 Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Back when I was a fifth grade school teacher, I had to raise my voice in order to get the students to leave the coffee and sit down in their seats. Not that we had coffee. In fact, one year we didn't have seats, but that was kind of my standard approach, so it's really delightful. I've often said that teaching fifth grade was the best training for Washington that I had, because there's so much fifth grade behavior that goes on in this town. But it's a delight to be in the company of adults for a change. Welcome to the Center for Strategic International Studies. On behalf of Dr. John Hamery, our CEO and president, I'm really grateful that you're all here today, and I want to welcome as well our viewers on the web. We webcast and archive these events so that you can follow along with us at home or from the office. If you had, you know, in fear of the snowstorm that's coming two days from now, you had to rearrange your schedule this morning. We'll see about that. This series, the Military Strategy Forum, has been going on at CSIS now for almost a decade. We want to thank the generosity of our underwriters of the Rolls Royce North America who has been our underwriter from the beginning, and we're grateful to them, as always, for their support to bring this series to us. Today is a little bit of a different approach, if you will. Typically, these Military Strategy Forum are, you know, the chiefs or the combatant commanders or the secretaries of the military departments, et cetera, and they're talking broader, grand strategy issues. But we had an opportunity and we thought it would be very useful to take advantage of it. Many of you were here just a few weeks ago. I think it was the 25th of January when Dr. Murdoch ran an all day session in this very room on the QDR 2014. Really looked back, actually before the 1996 legislation that created the QDR, looked back to the bottom up review as kind of the first QDR, even the evolution of the base force prior to that, and followed through each QDR since then with lessons learned. And I look out and I see a number of folks in the audience who were here for that day. And this really springs from that discussion, if you will. We're welcome. It's a discussion series of the Military Strategy Forum. Is that my feedback? Or some echoing event here? Maybe it's just my ears playing tricks on me. A discussion series on the QDR, and this is really our kickoff, if you will. We're delighted to have with us here today General McKenzie to start us off here. A couple of administrative notes. First of all, if you would silence your cell phones and keep them off during the course of the event, that would be much appreciated. Secondly, when the way we're going to run this is we'll turn the platform over to General McKenzie for his remarks. And then he and I will have a short discussion on the stage here in the Easy Chairs. Then we'll open it up to the audience for questions. You should have received note cards when you came in. Raise your hand if you did not get a note card and the staff will get you one. You can write down questions. You can start writing them down now. You can write them down as we speak. Raise your hand when you've got your questions written. They'll be collected by the staff. And we have two of our senior scholars here in the front who are going to aggregate and rationalize those questions and make sure we get as many of them asked as possible. Dr. Martin Leid and Mr. Nate Fryer when the time comes will be ably handling. They're also good at if no questions arise at all they got plenty that they have cooked up on. So it isn't that you get off easy if you've paid everybody to say don't ask any questions. I used to say that just because you don't ask questions doesn't mean you get out of class early. We're going to finish up here no matter what. So we're delighted that our first speaker in this discussion series on the QDR is actually from the U.S. Marine Corps. General Frank McKenzie is the director of the QDR office and the representative of the Marine Corps to the QDR. I think he actually sat in our audience on QDR day through pretty much the whole day as we went through that process back in January. And of course this is a most interesting time to be undertaking a QDR. Probably more interesting and more convoluted than any time we've done since probably the bottom up review in three QDR days. So please join me in a warm round of welcome for General Frank McKenzie. Good morning everyone. Good to be back over at CSIS. I did come out for that full day session about a month ago and it was actually very interesting. QDR season is upon us and each service has an officer like me. Many of them were here at the session a couple of weeks or a month ago when we had that very informative, very thoughtful, very insightful series of briefs. Let me just tell you how I got the job. It might be interesting to you how the Marine Corps selects people to do this. This spring, last spring, I was the CENTCOM J5, the Director of Strategy, Plans and Policy at U.S. Central Command and happy in my work and thought I was going to California to be the Deputy Commander of OneMef, our large formation on the West Coast. Happy with those orders. It's a great house. My wife was looking forward to it and I was actually at our Ford headquarters in Cutter and got a phone call and said, look, Commodile wants to talk to you. I know that Commodile talking to Major Generals, not normally a good thing. And then they said, and he wants a tanberg. So I knew