welcome to "this week in defense news," i'm vago muradian. the pentagon is embarking on a 30-day review to craft future military strategy that in turn will shape capabilities and cuts of at least $450 billion across the services over the coming decade. no service faces a tougher road ahead than the u.s. army. the man charged with shaping the service's future over the next four years is general ray odierno who became the 38th army chief of staff last month and faces the simultaneous challenges of fighting a war, shrinking his force of to 570,000 and modernizing his wide range of inventory. i caught up with him at the

army trade show and conference in washington last week and asked him what he and his fellow chiefs expects from the new strategy review. >> i think part of it is we want a strategy-driven review where the joint chiefs work together to come up with a joint force that will be able to meet the needs of the future. so what we'll work through is what are the priorities within the strategy and how does that translate into end strength modernization and readiness. >> do you have any idea any of the broad strokes, i mean, for example, do we say with the 2mrc strategy? >> we're still working our way through that. i think as we move forward we'll have to do an adjustment or strategy. we're looking at all options now and that will be part of the outcome. it'll be a change in our options. >> from a financial standpoint, everybody is saying, obviously, that there are going to be hard choices that are coming down the pike and there are folks who mention a $450 billion number which is sort of the official target all the services are trying to cut. but there are folks who say the number is going to be far, far larger than that over time. where do you think the cut

number is going to be insofar as it's going to affect the army and what sort of impact? >> first of all, we don't know and that's part of the problem. what we do know is we have a $450 plus billion cut that's already been determined by the debt reduction bill and the budget act that we know we're working on right now. what we don't know is there going to be more and a lot of that has to do with the work of the super committee and i think i'm on the record of saying se questration will be a disaster for us if we go to that because the size of the cuts would fundamentally change how we do business and fundamentally change our ability to reduce risks as we provide security for the country. >> it's said this is the era of hard choices. as the army chief of staff, what are the hardest choices you're struggling with right now? >> well, what we have to do is first -- the problems i have we're still engaged in two theaters right now in iraq and afghanistan, although we'll be coming out of iraq pretty soon. we've got to balance the fact that we'll still have a significant amount of soldiers in harm's way through 2014.

and i have to balance that with looking to the future on what is the future for us that we need to develop to meet strategies that will go beyond 2014. so that's one of the key pieces. inside of that is then determining the balance between end strength, modernization and readiness. and what we can't do is have an out of balance end strength, we've got to balance those in such a way we think will provide us the best solutions as we move forward. >> the army has sometimes been criticized during past downturns that it tried to protect people by cutting programs and in the end lost make the best choices and the people then ended up staying in the experience that left. how do you make sure you get the balance right this time? >> what i talk about is, first, we all know we're coming down on end strength. as we do that, we have to do it the right way and we have to do it over time. we can't -- if we do it too suddenly, that causes you to lose sometimes the wrong people and it causes us not to be able to do it in such a way that we

can constantly maintain readiness for missions that we have ongoing. that's what makes this time period different than the others. this is not a time of peace. this is a time of uncertainty, a time of us still being engaged. we have to be sure we account for that as we conduct our reductions. >> the army grew rather dramaticallily in terms of its funding in terms of end strength and equipment and resources. while the navy and air force cut over the past few years to be able to help at least with the budget growth, there are those who now say that it's time for the army to take a hit in order to start growing the air force and the navy. >> well, the issue is about base budget and we have not grown any more than the other services on our base budget. where we grew was in our operations accounts because of our activity in iraq and afghanistan and those are going to come down. so we're already going to eliminate operational funding as we come out of iraq and afghanistan. >> the oco funding. >> the oco funding with supplemental. so the issue is about base funding. >> you're arguing it should

stay proportional. >> what i'm arguing is we have not had an increase above the other services in our base funding. we've stayed about the same. what we need to do -- i'm not arguing we shouldn't come down, what i'm saying is we have to understand that the additional funding the army has got and like the other services have is directly related to operations. so as we move forward with our strategy, we have to make sure that it's strategy based and to make sure that we have options, you know, so we have to have a balance force that provides options to our command authority as they move forward. >> one of the challenges that's always been said about any chief of staff is that you have to live for today but really have your mind in 2020. as you look out to 2020, what are the kind of threats that you see that the u.s. army has to start preparing for today? >> well, we call -- the term we use is hybrid threat and what that means is people have learned as they've watched over the last 10 years, i think we'll see a hybrid of a regular warfare combined with some conventional capability and counterterrorism mixed in because they believe that's the most effective way to overcome

