 listening to the chairman to give us I think his insights. He's been leading a remarkably important survey on behalf of the Senate Armed Services Committee and we're going to have the opportunity to hear today some of his perspective. Before we begin, let me just say we have this custom here at CSS. I'm the senior safety officer for this meeting. If we have anything that causes us to be worried you're going to take your instructions for me. So please follow what I tell you. The exits are right behind me. We'll go out that way. If we have to, we're going to go over to the Beacon Hotel and I'll pay for drinks, okay? So we'll just do what I tell you if we have to do it. I want to say a sincere thank you to Senator McCain. He has been, when he became chairman, he said that we need to take a very deep survey of what we're facing. I think that was so refreshing to have a chairman who said let's start with our requirements. Let's start with our needs. Let's not start with some tactical debate about budgets. Let's start the foundation. What is happening? What are we facing as a country? And then we'll try to decide what do we need to do about it. And I think that's in character with the stewardship and the leadership that Senator John McCain has given to us, the American people, all these years and we're very grateful to have him now in this role as chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. I think it's fair to say that the committee has been surprised and worried at the scale of the things that we need to deal with and I've had conversations with the chairman about this. I think you can anticipate a bold and very important authorization bill. They're just in the process of starting to work on that. Obviously the chairman can't get into the details of that today but I think he will give you insight into what they have discovered and what they are thinking needs to be the priority for America going forward in the defense area. So with your applause, would you please welcome and thank Senator John McCain. Well thank you John and thank you for inviting me to be here today and thank you for disclosure. John and I first served together in the Coolidge administration and I'm always happy to be here and appreciate his leadership and thank you for your continued leadership and I must say there's a few people that I rely on for advice and counsel over these many years and John is certainly one of the very few that I have always valued. It's been almost 100 days since I became chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and I know some of you are anxiously counting down the days left and I'm well aware and I'm well aware that this could only be a two year job and I'd love to plan on more time but that's up to the American voters and their infinite wisdom. For this reason my goal is to make the greatest difference I can over the next two years and I'm very fortunate to have in the partners in this endeavor Chairman Mark Thornberry and I see eye to eye on almost every major issue. I work very well with my Democratic counterpart Senator Jack Reed despite his lousy West Point education. I also know the Secretary of Defense Ash Carter for many years as well and I greatly respect him and he is eager to get a lot of things done in his work in the next two years as well. All in all I see this moment as an opportunity to make real progress and enact meaningful reforms that can enhance our national security in these most challenging times. So today I'd like to describe my first priorities as chairman and then I'd be happy to respond to any questions, comments or insults that you might have. My first priority is the oversight of our national security policy obviously. This strategic consideration must inform and drive all the others. I recognize that we only have one commander in chief which is as it should be and there are clear limits to how much the Congress can push any president to adopt different national security policies but where we believe that is necessary it is our responsibility to make the effort and to help educate our colleagues and fellow citizens about the gravity of our global challenges as well as what they call on our country to do. In the past three months, the Center Armed Services Committee has received testimony from many of America's most respected statesmen, thinkers and former military commanders. These leaders have all conveyed one similar message. We are experiencing a nearly unprecedented time of global turmoil. As Dr. Henry Kissinger told the committee in January, the United States has not faced a more diverse and complex array of crises since the end of the Second World War. It's a fitting that this year marks the 70th anniversary of that war's conclusion. It also marks the beginning of the liberal order that our predecessors, both Democrats and Republicans, lifted up from the ashes of that global catastrophe, a system of values, customs, laws and institutions predicated on the principles of good governance and rule of law, human rights and democracy, open markets, and the conviction that might does not make right. The strong should not be allowed to dominate the weak. The wars of aggression should be relegated to the public, to the bloody past. For seven decades, the liberal world order that America and our allies have painstakingly built has expanded prosperity and kept the peace. This has happened to be sure because of the inherent appeal of our values, the material gains they foster and the inspiration of our example. But ultimately, it has happened because we have backed our principles with our power. We have deterred aggression, defended allies, defeated adversaries, and built peace through strength. Now as before, we should not view the threats we face in isolation. Taken together, they constitute the greatest challenge in a generation to the integrity of a liberal world order. The question is, will we prove