it was really going to be bad. So he set up a tanberg. He got me on the hook and said, Frank, I want to look in the eyes when I tell you this, you're going to do QDR for the Marine Corps. It was not phrased in the form of a question in any way, but I do have a little bit of QDR experience. Back in 99, I was very lucky after Battalion Command to spend 18 months working for Michelle Flournoy over the National Defense University in a QDR study group that she stood up. So that was my first experience with it. And it was just, it was a fantastic experience. Made a lot of friends, met some of the people that are in this room today actually during that time. Then I went on back into the Marine Corps and did a little bit of QDR, then went on and had hoped that they would forget that, but they did not forget that. And so here I stand before you. So it's QDR season here again in DC. Typically in the past, we might have already been underway to generate a report that's ultimately due to Congress in February of 2014. So now really it's 11 months away that the report's going to be due. Probably not surprising that it's been delayed because, you know, I believe, we believe that probably what they're waiting on was for Secretary of Defense to be nominated and to take office. That has happened and I think that's probably the significant factor that will now sort of allow OSD policy and the rest of the the rest of the OSD establishment to begin to make real plans about QDR. And I think we'll begin to see some movement on that as we go forward. You know, don't know exactly what the shape of this QDR is going to be. You know, the briefings we had in here a few weeks ago were profoundly informative. It could go either large or small. It could fulfill the congressional mandate, which is to look out 20 years, do a strategy driven review of the department from top to bottom. It could be something else. Actually over the past four QDRs and the bottom up review and base force that preceded the workaround now, there have been a variety of different approaches and a variety of different levels of success. I would just briefly tell you that, you know, that obviously the base force and the bottom up review that followed the 1990-91 and the 92-93 efforts for my service, they gave us the force that we have today. You know, we ended up in the mid-170s and we stayed pretty much at that force level for the intervening over 30 years, except when we ramped up for sustained ground combat in Iraq and in Afghanistan over the last decade. And we're going back down to a number of about 182 is where we think our own analysis leads us that will probably end up. So those are very those two initial studies that are sort of the parents of the congressionally mandated QDR, you know, or we think were actually very important. There have been four QDRs since then. Some have been more important than others. I think the 2001 QDR could have been of great significance, had 9-11 not occurred and it's run off the tracks as we as we actually went to war following the following those attacks in September of 2011. So a lot of different opinions on what the QDR is going to be. I will actually take a minute to read to you a couple of lines from testimony, given the Hask had a QDR hearing last week and two very, very smart guys with a couple of different opinions on QDR. First I'll quote Sean Brimley who says, the 2014 QDR should therefore use the 2012 defense strategic guidance as the baseline strategy and focus on how to best implement that strategy over 20 years at various plausible levels of resources and risks. Okay, Sean's opinion. Then Jim Thomas at the same hearing says, it is difficult however to imagine a process less suited to developing good strategy than a QDR. A highly bureaucratic process involving thousands of people that results in an unclassified report that is read by our foes and friends alike. I think there's truth in both those statements and we just don't know the way this QDR is actually going to go. I would tell you this. There are a couple of factors that everyone in this room is aware of that I think tend to argue this potentially could be an important QDR. First you have a new secretary and he has a finite amount of time as all secretaries do in which he can put his imprint on the department. He has a mechanism at hand that he could use to do some things. Should he choose to make decisions through the venue of the QDR? Not all past secretaries have chosen to do that. In fact under some past secretaries the QDR has done its work and the secretary has made decisions, resource decisions, strategy decisions and other venues and through other mechanisms. But should the secretary choose to use the QDR to that end then he's got a tool that is ready made for him to use. Second point that argues for perhaps this may be being a meaningful QDR is the fact that we do have a relatively new strategy on the street. It's a little over a year old and I'm referring of course to the defense strategic guidance the January 2012 DSG which modified the existing national security strategy and is actually from my services perspective a pretty useful and informative document and one that we find it effective to plan to. So that there's a relatively new strategy that's on the table and of course the last thing is the elephant in the room the fiscal issues that you're all aware of that are certainly going to certainly going to constrain anything you want to do. So I think taken all together that argues that we have the possibility for this to be a significant QDR it'll