dr. lamb? dr. lamb: thank you for the opportunity to share my views on proving the -- on improving the effectiveness of military operations. it is a great honor, especially so considering the distinguished service of your other witnesses today -- general schwartz and the admiral. it is the high point of my career to be sitting with them today, and in front of you. and i am really truly humbled by the opportunity. also, i want to knowledge the presence of my wife, who, in light of the unconventional things i'm about to say, decided i needed moral support. and i agree with her. senator mccain: we will hold her in no way responsible. [laughter] dr. lam: she will appreciate that. i argued for three sets of organizational changes to increase the effectiveness of u.s. military operations. first, to impress the persistent lack of preparedness for irregular threats, i argue we should give u.s. relief for small unit conflict, and the marine corps has the lead for larger irregular conflicts. second, to make t

dr. lamb. >> senator mccain, senator reid and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to share my views on improving the effectiveness of militant operations. your invitation to testify is a great honor and especially so considering the distinguished service other other witnesses today. general schwartz and admiral stavridis. it's the high point of my career to be sitting with him today and in front of you. i am really truly humbled by the opportunity. also want to acknowledge the presence of my wife who, in light of the unconventional things i'm about to say, decided i need moral support, and i agree with her. >> we will hold her in no way responsible. >> she will appreciate that, i know. and my written statement hard or three sets of organizational changes to increase the effectiveness of u.s. military operations. first, to correct the persistent lack of preparedness for a regular threats. i argue we should give u.s. socom delete for small unit irregular conflict and the mari

dr. lamb your comments. >> well, first, with respect to the chairman in the chain of command, i think that i would agree with general schwartz that in the past the relationship between the chairman and the secretary has been extremely tight. so, i'm not sure what the value added inserting someone formally into the chain of command is. there are issues there as some chairmen and secretary teams have worked very closely and the secretaries' interests and decisions have been passed to the chairmen, and in other cases you can think of secretaries who have dealt directly with the combat and commanders at length. so, i think i would be kind of agnostic on that but generally inclined to believe there's not a lot of value added to that. the more important decisions i think the chairman needs to work on are future force development. this is where we really have to work hard to preserve the qualitative advantages that we currently enjoy and i think that most people agree are diminishing. and there to ge

dr. christopher lamb, director of the institute and the national defense university. more than anything else, the goldwater nichols act was the result of escalating concern in the congress and the country by the effectiveness of u.s. military operations in the vietnam war, the failure of the hostages in iran and grenada all pointed to the defense enterprise the need to be addressed for the sake of national security, and particular, goldwater nichols insured community and the forces jointly. as we have explored in previous hearing, many questions remain about the balance our military is striking between core competitiveness, competencies, and joint experiences. as it relates to combat effectiveness, there is no doubt -- as one former chairman of the joint chiefs put it -- no other country can match our forces on the battlefield and fight jointly. the subject today relates to the many steps hold water nichols took to improve the command. and made commanders asked responsible to the president and secretary of defense for the preparedness of commands. it also removed the

i've had the privilege of working with general schwartz, admiral stavridis as eucom command and dr. lamb, your defense, analysts and i deeply appreciated and thank you very much, gentlemen for joining us today. as the chairman has said we have undertaken a very rig was under his direction review of the goldwater-nichols. and we heard just a few days ago from the second of defense, former secretary of defense michele flournoy about one of the issues that that was in her words over the years the qdr has become a bottle of staff exercise that includes hundreds of participants and consumes many man-hours rather than a top and leadership exercises that sets clear priorities that makes tough choices and allocate risk. one of the things i would hope the witnesses will talk about is the whole planning process, the formal, informal and how we can improve that. that's just one of the items. there's a long and i think important list of topics that we could discuss. the role in the authority assigned to the joint chief of staff, but he should replace the military chain of command for military operat

dr. lamb, if you have comments, please. mr. lamb: one of the jobs i had in the pentagon was helping to prepare the contingency planning guidance and overseaing the nation's -- overseeing the nation's war plans. one of my observations was that the operational plans were crystal clear compared to the strategic guidance that we often are able to promulgate. i know that some of your previous witnesses have talked about strategy from the point of view of the need for more gray matter, greater strategists, better strategists, etc. my view is a little bit different. i think there are political and bureaucratic forces at work that tend to milltate against strategy. you ask, why don't we have a clear end state, why don't we have a clear center of graphicity, why don't we marshall our resources against that center of gravity, etc. i think the answer is two fold. first of all, in formulating a strategy with that kind of clarity, right now there are great political and even bureaucratic disincentives for

lamb: was the most important moment in this book? well, i interviewed dr.oger peel, the head of the psychiatric unit at saint elizabeth hospital. he told me how reagan reach out to him because he wanted to have a private meeting with john hinckley six months after he tried to kill the president. reagan had the idea, on his own. he called and dr. daniel ruby, the white house position, and he reached out to dr. peele. said, "let me take it up with his psychiatrist." no. person, they all said hinckley was the most sociopathic, self-absorbed patient they had ever had. they would have misinterpreted the visit as vindication. never meeting him, because of the advice of the psychiatrists. one man told me, at one point, he was talking to reagan and said, it seems like he was talking from the clouds. mr. lamb: why would he want to do it? mr. shirley: it was his christian capacity for forgiveness. this was the man who was the of the free world. he met with gorbachev three or four times after the presidency. moscow.isited him in they became friends. a couple of years

dr. ben carson, who then took a giant gulplpf black coffee from his mug. 'now, here are my thoughts on muslims.'" [ laughter ] "'processed meats do cause cancer,' says w.h.o. the world health organization said that beef, lamb, pork, and processed meats, like bacon, can cure cancer. let's go down to the last line of the story. "'so first, alan caldwell of pennsylvaniaiaakes my penis and now i hear i caused cancer,' said a local pig." "'what a week. oink.'" [ laughter ] this has been "last line of the news story." we'll be right back with more "late night." [ cheers and applause ] this is the time theheime for harmony let love be the song that everybody sings fill the air with joyful noise ring the bells and raise your voice let there be peace on earth olay regenerist renews from within, plumping surfaceceells for a dramatic transformation without the need for fillers with olay, you age less so you can be ageless olay. ageless. hi everybody it's alexandra gert! and this is my after holiday haul. i got some really great stuff at old navy... sweater. shut the door! everything in the stste is up to 75% ofof wait, seventy, five! you, go to yeah, i'm married. does it matter? you'd do that for me? really? yeah i'd