equal to our challenges again? On the one hand, these challenges take the form of strong nation states with decidedly 19th century views of the world. There's Russia, which has invaded a sovereign country and annexed its territory through force. The first time that has happened in Europe in seven decades, there is China, which claims vast swaths of the South China Sea, and which is now reclaiming hundreds of acres of land features that it will likely use for military or paramilitary purposes. And then of course, there's Iran, which is on the offensive all across the Middle East and whose proxies now occupy dominant positions in four Arab capitals. States like these, while different in many ways, possess similar hegemonic ambitions. They practice a zero sum real politic, ascribing themselves exclusive rights in old spheres of influence. They embody a dangerous mix of nationalism and autocracy and they're modernizing their militaries in asymmetric ways that aim to negate American power projection, put simply. States like China, Russia, and Iran threaten to revise and roll back key tenants of the liberal world order. At the same time, we face a rising threat from violent Islamic radicals that seek to ease borders, topple governments, erase borders, topple governments, and foment sectarian civil war. These terrorists and militants now control more territory in the Middle East than ever and their reach is spreading deeper into Muslim communities in Africa and South Asia. The result is that a key strategic region of the world is descending into deptist despotism, violence, and chaos. While some may wish to minimize America's exposure to crises like these, history teaches us that we are ultimately unable to do so. In the face of these threats, our goal must be to shore up the liberal world order. We recognize, of course, that that cannot be done through military force alone. We must use all elements of our national power, including our economic, diplomatic, moral influence. But acknowledging that there is no military solution, which is a truism, should not lead us to believe that there is no military dimension or that hard power can play no role in a favorable solution. In fact, our soft power is the shadow cast by our hard power. That is how we deter adversaries, reassure allies, defeat enemies, and add leverage to our diplomacy. I believe it is the job of the loyal opposition and not just to criticize current policy, but to propose constructive alternatives. We should define ourselves, not just by what we stand against, but what we stand for. That will continue to be a top priority for me as chairman of the Armed Services Committee, and I will look at all the tools at our disposal, from hearings to legislations to committee-led reports to help shape our country's ongoing debate over national security policy. Ultimately, we need greater American leadership and the world and Congress can only do so much in this regard. I imagine many of you are grateful for that. But what we can and must do is rebuild the bipartisan consensus in favor of a strong internationalist foreign policy, the kind that enabled Republican and Democrat administrations to sustain the liberal world order for seven decades. I am not too sanguine about the President's willingness to chart a new course at this point. That must be a job for his successor, and it is my goal to lay as much groundwork as possible so that he or she can quickly adopt better national security policies. One way to do that, which we in Congress are responsible for right now, is to end sequestration and put in place strategy-driven defense budgets. Doing so is a second priority for me as chairman of the Armed Services Committee. Sequestration has done lasting damage to the capabilities readiness, morale, and modernization of America's armed forces. And each year, since the Budget Control Act was passed, the world has become more dangerous, and the threats to our nation and our interests have grown. I don't believe this is a coincidence. Our senior military leaders have all testified to Congress that with defense spending at sequestration levels, they could not execute the national military strategy, and American lives would be put at risk. The Bipartisan National Defense Panel warned last year that America may soon find itself in a position where, quote, it must either abandon an important national interest or enter a conflict for which it is not fully prepared, unquote. This is a crisis of Washington's own making and continuing to live with the unacceptable effects of sequestration is a choice. As you know, the Senate and the House are debating our budget resolution this week, and today we will go through an authentication of Mr. Bismarck's comments about laws and sausages, and the issue of defense spending has been one heck of a fight. I'm sad to say that still divides Republicans. Winning the fight is my top priority. The good news is more Republicans than last year feel the same way, and far more Americans than last year now view national security as their top concern. And who can blame them? The current budget resolutions reflect the reality that providing appropriate funding for defense is a growing priority for more Republicans and Democrats. Still, this fight is far from finished, and Republicans like me will keep it up. We will continue to argue that we cannot meet our highest priority to provide for national defense at sequestration levels. We will continue to point out that we will never balance the budget through discretionary spending cuts alone. That is just math. And we will also continue to insist that Republicans cannot talk tough on national security, but be unwilling to pay for it. One way or another, I'm confident that defense spending increases are coming, hopefully because prudent arguments will prevail, but if not, I fear it will be in response to a national security crisis. A related