 Good afternoon everyone. Thanks for braving the rain. To come out for a discussion with one of the most intelligent and entertaining generals in the Army, H.R. McMaster. He needs no introduction but I have to do it anyway. So he's had an extremely distinguished career as a combat leader. He was a troop commander in the First Gulf War and then returned as a regimental commander 15 years later to Iraq. Spent some more time in Iraq. Advising General Petraeus as an MNFI commander, had the director of the Chairman's Advisory Group at Central Command. Made his way to training Doctrine Command in 2012 first as the commander at the Maneuver Center of Excellence down at Fort Benning and then more recently as the director of the Army Capabilities and Integration Center and the Deputy Commanding General of TRADOC for Futures. So General McMaster has graciously offered to come talk to us today about the Army Operating Concepts, Army Futures and any other topic we may choose to throw at him. So people could turn off their cell phones or the ringers that would be appreciated and when we'll try to get to Q&A quickly if we can and so people when we get to that point can wait for the mic and identify themselves and be brief. It would be much appreciated. Sir, thanks for coming over to you. Mark, thanks and it's a real privilege to be here with you and and at CSIS and I think all of us understand the importance of it in a democracy that the Army and the Armed Forces in general stay connected with the people in whose name we fight and CSIS has had a leading role in doing that, helping us stay connected to the people in whose name we fight and of course you know a lot of discussions about future force development tend to revolve around resources and how you know and so forth and of course in a democracy you get the military that the people are willing to pay for so it's important for us to be able to explain really how how we see as professional officers the the problem of future armed conflict and and how Army forces have to operate as part of joint what we're calling now inter-organizational you know civil military teams and multinational teams to accomplish the mission in future armed conflict and we just finished in Trey Dock a long effort to develop what we're calling the Army operating concept and I just encourage everybody please look it up online it's a real page turner perfect holiday reading take it to the ski slopes with you it's a stocking stuffer as well and and and really what that document aims to do is to lay a conceptual foundation for Army modernization and force development and it's a beginning point it's not an end point so a couple significant things about this document I think that are worth emphasizing and might provide some material for the question and answer session the first of these is that in the development of this sort of idealized vision of a future armed conflict we considered both continuity and change and we concluded in our work that we tend to get in trouble you know if we neglect continuities in the nature of war and we considered in particular four key continuities in the nature of war and their implications for this army operating concept the first of these is that war's an extension of politics okay everybody knows that right me like that commercial everybody knows that so but the but really what is the implication of that the implication is that you fight and you commit military forces across the range of military operations to achieve sustainable political outcomes consistent with your vital interests so what are the implications for us well that what that means is we have to be able to to fight to defeat enemy organizations and establish security and secure populations and so forth but we have to also be able to consolidate gains we have to consolidate gains usually politically to get to that sustainable political outcome so a further implication is well we just army doesn't do that on its own right of course not you know we have to work with multiple partners as part of the joint force and we have to be able to integrate civil military teams so one of the implications for our concept is that the army has to provide foundational capabilities to the joint force and these are capabilities that the army provides every day across the globe and this is theater logistics capability and intelligence capabilities and and ballistic missile defense capabilities and engineering capabilities and so that gives us a foundation that allows the joint force to be able to respond to resolve crisis shape security environments but we have to act with operate with a broader range of partners and that's multinational partners of course we see that clearly today where we're fighting people who really are the enemies of all civilized people right so our army has to provide those foundational capabilities to multinational forces to integrate their efforts and and help bring sort of coherence to chaotic and and difficult problem sets jazz we're doing in Liberia you know for example today with with Ebola as as we are we're doing in Iraq to deal with that situation to provide headquarters capability to integrate efforts of a multinational team of course with the Iraqis being the most important member of that multinational team and so what we're saying the concept is that we can't just project military power right we need to be able to project national power national power to be able to to deal with these complex situations and that doesn't mean the army does it all it may oftentimes means the army's in a supporting role to others who have a lead role but that's what's important for army forces and land forces in general to be good because of that continuity in war that worse is waged to for that sustainable political outcome the other key continuity that we considered is that is that worse profoundly human and and we neglect that at our peril because we have to understand that to understand why people fight what are the causes of violence what is driving violence and people fight essentially really for the same reasons the city is identified twenty five hundred years ago fear honor and interest and so if you don't understand what's driving conflicts oftentimes at a very local level that's taken advantage of by people at higher levels national or or our regional levels uh... then your you could you really can only treat the symptoms right the symptoms of what is causing this violence so the implication for us in the in the concept is that we have to be able to develop situational understanding as army forces oftentimes in close contact with enemies and and and uh... and with civilian populations and develop that understanding of push that upward so you understand what is really driving the violence at the at that local level the third the third continuity that we considered is worse uncertainty you know we we recognize that your previous concept works especially late nineteen nineties had assumed that advances in technology information technology communication technology computing power automated decision-making tools and so forth had shifted war the assumption was from the realm of uncertainty into the realm of certainty so we made a series of think flawed assumptions they were actually building vulnerabilities uh... into our joint force in the late nineteen nineties and up to the mass murder attacks on our country on september eleventh and i think now we recognize based on recent experiences and and and correctives to that sort of thinking that that war will remain fundamentally uncertain uh... because uh... because of enemy countermeasures to these capabilities traditional countermeasures that we've seen in iraq in afghanistan dispersion concealment intermingling with civilian populations deception and but fundamentally war will remain uncertain because the complexity associated with the political and human dimension of war but also it will remain uncertain because of continuous interaction with determined enemies and so in in the in this document we really emphasize the need not to just for army forces were not saying as much are just going to be decisive in short of short duration campaigns but we have to really work hard to seize retain and exploit the initiative uh... over the enemy and recognizing that the enemy enemies oftentimes have a say in the in the future course of of events and the final continuity that we considered as a war is a contest of wills and so it's it's important for us really to understand how we operate on the physical battle ground but what effects also were having on the battleground perception and information also to understand really the demands on soldiers associated with operating uh... in environments of persistent danger and in environments of uncertainty and and complexity so in this concept we really emphasize developing resilient soldiers and cohesive teams