be as important it'll be as important as the secretary wants it to be when it's all said and done. You know and I think it's probably going to have to examine the current strategy we're going to have to see can the DSG, the provisions of the DSG, the shift to the shift to the Pacific and I won't recite the list but you're all aware of the 10 mission areas and the other things that the DSG calls out are we going to be able to execute that strategy or are we going to be able to execute it at a higher level of risk or are we going to have to change the aspirational goals of the strategy. So that is perhaps a good way that the QDR could actually start. In fact I would argue that a QDR could do three things that would be useful. First is validate the existing strategy as I just mentioned. I don't think you write a new strategy with the QDR because the QDR is signed by the secretary of defense and goes to Congress. The DSG and the national security strategy is signed by the president so it's a different level but what you can do is you can use the QDR mechanism to examine that strategy and go back to the president and say look we're not resourced to execute the the vision that you have or we can do it but it's going to be at a higher level of risk or perhaps there are some things that we would need to modify so that's one that's one thing a QDR could look at. I think going down another level and in something that we've spent a lot of time looking at is it's time to look at the the balance of our four deployed forces and those forces that are going to be stationed at home. How much the four deployed forces cost? What is it they actually do for the nation? We would argue that they deter they do a number of things and I'll dig into that here in just a minute but I think it's a discussion worth having and that's something that the QDR could take a look at. Our third thing a QDR could take a look at is the ACRC mix the active component reserve component mix a lot of studies have been done a lot of a lot of swirl on that right now but those the last two things are certainly something that falls right right into the mainstream of what a potential what a potential QDR could take a look at so that's sort of my thinking on the overall QDR what I'd like to do now is sort of shift gears just a little bit and talk about the Marine Corps and how we see ourselves as we enter the QDR and I'm not going to talk about a QDR strategy because we don't have one what we do have actually is the Marine Corps strategy and the decisions that we've made and the policies that we've implemented to support the DSG and the National Military Strategy and that becomes in effect your QDR strategy it becomes your long-term strategic vision your service strategic vision and it sort of defines how you plan to answer questions as you go into the QDR so turn into the Marine Corps we see ourselves as a force that's built on forward presence we see ourselves as a force that is for deployed probably largely rotationally but not exclusively rotationally it's going to be a ready force and that will be a theme I will come back to whatever the final force level for Marines are if it's 182,000 or it's 6,000 it's going to be a ready force and we define readiness as a ready force is a force that can act this afternoon today not a week from now not two weeks from now but from top to bottom is ready to go that's an aspirational goal sometimes we fall short but we work very hard to implement that policy across the service but we will not accept as a hollered force and we won't accept tiered readiness those are not those are not visions that are consistent with the with the Marine Corps view of of itself so a forward to port force a force that can act today a force that can be the backbone of conventional deterrence we think that's that's sort of the Marine Corps that we see able to act in crisis response on very short notice and the point I'd make about crisis response is you got to be there to be effective in crisis response you actually have to be there you can't virtually be there you can come later to do other things but if you're going to be active on day one or D plus one or D plus two you're going to have to have forces that can that can reach out and do that very quickly so that's another that's another element that we would describe ourselves some of you have heard the comment out use the use the phrase middleweight force and I think that's a that's actually a very a very good phrase to describe where we think we live on the continuum of military action it's it we think we're day-to-day in the theater the ability to get in to act as a crisis response force to buy time for decision makers and to buy time for the larger joint force of which we're we're a core component to react and to bring forces forward that's the definition of a middleweight force we don't we don't train exclusively to fight at the high end because we've got the best army in the world that's going to be capable of doing that but what we think we do is buy time for that army to deploy and then we're going to have the capability to cooperate and integrate with that army should we have to fight a sustained land campaign but that is not the heart of the service vision the heart of the service vision is deterrence forward ability to presumably in phase zero and one for those of you who are familiar with the way we look at the planning document ability to deter ability to shape to prevent crises from occurring and then react very quickly should those should those crises occur and then if you have to