that hanwha in the united states can't innovate with the u.s. military and have cut i think approaches by which hanwha in korea and hanwha here is a trend can adapt which are working on globally to the unique circumstances are? >> i don't want this to be a commercial for hanwha but this is a good example of how things can get done. with a k-9 thunder the ambassador mentioned this morning, it's a self-propelled track howitzer or . it's been sold to 11 different nations that each nation has a

slightly different set of needs so in harmonizing requirements, difficult to do in the trended. we have done a buyers club where we bring customers together to look okay how can i prove the sets of any certain way for certain type of threat environment? sharing that information, back calling that back to korea and cutting it into production into the base model. for instance, i give a quick and easy one. they need for five operators in this system is kind of a standard feature of the system. however, that same need isn't the same in the u.s. it's four. how much automation, cut into the system so we can break the operator out how to three? i was at a u.s. a this entire week and one of the big focus areas is survivability. if you take the soldier out of the system itself, that's the ultimate in survivability. we don't want to necessarily

take the thinking creativity from the soldier from the system we do want to minimize kind of the workload that a soldier has to undertake to be effective in terms of achieving a mission. so i think developing adaptive systems using model-based systems, engineering and design capabilities doing it, how do you build it into the systems that when you ship it and export to the next customer they have the sovereign capability to upgrade, modify and sustained through life that system. and being able to bring those different customers together help optimize what the system looks like for the next customer, which will be the u.s. army, if i have my way with it. that's why we're doing. it's codevelopment. it's cooperative development, kind of in sink so we can create

better systems that meet the needs of our entire customer base, future prospective customers. could you expand more on this user group approach? one approach would be use group with only one country, you're soliciting feedback from the different army committees, marine corps but also use groups across country and you get to argue but has a different opinion. >> they do. the next one will be in finland. the danger of getting all your customers together and even invited prospects we are letting them behind the curtain. here's what's wrong come here's what's not working right, what might be right for finland might not be right for estonia pics of those are some of the challenges were working on. we had a subset subgroup which with six nato countries are buying the system. there's some needs in terms of interoperability that they're looking for that perhaps other customers are not. this gives the fourth in a technical forum and operators

forum to be able to modify the system and really have their say in terms of what the future technical, technology roadmap looks like. it also emphasizes or helps us from an engineering perspective design in a degree of flexibility that we may not have had at the outset. so there are discussions amongst engineers from different nations come from operators from army's how they want to use the system, how it may not be meeting the needs and we can take that information back to our designers so we can iterate and bring a set of features and capabilities that they may not purchase in the initial buy, but now would meet the needs of what they have to do as the threat environment evolves and as their missions change. >> michael, to build off of that, as different countries have use groups, consultations, engagements they will come up

with ideas regarding concepts that work for capability and technologies that are promising. in many cases those could be controlled, have different types of controls include export control, controls on them. how is the army thinking through trying to facilitate corporate level sharing of that information and make it a more interactive environment? you mention aukus before. has been any lessons that are applicable or sort of another approach we should take? >> yeah, so exports planning and export design needs to happen earlier in the process, right? for all the right reasons. we are trying to protect our cutting edge technologies, right? but we also want to share at the same time to our mutual benefits, right? so aukus helps because among like-minded nations we are able to actually bring in change law

that allows us to streamline such things and share more information, more freely. extending that, that type of approach is probably something that would be needed for the indo-pacific area, especially given the threat that are out there. but that's, yes, that is really, that has really been a good mechanism for us to be able to share. just knowing that that is very highest level of our government, so filtering all of that down over decades of how we have done export control in the past, it's had some time to take effect at the very lowest level, but we have seen some benefits. >> what's the approach to scale or extent that aukus like approach? is it more waivers process specific technology or classes of activity or different class that would facilitate a greater pace of adaptation?

i'm thinking if it's one off for promising technology that identified it might not allow the speed of innovation that mike and rob were discussing before. >> right. so it all starts with having an agreement, right? and we don't just in her into agreements as u.s. government if were not going to get something out of it, right? we need to understand what that technology is and once we've identified what that technology is then we tried to enter into agreements at that point. whether it's codevelopment, coproduction, co-sustained, whatever, whatever that benefit is to u.s. government, whatever the partner is is where we try to pursue. >> rob, did you have thought on that, mike? >> i mean, thinking about aukus, pillar one come in the past life. the pipe cleaner we selected a nuclear submarines you couldn't be more complex. we are going hardest one first.

everything else will be easy. one of the biggest challenge is not because we building 1.4 subs a year which is not where we need to be, but it's also a nuclear infrastructure and training for goes along with all this. i think some of the changes and some of the policy evolutions with made to support aukus are fantastic. but execution is going to be tremendously challenging. but if it is a fantastic direction. it's just we picked a really challenging first article on this one. >> rob, saab has a history of upgrading its platforms different ways. think about cb 90 fast assault craft. as you are engaging here in the united states and with on the allies how do you view i think the tendency towards adaptation and upgrades assistant as opposed to maybe looking ahead

to the new technology and then balance? >> it's a really key question because i think it's unrealistic to expect multiple nations to easily easily replace existing or derisive legacy hardware, just because of the time and the cost the goes with that. going back to the earlier panel, the motion actually software is way in which we start increasing and improve older not heritage hardware. that is absolutely fundamental and how we think about this. and key to that is, goes back to architecture. to make sure architectures are as open as possible. and the reason being it makes it easier to upgrade downstream. but perhaps more importantly it allows us to partner with other