they're capable of operating in these environments of persistent danger and and complexity and so what we emphasize is is not just any kind of just a new technology that we want to apply into the into the army but we recognize that our competitive advantage in the complex land environment comes from combinations of skilled soldiers and teams with with technology it comes from how you combine different capabilities again to seize retain and exploit the initiative over the enemy so we we consider continuity and we also consider change i mean the story of carl becker in the nineteen twenty said yet the memory of of the past in the anticipation of the future have to walk hand in hand in a happy way so what do we consider when we're thinking about changes in the environment well we first of all we considered threats enemies and adversaries right in in the operating environment we took a look at what the trends are i think there's some significant ones that we have to make sure we can continue to put front and center many of which were highlighted in the in that volume that we have to really deal with with state-based threats right we see some state-based threats that are growing and we've seen in recent even in just the most recent months uh... with uh... russia using combinations of of conventional unconventional land forces to reassert it's power on the eurasian land mass for example so state-based threats are important obviously north korea is another state-based threat to be concerned about and then of course destruction right the access to uh... to to very destructive weapons and technological capabilities by these non-state uh... these non-state actors and of course we have to consider you know how they combine in these dynamic combinations of conventional unconventional threats so-called hybrid threats use hybrid strategies and of course you see i think iranians use of proxies uh... throughout the greater middle east and that is sort of hezbollah as a model uh... of of this kind of a hybrid threat that has uh... state sponsorship uh... and then also has uh... has capabilities provided to it uh... they give us give us some some tremendous military potential the other things as we mentioned as we looked at as we looked at uh... and in the concert as we looked at threats enemies and adversaries we said okay what are what are threats enemies and adversaries doing concealment and intermingle with civilian populations uh... but increasingly they they're not just evading those capabilities but they're taking actions to disrupt them which is the second thing we see your enemies doing integrating new technologies that disrupt our communications capability disrupt our precision strike capabilities and these are sort of cyber attack type capabilities electromagnetic uh... capabilities as well as gps jamming and and so forth and then increasingly and i think what a lot of recent work uh... here in washington is highlighted is that our enemies are doing a third thing which is emulating some of our capabilities and this has a lot to do you know with the ease of technology transfer and and it's important for us i think to recognize that the most transferable advantage differential advantage that we have in defense is technology torrenties and of course we know that chan has been engaged uh... in the largest threat of intellectual property in in history so so what what are the implications for us of that is important for us to consider in the in the concept and and finally we see enemies expanding expanding into other battlegrounds and these are battlegrounds of perception and information battlegrounds of political subversion the connection of these enemy organizations to transnational organized crime networks and so for us to be effective we have to compete in all of these contested spaces the physical space but also the information space also we see implications for a greater integration of of military efforts uh... with law enforcement you know for example and and uh... counter threat finance actions and so forth as we go against these networks in a more holistic way so that's that's what we looked at in terms of changes is threats enemies adversaries in the operating environment uh... we looked uh... we looked very heavily at the at the so-called anti-access area denial capabilities uh... and we think that uh... that that we applaud the great work that's going on in the air sea battle for example to deal with this threat and we we feel that army forces play a vital role uh... in that in against that kind of threat by being able to assure access and so in the in our document we we uh... we introduce the terms of expeditionary maneuver and joint combined arms operations and that's the ability to deploy into austere environments with formations that have the appropriate balance of mobility protection and firepower combined arms capability access to joint capabilities to achieve surprise strike enemies from an unexpected direction conduct effective reconnaissance to identify these type of of capabilities and then have the offensive power you know to destroy those capabilities as well as the ability to establish control of that terrain to deny its use to the enemy and of course there are all sorts of historical analogies that are relevant to this if you think about the v one of the two threat to london in world war two if you think about really what it took to address the long-range rocket threat out of southern lebanon two thousand six for that matter the threat to israel out of the western desert in iraq in nineteen ninety one uh... the threat coming out of gaza you know for example so so it takes a joint force right american military power is joint power and so what we emphasize in this document is army forces in context of joint operations to deal with these to deal with these sorts of capabilities this the second key area of change that we look at it looked at it is is uh... is what's changing in terms of missions assigned missions uh... and then what we anticipate missions will be based on the on these emerging threats and so forth and what this document emphasizes maybe more than than previous sort of conceptual documents for future force development is the army's efforts across a range of military operations from preventing conflict shaping security environments and then winning against a term in an adaptive capable and enemies and so what this has a lot to do with this is those foundational capabilities that uh... that i mentioned but it's also the need again to integrate efforts of multiple partners uh... and to provide the president and and the secretary of defense and combatant commanders in particular with multiple options what are the options that army forces provide in the area of preventing conflict in shaping security environments and winning and in this area in particular we emphasize as marin did it in her essay the the vital role that land forces play in deterring conflict i think oftentimes we uh... we we forget how important it is uh... for land forces to be part of of of our ability to deter because it really is that what tom is shelling called the brute force option the ability to impose your will on an enemy that makes actions short of of the commitment of land forces more effective and these are in particular arch tremendous joint forces standoff capabilities and precision strike capabilities standoff capabilities i think we recognize leave the future decisions largely in the hands of your of your enemy and it's land forces that can really compel outcomes and that's an important contribution to the to the joint force so in missions we took a broad look across prevent shape and and and win the third area that we consider terms of change was technology how technology is changing and what what that can afford us in terms of of new capabilities we're interested in particular in in autonomous and semi-autonomous systems obviously a tremendous proliferation of those across the last thirteen fourteen years of war how do we integrate them more effectively to do certain things for our force to help us make contact with the enemy under favorable conditions you know to to uh... to integrate all arms more effectively into into the fight to be able to gain and maintain contact with enemy forces to provide security across wide areas to assist us logistically so we can sustained freedom of movement in action at the end of extended and contested lines of communications in austrian environments so so we're excited about the integration of those technologies and we're also excited about the integration of power and energy technologies uh... that we think can help us really reduce that the size of formations without reducing the capability of those formations through a reduction in logistics demand and we're we're also emphasizing really the appropriate balance across all of our formations of mobility