 I like the chairs. Dr. Hamry does things right. Okay, folks. Hey Skip. Good morning everybody. Thank you so much for for joining us today. It's a real privilege to welcome Ray Odierno. I've had the pleasure of knowing General Odierno for a dozen years or so and obviously he's a professional friend but he's also a very important personal friend and I know the commitment and the sacrifice that he's brought to his service on behalf of this country and it's extraordinary. We're very lucky as Americans to have someone of his stature and leadership is carrying his command who is willing to lead at a time like this. We were just talking very briefly. This is a tough time. Anytime that the department has to go through the wrenching sorts of choices that are required when budgets start to contract this calls forth the really the the greatest demand of leadership because it requires that the chief be an advocate for today and advocate for tomorrow. He has to integrate the capacities of an army that we cannot yet see but it will unavoidably be shaped by his stewardship decisions today. He also has to ensure that we're able to fight every day the fight we're in. This is a challenge and I do have a feel for how taxing it is and I would like to say how I congratulate him for having pulled through this in very very admirable way. I think the army comes out of this very difficult this very difficult budget environment strong and and I think that's important for everyone. I know that General Odierno has just been to Asia and I hope that you might say just a word about your visit to Asia even though it is a maritime theater all of the militaries in Asia that dominate the the geopolitical landscape their armies you know and so it's a very important to have a strong army presence for America in Asia and I think Ray will probably talk a little bit about that. So I just want to say words of welcome to all of you and special thanks to General Odierno for his service to the country his family's service to this country and let me turn it over to you Maran to get it started for real thank you thank you all. Let me start with a couple admin notes first welcome everybody thanks for coming if you could do us a favor and turn off your cell phones if you've got ringers on also when we get to questions you should have had note cards on your seats if you could write your questions on those cards and then we have folks who'll run around and pick them up when we get to audience Q&A they'll be brought up to our questioners in the front and well because we have a lot of ground to cover and not a lot of time so to try to be most efficient we'll do it that way if you need additional cards just put your hand up and someone should bring one your way. Let me also say thank you to the sponsors of the ground forces dialogue Dupont and Raytheon very appreciative of their support and being able to make this happen for us so. Sir welcome it's great to have you here I want to pick up on on the Dr. Henry mentioned that you just got back from the Pacific I was thinking about your career is essentially a microcosm of the evolution in the focus of the Army you just started out here in the Continental United States and largely and then in Europe and in the 90s did Balkans tour and obviously spent much of the past last last decade in Iraq and then your most recent assignments have been ones where you've had to take a global approach as the assistant to the chairman as the as the commander of joint forces command and now certainly as the chief staff of the Army spending more time focused on the Pacific of late and wondered about the messages that you were taking when you went out to the region what you heard in the conversations that you had there and how if at all those conversations have affected your thinking about the Army's role well first off it was a very substantive trip I just had spent a couple days two and a half days or so in China then on to Japan then Korea obviously Japan and Korea being very important partners and allies of ours and China you know really an interesting conversation they came to see me back in November interested in increasing the dialogue between our armies that they see it as a real important initiative falling through by the discussion of our two presidents trying to change the relationship with China in the United States or try to further develop the relationship between China and the United States and the one thing as I went over there the discussions we had were more about you know we have a lot more in common than we do we tend to focus on our differences but we actually have a lot in common one is obviously the security and stability of the Pacific region because of the economic impacts it has on both of our countries and that we have to play a role in developing a stronger relationship that brings stability and ensures stability and economic growth for all it is clear to me that they they went out of their way to ensure that they want to move forward with an army to army dialogue and so we had the initial discussions over about two days I had the opportunity to meet with the very senior leadership of the Chinese People's Liberation Army and and I will tell you that they are focused on establishing this dialogue and I think that's a positive step forward and so we outlined some initial guidelines secretary defense will travel there in a few weeks and a month or so and I I hope that we'll be able to solidify that as when he gets over there and then we'll move on from there I think that's important this is by far the biggest step that we've taken in many many years and trying to open up this relationship between our armies and I think as I then traveled back to Japan and then Korea you realize the important role the army plays in the Pacific Japan as they kind of look at what's the future of their national defense force what they wanted to do what they wanted to do in order to ensure they protect their needs the role that the armies plays in helping them to develop as they move forward in the future and we had some very good discussions there then moving on to Korea where we continue to have an incredibly strong relationship which is growing closer and closer together incredibly strong as that relationship begins to morph and change the Koreans taking on more responsibility but still the key part of a strong multi-lateral relationship that we have with Korea and Japan the the other piece I would say is we are now watching the expansion of what the army is doing not only in Korea and Japan but in other places over the last month we did a joint airborne exercise