go to a higher to a higher end response the ability to be effective and to reach out and to do that as well and that leads me to just sort of an aside I am fascinated by by deterrence theory and I the Department of Defense does a lot has done down through the years a lot of really good work on nuclear deterrence and thinking about large-scale deterrence I am not sure that we have done as much thinking as we should about conventional deterrence and the role of four deployed forces in in that deterrence concept even the models largely that we use tend to overlook that and it's because one thing it's very hard to measure it's it's a it's hard to get a quantitative answer to to many of those questions it's a qualitative issue I would argue so it's hard it's hard sometimes to find that but I think we need probably to do a better job of taking a look at you know at what at what conventional deterrence means let me give you an example of how the Marine Corps sees itself and how we see ourselves going forward some of you may be aware of the crisis response special purpose MAGTAP it's an idea that's working and floating out there to deploy small marine ground air ground task forces forward on co-com requirements to be able to act quickly to protect American citizens. Benghazi is an example of a situation where that might have been applicable to do non-combatant evacuation operations or to do tactical recovery of aircraft and personnel a broad range of missions a relatively small force not a marine expeditionary unit which is the large very mobile highly capable typically sea-based force that's sort of the crown jewel of Marine Corps crisis response and forward deployment rather the crisis response special purpose MAGTAP which is still evolving is a capability that can be land-based forward it could be a hybrid model you might have part of it a float part of it a shore but it's going to be very flexible and when you you know when you put v-22 ospreys on it couple it with the ability to extend the range of those aircraft with C-130Js you have the capability to put Marines over a huge radius very quickly so that's an example of something that is is in our thinking as we go forward based on a demand signal from the from the combatant commanders another element I'll come back to I've already talked a little bit about it is the fact that in order to do these things you have to be ready you you cannot accept tiered readiness and that will cause us again as we look at whatever the force structure the Marine Corps is going to be that force structure is going to be a ready force structure and we view that as absolutely absolutely critical to to what we're going to be and that leads me to my next point I'll just talk briefly about the in strength of the Marine Corps we're coming down from a high of 202,000 to support large-scale ground combat operations in Iraq now complete and in Afghanistan from which we're now which we're now drawing down we're on a glide slope to go to 182,000 that's a number that we arrived at through rigorous study through a couple of formal study efforts the force structure review group of a couple of years ago and more recently a group called the FORGE the force optimization review group where we look at you know what what what are the tasks the Marine Corps has under the under the national military strategy and under the COCOM requirements what are those tasks how do we best configure the Marine Corps to accomplish that and that's led us to believe that 182 is a good number actually we would prefer to have been at 186 but we're but we were directed to go to 182 and that's the number that we're at now and we think that it that we're going to be able to accomplish the task that we've been given at that number now in the future who knows if that number is going to be the the final number for the Marine Corps I certainly don't know the answer to that but I would tell you this whatever number it's going to be at it's going to be a ready force and the other point I would make allied to that is for Marines there's no red line on own numbers we're eventually going to produce the best Marine Corps we can produce for the American people based on the resources that we're given we happen to think right now we can make a stronger argument for 182 but as we go forward as the QDR grinds forward and as other things will come up and over the months ahead we'll see where we where we finally where we finally end up we're going to have to remain partnering with the U.S. Navy as we as we go forward we we maneuver on amphibious warships and an amphibious warship is not a it's not a commercial vessel it's not a it's not a lift ship a ship simply designed to move from one point to another and amphibious warship is a vessel that if I could paraphrase Winston Churchill you know it's designed to go under fire it's supposed to be shot at and it's supposed to be able to it's supposed to be able to survive in a non permissive environment so the Navy's numbers of amphibious warships are very important to us and we work closely with them you know took to monitor that number we understand that they are amphibious warships are one element of a balanced fleet and the Navy has a number of critical demands on maintaining that balanced fleet nonetheless amphibious warships allow you to maneuver to conduct forcibly entering and I'll talk just a little bit more about that in a minute as well as the ability to do scalable presence operations to deter with forward-based forces you don't get that if you're if you're riding on a merchant sea lift