protection and firepower uh... recent uh... recent operations in iraq and afghanistan have understandably biased our efforts in favor of protection how do we uh... protect soldiers and give them mobility and protect them against this is in particularly the roadside bomb and i'd be threat what's happened those with as we've layered more and more on of our our vehicles their power ratio hasn't gone up so we're losing a little bit of mobility and we're seeing our adversaries up gun their vehicles so what we we want to do is make sure we maintain our differential advantages as a combined arms team in close combat with the enemy with investments in increased lethality uh... and and uh... and mobility across across our force and then of course we're looking at technologies that help us with the ballistic missile threat and in particular technologies that will help us do something different that we highlight in the concept which is do something slightly differently which is to project power from land into the air maritime space and cyber domains and this would be army forces supporting the joint force by assisting the joint force in maintaining freedom of movement and action in those domains and restricting the use of those domains uh... to the to our enemies and so of course this is nothing is really pretty much i mean completely unprecedented that says this story you know so i mean this is a this is a role that's analogous to the coast artillery roles for example and so forth and there's been a lot of great work that's done it's been done here in cspa and uh... and and and d-o-d on this and so we're we're looking forward to continue to work with the joint force on this as well and then the final area that we we looked at is is what we see happening in the world today right what are the lessons we've learned you know we we tend to learn with a great deal of enthusiasm but not sometimes in a very organized way right so what have we learned from our own experience over thirteen years of war but what what we've learned from other other other recent conflicts and you know the whole the greek saying of that the way to consider the future is to walk backwards into the future right looking looking backward into the side to understand better so what we've introduced to help us learn more effectively is we've introduced a framework for learning called the war fighting challenges and those are in the in the uh... in annex b of the army operating concept but you know we we recognize it was so michael howards said is you're never going to get more exactly right the key is to not be so far off the mark that you can't adjust to the real demands of conflict once they reveal themselves to you so the best way i think to make sure that you're not too far off the market just ask the right questions so these are twenty first order questions the answers to which will prove current and future force combat effectiveness and the key is we need to work with c s i s we need to work with uh... with our with the joint force we need to work with multinational partners and our allies in a focused sustained and collaborative way on developing interim solutions to these questions and and we're able to do that i think effectively now we make we were conducting estimates uh... completing the free to these areas we talk more about these if you'd like and developing interim solutions and the idea is that these will be integrated solutions that will have doctrinal organizational training and leader development solutions and material solutions so it's not that we're going to pursue a thing or a specific technology to solve this problem again we're emphasizing how we combine people with advanced technology to maintain our differential advantage uh... over over our enemies and what this framework will do is allows to have a campaign of learning it's called force twenty twenty five and that's all of our learning activities from experimentation to our big annual war game uh... in our army and these are questions will bring into uh... into joint uh... wargaming and experimentation and you know it's what we're doing every day what we see going on in the world it's the exercise like pacific pathways is the work that we're doing with allies on interoperability in europe in particular so the idea is we now have a framework a place to come with these lessons to impose better order on those lessons and then the final step let's do something about it right how do we bridge that into implementation so so uh... i think all of us are really excited about the prospects of the army operating concept as a starting point a starting point for a focused and sustained campaign of learning under force twenty twenty five and delivering the best possible army you know there's a lot of talk about innovation and so innovation is a is a is a principal it is a a tenant now uh... in the army operating concept but innovation for what in our role i think is trade i come over to helping to develop the future force is to deliver the greatest combat capability to our force in the shortest amount of time under the available resources and so that's what we're focused on how do we do that better as an institution uh... and and of course working with uh... with our leadership across the services in the joint force so thank you i'm really looking forward to to whatever discussion like to have great thank you uh... i forgot to mention all that was quite evident in his remarks as it always is did actually bring it up i forgot to talk about the fact that you're a PhD in history and uh... and uh... and a former professor of history so you can never forget that talking to hr very long and it's as my advisor don he bought the guy with the soul of a wonderful man at the university of carolina i did have to go to class at the university of carolina as well just for the record but don he bought the city congratulations you now know more history than you will ever know what did you say when i graduated uh... what you've been accumulating it since then i wanted to ask you a little bit more about uh... whether you uh... first thanks for that great synopsis of the AOC i think that was the executive summary verbally uh... very useful to have the whole thing and it's great and it is really good reading for it really is i'm not kidding so do you wait can you answer now what you think how an army of twenty twenty five might be different the army of today what what are sort of the key dimensions or is that something you're just kicking off the discovery of that's a great question and you know we've received some really clear guides at the outset and through this whole process from from general ordinator who really led this whole effort and so what he is emphasized in particular is really how do we develop how do we develop forces that are capable of operating in these complex environments of persistent danger against adaptive and capable enemies so the number one priority has been through general ordinator's whole time as chief and it carries through this document is leader development and education as well as well as training and so what what we're doing now is i think fundamentally different so i'll give you a few examples we will never go back to the old the old way of thinking about now analyzing missions that we just have to see ourselves and the enemy in contest context of the train and then we're done right we have to see ourselves in context of civilian populations in complex political social religious tribal dynamics and so what we've done is establish this because you gotta have cool names for all this the training brain operation center the T-bock uh... down at uh... down at trade-off which essentially generic sizes conflict data from conflicts we've been in and other conflicts and provides that as a training support package for units and for our training centers so we're able to immerse our units not just our units but our stats and our our intel uh... structures into organizations into these complex environments to replicate reality as closely as we can because actually they came from real-world examples the other things that we're doing is in our training is is we're building every things in our training that happen routinely in combat to improve training realism and what we want to do is is uh... is and we are doing is is changing really the rigor of our leader development and integrating some some new techniques so for example advanced pedagogical techniques involving you know the application of new technologies as part of that uh... under the you know the adaptive soldier leader training environment you know effort that uh... that our special forces of headed up and and that we've integrated into our all of our school houses we are emphasizing sort of advanced cognition uh... capabilities under advanced situational awareness training and we're working on really ways that we