into Thailand we are developing relations with the Philippines we are having some initial forays into Vietnam we are increasing our engagement with Indonesia and I will tell you the establishment of the U.S. Army Pacific commanders of four stars helped in developing those relationships and I think it's key to the future of us and what the combatant what Admiral Ackler is trying to do in the Pacific command which is again prevent conflict build relationships create an atmosphere where we continue to bring stability which drives economic development so in my mind the army is fully engaged we are increasing our engagements and it's an important part of the engagement we've got to show a balance engagement across all of our services in order to build the right relationships I think we're in the right going in the right direction uh well so back here we're now in the initial stages of what promises to be along but hopefully not as long as last year debate over the budget a couple big issues for the army it seems like we'll take center stage in that debate the first one being the active duty and strength in particular and I wanted to ask you about that and then and then subsequently about the the relationship between the active and reserve and guard but with respect to the end strength was hoping you could specifically address some of the risks associated with a force of 450,000 versus 420,000 and also some of the implications of how quickly you draw down the force what the ramp looks like doing it quickly enough to get savings necessary savings but not so quickly that it's usually disruptive yeah so let me I want to talk about this in in a bit broader terms so last year when I we put out the budget the 14 budget I testified that in order for the army to meet the defense strategic guidance we needed an strength of 490,000 in the active 350 in the national guard and 202 to 205 in the US Army Reserve and that would enable us to execute the defense strategic guidance at moderate risk my position has not changed on that that's that's what it would take with sequestration it drives us from a budget perspective to a end strength of 420 in the active 315 in the guard 185 in the US Army Reserve and I'm very clear that says we will not be able to execute the defense strategic guidance at those levels and in fact I would argue that we would be able we would be challenged to conduct a prolonged joint multi-phased campaign of any long duration with that size force so what I've established is a floor and I believe the floor for us to execute the current defense strategic guidance is 450,000 excuse me 335,000 in the guard and 195,000 in the reserve and that enables us to execute defense strategic guidance but my mind at high risk why is it high risk it has to do with depth in order to do a major contingency and some other contingency the depth becomes in question at that size so it makes the risk a little bit higher and if we have some unforeseen circumstances and some of the assumptions we've made turn out not to be right that makes that high risk at 420 in my mind it's it's not executable so for me that's the underpinnings of of what I believe the issues are with with the current strategy so we believe that for it I'll testify when I start testifying over the next few weeks you'll hear me say those exact same words that 450 I believe 450,335,195 is the floor but sequestration drives us below that four so that means we won't be able to execute the guidance we'll have to write new guidance we'll have to define what we can and can't do at those low levels let me ask a little bit about some of the initiatives that you've been trying to put in place as chief first about regionally aligned forces because I think a wide array of perspectives on what that is I wanted to hear your take on first why the idea why why was it important to you to do this and then what do you think it means and why is it useful going forward so my last before I became the chief my last six seven eight years of experience was in the joint world and my understanding as I as I went through the joint world and and executed several different jobs it was clear to me the most important thing we do is providing joint capabilities to combatant commanders that allows them to accomplish their mission their mission really is to prevent conflict and shape their their areas of operation in order for us to maintain stability and security around the world and I thought it was important after coming out of two wars that consume the army in Iraq and Afghanistan that we understand that we we do play a role in all of the combatant commands and and so the concept of regional armed forces are forces that are are dedicated to specific regions that bring what I believe to be the unique capabilities of the army whether it be heavy light and medium combat capability whether it be combat sport combat server sport capability whether with which is engineering intelligence logistics ballistic missile defense and other capabilities that we have that are available for the combatant commanders to shape their areas so what we wanted to do is we're going to align our forces to the combat commanders based on their requirements to help them to shape and set the theaters that they're responsible for and so we've been doing this now in earnest for about a year and a half and there's a couple examples I would throw out there so we've we've had about we've aligned a brigade and some combat support combat support service support structure to Africa they've conducted almost 90 missions within Africa over the last year some of it being security operations deploying forces to secure our embassy in South Sudan during difficult times we're building partner capacity in many different areas training foreign armies we are in my mind the other thing we're doing is we're helping to build a multinational a joint interagency intergovernmental multinational solution to Africa and I think we play a huge role we we have we've now aligned a brigade to the national excuse me nato response force which enables us over the long term to maintain interoperability with our nato partners as we look to do as nato containers look to do things outside of the european continent and it's important that we maintain those relationships and and synergies that we've built for example as we demonstrated in afghanistan over the last several years and and we are we have forces that are being used in central command area with aligned forces that are conducting some capability in jordan as we as we look to provide support to the refugees that are in jordan out of syria