our tj advantages. what we have -- our technology advantages. we have to develop capabilities to remain dominant against these kinds of threats. >> we saw some of that this week when iranian agents were picked up, trying to hire a mexican drug lord to do a hit on a saudi ambassador. >> exactly. >> you pushed back against the notion that the pacific is theater and fundamentally you said in your speech that china is rising mill terrell, at the same time there are a lot of armies in asia. what is the army's role in asia and even in a china scenario where folks say, look, demographically there is just no role? >> what we're trying to do is first maintain relationships, develop capabilities with our partners in the asia region. and what that -- and in asia we have seven of the 10 largest land armies in the world in asia. so we have not been able to pay the attention i think that's necessary there because of what we've been doing in iraq and afghanistan. so as we look to the future, part of the things that we have

to do is build our relationships, build partnerships with our allies and friends in the asia pacific region. i think that's a great role the army can play, working with armies because in many of these countries, the army is the dominant military force of the country and i think we've been ignoring that for a long time. >> for outside purposes as well as domestic. >> that's right. >> any particular sorts of exercises or particular tools of engagement you're looking for. >> we're looking to partner with many different people. obviously we have with south korea, but we're trying to expand beyond that. we're having talks with australia about some of the outreach things, we'd like to be part of that. >> and the training ranges. >> and the training ranges and help them conduct joint training there with them and just reach out to some of these other armies and help them to develop the capacity they think they need as they move to the future. diswr more of my interview with

welcome back. we're continuing our talk with general ray odeirno, u.s. army chief of staff. as the army brings combat- tested leaders home from the battlefield to more mundane garrison duty, i asked how the service was going to retain these combat-experienced leaders. >> first off, i think you're right, we have the best combat- tested leadership force we've had in a very long time. there's a couple of things we have to do. first, i have to develop a leader development program that allows them to be even broader than we are now. we require so much more of our young people today and i think if we understand we're going to broaden their capabilities, it

will excite them. we also tell them that we need you to help us to develop a future army. the captains and majors of today are the ones who develop the concepts and the capabilities that we have to have in the future. i need your experience. >> they're shaping you now through the network integration. >> exactly. so they need to shape us and we need them to do that. so it's important that they take the mantle of now leading us in 2020 and beyond of the type of military we have, and we need our best, and we need our most experienced, and we need our combat-tested leaders to lead us through this in the next few years. >> how are you, though, in a time of declining resources, obviously training curriculums are going to get tighter, folks aren't going to be doing as much field training, how do you preserve that degree of expertise on declining training budgets? >> first we have to continue to conduct realistic training. we can't go back to what we used to do which is safety related, very careful -- >> very wrote schedule training. >> we have to have realistic

training. we have to do that in our combat training centers, we have to do that at our home station. we are developing cape ainlts like avatar capabilities where we use that technology to help us develop decision making and put you in realistic situations. and so i think things like that will help us to make people excited about where we're going and the progress we're making in developing to still be the best force. people want to be part of the best and i think we can make the argument we still want to be the best army in the world and you want to be part of that. >> let me take you to women in coma combat. your pred sez -- predecessor general casey said they would open combat jobs for women, who have been performing those tasks over the past decade increasingly. you put a plan together, submitted it to the secretary of defense on september 30th, if i recall the date correctly, and that seemed to be the template in the future. where did you vote on that? >> i was not involved with this specific report. it was done before i got here, and the reason i want to clarify that is because i'm not

real happy with it. i think it doesn't represent some of the things that our women are doing in combat and specifically it has to do with jobs that put them down into our maneuver battalions, such as intelligence officers, signal officers, other specialties that are not allowed to be in combat battalions. we need them there, we need their talent. this is about managing talent. we have incredibly talented females who need to be in those positions. i need to work for us to look better at that and we work hard within d.o.d. to get them oto recognize changes. we did not get there this time in this report and i'm focused on this and i'm going to spend some time on it. >> you want a do-over on it or have you given them a deadline? >> we'll have to see. i don't know yet. >> we'll follow up with you on that one. >> you can definitely follow up. >> at the appropriate time. let me ask you about the army's modernization strategy. there are those who say that the army's modernization strategy to put it mildly is perplexing, you know, that

