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next on this week in defense news, what is next for

the united states welcome to this week in defense news. i'm vago muradian. some have labeled president obama's recent asia tour a failure but we'll talk to one analyst who says it was a strategic suck sus. plus an update on the brigade team modernization program from the top person in the effort. but first karzai told the washington post it was time to end special op reagan nationals raids that have killed or captured talibans in recent

months. his comments were criticized by leaders, including general david pet rayous. what should we expect from the administration's review of afghanistan war give us some si somein sitting is surgeon power. welcome to the show. >> thank you. >> so let's start. last week president karzai made the statement regarding u.s. and allied raids in the country. he said afghanistan is better off without this operation and afghanistans should do it. why is he making this case now when we have the taliban on the run? >> i think he makes a different case to different audiences without perhaps seeing that it's now a seamless hole and what you say to people inside afghanistan is also being heard by people heard outside of afghanistan and particularly by the allied commanders. my sense is the greater the

involvement in decision-making, the better the end result. and perhaps the model used by general mcchrystal seemed to have been working extremely well, which was regardless of the big or the small question, he would always keep president karzai informed. so that it appeared as if he was making the decisions. >> right. >> and maybe general petraeus needs to set up that kind of relationship with him. >> the administration now is relooking at the afghanistan war strategy. that process is under way. but last week admiral mullen said we are rather to see changes to the implementation. it looks the administration is changing the position on the control. what is happening now? >> i think they realized they don't have an awful lot of results to show at this point for there to be a report as such so this would probably be an internal assessment much more than a public reporting of

where things stand. and certainly not enough to decide the plan of action for next summer. so they will probably need to continue assessing the situation, making adjustments and of course taking into account what appears to be a new strategic shift, which is to move the goalpost from the summer of 2011, which put pressure on the president and the troops, and move it to 2014 as perhaps the end date. >> it's interesting, regarding that date, because the administration had been speaking with multiple mouths on what 2011 really meant. and there were those that said, well, if you're an afghan that's a problem. you've got to start hedging your bets and make sure you have a good taliban uncle to take care of you at the end of it. is this going to have a meaningful impact on the ground and give greater fuel to afghanistans who want to say the americans have our back for a little bit longer? >> i think not.

because it is a simple and clear message and the message was from the president itself, that we'll begin withdrawing our troops. now the footnotes are things people don't read and all of the explanations about what 2011 really meant and the explanation that perhaps it would be one or two soldiers but certainly not whole hi scale withdrawal. that's not been understood by the population. and more important it's not understood by countries of the region. so everybody is hedging his bets based on the fact that sooner or later, and starting next summer, the coalition will start drawing down. >> is there anything at this point the administration can do to break that mindset and convince afghans that we'll be there longer than they think we'll be there? >> i think the upcoming nato summit will offer an opportunity where all of the coalition partners will be there. if the u.s. succeeds in getting the coalition partners to agree

to stop their announced withdrawals for one and converting the fighting forces into advisors and trainers for second, i think that would be a great help and send a signal that the coalition presence is not going to be diminished. >> you had met with the atlantic counsel recently and one of the messaged delivered was criticizing the united states. he's running for president. but the issue comes up whether pakistan can do more to fight extremists within its boarders. can pakistan do more to fight extremists within its boarders? >> on president musharrive, they allowed guns to take off from pakistani airfields and so they were being slightly disingenuous when they were criticizing the united states.

but that particular position has not changed with the government of pakistan. they have not leveled with the people of pakistan about who allowed the drones to come in, while trying to take control of the drones for themselves, which is not likely to happen in the near future. now pakistan does need to do much more to fight militants inside the country but there is the bigger issue of what to do about the afghan militants that are seeking sanctuary inside of pakistan and that's a critical issue for the u.s.-pakistan relationship and that's not resolved satisfactorily. >> and when do you think it will be resolved?