so we're showing that this concept will work and it's important that we have an army that's still willing to do our basic mission which is to win and be a closer if we have a major operation but also contributes on a day-to-day basis in establishing regional stability and security and so for me it's a very important concept and it's one that I believe is taking hold and as now I go around it is clear now after about an 18 month that this this is starting to take hold with all the combatant commanders and I think it'll continue to expand and grow we'll adjust it as we go on we'll learn more as we do this as so we're providing the right capabilities that helps us sustain security around the world um let me ask a quick question about uh the the risk associated with your end strength levels one of the strategies for mitigating that risk that's been put forward both in the defense regime guidance and most recently in the qtr uh was reversibility or regeneration um wondered if you could talk about what in your mind that entails um how complicated it is and and and what it means so as you take end strength out of the army and it gets smaller and smaller and small you reduce the ability to be reversible and because the problem is is you got to invest every piece of your force structure and meeting current requirements and meeting potential contingency requirements so you can't you don't have any extra structure that would allow you to build a cadre of capability that might be able to fulfill for reversibility so the problem we have is when we built additional capabilities in the 2000 it took us 32 months to build one brigade the world today does not allow you 32 months if we got into a large contingency it's my assessment that we'd have to go to a national mobilization and I'm not talking about mobilizing the guard I'm already assuming that the garden reserves are mobilized I'm talking about a national mobilization are we willing to do a national mobilization I don't know we haven't done one since world war two and so as you reduce the amount of end strength and capability you have to look at new ways of solving these problems reversibility becomes very difficult because with the limited dollars that you have you have to invest in readiness you have to invest in current capabilities and in order to invest in others would have to take away even more from the capabilities you be able to provide on a day-to-day basis and that's the conundrum that we have on the readiness front obviously that's been an area that you've talked a lot about being heavily hit by the impacts of sequestration and a real challenge to keep readiness across across the board is certainly I seem well below what you'd prefer how do you envision at least for the next few years as resources remain fairly tight what's the what's the responsibility of home station unit commanders to train in that kind of fiscal environment what should they be doing what what have you asked them to do what can they do with less resources so there's two things and and there's a couple things that we've made fundamental decisions about one is when you ask what keeps you up at night it is the fact that we might be asked to deploy to an unknown contingency and our forces aren't ready they'll go but they won't be at the level of readiness that we would that we have come to expect so it's important that we we figure this out so initially what we're going to do is we have to go to a tiered readiness model that that causes us to ensure that we have some level of readiness across some capability and with the bipartisan budget agreement for 14 that's going to allow us to increase the amount of readiness that we have in 14 but it'll then start to go down again in 15 and 60 so how we point on solving this is the center piece of our readiness is our combat training centers our national training center our joint readiness training center and our joint multinational center in europe and we're going to utilize these to the absolute utmost to their potential which allows us to put brigades and combat support combat service support structure through there that develops a readiness that allows them to be capable of potentially meeting future contingencies the problem we're going to have is as we invest in that it's going to reduce the amount of money that's available at home station so what we're asking each one of our commanders to do is is use virtual constructive and live and a mixture of those capabilities that we've developed over the years to get as much readiness as possible so when they go into the training center they'll come out of the higher readiness level so we're focused on that and and based on the budget numbers that we get will determine how much of the readiness we're able to develop until we get our end strength and readiness back in balance which will take four to five years for us to do that over time and and you asked a question that i didn't answer you mentioned a question earlier some people say why don't you take end strength out faster well the problem i have is as i sit here today i've got 75 000 soldiers deployed worldwide i've got another 80 150 different countries so i've got to manage this in such a way where i still meet my my current commitments as we went through and executed sequestration cuts in 13 my commitments went up they didn't go down and so i've got to manage that in such a way where i can meet those commitments and reduce the army in a way that allows us to continue to meet those commitments and reduce it in the right way where we also take care of our soldiers and families who have sacrificed so much over the last 10 years and so i've got to balance all of that as we go forward the secretary and i have to balance all of that last couple questions and then i'll open it up to the audience but a question about the first about special operations forces and and both with respect to as the army as the general purpose force comes down in size and soft grows what are the implications of that for uh the quality going and how do you continue to support that and then a similar question related to the enabler component of the support that the general purpose forces provide operationally yeah so uh our growth in the operational side of special operations force has been completed we have finished that growth adding to special forces adding to the ranger but regiment so we have finished that growth the next step is the enabler piece of growing some capability in special operations forces but they will still have to rely on the enablers that come out of the regular army so as you reduce the