can develop in leaders what you know what is called naturalistic decision-making right how do we immerse leaders in very realistic environments in situations that are likely to encounter so they're developing so their first battle their first mission is like their is their hundredth or five hundredth uh... mission in terms of the reality of what they see so there's a big emphasis what's different is we're gonna have really what we call in the concept you know optimized soldiers leaders and teams now some people could argue it can really optimize human beings and human teams but i mean that's the goal is to is to integrate these capabilities now how do we do that we think we'll have to assess soldiers differently right that we want to make sure that we understand what are the knowledge skills abilities and attributes we need for soldiers in certain uh... certain specialties and recruit those soldiers uh... and and help get them into those specialties we think managing that talent once we have it we have to do things in a fundamentally different way to build the competencies we need uh... if you're looking for documents to kind of describe this there's a there's the army leader development strategy and then for example for betting there's the maneuver leader development strategy it's googleable and clickable on and you can see it there that that we look at that one of the competencies we need from corporal to colonel how do we develop those competencies across a you know across a leader's uh... a leader's career and so and then there's also this area of cognitive dominance and advanced cognition how we can get more out of the brain this is where we begin to we want to apply apply some of the human sciences more to to our efforts and as i mentioned naturalist decision-making is a key part of it but then part of it is dealing with the things that you only deal with in combat right uh... which are are the things that can lead to combat combat trauma and the breakdown of uh... of uh... you know moral character resiliency in soldiers in units so how do we divide resilient soldiers who are capable of operating these environments so i think that's something i mean i think that emphasis on on on uh... on the human dimension is really big i think the other thing that that is is different is that we are trying to decentralize capabilities further so so that leaders at very low levels possess capabilities organic inside of the organization or they can access capabilities very quickly to really engage in war which is a game of rock paper scissors right that's combined arms operations that's joint what we call it now joint combined arms operations and so if you have these capabilities fires maneuver engineers aviation access to trance air force uh... and and uh... capabilities i mean and you can apply them a quick succession that's what wins wars with battles and helps win wars so essentially what we want to as a force that can that that were small units can can hit harder that they're more mobile and and so they can operate more widely dispersed while maintaining mutual support because they can see and fight across wider areas and they can concentrate rapidly against unanticipated dangers to take advantage of opportunities and so if you think about the tactics of infiltration okay this is not again not completely and and and elevate those tactics to the operational and and strategic levels and so this will involve training and leader development and some material solutions as well to enable force to do that and so we're not we're not uh... we're not buying into what was in the nineteen nineties for a while i think uh... we devolved into an idea that really all we need to do is target enemy organizations from long distance right of course the problem with the land environment the land environment does not get penetrated by those technologies as much as the fluid media of the air and maritime space environments because on land you could have tens of thousands of targets all of which are trying to avoid being classified as such right so you say there's a higher degree of uncertainty and so forth so we recognize the limits of being able to do this uh... but i think that some some of the big things are this joint force capable of joint combined arms operations is defined in the in the army operating concept and then soldiers and teams that are capable of operating in in these complex and dangerous environments get out to you all for questions if you could raise your hand and then wait for the mic uh... let's go here and then here other people could just put a finger up so i can see you sir christoph mccray institute for defense analysis thank you you were pushed back in suspended feeling of the hms uh... man-pack radio due to heat uh... weight issues so are there other items you plan on addressing in terms of the weight issue as far as the soldier is concerned that's a really good point so remember talked about uh... the need to have the appropriate combinations of mobility protection of firepower across all of our formations so what we have done in our approach to combat developments we try to kind of flip things on her head a little bit i think for a while we were taking some of the top-down approach right and we were looking at you know how do we make our headquarters more capable how do we get access to more information how to display information more effectively we'll try to balance that approach and i give up on any of that but we want to look from the infantry squad back the scout squad back right and how do we provide really overmatch to that squad under under conditions uh... that we anticipate in future combat so one of one of the key things is every formation every organization has to be able to conduct fire in maneuver right it's just bit fundamental to what we do is as as as land forces to enhance that capability in our squad formation we we want to lighten the load right and so that will restore a greater degree of tactical mobility to our soldiers and we're doing that in a number of ways we want lighter body armor but also lighter weapons i mean we now have a squad automatic weapon that's prototyped at seven pounds uh... caseless tapered ammunition is another way to go you know they could and if we develop you know and develop more confidence in close bolt systems for our weapons that will lighten up our weapons considerably so we also so so mobility of that squad and then and then we're also looking at obviously the vehicles that carry that slide and one of the ways to lighten the burden on us on a soldier is to give him a ride right i mean so so we combat vehicles are are important today just as they were important in breaking the stalemate in the western front where we're one right so so what combat vehicles are we developing that'll help us get soldiers you know who are fresh and mobile into the fight under advantageous conditions and and how do we want to evolve with the striker and the infantry fighting vehicle capability in that connection but then we also want our squads dismounted you know to be able to have this overmatch capability so i don't know if anybody's read the outpost if anybody has a question about you know why should we be investing in the infantry squad just read the outpost right and what we want is we want to give those squads the ability and every every unit or army should have a fire fight ending capability yes you may contact with the enemy you change fire many of us have been in situations like this and what you want to be able to do is end it right i think if i think if you're in contact with u.s army on your chest those fire fights are to last about fourteen seconds definitely not fourteen hours so the end result of an encounter action with with a u.s army infantry formation ought to be smoking boots on the other so how do we do that and how do we get more lethality into the squad with shorter fire weapons systems we're developing a counter defilate capability for that purpose and getting more firepower into that squad for protection into the squad we think that there's tremendous potential with uh... with unmanned uh... systems uh... uavs for example pocket held uavs and so what we want to be able to do is be able to check around the corner without walking around the corner to be able to to you know you get speed of action in war in combat by moving rapidly between reconnoitered areas so how do we extend our ability to conduct reconnaissance through air and ground capabilities uh... that squad has access to and control uh... we're also looking at uh... at flying munitions which extend the range of the squad and so forth and of course access right access through you know through uh... through uh... full motion video of of really what we can see from as an air ground team and fighting is an air ground team as a joint air ground team it's a broad range of initiatives