there are all these competing demands. some folks say the army parked money in some programs to preserve budget authority after s.c.s. expired. is it not better to take a strategic modernization pause, go with some of the tested equipment you've got which, for example, general crutchfield is doing in aviation, buying himself some time to really figure out and assimilate the lessons learned to really figure out what the leap ahead technologies are. why is a [6fñpause not necessar a good idea? >> first in some cases it's this, and i think with m-1 tanks, we feel we can pause for our tank ,program, we continue to development improvements in our tank program and we think we're okay with that. networks. networks is one of the most important things we do, our ability to network and provide information from the highest level down to our soldiers is one of the things we're really working on. the reason we're excited about this is we now have corporations, companies, who have developed their own capabilities coming down to fort bliss where we have our brigade down there who has all this equipment with them to

work these new technologies. so we think there's a real potential here to lower the cost and to move us forward very quickly. we don't want to walk away from that. we have to continue to invest in that. >> but on ground combat -- >> yeah. so first joint light tactical vehicle, we have done this program. this is one of the things i've focused on since i've been here. i've focused a lot on understanding what we're doing in modernization. the joint light task force vehicle, we looked, the requirements are not right, we've reviewed the requirements, we get them to a place where we think we can develop a new vehicle that's capable and better and almost as inexpensive as recapping a humvee, for example. >> you hope. >> but we're there. we think we're about there. so they've got to allow us to continue on with this to determine this. we're going to be armored with the marine corps on this and we're going to push forward on this program. on the gcv. most people think we've already decided we want a 70-ton

vehicle. that's not the case. we're not even to milestone b yet. we're trying to really develop and look at options of what the ground combat vehicle can have. we're excited about some of the things the industry now has out there. we have not had any predetermined thoughts on what the gcv should look like, but we have put out obviously characteristics we want and requirements and we need that to play out because we need to start moving on this. because our bradley justice is not meeting the need of our soldiers. and we're not sure yet. the type of vehicle we get might not be a heavy -- it might be something different that allows us to move to a different type of force in the future to meet our needs. that's why i think it's important to move forward with it. >> sir, thanks very much for your time. >> thank you very much, i enjoyed it very much. thanks

over the past decade of war, the 205,000-strong army reserve has become integral to

combat operations, seeing sustained stress it was never designed to face. we met with the deputy chief of the army reserve, major general keith thorogood at the conference. i asked him for an update on the state of his force. >> let's talk about the state of the force right now. the good news about the army, the total army, including the national guard and the army reserve and the active component is we've never had a force like we've had today. it's the best trained, bed led, best equipped force, really, the world has ever seen. our challenge going forward will be to decide how we keep that force intact, including things like operationallizing the reserve component. so we believe that in terms of making sure that the nation has the capabilities that it needs to win and fight the future wars and to be the decisive land force for the nation, we absolutely have to keep the capabilities that we've developed in the last 10 years inside the force. so the state -- we're in really good shape right now. >> from anna center of

operationallizing it, though, a whole series of challenges have flown from that. i mean, folks are really not used to be away and on deployment as long as they have. has that caused any long-term challenges for you in terms of recruiting or do you hope to recruit that from active duty forces who go into the reserves? >> this is a great time for the army reserve and for the nation. so as the active force starts to draw down, this is a great time for the army reserve and the national guard because we have a chance now to really employ this whole idea that we've been talking about called continueium of service which is really a human capital management strategy that integrates all the components, allows the soldiers to transition seamlessly between components, reduce the amount of duty statuses that we have from 30 down to six, for example, take that great capability that we've developed over the last decade and really put it to use for the nation. >> how many folks do you think as the active duty draws down do you expect to transition