size of regular army of course we use the regular army to feed our special operations force operators you know there's there about 70 percent of us of the SOCOM is made out of army special the operational side is made out of army special operations individuals and so as we decrease the size of the army what that means is the the pool gets smaller we think we'll be able to manage it but it's going to be difficult and we're going to have to watch that very carefully and we work very closely with us army special operations commands to ensure that we can continue to support that uh so far we've been able to do it but we'll see uh and and we'll have to take a look at over time can they sustain the current operational structure over time and that'll be something we continue to monitor um and then lastly with respect to the army as part of the joint force um the army future war gaming um places a really heavy emphasis on strategic speed and the ability to to be more expeditionary uh to borrow a term from your brothers in the Marine Corps and um and and yet um there's always a question about both about the interdependence component of of expeditionary war fighting right are you going to have the assets that you need to get to places and then um are you going to have the logistics uh support and other kinds of capabilities that you need to provide to them to let them execute their portions of the joint mission so how do you see that evolving yeah over the next 10 to 20 years so first off one thing we don't talk a lot about in the army is the support we provide to other services and the and the capabilities we have to provide to the joint force as a whole 40 percent uh of all support that is provided to the joint forces provided by the army uh and that gets back into what I talked earlier logistics engineering intelligence uh many other factors so that that stays we have to continue to have that support that we are directed to do that and we are we will continue to do that no matter what we do as we look to the future what we're going to do is you have to evolve the army you know I would love to be revolutionary but it's it's very difficult to be revolutionary because you have to meet current commitments and it takes a while to evolve and so what we are doing now is today what we're doing is we're looking very carefully at how we can be more responsive by tailoring and scaling our capabilities to move quickly uh and and we are working that in every support of every combatant commander but as we look to the future we're going to announce here in a month or so we're going to go over the next seven or eight years do this thing called maneuvers 2025 in maneuvers 2025 we're going to take be looking at we're investing in science and technology our s and t investment in this budget you'll see compared to everything else remains significantly high and so we're going to focus on science and technology development and concepts that will allow us to evolve the army to be more expeditionary and responsive over time in addition to this we are going to do a complete review of our of our uh pre-positioned fleet strategy around the world that also allows us to fall in on capability that allows us to get there quicker so it's going to be a combination of all these things and I see us over the next six or seven or eight years that will allow us to evolve and use technologies for example you know what what effect would 3d printing have on logistics what impact does robotics what impact does man unmanned teaming have on maneuver in the future uh what what impact does vertical lift vertical rotary lift would have so and then there's other things I'm not even thinking about yet so there are things like that that we have to start to look at and incorporate develop concepts that allow us to to change as we continue to assess what are the capabilities you want our land forces to have and one of the things that we we are really think is important is developing what we call a global strategic land power network that would be a multinational network that would be established around the world that enables us to respond and so that would be the over that would be the overarching concept that we are trying to fulfill as we move forward so these are the things that we are taking a look at as the security and environment evolves around us okay but I I don't want to take the whole time here so I apologize I I over indulge myself let me turn now to the audience again if people have questions I think they've been picking up some but if you have more then they can continue to come around come break them you want to turn on the microphone sir reference joint interoperability roles and missions the air force and navy have air sea battle the army and marine corps have the strategic land power initiative this is the perception despite multi-service involvement in both initiatives to these programs reflect the services positioning themselves for survival and budget share in the coming lean years or do they offer opportunities for increased interservice cooperation well I think budget shares have been determined so I this is not an attempt to look at budget shares this is an attempt to as we move forward so for example let me take this I just mentioned the strategic lamp house could be overpinned by what I just defined as this strategic land power global network which is a multinational joint capability for example the chief staff the air force and I we are we are now working through what does close air support look like in the future what kind of close air support do we need in order to support land power in the future and how do we go about doing that and so it's it is these are all joint concepts air sea battle is a concept that gains access what happens when you gain access you got to probably put in some kind of ground forces potentially could be one solution so these are all joint interoperable concepts that I believe have to be further developed and we have to do that over time we are doing a spending a lot of time on forced entry capability and what you know we believe in the future we probably will might have to do forced entry that is a joint forced entry is not a ground exercise that is a joint exercise that would require support from air naval sea cyber etc in order for us to do forced entry operations anywhere in the world and so these are clearly joint concepts this is not about positioning ourselves for budget this is about trying to develop concepts of how we want to how we believe strategic land power land power will be used in the future we have to start looking at that I I tell