associated with the scout squad you mentioned one of them which is lightening the squad up uh... to to give it more mobility uh... but but this is part of the broader effort to ensure every formation of army has the appropriate combination of mobility protection and firepower come up here and then here and then back there go over hi fast yes ma'am general sydney frieber breaking defense you hit on a lot of interesting technologies here to what extent does the army have a role in this new offset strategy the secretary and bob work i've highlighted which is it seems very tied to anti-accessory denial thus jrc battle which you said you know the army has a place that is kind of a cruise missile coastal artillery but to wixen is that the battle going on over the army's heads the offset stuff in wixen does the army have a cannot what can army never do for offset what the offset to do for the army well you have a great point first of all in this document you know we had great help from across the joint force and in writing the document is written as a joint document so one of the one of the key things is that we have to recognize right that that the enemy has countermeasures to any single capability and it's when you combine capabilities joining combined skills you get a differential as an army officer i am the biggest advocate for air force capabilities i have never had to look up in the air and say is it friendly or enemy that could be changing though right i mean with the proliferation of uavs the proliferation of sophisticated integrated air defense systems and so forth so we foresee now a greater premium on operating together as a joint force to maintain mutual support with each other our air force for example has driven our air capabilities in all of our forces our air and naval forces in particular have driven the identifiable fielded forces of the enemy off the open battlefield right i mean show yourself and you're and you're going to get smoked okay so what that what that has done is it has forced the enemy to take countermeasures which then make them vulnerable to concentrated action on the ground and then when you have concentrated action on the ground that places something of value to that enemy at risk what are they to do well they have to concentrate against it which then what makes them vulnerable to what your air capabilities so it's really how do we develop these capabilities together to deal with anti-access area denial which i were as i mentioned for your army were all for because your army doesn't get there without the navy and the air force but it's really anti-access area denial for what purpose right and so i think whenever we see concepts i think it's always a good idea to judge them to bounce them against what i believe are these continuities in the nature of war what does this concept do about political dimension of war and what you have to achieve politically in the broad range of sort of plausible and emerging scenarios where we see our vital interests at risk around around the world what does it say about the human dimension of war and why people fight what does it say about wars uncertainty and enemy countermeasures and what does it say about war as a contest of wills essentially and so so i think i think sometimes we can we can be driven toward developing military concepts without fully considering you know the the nature of war itself and uh and so i think on the offset strategy i think we're you know we're excited about participating in it and and working on it i think some of the some of the things we ought to recognize is that you know there's never been any silver bullet it can't be a silver bullet right technology that's going to deliver any kind of offset or really our ability to sustain a differential advantage over our enemies right our differential advantage has always come from combinations of technologies and especially combinations of technology of technologies with skilled soldiers and and teams and airmen and teams and sailors and teams and marines and and teams so so i think that's important there's always a countermeasure so i think one of the flaws we had in the 90s and when we adopted a lot of this hubristic language about about future war uh is that we we said we were going to leap ahead we're going to leap ahead to a new technology that was going to make future war fast cheap and efficient right and we came up with words like rapid decisive operations right and words it's tough to you know how do you go against that we're going to say you know you're for ponderous you know indecisive operations i guess you know but it didn't give enough agency and control to the enemy if you stake something else ask you what's the difference between rapid decisive operations and a 14 second firefight well because that's not decisive because you're going to have another firefight so as general perkins says all the time he says war is war is a is sort of a series of temporary conditions right so on on a rapid decisive operations essentially it'll reduce war to a targeting exercise and and you could you know take the side felt or you know the george castan's approach to war you could just leave on a high note you can just do a lot of things from standoff range and then say i'm done you know and and think that something useful and consistent with your interests would happen so i i think that we have to recognize that if you stake out a narrow suite of capabilities or just one capability your enemy's going to develop counter measures right and so that's why you don't have silver bullets you have the submarine and the sonar right the bomber the radar the machine gun the tank the tank the anti-tank missile and so i think it's very important for us to recognize that uh that we have to develop a broad range of capabilities maintain a balanced joint force capability to play this game of rock paper scissors right it's right right there in the blue tie thank you sebastian springer with inside the army um two-part question if i may the first one is at the beginning you said um you fight with the army that the people are going to pay for that appears now so one could make the argument so i stole that from your chief of staff from the austrian chief staff of the army that's those are his words about a year and a half ago and so arguably one could say sequestration has now led to a situation where that's what we're willing to pay for sort of philosophically speaking are you of the school of thought that says you should as an officer attempt to counter that um that's the one question and the other question is more on the hardware side the army has previously attempted to build the ground combat vehicle now they're calling it i think future fighting vehicle what are your thoughts on what would make this a successful platform and is the time for that to begin now can you wait okay all right so two good questions there well you know nobody elects generals to make policy right so that would that would undermine our constitution so what you what you need generals to do and uh and this is the chief's role in particular is to provide best military advice right and and then but not to cross the line typically between advice and advocacy of a certain position i do think though in war and really in decisions involving future force capabilities it's important to talk about like what are the stakes and really what are the variables really what is what are the components of an effective army uh in the future an army that's going to be able to do from our active component reserve component what the nation might need it to do and so there there's a suite of capability issues i've talked a lot about these capabilities that we think we need in the future for us to be able to accomplish missions as part of joint multinational you know inter-organizational teams but there is an issue of capacity which you're alluding to right that what is the size what is the size of the army need to be and that's not my decision but i think there are certain things that ought to be brought in to the discussion i think that some of the factors to consider for the army and it's and determining the size of the total force and and uh and maybe even the active force in particular ready land forces overall is what are those foundational capabilities that the army provides i think the american public ought to know that what is the army doing every day to just establish foundational capabilities that gives our president secretary of defense and combatant commanders multiple options right to shape security environments prevent conflict and these are forces that are committed you know to deterring conflict these are forces that are providing in these these uh these these capabilities what are the forces that have to be prepared to go at a moment's notice and maybe to take a look at those forces that are prepared to go to