president obama's recent trip to asia is getting mixed reviews from some quarters. expectations were high for a trade deal with south korea in an agreement to regulate international currencies. both failed. the trip did have a strong security component. the bright spot was when the president visited india and sealed the u.s. technology deal. also in asia were hillary clinton, bob gates and joint chiefs chairman mike mullen striking agreements with nations from australia to tonga. here to explain the importance

of the trip is bud cole, prohe isor of war and just releasing the second edition of his book, great wall of sea. bud, welcome to the show. >> so is this the trip some commentators say it was. >> well thank you for having me back, vago. no i, don't think so at all. i think this is the last six months of dedication administration efforts to emphasize the importance in east asia of the united states presence both military and economic. and i think if we look at the country the president visited, particularly india and indonesia, as well as korea and japan, we see some marked success, very much at the grand strategic level between the united states and those countries. >> what specifically do you point to that in terms of the advancing of the u.s. message? because the entire team was over there canvassing the entire region, it wasn't just the president. >> i think when we go back to june when the secretary of

state was in hanoi and emphasize u.s. interest in the south china sea. this seemed to bother beijing and i think the other administration moves in asia, which continue moves that began under the second bush administration, have continued to do that. it reflects again as sort of the strategic level the post cold war search for a new balance on the part of the united states. part of that balance is the increasingly warm relationship with india as well as the post tsunami warming relationship with indonesia. again the world's largest islamic nation. >> right. taking a look at china's -- part of this opportunity -- the united states was handed this opportunity by a new assertiveness by beijing saying that south china sea belongs to us, getting into a scuffle with singapore and then most recently territorial waters dispute with japan that kind of blew up. china has advanced its interest across the region by keeping very, very quiet and low profile. what is driving the sudden assertiveness by beijing and how does that fit into the

broader strategic priorities? >> well i certainly don't have any perfect answer for that very good question but it's a question that i think is fascinating china watchers around the country, especially here in washington. i think it may have a lot to do with domestic political situations inside china. we just had jong ping named as the successor as president. and that means he'll be chairman of the chinese communist party and also chairman of the central -- head of the military in effect as chairman of the cmc. i suspect that it's not been a smooth transition and hence there may have been a feeling on the part -- if not tao, his lieutenants civilian or military that one way to demonstrate with resolve was to take a more aggressive foreign stance. >> and it appears to have backfired because everybody in the region got concerned and is yearning for a greater american presence in the region. president obama started his trip in india and that was a

relationship that president obama's predecessor president bush started in looking at a strategic relationship. how important is india to the u.s. strategic reinvigorate add -- agenda in asia. >> it sounds trite to say it is the world's largest democracy, but it is. if we look at china to pose a alternate system of economic development, it's important to the united states as a democracy, as the world's leading democracy, to make sure that india succeeds. it's also important for india to maintain a close relationship with the united states in the face of economic and military modernization. >> but how do you solve the fundamental issue of reticence on the part of the india for anything calling the strategic alliance with new delhi being suspicious of ties with pakistan? >> i don't think that is something we solve but it is something we recognize, which i believe the administration does, and we seize upon the concerns of washington and new

delhi and proceed together to try to resolve them. >> are we likely to see u.s. troops going back to country where they used to be based, whether in indonesia or thailand -- excuse me, vietnam, thailand or philippines? >> well we still do have troops operating in the philippines and helping the philippine government put down somein surgence in the south --in surgence in the southern part of the country. i don't think we'll see based in those countries. i think we'll see establishments similar to singapore, where they have welcomed the military presence, i think we'll see a renewed american military presence even if it's simply in the form of port visits and training missions to certainly the philippines and indonesia and i expect even vietnam. >> and in the 30 or so seconds we have left, what is the difference between your original book and this one? >> well thank you. most people focus on new ships and submarines, and while those

are important, i think the most important steps in modernization that have been taken in the last decade have more to do with software and training and personnel and exercising that it does with hardware per se. >> bud, thanks very much. we love having you on the

born under the army's now defunct combat system, the program aims to equip soldiers with powerful communications, sensors, new ground vehicles an unmanned aircraft. i recently men with the deputy director and asked him about the difference between the programs individual increments and what lies ahead. >> so what we're talking about here is a divestiture of the future combat system and some

of the capabilities and how do i not have that as a complete brigade but how do i incrementally get to field those to the unit. so an incremental process is a dedication for a certain period of time. and so in increment one, what are we doing for the two-year time period. and element two is the power of the house but is not ready technology or maturity wise so in the next two years increment of fielding. so increment one in our particular case is how do we get the basic architecture of the network, that's its foundation of what we're trying to get out there, and we're used to it in our cell phones. we just open the cell phone and it connects. well when you're in a combat situation, you don't have cell towers. your vehicle is moving. so each of the vehicles in essence becomes a cell tower to allow that porting of information both up and down and sideways so that you have a general understanding of what