everyone when I became the chief one of the things I realized is we were so focused on Iraq and Afghanistan we were not focused on the future it's absolutely essential that we focus ourselves in the in the joint world on how we want to operate in the future and that's where we're headed with all of this in light of your the in light of events surrounding Ukraine and given your comments reference China do you see America and China conducting more joint exercises in the future in lieu of a solid US Russian military relationship and how do you see this playing out well I think it's dangerous to say we're going to pick sides and say okay now we're going to do more exercise with China and we're going to ignore Russia my 38 years of experience tells me we want to keep all doors open and we want to try to continue to develop relationships across the board we are clearly increasing we were trying to increase exercises with China we did what we're starting at a low level the first one we did is we did a joint we just finished a joint humanitarian assistance exercise with their army in Hawaii we're probably gonna do one or a typical one in China here coming up so that's good I think we still want to continue to try to develop relationships with with Russia as we move forward we might have to wait a little bit because of what's going on in the Ukraine but I think you know hopefully as that gets resolved we'll be able to rebuild our relationship it's important that we we continue to do this and and and so in my mind every time we can get to know each other we can pick up a phone talk talk to our counterparts to talk about these very difficult issues that we all face the better off we all are and you do that by familiarity build it by building trust so hopefully in the future we'll be able to continue a relationship with Russia even though right now we are not and we'll see what happens a similar question reference the Middle East could you discuss the army's role in shaping our strategic partnerships in the Gulf in the Middle East so again we have you know we have relationships across the board in in ballistic missile defense and building special operations capability and building ground capability uh you know we continue to help the Iraqis we're helping the Afghanis Afghanis we're providing ballistic missile defense to a variety of our partners we are we are doing special operations join exercises so all of these are key as we develop our strategy and you know I would call it the post-Afghan strategy in the Middle East and I think ground interoperability multilateral exercises building partner capacity is all going to be important as we look forward to the clear uncertainty that we see across the Middle East and so our ability to develop relationships and have mill to mill army relationships going to be key to the future as we walk through these very difficult uncertain times that we're seeing play out in the Middle East can I add a quick follow on onto that I'm wondering about the role of foreign military sales going forward both as it as it one of the tools available to help build that interoperability but also as something that helps ideally you address some of your internal budget problems and and whether or not you think there's a need for a greater emphasis on trying to to increase fms or to to better facilitate fms or how important is that but well first I think it's important for us to have us systems being used by our partners and allies because it helps us to further build deep in our relationships the other point you're making is a good one and I didn't talk about it earlier but as we reduce budget one of the things I worry about is both the organic and commercial industrial base I worry that we'll squeeze that to such level and that gets back to reversibility as well I worry about our reversibility and our ability to build systems if we have to because of the erosion of our both commercial and organic industrial base and so through foreign military sales it not only helps us to build relationships with our partners it helps us to sustain maybe a bit higher level of our industrial base which is key in my mind to our future do you think the reduction of foot soldiers and budget restraints will affect the size or role of the usfk in korea I think the the role of we clearly have a strong agreement both under the UN and under our bilateral agreements with the with South Korea to provide support and I think we will continue to provide support to them along the lines of the agreements that we have set in place and you know we're talking about operational transfer that that will affect it at some time when that occurs I think that but until that time we'll continue to provide the support that we believe is necessary in order to sustain stability on the Korean Peninsula for me it's about stability on the Korean Peninsula and the concerns we have now is miscalculation we don't want miscalculation and so it's important for us to provide the support necessary so we don't have miscalculation which could lead to unwanted provocations on on on the peninsula so obviously we're committed to South Korea we continue to be committed to South Korea how we do it might be different you know we just rotated forces from the United States over to Korea we just rotated up a tie-in and an aviation unit to Korea so we might go to rotational presence in Korea but in my mind that actually increases readiness and capability on the peninsula and so you might see how we do it we might execute it differently but it won't change the nature of the relationship at the 420,000 level will the army still be able to conduct contingency operations on two continents and how will reduction to that level impact modernization and procurement so the secretary of the army and I have made a very conscious decision the reason we're going to 420 is so we maintain the balance between readiness and modernization the problem we have is going to take us five or six years to gain that balance so we can invest in modernization to the level we think is appropriate readiness so we can keep a sustained readiness across the force for extended periods of time and and continue to modernize so that's key now I've already said that we can't meet this defense strategic guides of 420 which means we can't do operations major operations on multiple continents and on training war fighting and stability operations require different skill sets how do you strike a balance between those missions in a shrinking budget environment so the first thing I would say is as I look to the future I think the environment that