moments notice in maybe historical perspective even just looking at deployments that were not forecasted or anticipated in any war plans anywhere you know even just from the end of the cold war and to understand really then what capacity you need to have ready to go in in times of crises other other things to consider are are what are just the capabilities you need in the institutional army right to continue to organize train equip develop leaders right what is that what is that commitment right and and and what is what does that take and then you begin to get an appreciation really for you know for the capacity you need today we have seven of ten division headquarters deployed uh overseas uh in a broad range of of uh contingency operations uh in eastern europe uh for example to in a mission to reassure our allies in Liberia you know for example to provide command and control capabilities for the response to Ebola in iraq uh to to assess the situation there and to work with iraqis and to integrate efforts of our joint and multinational team that's coming together there and so forth so there are all sorts of examples you can just look contemporaneously in terms of demand for for army forces and then of course the last thing to look at is typically classified as war plans right and and and what you need for for certain war plans so i i think that the capacity issue is an important one i'm not the right person to lay out all those numbers and comment on it uh but uh but i i think that uh that you know one of the things we have to recognize is once you give up land force capability it's not super easy to regenerate right i mean i think especially if you look at the advanced technologies right that our soldiers and teams have to master their integration and then really what we demand of leaders right so to grow an army okay you can grow privates fast but those leaders right those formative experiences they have as sergeants as squad leaders as platoon sergeants as as company commanders they give them the knowledge and the confidence to lead soldiers into battle you can't do that over overnight so i think a factor that relates to this is is uh you know is is is how quickly your forces can be regenerated now we're doing a lot of work to figure out how we can do that faster we're looking at expansibility we're looking at a whole broad range of things you know to we're not just accepting status quo but uh but you raise an important issue on capacity and then the the final what was the other question future combat vehicle okay i think the first step is to acknowledge the need which we have and it's still a requirement uh for a replacement for the Bradley fighting vehicle and a new and a new uh new future fighting vehicle which would which we have applicability mainly to to cavalry formations and and infantry formations combined our formations i think we have to recognize that armored vehicles are a key element of our differential advantage over our enemies right and one of the things we have to learn as i talked about you know walking backwards into the future is to look at how important armored vehicles are to recent and ongoing conflicts today and and uh and to support remember i think in part that you know the armored vehicles were designed to actually defeat the machine gun at world war one and if you give up that advantage you get with mobile protected fire power you essentially go back to world war one conditions every time you bump up against anybody with a machine gun so so what armored vehicles allow us to do is to conduct fire and maneuver both mounted and dismounted in close combat with the enemy it provides you the ability to close with the enemy uh and and uh and destroy the enemy in close combat using you know mobility and fire power so i think making that case is what's important and we do have a need for it because i think if you project out how long it takes to develop these capabilities you have the bradley reaching obsolescence before we field the first you know future fighting vehicle so it's not just that one vehicle though right it's the range of capabilities in our armored formations and so what we are looking at again is the right combinations of mobility protection and fire power cross-haul formations in your armored formations the first priority is to replace the 113 it's a vietnam era vehicle i mean in iraq i could not let our ambulances leave our operating base because al-qaeda and iraq targeted them and every time they did it was a catastrophic destruction of our casualties we're evacuating and our medics in those vehicles so we have to address the vulnerabilities of the of the m113 across the range of what those vehicles do for us and that's the armored multi-purpose vehicle the second key thing is really upgrades across our vehicles to keep them up with the with the latest stuff we're looking at infrared radar capabilities the ability to see the enemy first and kill the enemy first and then increasing the power of our vehicles i mentioned we've put a lot on our vehicles but we need to now increase the power of those vehicles to restore their their mobility and also to power some of our communications and network capabilities and then and so it's these improvements of the to the tank and bradley in the in the short term in the longer term then it's to it's to start this future fighting vehicle effort we have a we have a three kind of types of formations in our army for those of you who aren't familiar with it we have armored brigade combat teams which you know which give you that overmatch capability over the enemy in close combat their advantage is is the is the power that they bring the overwhelming power they bring to the fight in a broad range of environments their disadvantage is is is is difficult to deploy although you know it's two ships no matter what kind of formation you send but logistics demand for those formations as well so we're working on those to to address what we see as weaknesses in that formation in the striker brigade combat teams we have a formation that can deliver large numbers of skilled tough courageous infantrymen into the fight and transition into a dismounted fight as a as a combined arms team we want those strikers to to be upgunned right we have good optics on the struggles striker strikers now but we have more work to weapons system in a lot of cases you know for 50 caliber machine guns and we want to develop a a mobile protected firepower capability for those formations and to support infantry brigade combat teams our infantry brigade combat teams can get their fast low logistics demand and they can work in very severely restrictive terrain but they lack mobility and firepower so we want to develop vehicles for for for select infantry brigade combat teams and airborne forces to be able to to conduct effective reconnaissance capabilities offensive security capabilities and be able to move infantry formations behind that security force that's that mobile protected firepower effort as well as as a vehicle that we are working on called the the light reconnaissance vehicle as well as tactical wheel mobility for those four formations so that there are a lot of initiatives that i think are necessary to keep us to to first to maintain overmatch capability and some people say well why you know why are you really going for overmatch well the reason is in war you know each side tries to outdo the other right and and barely winning in war is an ugly proposition right barely winning in any engagement is an ugly proposition and so what we what we need to do for us to be effective as an army and and to accomplish the mission at the lowest cost and soldiers lives in particular is to provide them with those capabilities okay good harlan i'm harlan allman hr great to see you and thank you for a formidable and powerful intellectual construct i think it's extremely worthy my question stems from my broader concerns about the future i think we're going to come into a huge budget problem budget deficits over the long term are going up interest rates will rise and the inbuilt costs and defense for pay allowances retirees like me health care weapon systems by the end of the decade are going to if left unchecked are going to cause a compression of a fifth third maybe maybe more so the question is are we going to be left with a hollow force reminiscent of the 70s or a smaller active duty force that's ready and able and if it's the latter and i think we're going to be forced to choose those to what degree is a strategy of regeneration and reconstitution and what you suggest today applicable can you do it in smaller batches so to speak realizing that during world war two we actually grew kernels and generals and matters of months if not years we don't want to recreate world war two to do that but is there a way that we can be able to compress and make what you suggest