priority is ensuring that the money we do invest in defense is spent wisely and efficiently. Unfortunately, we all know that is not always the case. Even in the teeth of sequestration, there is still wasteful spending. No bomb-sniffing elephants have been fielded. Another example, rather than purchasing local produce for U.S. troops in Asia, which is likely cheaper and fresher, the department spends more than $48 million a year to ship $25 million worth of fruits and vegetables to commissaries in the Pacific. A final example, at the end of last year, the National Guard announced that it ran out of money and would suspend training for units around the country. And yet the Guard still managed to spend $2.4 million last year to advertise with professional sports, including professional snowmobiling. When it comes to spending like this, the military value is, shall we say, questionable. Some of it is the fault of the Defense Department. Some of it, however, is the legacy of old pork barrel projects that Congress initiated. To be sure, even if we cut every wasteful program in the department, we would still need to invest more on national defense than we do today. Still, we must root out this waste all the time and it will be a priority for me as chairman to do so. A fourth priority is acquisition reform. Chairman Thornberry and I are working closely on this and I support many of the proposals that he laid out here on Monday. At the same time, I hope is that we can also take some ambitious steps this year on which we both agree to make meaningful changes to our defense acquisition system. I believe the scale of the problem demands nothing less. Many of our military's challenges today are the result of years of mistakes and wasted resources. According to one recent study, the Defense Department spent $46 billion between 2001 and 2011 on at least a dozen programs that never became operational. And what's worse, I'm not sure who, if anyone, was ever held accountable for these failures. In today's vast acquisition bureaucracy where personnel and project managers cycle through rapidly, everyone is accountable and no one is accountable. That is one reason we are looking at how best to give the service chiefs and secretaries greater responsibility for acquisition, especially in shaping requirements and achieving results on cost, schedule, and performance. And even worse consequence of our failed acquisition system is the erosion of America's defense technological advantage, which is why we are in danger of losing altogether if we persist with business as usual. That's why our failing defense acquisition system is not just a budgetary scandal, it is a national security crisis. The Defense Department is facing an emerging innovation gap. Commercial R&D in the United States overtook government R&D in 1980 and now represents 80% of the national total. The top four U.S. defense contractors combined spend only 27% of what Google does annually on R&D. The problem grows worse beyond our borders. Global R&D is now more than twice that of the United States. Chinese R&D levels are projected to surpass the United States in 2022. Even when the Defense Department is innovating, it is moving too slowly. Innovation is measured in 18 month cycles in the commercial market. The Defense Department has acquisition cycles that can last 18 years. Accessing sources of innovation beyond the Defense Department is critical for national security in the future, especially in the areas such as cyber, robotics, data analytics, miniaturization, and autonomy. However, the Defense Acquisition System is leading many commercial firms to choose not to do business with the Defense Department or to limit their engagement in ways that prevent the Department from accessing the critical technologies that these companies have to offer. Export controls, security mandates, and bi-America barriers also limit cooperation with our allies and global commercial firms. In short, the Defense Acquisition System itself increasingly poses a threat to our future military technological dominance. For this reason, we must create better incentives for innovation by removing unnecessary legislative and regulatory barriers to new commercial competition. We must also establish alternative acquisition paths to get innovative capabilities to our warfighters in a matter of months, not decades. Ultimately, we need an acquisition system that enables the Department of Defense to take advantage of the best minds, firms, and technologies that America and the world have to offer. At the same time, I'll take an active interest in what priorities the Defense Department sets for its procurement of weapons systems. We have a lot of large and costly programs of record that have been many years, even decades, in the making. We need to review these programs closely in light of new threats, and we need to make necessary investments now in next generation technologies that can enable us to outpace our adversaries. Those include cyber and space control capabilities, directed energy weapons, unmanned combat aerial vehicles, and our future power projection capabilities, especially the future of the aircraft carrier and the carrier air wing. I intend to be a champion for these kinds of new technologies. Acquisition reform is actually a large piece of an even larger priority, which is the final one I plan to focus on as chairman, the structure, roles, and missions of our civilian and military organizations within the Defense Department. Much of this is the legacy of the Goldwater Nichols reforms that Congress enacted 30 years ago. These reforms required a level of joint collaboration between the services that was sorely needed and never would have happened on its own. At the same time, three decades later, there are real questions about how Goldwater Nichols has been implemented and what unintended consequences may have resulted. For example, as