we're going to have to operate in is one that is very complex and so the complexity of the environment is going to be one that has potentially conventional capability conventional threats irregular threats threats of insurgencies criminal threats it's not going to be a single threat and so we're going to have to be trained to operate in this very complex environment and the scenarios that we are developing in our training centers are centered around these very complex scenarios and so we will train our units to deal with this complex scenario which includes a bit of stability inside of that scenario because the one lesson we've learned and will project into the future is that we call you know in the army's phase one two three four five operations they happen simultaneously they don't happen sequentially and so we can be doing we could be fighting insurgency in one place doing stability operations doing high-end more high-end operations all within a hundred kilometers of one area and so we have to be prepared to do all of those at once and that's why for me I focused a lot on our how we're developing our leaders of the future because our future leaders could have to develop have to operate in this very complex environment and for me that's critical and so for me we got to develop them to have the ability to adapt to have the ability to be flexible and have the ability to operate in this very complex environment so I wanted to I want to train to the highest level the most difficult and then we can if we have to do pure stability operations you'll be able to do that with adaptable leadership in the end a question on the army in the national guard yeah can you discuss the relationship between the army and the national guard will there potentially be a more streamlined command structure in the future so there's a couple of things that's a really good question so as we get smaller the total army we've proven over the last 10 or 12 years the importance of the total army we could not have executed what we've done over the last 10 or 12 years without using the whole army us army reserves active in the national guard we have proven that that we have to have that as we get smaller it becomes even more important because as the active component gets smaller it's going to require us to rely even more on the guard and reserve and so what we have to be able to do is we have to set up a command structure that allows us to be much more integrated during during peacetime so us army forces command which commands all of the guard reserve and active units in the united states is publishing guidance that allows us to become more integrated from a command and control spectrum all multi-compo and will allow us to do joint you know combine joint training with each other on a regular basis i think you'll start to see organizations that are multi-compo in nature you're going to see command and control structures that control both all components at once and that's so we we are already prepared and we continue to build on the strength relationships that we've built over the last 10 and 12 years in in operational missions and i think that's key as we move forward NATO and other western allies are having very similar budget problems forcing them to make significant cuts to their forces how are we working with our allies to mitigate their cuts and sustain a NATO strategic capability so there's two things is a couple things that we've done is i think with the nato land component command that's been established it's in ismir turkey we are using that as as the centerpiece to conduct multinational exercises that will continue to allow us at the higher level to be able to coordinate operations a graph of our home fells we have really turned that into a multinational training center where we are going to have foreign countries contributing uh ocs content could contributing people who will help us to develop that and we will do many multinational exercises there that allow us to sustain interoperability for the first time we also have a brigade as part of the nato response force which will also allow us to continue to build interoperability as we move forward as i've met with my counterparts uh around nato they realize they are getting smaller and what they want to do is see how they fit in under a u.s umbrella they expect us to lead but they expect to contribute and so what we have to do then is build an understanding of each other's capabilities and how we can properly integrate and maximize and optimize the capabilities that each country brings so what we will do is uh we will do that through these exercises is through this joint multinational training uh capability that we're building and will continue to execute in europe in my mind that's really important and and we not only have to do it in europe we want to do it also in the pacific uh as we do the same thing where we understand and optimize capabilities so as we conduct operations we know where people strengths are but frankly they do look for us leadership in both of these areas as we as we prosecute this in the future with the end of the ground combat vehicle program how are you ensuring the heavy brigades have the combat vehicles they need in the future and how do you keep those acquisition programs on track so we continue to uh we continue to invest in the upgrade and modernization of the m1a1 tank we are we are going to continue to we will now have to invest in upgrading the bradley uh but the bottom line is in the future we have to have a new infantry fighting vehicle we'll be able to make improvements to the bradley but in the end we're going to have to have an entry infantry fighting vehicle and so as we get rebalanced in four to five years we will have to then start to build a new infantry fighting vehicle because it's going to be key to us in the future and one the problem we've had over the last several years across light heavy and medium units is you know there's the importance of lethality mobility and survivability and we've moved towards survivability and lost mobility we've got to get that back in balance we've we've got to get the lethality mobility survivability back in balance and that's what we have to focus on and what we need to see is some technology development that allows us to get that back in balance that enables us to do that and that's that's that's where we have to move towards in the future especially with our heavy units can i ask you another follow on to that i apologize we are in the process of wrapping up a look we've been doing on the soldier and squad as a system and um to some degree