smaller and and and perhaps more streamlined in the event we are forced with cutting our capabilities dramatically which i think the budget all things being equal they never are is going to mandate yeah well i think you raise a number of issues right it's really uh if you if you do need to expand forces quickly what is the level to do that and typically smaller formations obviously are easier to regenerate because of a lower level of complexity and an ability to plug in you know to to larger units that are that already exist obviously we have tremendous capability you know in our national guard and reserve right which that gives us mobilization but you're talking about expanding further right beyond that and what you have to do so we're looking at a number of options to do that some ideas on on how to do that what are the right size of formations we know it takes i mean if you want to really build a capable brigade combat team from scratch we know it takes three years because we just did it right i mean it's hard to do that especially combined arms formation like an armored brigade brigade combat team so you know we're if you have ideas or if anybody has ideas this is one of our war fighting challenges right is uh is you know how we you know improve our ability to you know to mobilize expand the army right improve our institutional adaptability ability to do that uh i i think that if you look at at the size of the force historically where it is now i think you could say that's already very going to a very small very low number uh the budget i'm not an expert on the budget or anything and i will tell you though that i think it's there's a broad consensus that that that's severe cuts you know in defense still do not solve your deficit problem you know so what you would get under severe cuts to defense i think i mean logically would be still that weakness in the in the economy associated with the deficit and the growing national debt and and a weak military along with that you know so so or a military it doesn't have the capability you need anyway not a weak military necessarily so i'm not the the right person but those are just my thoughts on that harlan and uh you know i obviously you know i having having uh been the beneficiary of the renaissance in the army uh in the 1970s recognizing what that generation of officers did they gave us this tremendous gift you know they gave us a gift of of an army that was disciplined uh that was extremely well trained that developed as leaders that was equipped you know with these overmatch capabilities and knew how to combine arms and and fight together and integrate joint capabilities you know i i think we we we should be careful not to underestimate the cost right and the cost in time and resources and and potentially casualties if if we if we give up that gift you know by by not providing the resources we need across those key activities training and readiness modernization and personnel here and then back there right here thank you general this is extremely helpful in a way you've been making the case that i think the american public so much needs to better understand where we are and where we're going kathryn tovan uh commissioner on the united states china commission i understood your game plan as you said myra was very well laid out could you tell me how you would take that capacity to provide the foundation to the joint command to an area such as the pacific command and so taking it from the theoretical to a sketch if you would of that arena with the other forces thank you all right so a couple things i could talk about really what's going on right now you know we have you know we have army forces committed in very large numbers to to to the pacific already obviously in every important deterrent role in uh in south korea but also uh you know bolstering and and uh allies china i mean in japan uh for for example for example uh and we are we're developing uh very good relationships you know with the number of of countries in the region some of of which as you know we we've not had relationships with uh in quite some time and uh and we're doing that through an army initiative in large measure you call regionally aligned forces where we align our our our forces two particular regions for a number of for a number of reasons the first the first is really to learn more about that region and to learn from our partners right i mean we're not we're not dispensing knowledge to our allies oftentimes most often we gain we learn more from our allies about the security problems that they face in the region and then also you know they're you know how they how they fight how they train i mean we so it's a it's a really rich relationship that we're developing through regionally aligned forces and understanding you know the threats to the region the other thing that we're doing is providing ambassadors and and uh a a sort of more depth of capability in in security force assistance in theater security cooperation so based on the country plans for for those ambassadors those army forces give them the potential to increase cooperation with with uh with our with military forces in particular and to do the kind of training our special forces have always done but the demand you know far exceeds the the support the supply so that's one way is through regional engagement of forces and developing of those relationships theater security cooperation and then the development of a theater security architecture where you have army forces that provide logistics capabilities ballistic missile defense capabilities intelligence infrastructure and capabilities throughout the the pacific as well now in terms of operationally well it's it's a development of relationships and the developments of capabilities consistent with with how our ambassadors uh and and the regional bureau at state and others see our see our objectives there so we're not it's not the army just charging around you know looking for people to partner with i mean this is all part of a plan to you know to develop an effective theater security architecture and then if you think about army role the army's role marine corps role land forces role in the pacific i think again you know this is where history is instructive right uh if you look at uh for example uh you know japan's actions in in world war two i think you can see that that uh there was a huge element of a land campaign there so if there was to be a regional threat emerging from asia that threat would have a very significant land component to it and then obviously operating on and controlling land allows you to project power from land into the the maritime air and space domains which is another role i think of of land forces the key thing i think land forces help do you know if you want to do something negative or punitive first choice oftentimes can be standoff capabilities if you need to do something positive right reassure an ally deliver you know humanitarian assistance to the people in need to do something develop a relationship right based on mutual trust and common interests and common purpose and respect and so forth you have to do that kind of close up on land oftentimes and that's that's what army forces provide you with in the back back then and then we'll come up here good afternoon sir retired colonel chris holshek my question is with regard to looking at three capabilities areas if you would in terms of the aoc but also in terms of how tradoc looks at developing and sustaining these three areas one is civil affairs the second is the reserve component and the third is multilateral engagement okay so uh for civil affairs i think civil affairs is is more important than ever right and i think that if you look at the long history of civil affairs when we decided to you know to give to not focus as much on military support to governance and rule of law is when i think we lost some of our advantages within that's particular specialty so there's a new center stood up at for brag that that is looking at that and how to evolve the civil affairs force and those are going to be the keepers of our expertise in this particular area and then you know some one of the counter arguments to this will be hey we we're just not going to do that anymore right we're going to sort of opt out of of that mission set for the army but i think really what that that misunderstands two things first of all the armies always had to do these types of missions right to consolidate gains and it's not just in iraq and afghanistan but it was after the panamon invasion after after the dominican republic intervention in 1965 and just to pick any example right we've always had to conduct military support to governance and and rule of law and development activities so we ought to be ready to do that because we're likely to have to do it again in the future so we have to have the expertise there