the roles and missions of the joint staff combat and combines, joint task force, and other headquarters elements properly aligned to conduct strategic planning, equip our war fighters, and maximize power. Does the vast enterprise that has become the office of the Secretary of Defense further our ability to meet present and future military challenges? Does the constant churn of uniformed officers through joint assignments make them more effective military leaders, or has this exercise become more of a self-justification for a larger officer corps? Is the Defense Officer personnel management of 1980 still appropriate for the joint force of 2015 and beyond, or is it time to review this law? I could go on. I want the Senate Armed Services Committee to conduct real oversight of questions like these during the next two years. It's long overdue, and I think the 30th anniversary of Goldwater Nichols is a fitting time to start. My friends, I'd be the first to admit that this is an ambitious set of priorities, strategy, budget, waste, acquisition, and management reform, but I believe success in these areas is essential if we are to ensure that the Department of Defense is prepared to meet our present and future national security challenges. We've reached a key inflection point. For the past decade, our adversaries have been rapidly improving their militaries to counter our unique advantages. At the same time, our Defense Department has grown larger, but less capable, more complex, but less innovative, more proficient at defeating low-tech adversaries, but more vulnerable to high-tech ones. The self-inflicted wounds of sequestration have made all of this much worse. As a result, we are now flirting with disaster. The liberal world order, which has been anchored by United States hard power for seven decades, is being seriously stressed, and with it, the foundation of our security and prosperity. It does not have to be this way. Nowhere is it preordained or inevitable that American power must decline. That is a choice, and it's up to us. And we can choose a better future for ourselves, but only if we make the right decisions on how to set us on a better course. Critics of the President may not be able to persuade him to adopt different policies, but we can lay the groundwork for his successors to lead more decisively and do so buttressed by greater defense capabilities. That's how I would define success for my chairmanship, and whether I contributed in some small but meaningful way to the effectiveness of the U.S. military, the restoration of America's global leadership, and the defense of a liberal world order. It's a lot to live up to, but I've never been more excited or grateful for the opportunity to serve than I am right now. I look forward to your questions. Senator, I think this is why we're so excited to have your leadership at this time, and we say welcome to Senator Warner. We're delighted that you could join us today. Senator, I think you are perfectly capable of fielding your own questions, so let me just turn it over to you, and then we'll run microphones around. I would note the presence of my dear and beloved friend and inspiration and leader, Senator John Warner, a great, great man, except for the fact he was in the Marine Corps. It's a great job. Yes, sir. Thank you, Senator. I'm Tom Rekford, now with the Foreign Policy Discussion Group. I wonder where you stand, sir, on the strategic pivot or rebalance to East Asia and how this would involve dealing with China's increasing assertiveness in the South China Sea? First of all, I think there's every long-term justification and rationale for a pivot because the world's economy has shifted to the Asia Pacific region, as we know. That in itself is ample reason, but I don't think there's any doubt that events in the Middle East are understandably capturing our attention. But I also think that none of them are disconnected. I think the Chinese see a perception of weakness in the Middle East. They see erosion of American influence and that emboldens them to act in a more assertive. I don't want to use the word aggressive, assertive fashion. I think a good anecdote along those lines are that for the past 10 years, they had filled in some 60 acres there around. Now they have filled in 600 acres in the last year and it's pretty clear they're gonna build a runway and perhaps anti-aircraft weapons, in other words, to solidify their control over the key islands there. And I think that this new leader of China is probably more powerful and consolidating more influence into his own hands than anybody since Deng Xiaoping. This man is a very interesting individual and on the grounds of corruption, he seems to be cleansing his areas of influence and government from those who might oppose him. So I just think, and I'll stop with this, our pivot has not been very meaningful. As far as I know, it's been two LCSs that have been moved to the Pacific and that is one of the worst things you can do is announce a new strategy and not implement it and that message is not lost on our friends in the region. So I believe one of the great long-term challenges we have is to maintain significant influence in the Asia Pacific region and I think we need to do things like look to India for more cooperation and more effort. I'm incredibly impressed with the new leader. Mr. Modi is probably the strongest leader that I've seen emerge in India certainly in our lifetimes. So we're gonna have to look at different alliances and cooperate more closely with countries that probably it was not very reasonable to do so in even previous years. But I just also would finally just summarize by saying what happens in one part of the world is not lost on other parts of the world to think that we are now seeing and they're watching us functioning, the United States functioning today as the Iranian-backed Shiite Air Force in the battle for Tikrit