there's that same challenge um at the individual soldier level and and for squads not with respective vehicles right that and uh this as as every i think study of the acquisition system and anything involving acquisition finds that there are issues with how requirements are written and then the whole process all throughout but you've put a huge emphasis on the soldier and squad um what do you see when you think out to the soldier and squad of 20 years from now what kinds of capabilities do you think that soldiers soldier and squad need um and what's the path toward that in your mind yeah so what we want so we want them to be able a squad platoon to be able to engage at longer at at at longer range range so so what we're trying to do is develop lighter and more capability that can be carried by the squad platoon that enables them to engage over longer ranges and i think we're headed in that direction you know through the rapid equipping initiative we've actually made some great progress on our soldier programs i think we're going to continue to do that the thing about it we have to be a bit more disciplined so what you know what we found we have lightened the load on our soldiers but then they start carrying more you know so so we've got lightweight load that's why this is a squad issue because the the individual soldier load is getting lighter but we keep requiring the squad is carrying more and so we have to get that balanced correctly the the other thing that i'm challenging that that over this is a longer term issue is is the nine man squad right does technology allow us to move away from it now the iftremend will tell me i've just sinned by saying that but but the issue is that's what would lighten our our vehicles as well which driving the weight of our vehicles has carried nine man squad and our our young men and women are getting bigger in a good way they're stronger they're faster they're but but they're getting bigger so what that does in order to fit nine men in a vehicle it significantly increases the weight so we have to look at concept what are the concepts that technology might drive us then to and this is where man done man teaming robotics and some other things might play into this that would then lighten us and enable us to be more efficient and maybe also enable us to range further as well and so those are the kind of things we're taking a look at what do you think the role between the united states marine core and the army will be in the in future conflicts well i don't think it'll change i mean i think so the marine core provides a level of crisis response with their with their amphibious capability i think the army provides a level of crisis response with their airborne capability and light infantry capability to get in quickly we have the opportunity to reinforce with medium and heavy so i think you know there is our mission sets are very complimentary to each other and and i think that's going to continue and it what it does it provides our land power capability broad capabilities that allow us to respond to a variety of different potential contingencies if you have to do something in the middle of africa it takes one capability if you have to do something off the coast of you know wherever it takes another capability and so you know it's important that we sustain those different kind of capabilities but also enable us to work together in very large key operations of the future so i i see that continuing to be very important as we go forward considering the evolution of the close air support relationship with the air force is there a need for greater organic air support within the army well i think the importance of our attack helicopters continues to grow and i think in order to provide a mixture of close air capability both organically and with the air force is important and that's why i think as we look to the future we got to figure out where that relationship is and how do we develop that relationship of close air support we certainly will continue to need close air support from the air force and the navy and the marine corps with specifically the air force and and that's that's important to us and so we got to develop what that looks like what we what will be most effective for us as we look at where we might have to conduct operations in the future and how does that combine with the capability that we will keep organically in the army through our attack helicopter fleet how does the army the us military integrate soft power concepts to increase multilateral relationships that further advance endeavors for regional stability worldwide so there's a there's a number of things i mentioned some of them already i mean i think one of the best things we do is develop multinational relationships to deal with humanitarian assistance disaster relief we just proved that in the philippines marines and soldiers were on the ground in the philippines providing support to them we've we've proven it over time in many different areas whether it be in japan a few years ago i think this is a great way to reach out and build relationships and trust between not only militaries but governments as we're capable of providing this support so i think that's one area where it's very important i think it's also important as we develop potential support and peacekeeping operations and as many nations contribute to peacekeeping operations around the world i think those relationships that can be built there that are important for me it's always about building trust it's about building trust between nations and armies and if it if in some way and in many cases the best way to build that trust is through soft power it's through humanitarian assistance disaster relief it's through helping with peacekeeping operations it's helping with other capabilities such as medical support and other things that we're able to provide that we have the capability to provide and i think that's important in building this trust that then allows us to expand when we when we have to expand our relationship uh based on stability and security issues so for me it's it's fundamental to what we do with significant urbanization trends what does the army contribute to joint urban warfare and what new capabilities does the army need well so i have my strategic studies group which i established is actually looking specifically at this problem mega cities uh in fact i was over there yesterday and we are trying to look at what what are the dynamics of a mega city in the future you know all the all the predictions are that the large majority of the population are going to move into