but we need that expertise across our forces well that kind of expertise so we're looking now what are the what are the skill sets that we need in our different military operational specialties so if we develop in our military police just now military policing skills shouldn't we add on based on our our recent experiences certain investigative skills that will allow them to advise military commanders like the gendarmerie french gendarmerie or the italian carabinieri do to their deployed forces shouldn't we give them the skills that they need to help us gain visibility of organized crime networks associated with our enemies and help us see flows through those networks of people money weapons narcotics and and and so forth shouldn't they also be have be able to advise you know local police forces and so forth so i think that's a skill set that we ought to improve across our army like for example just one specialty for engineers shouldn't engineers be able to assess infrastructure as well and have some of the civil affairs skills associated with that in terms of your final one you know in terms of multilateral engagement i think that's a skill set that we need across our our whole force you know which you know which includes i think you know some different leadership skills that we have now built in to again this leader development program if you go to the maneuver leader development strategy there's an annex on language and and culture and so forth one of the key skills that we're emphasizing is cross cultural negotiation and mediation and it's essentially applying what we know from negotiation mediation theory to military missions right and you know it's the first step well interest mapping i mean understand the interests of the people you're dealing with i mean this is of course quite relevant to i mean iraqi security forces or you know libyan security forces such as they are or you know who are who am i dealing with what are their interests what is the degree their interest or pps or pps right or any of those exactly our processes and what was your second one again reserve reserve component okay one of one of this is one of our war fighting challenges but really what the war fighting challenges allow us to do is integrate our reserve component into every one of these war fighting challenges so what we want to do is we don't want to do what we don't look at balance sheets like how many in the reserve how many that what are the capabilities that we need to have based on some first order principles for for future force design now these we took a cut at these first order principles which are again in annex b of the of the operating concept and and one of those is is to to to really match the capabilities with the component to make sure that the component this is active guard or reserve right it has that that that that capabilities consistent with their strengths right the strengths of that component relative to the others now it doesn't mean you don't have certain capabilities in all three components maybe like the logistic capabilities we have or port opening capabilities and so forth and uh and our our joint logistics over the shore and our army watercraft for example i mean but but do you have the the bulk of that capability in the component who who has you know the who has the uh the best competency and ability to sustain that competency over time so there's not an easy you know simple question of where we're going with reserve component the idea is that we're going to have evolve with all the capabilities of all three components based on these kind of of these first principles and a sustained effort working on the warfighting warfighting challenges and so what we won't do and is we won't develop you know as an as an active component you know solutions for the reserve and guard and then say hey what do you think of this what we have now is we have a method and a system and a framework where everybody is in on that conversation from the framing of the problem. I think one more question you have time for one more I think one right up here. Sir Lieutenant Carl Neal Smith uh also at the privilege of replacing your fox troop in Tullafar uh in two three seven armored years ago um Jesse Sellers. Yes from Jesse Sellers. I mean it's so sad I mean I was so what's going on in Iraq I mean this is no kidding story Iraqi families were naming their children after this true commander uh in in Tullafar you know which is which is now besieged by by these bastards ISIL. It's always tough to rip a company commander it's got kids walking down the street chanting his name that's that's a difficult task but uh yes sir uh what I wanted to ask you about though was uh unified quest results from last year about a year ago your predecessor Fred Arkick published a unclassified paper that outlines sort of the army's results of unified quest and I personally found them very much at odds with what you've recently been talking about it was very technological uh technologically oriented uh it basically as I had to summarize it would be a Ricky Bobby a viewing first year last concept without really putting it in a strategic context it had all sorts of learning domain implications that were basically fanciful and tied together with Malcolm Gladwell quotes are we walking back that or how do you see the AOC potentially uh simple uh supplanting that no I mean I think I think all that work is is relevant and useful so what we've been able to do is place that work into a broader context right to understand the possibilities associated with each of these initiatives but also limitations and how they have to fit in how they have to fit in to deliver on these first order capabilities to to develop answers to these first order questions right so one of the one of the problems that we've had I think in the past is we would uh we would look at things and there's advantages to this too I mean but there we would look at things by war fighting functions so we categorize what we have to do in war by maneuver and fires and intelligence and sustainment right and so what what we did is we artificially separated those things which have to be routinely combined in combat and on missions any mission and so what we are doing and forcing now and everybody's enthusiastic about it I mean it's but it's uncomfortable at first is to work outside of each of those cylinders of excellence right and and to work together in the sustained manner on what the army has to do right and and uh and so an example okay an example of a war fighting challenges how do we develop and sustain a high degree of situational understanding in complex environments and against adaptive enemies I mean is that a problem we're just going to be able to solve quickly tomorrow no is there is there some sort of one single technological capability that's going to deliver that situational understanding no so but there's a broad range of capabilities you know can help us understand better combined with leader development combined with training combined with developing organizations that are capable of doing that combined with you know the cross-cultural capabilities we want to cross our force you know combined with the the application of human sciences and and the effort advanced cognition and naturalistic decision making combined with you know so I mean it's not any one solution so what we're doing under each of these war fighting challenges we define the problem right and what is the problem we're trying to solve what is our assessment of how well we can do that with what's called the base force the force that's budgeted and then we make a grounded projection into the future beyond that what are the again in these four and really five key areas okay we look at at at really the enemy's threats adversaries in the operating environment the mission technology mission what we're learning you know today and from history and so forth and then finally we look at an area called assets and opportunities what what do we have right now in the force right that we have an opportunity to to combine in a different way and to do things differently with right so so uh I think what you might have seen in that document I'm not sure exactly what you're referring to are sort of a series of discrete sort of initiatives without maybe a clear understanding of how those initiatives would lead to a improved overall capability for the army in the future and that's what we're trying to do by starting with the conceptual foundation having a framework for analysis a sustained campaign of learning and then and then a clear bridge into implementation sir I think I think you've got another engagement I think everybody here would be happy to say um but we've kept you longer than we promised it's always great to have you here we hope you come back soon thanks Mark thanks so much and thanks for the great work that CSI starts