is not lost. Meanwhile, while we are using, our Air Force is striking targets for the Shia militia with same ones we fought against over in Yemen, the Saudis are now using their air strikes against these same people that we are launching air strikes in support of. Now you can't make that up, you just can't make that up and it's crazy. And I say that as a former member of my staff here back in the 1920s is here and I hired him as a gamble on a work release program and I think Tony Cordesman has a comment or if we can bring you there. After that, Senator, I'm not sure I should fully agree with you, but there is an interesting slide in the budget justifications that came out of the Department of Defense. It shows that the president has a request above the sequestration level. It also shows that he will not fund the absolute minimum for his own proposed strategy until he is left office. And you raise the issue of strategy. How does the Congress get a picture of what kind of horse posture and strategy is really needed and what it takes to fund it when you have a budget request that goes above sequestration but doesn't fund the strategy? Tony, since you have spent time both in Congress and outside, I think you know that very well that there are many members of Congress that because of their committee assignments and some of their background don't spend a great deal of time on issues such as you just described. And that's one reason why we started these hearings when I became the chairman where we tried to get the best minds in America whether it be from former Democrat administrations or Republican administrations. So Big Brzezinski, Madeleine Albright, Schultz, Kissinger, Scowcroft, you can go through it to try to educate these new members. 60% of the United States Senate has been there six years or less. Now fortunately we have some with a military background that have come in. I'm happy to say Iraq and Afghan, Joni Ernst, Tom Cotton, Sullivan, and others in both House and Senate. But the learning curve is very steep. And the concern of the so-called deficit hawks seems to be the overriding concern of many members of both House and Senate. And there's not the appreciation to the challenges of our national security to our national security as you and I see it. So when we talk about how much the president has asked for and whether he can implement it into his national strategy, honestly I have to have a hearing and sit down and talk to these people and explain it to them face to face. And I'm not blaming them because they come from different backgrounds, they come from different priorities that they got elected to office that they ran on. And so the sequestration fight that I've been having, I think is probably the toughest fight I've ever been in with fellow Republicans. I tweeted the other day and the House representatives and I respect every one of them. They got a thing called the freedom caucus, which is against the increase in spending. And I tweeted the other day, dear friends in the freedom caucus, freedom isn't free. And they've got to recognize that. And finally, you and I know too, that even if we made every cut that we wanted to, we're still not going to make significant impact on the deficit because the majority of the deficit is now driven by entitlements. And someday we're gonna recognize the elephant in the room and that is the unchecked growth of entitlements as a larger and larger part of our spending. Sir. Thank you, Senator. Well, this Congress created high hopes for lethal defensive assistance to Ukraine facing Putin's aggression. Well, unfortunately, this is not happening. Putin is coming, Russians are grabbing new territories. And some experts in this town are telling that inability of administration to provide lethal assistance actually provokes Putin to come even further. Or maybe in the medium term, even provokes the probability of the conflict with NATO. Would you agree with this opinion? I think we are witnessing one of the most shameful chapters in post-World War II history. In fact, it harkens back in some ways to the pre-World War II behavior of Europe. You know, we won't send our boys to a country which they do not know in their language. Language we do not speak. Neville Chamberlain, we watch as Russia, as Vladimir Putin takes Crimea in violation of the Budapest Agreement, which guaranteed the territorial integrity of Ukraine, including Crimea, specifically, if they gave up their nuclear inventory. We watch Russian equipment, if not Russian people shooting down an airliner. You know the story. And I promise you that I wish, very rarely in my life do I wish I'd been wrong, but Lindsey Graham and I predicted every single thing that he is doing. And I predict to you after a pause that he will try to take Mary Opal. So he has a land bridge all the way down to Crimea. Right now he's supplying Crimea through by air and by sea at incredible expense. So Mary Opal is next. And I'm not predicting now what he does after that because I think it depends on reaction. But it's pretty obvious that Moldova is very vulnerable, not a member of NATO, the poorest country in Europe. Already there's 1,400 Russian peacekeepers there in Transnistria. And of course everybody knows that he is putting enormous pressures on the Baltics. And Poland is obviously very concerned. I don't know where he stops. I think it depends on events. But I do know this. He wants to restore the Russian Empire. He says that himself. He says the greatest mistake, the greatest tragedy of the 20th century was the breakup of the Soviet Union. It shouldn't, and it seems to me, our European friends in this administration seems to be either ignoring or rationalizing this behavior. So I just come around again to say that to give people weapons with which to defend themselves that are being slaughtered, now 5,000 Ukrainians have been killed. And on the grounds that it may