cities and what does that mean it's a very complex difficult problem so what does it mean for uh tactical concepts what kind of capabilities do we need what is you know whether whether it's what kind of information technology we need what kind of mobility do we need what kind of lethality do we need what kind of air do we need what are the concepts that we have to develop and how do we deal with this very difficult problem of mega cities and so we're looking at this and for me this is a 10 to 20 year problem that we have to look at very carefully and now start trying to think about how we're going to solve that problem let me inject one quick question here because i want to make sure we get to it i wanted to ask you about where we stand on the implementation of the women in service review and and also related to that as we uh have a expand the role of women in the army how do we ensure that we can have that have them be safe in the sexual assault problem so there's there's two things is is tradoc has been involved with as well as outs we have enlisted outside organizations to be transparent uh we have army research institute that's helping us do this we have many other institutions and the first thing we're doing is solidifying common standards uh and and and it has nothing to do with gender it has to do with what are the standards that are necessary uh to make sure that you can operate in and the main areas we're talking about is uh cannon artillery uh armor infantry uh and and we're looking at what are those common standards we are we have we've been working this very hard over the last year we are actually doing uh some more fundamental tests out for bending this week we're also we're also doing an integration study on how to best integrate initially women as we integrate them into armor artillery infantry and what's the best way to do that to set them up for success when we do this and it has to do with developing mentorship leadership and how we're going to go about doing that and we're in the middle of that study now and as we put those together we'll then make decisions on on on how we will go about implementing this I think everybody knows is that uh uh I we I will the chief staff the army has to report back to the secretary defense probably sometime at the end of 15 on our implementation strategy and so this is helping us to develop what that strategy will be we have had many groups look at this uh everybody has acknowledged the work we're doing and and see it really as very extensive in what we're trying to do so I think we're on the right track and I would just make a further comment about this you know I just as we look at our society and as we look at those who are eligible and meet the requirements to serve it's important for us that we're going to have to touch every part of society in order to meet the needs of our military in the future if you look at the demographics and you look at the the rates of whether they're qualified physically mentally and with with the lack of of a criminal background it's going to take all of society to help us to fill our ranks and so it's it's incumbent on us to make sure that we are able to reach in and take the best talent within our country and put it inside of our military that's the fundamental underpinning of an all volunteer force and so that's why this is really important as we go forward with the couple of minutes that we have left what is the top number one issue on your mind currently I think I've I've I've lots of issues on my mind but I think from a title 10 perspective the the issue is this this importance of of getting the army balanced with the right with the budget reductions in the fiscal environment we're in how quickly can we you know how can we get the army balanced of readiness modernization and strength and that we balance it between compos we balance it between capabilities that we need in the army and what's needed for the to support the joint commanders and we get that right and we get that on the right track this is good this this path is not a straight line path this is one that is a little bit curvy and what I have to be able to do is make sure that I provide the appropriate decision space for the next chief of staff the army and the next chief of staff the army because this is going to go on and we got to make sure we have programs in place that allow some flexibility so as we can adjust to the environment that we find ourselves in in terms of my joint chief's hat it's about ensuring that we have and continue to build this this what I call global and power network in the future to ensure that we're able to contribute to sustain security and stability in the most important regions around the world those are the two things for me it's always about how do we optimize and make our our army the most optimized and effective and efficient to support our ability to maintain our national security objectives that's always foremost in my mind as we look ahead and last question sir what area of the world would you say would be the most dangerous to deploy to in a future contingency if we have to deploy in a contingency they're all dangerous I've learned that over my time there's nothing that's not dangerous when you have to deploy all I would say to that question is whatever you know so a war on the Korean Peninsula would be incredibly difficult you have places that have been preparing and developing capabilities it would be a very complex environment as I described it with all the things I described that would be in North Korea and South Korea if we had a fight on the Korean Peninsula that'd be incredibly dangerous if we had to do that but frankly you know any operation we might have to do whether it be in the Middle East whether it be in the Pacific whether it be in the in the caucuses it's not easy anywhere you go it's very very difficult war and combat is a very difficult business and so it's incumbent on us to be ready and prepared no matter where that might be because if we're not ready and prepared it always ends up it's it falls on the shoulders of our soldiers sailors airmen marines and we got to make sure that we have them prepared to meet these contingencies because if not it'll be cost in lives and casualties and we want to make sure that we prevent that as much as we possibly can sir thank you so much for coming really appreciate let me just say a quick thanks to the CSIS team and to your team for putting all this together great job and we appreciate everybody's help with that thank you all for coming and it's been wonderful having you here thanks thank you very much