into the reserves and which career fields? >> well, you may know that in the army reserve, we have the bulk of the combat service for the army. so we suspect as the active force draws down we want to take that great capability to exist today and bring them into our formations in a way that makes sense. what those will be, we don't know that right now. but we do know we want to keep quality wherever we can. >> historically, or at least in several past drawdowns, the army has a tendency of starving the reserves when it gets into budget cuts. how do you put yourself in a position where that doesn't happen to you this time around? >> if you were to ask our active duty counterparts, i think their answer would be we can't win and fight the nation's war with active reserve components right now, and therefore we need to do everything we can to maintain this great capability, as i mentioned earlier. and we're also obligated, i think, it's part of the a4 gen

model to make sure we're doing everything we can to take cost out of the system. so the challenge is how do you maintain this great capability and at the same time wean the organization out and take the efficiencies out wherever it makes sense. so we're going to be a part of that. >> you guys have been really stood up and done the missions of the active duty force, but oftentimes you guys haven't benefited from the investment in terms of equipment, the equipment in the reserve tends to be a little bit older than it is in the active duty force. when it comes to equipment, are you getting the kinds of equipment you're going to need over the long-term given that you are an operationallized part of the force now? >> that i think has been a historical paradigm. but if you look at where we've been in the last decade, we've got the equipment we need, we're on the modernization schedules, we fit into the r4 gen model, so i think from an active component point of view as well as a reserve point of view, we are, as i said earlier, we are in really good shape as it relates to not only the equipment, but the people

going forward. >> the readiness, though, is directly tied to the fact that you guys have been fighting for the last 10 years consistently. iraq, obviously is drawing down at the end of the year. there may be some troops that will stay there and afghanistan is slated for drawdown around the 2014 time frame. how do you maintain that degree of excellence over the long term when you may not have sort of these rather spectacular if costly both financially and in human life classrooms that you have in iraq and afghanistan? >> that's really an insightful question. one of the challenges we face as an army and in the army reserve in particular is how do we continue to recruit, retain these high-quality soldiers. and that's why we've been talking a lot, as i mentioned earlier, about the continuing service. so how do we keep this capability in the army, allow those soldiers that have this great experience to transition seamlessly between the active components and the reserve components as well and thereby maintaining this great high quality force that we have, and we need to continue to be

engaged in the contingent missions, the deployment missions, et cetera, and the exciting thing about the army force generation model is it integrates all the components in the model in a way that makes sense and provides the capabilities the nation needs to fight and win. >> unemployment rates @f17rema high among reservists for a variety of reasons. i mean, sometimes the deployment and, you know, just the nature of deployments have been seen as being a contributing factor to that. how big of a problem is it and what are some of the things you're doing in order to help alleviate the problem? >> as you know national unemployment is at 9%, hovering around 9%. and in the age demographic 18 to 24, it's almost double that. so what we've been able to do in the army reserve is institute a program that we call the employer partnership initiative, or the employer partnership office and we've partnered now with over 2,000 of our corporate partners across the united states and say, look, we've got two things

that every business needs and this is what's great about the the military does t things, they deliver results and they grow leaders. that's what every business wants. so if you want somebody that can make a difference, that understands the values, that understands diversity, that is collaborative, can think strategically and act tactically, you need somebody from the military because they'll deliver results and they'll be great leaders in the organization. so part of this employ partnership initiative is to really highlight these great skill sets that are available to our corporate partners, and that's how we can impact in a very small way the unemployment rate. >> coming up in my notebook, some thoughts for the army

cutting budgets is going

to be tough for all the military services, but it's the army that faces the biggest challenges. first it's got to cut back while its still fighting a war in afghanistan. second, it must modernization even assimilating lessons for future conflicts in far different places. third, with the most combat experienced force in generations, leaders must be careful to avoid the mistakes of the '70s and '90s when seasoned forces were gutted to preserve overhead staffs. remember, one colonel costs as much as three combat troops. after a decade of wartime purchases, the army has a vast mix of equipment to sort through to determine what it should keep and what it should scrap before launching costly new programs. to do this right, army leaders must reprogram their services to live lean after living lush for the next decade. the army chief of staff knows cuts are coming, he must draw on his army's skills and experience to build the most cape able and flexible us%marmy possible. thanks for joining us for "this week in defense news." i'm vago muradian. have