companies, nontraditional, and who could do phenomenal work. an example is an airborne early warning that saab makes and is on a german euro fighter. we have worked with european defense company and they are essentially jail break in that box an increase of performed audit i went 30, 40, 50%. it's it's quite remarkable just through software. and, therefore, would you think that kind of the upgrades of the hardware and sauna so forth downstream, we have to be looking at this through a lens of how software can achieve that pic because the nationstates to be able to afford new hardware and so forth that is really tough. but also as we talked about at the beginning, just to share capacity production to enable and make it happen and do so --

et cetera, et cetera. that's hard to manage as well. these things are relatively misspoken, it's tricky. so, therefore, both architecture, parking with like-minded companies and looking for software answers, it's really fundamental how we think about about the. >> rob, focus on software. how'd you said that software she can do that? the technical element but also regulatory element so whatever you create an maybe in some ranges you can develop great software in the united states but it might be difficult exported abroad or share it and have interactive collaboration. how are you balancing that? >> that is a very real challenge that i suspect most, social security companies, trying to do technology transfer from the

mothership, in sweden in this case. it is difficult. there's no two ways about that. the way you think about it is very much first principle thing. say first of all let's make as open as possible. so when is being at the whiteboard day one, week one designing the hardware support, you have that future proofing in mind. second of all, quite dry that it is relevant come you mentioned it a couple of times this morning, standards, interoperability. they are key and critical. again going back to the previous life, previous job i was in nato, one of the roles i had was vice chair of the nato army armaments group and also nato naval armaments group. with all of these very technical steps will be written by working groups and so forth, the drive to try to politicize that was kind of high because each nation wanted to have their own spin on

the standard, which really benefited their defense industry. and sometimes, to get a a political agreement on whatever it might be you can't have a compromise. the standard could be a milewide in which case was all -- really did help us. the point being i think the community from government, from industry and so forth, we really need to be cognizant it really doesn't benefit anyone in the long-term to be so parochial when it comes to trying to dominate standards. the market is too big for that to happen. i think that's more of a cultural thing than anything else. >> i have to put him at blue and yellow swedish hat. i ran -- about three years. i have to say sweden is a phenomenal country when it comes to defense exports. they understand that their

defense spend cannot purchase enough kit to sustain a local defense industry. i think above example of cb 90. the system was designed in an open way so that it could be hot -- isil to poland, you be the provider, to be integrated. i sell de lafayette, you have your own attorney. you need integrated. the whole idea of export and need to export is designed in at the outset, which to me is genius. we don't necessarily have that same perspective here because we have a defense industry or a buyer who is buying 47% of everything in the world, take china out of the equation, look, give enough demand to assistant industry. you don't have to design that in. that's changing in the u.s. policy as will any u.s. will help facilitate that. it's been difficult forever.

hopefully i will continue to evolve. we saw a little breakthrough aukus, but you know, when you think of export and defense exports and has to go all the way back to design. not just how i'm a good repair and sustain and modernize? it goes all the way back to the inception of the system itself. i had to chime in and give a commercial. >> final question but before you open up to the four briefly, and it has to do with investment. you've done a lot of work over your years, mike, in turn the different investment deals and advising other companies and investment they could make. hanwha is parted with started in the united states, particular software startups. considering this investment in filler shipyard. what's your framework for guiding the story edited fight where it makes sense and how it makes sense for allied defense industry to cooperate?

>> there are two major levers that will be pulling in the u.s. you heard about the social security agreement with the saab and, of course, something similar. we will have one very soon. i've been here for seven weeks, give me some time. but there are two major levers. when his acquisition seek and establish your own footprint train skilled workforce, a backlog and capability locally on the ground. >> philadelphia was part of that. obviously with being the second-largest shipbuilder in korea and one of the top in the world, there are a number of processes, technology that would be cutting in and investing in in philadelphia. there was a consultant several decades ago, bringing the same types of work practices and workflows for the shipyard will help us bring that yard back to its state of national prominence

where it was back in the '40s. other companies are similar to bring certain niche capability will also be partnering with companies like that. there are companies that have tremendous software is typically come defense electronic systems, isr, sensors. those are types of companies we will look to to partner with. we have those capabilities back in korea. that doesn't help us with the u.s. content element of being able to win here in the u.s. the partnership with a few other companies are similar. also look at assured pnt, those different pieces. we will be looking two-parter and the good news is we have those capabilities back home in korea which makes, which will make us smart partners when we move forward in the u.s. so stay tuned to what we are doing on the m&a side and the

partnering side. it's going to be quite a sight. >> thank you, mike the first question here in the front row. [inaudible] >> perfect. please join me in thanking our panel and look forward to -- [applause] >> saved by the bell. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible >> jerome powell holds a news conference to talk about interest rates and monetary volleys actions, lineat 2:30 p.m. on c-span. ♪ >> attention middle and high

school students across america. it's time to make your voice heard. the studentcam documentary contest 2025 is here. this is your chance to create a documentary that can inspire change, raise awareness, and make an impact. answer this years question. your message to the president. what issue is most important to you for your community? whether you are passionate about politics, the environment, or community stories. it's your platform to share your message with the world. with $100,000 in prizes including a grand prize of $5,000. this is your opportunity to make an impact and be rewarded for your creativity and hard work. enter your submissions today. scan theode r all the details on how to en the deadline is january 20, 2025. >> coming up on c-span