is going on around you and as a result, you can make tactical and strategic decisions necessary to whatever -- fight the enemy, meet the mission or whatever it is you are doing. so increment one is the basic architecture for the network and then bringing in a number of sensors which collect the data to help go through the network to give you the picture. so it's a small unmanned ground vehicle, a small robot which allows you to go into buildings, go up to an ied or a vehicle without putting a soldier in harm's way. >> better versions of the stuff you have out there. >> it's an upgraded i-robot that is network so the picture and the information it takes goes through that network and then is distributed across to the commanders and other people. >> what is the increment two capability? >> so increment 2 capability is the smaller ground manned vehicle, technology does not allow us to get to the definition at night to identify a individual face and the

person at the distance we want to. so as technology continues development, increment two is bringing in a new sensor head which allows you to have the capability at night which they currently don't have because it doesn't exist in the market. >> what are the biggest technologies in greatest demand from the field. >> clearly the biggest need is a networking capability. in other words how do i get that information? what is that mechanism, we call it a transport layer, or radios, we're very used to voice radio but now we want to convey data, that video or picture that that sensor brings. we want to be able to convey it very quickly across the organization so that the soldier in one room knows what is in the next room without having to look at it. so that's what we're looking at and that's the focus of increment one, is how do you get that basic architecture of the network out there which we can then build upon. >> you're spreading out in the existing fleet. you guys conducted a test last month in september. what has been the feedback from

those trials? >> so as we develop systems you go through developmental process, test, fix and test and learn things and put it in the hands of the soldier. >> they break it. >> i want a handle on it so i can lift it up over the top of the wall and throw it in a window. so we're in a four-year testing process so just finished year three. so the september test was a year three of testing. it's where you're supposed to be at a production representative piece of equipment, so we'll get it in the field and into the hands of the soldier and it gives him an opportunity to develop tactics, techniques and procedures. i have this new capability and didn't have it before and how will i integrate it into what i'm doing and how will i use it and what holes does it fix? we put in a requirement and we build to it. but we learn when we get it in our hands. so we just finished that test. that says, as a result of the test, we're ready and we're ready to put enough of those out there, what we call a low- rate initial production, a

first increment, if you will, test number four is the final test that says we've produced it on a production line so we didn't lose anything from the -- lose anything from the developmental side and we mass produced it and we test it one last time before we go into full ray production which we'll continue to produce and field to the units. >> you are transitioning from the inn yesment model to an office model so what does that mean for the way you do the job? >> our change for us is now on the focus of the system of system architecture. how do you do the analysis, how do you do the development, how do you integrate multiple different systems and then bring it to a test and get the data? as opposed to us doing both, both the system of system perspective and designing the hardware, we're the only one that want to do the system of system, we'll give the other programs, who are subject matter experts in aviation, they'll do the unmanned vehicle one, the robotic side goes to

that area. so that expertise is there. we're the integrator. so we're no longer both the white hat and black hat. we don't test what we design. we're an independent person so we come back and say whatever the army is bringing together, we're going to make sure that it integrates and make sure we have the capabilities and then we can go to the building and see what works and what doesn't and we don't have a self- interest in it. >> and time frame? >> it is focused on a two-year model. in the army we call it a army four gen. >> so it will translate to the next model. >> every two years. so it goes from an incremental name to what we call capability packages. >> right. >> capability package in 1112, that's what this first increment is. package 1314 is the next step. >> steve,

with you new proposals surfacing weekly to cut defense spending and reduce debt, it's time the pentagon adopts a strategic approach on how cuts should be made. robert gates maintains defense spending will rise 1% annually, it's apparent that won't happen. that means the pentagon's most recent strategic plan, the quadrennial defense review is out dated because it assumes

rising spending. gates' drive is key to making the plan work. prudence should reshape the future before outside budget cutters slash cutting and capabilities. when colin powell became the chairman the cold war was ending and many were clammerring for a plan. the peace force altered american strategy from containing the soviet union to an approach in effect today built around core capabilities. defense sunday spending was -- spending was cut by 25%. but its vision yielded a smaller but more capable force. this time around troop cuts will come after iraq and afghanistan are done, but unless the military services work together strategically to determine core capabilities they will be forced to accept the future shaped instead by hasty and ill-considered program and budget cuts. thanks for joining us for this week in de