provoke, Vladimir Putin is beyond anything I have ever imagined in my life. And my friends, they are not asking for American troops. They're asking for American equipment. They're facing Russian sophisticated equipment. If you're a Ukrainian soldier today and you see a drone, you've got about 60 seconds to move because that drone is directing artillery fire. And yet we won't give them the weapons. I was in the Maidan. I was there with 300,000 people in freezing weather. They want to be like us. We want to be like Europe. They wanted to get rid of Yanukovych who was a corrupt, kleptomaniac. And so why we can't give them that assistance is. And finally, I'm just not sure that the Europeans will do anything meaningful except try to find ways to ease the sanctions because of the industrial complex and also their dependence on energy. And so I would say that maybe one of America's priorities would be to approve the pipeline. We are now a net exporter of energy and get that energy over to Europe so that it could be delivered to some of these European countries, especially Ukraine, so they are not dependent on the whims of Vladimir Putin. By the way, I was sanctioned by Vladimir Putin and so I'm unable to go to Siberia again for spring break. So. Okay, we got time for one last question. Could we do two, John? Yes, sir, you can do two. No, no, yes. Thank you, Senator. My name is Kimura from Happy Science America. I'd like to ask about Japan. Maybe a Prime Minister Abbey will be coming to the Congress in May. And I just wanted to note for the national security, what do you expect to do for Japan? Or if you can evaluate of his policy, what kinds of great do you wanna give him? I believe that for the first time in a long time, we have, in Japan, we have a stable government with a strong leader. And I think that's very important. I'm a great admirer of Mr. Abbey. And I think that there's serious consideration giving the situation in the Pacific to different interpretations of the Japanese Constitution, as you know. And I don't think it's revisions of the Constitution but interpretations of it. I don't think there's any doubt that tensions between Japan and China are on the increase. I am very happy with our strategic partnership. Our military relationship is excellent. We've got to fix this Okinawa problem. John and I were just talking about it. It sounds like a small thing, our Marines in Okinawa, but my friends, it is a source of great discontent amongst the Japanese people. And we've got to get our Marines relocated. And I would say one other thing. And by the way, I blame our failure to implement a coherent plan a lot more. The Japanese government has been much more helpful than we have been in this relocation. And finally, I just would like to make one other comment. And that is that it grieves me. It grieves all of us who are friends of Japan and Korea that there can't be some re-approachment and settlement. Look, there are two strongest allies in Asia. Let's face it. And we need this whole issue of the comfort women and the exacerbated relations between the two countries. Every time I meet one of them, I beg them to sit down and get this resolved. If you believe that there is a looming threat of Chinese assertiveness, then it is in everybody's interest to see Japan and Korea working closely together. Could we do it? Mr. Chairman, Peter Husey with the Air Force Association. Could you comment on Admiral Haney's testimony before your committee about the real necessity of improving our nuclear deterrent? You know, I just, we saw, I guess yesterday, that the Russian airplanes are now flying and being intercepted by Swedes and by our NATO allies. And you see this kind of, and the, incredibly, Putin saying in the Crimea, he was thinking about activating their nuclear forces. I mean, bizarre statements that there's no doubt we have neglected our nuclear inventory. There's no doubt that we have to spend a lot more money on it and we have to do it in the right way. It's not very exciting, but it is, I think, of the utmost importance. Secretary Hagel highlighted it about a year ago, as you know. And we're examining and are having hearings on the need for that, which brings up one other comment I'd like to make. I've had it been to so many of these, quote, secret hearings that we have, and we go down in one of these rooms and everybody is, you know, and I've never really heard anything in any of those hearings that I didn't read the day before in the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal. However, however, we received a briefing the other day from Admiral Haney and General Rogers, Admiral Rogers, that was as disturbing on cyber that was as disturbing as anything briefing I've ever had. The threats, the growing threats on cyber, both Russia and China, are something that we're going to have to really, really seriously look at. And I'm happy to tell you that the Intelligence Committee under the leadership of Richard Byrd did pass out a cyber bill, but that is legislation on cyber. We're gonna have to do a lot of work on hardware and also then we're gonna have to come up, but first we have to have a decision on what our policy is, whether we just engage in defensive capabilities to ward against these attacks or are we going to respond? And that policy has not yet been decided and I hope that the White House will make that decision soon so that we can then direct assets and authorization in whichever direction that is. I frankly don't think you can deter with simply defensive capabilities. Could I say again, what a pleasure it is to be back here? This is one of the premier organizations with one of the great leaders who I have had the opportunity of spending a lot of time with over the years and so I'm grateful for the opportunity to be here and we are, as the Chinese say, we're living in very interesting times. Thank you very much. Thank you, everybody.