ship although you can certainly use merchant sea lift ships to do other things as well it's just not it's never going to be equivalent to an amphibious to an amphibious warship and sort of lays the groundwork for for for discussion of forcible entry we believe the nation needs a forcible entry capability you need the capability to enter another nation when they don't want you to come in it's it's ultimately one of the highest forms of conventional deterrence we have trained to that standard for many years and we don't see it as you know the forcible entry the amphibious operation of world war two it's not an Iwo Jima it's not a Normandy it's not that thing it's the ability to enter where the enemy isn't preferably or through suppressing part of his defenses it's the ability to reach deep inland with v 22s it's the ability to to cross the beach and get off that beach and move inland we don't see fighting for beach heads anymore we there are a variety of ways to avoid that fight but nonetheless when it's all said and done we would argue this nation needs a requirement needs a capability to enter some inner ground that is is denied to you and that's force voluntary capability that we bring and we don't we recognize we don't bring that alone we bring that as part of the joint force and probably going to require joint assistance to do a number of these things but nonetheless it's a requirement and it leads to it leads to other requirements it'll lead to some equipment requirements that I'll come back and talk to here in here in just a little bit another point that the Marine Corps is going to carry forward with we think as we as we go into the qdr is our history of flexibility and innovation you know pdls wrote a wrote a paper in the early 20s advanced force operations in micronesia that sort of became at least from marines a primer for the way that operations the pacific were carried out during the second world war if you look at the tactical problem in the western pacific that's a problem that's going to be solved through dispersion advanced base operations and vestal capabilities because many of the long runways under a lot of circumstances could be denied to you and so we think that's an excellent example of whether Marine Corps is going to have a unique capability to play as we go forward and I would commend pdls's study to you it's it's available out there it's worth taking a look at I think it was written in 19 in 1922 so finally equipment the v-22 is now operational it's flown it's flown in combat twice it's been very effective there it's now flying in the western pacific we're deploying it routinely from okinawa to guam has the capability to self-deploy really from okinawa to australia with aerial refueling or or stops refueling route it's a capability that you know a few years back you know was under we were under a lot of attack for that aircraft we would argue it's an aircraft that's proved itself it's fundamental to our ability to reach inland and and carry out forcible entry ability to maneuver real ability to do hadr operations humanitarian assistance disaster relief operations v-22 gives you greater range greater capability enormous flexibility it's a program that we fought for against high odds at different times but it's come to fruition and we think it's an example of a of an innovative spectacularly transformational aircraft we have another aircraft that's out there in the f-35 b that is that is still in its developmental process although we're beginning to feel the aircraft and think we'll probably have a squadron in the western pacific and i believe f y 17 is going to be is going to be the plan the f-35 has a number of things to argue for it it's it's an integrated intelligence gathering platform it can do a lot of things it can do a lot of penetration type things but i would i come back to uh the unique capability that the b has to take off vertically and the fact that in most significant contingencies as we look forward it's going to be hard to hold long runways it's going to be hard to maintain pristine 7500 foot runways and therefore the force that's going to be able to go v stall the force going to just going to be able to operate from an austere expeditionary environment is going to have inherent advantages and is going to be less held less at risk by somebody who's firing ballistic missiles at you and is going to be able to get at you with relatively cheap and high number of of missiles that are going to put your runways at risk the last platform that we've got out there that we're taking a hard look at right now is the replacement for our amphibious tractor fleet the aav which is a good vehicle it's been around a long time it was it it was a moderately aged vehicle when i came into the marine corps a second lieutenant we've managed to upgrade it and it's still a still a good workhorse vehicle but as part of our integrated ground vehicle fleet going forward we're looking at a replacement for it now the the expeditionary fighting vehicle has been canceled but there are a lot of lessons learned from the expeditionary fighting vehicle sometimes that you know defeat teaches you a lot of a lot of a lot of good lessons and we are now looking at what we want the amphibious combat vehicle the follow on to the aav to look like pardon me because we think we need it we think we need it to be able to to be able to come ashore to be able to operate inland and not only at the high end it gives you enormous flexibility and speed for hostage or correction for a humanitarian assistance and disaster relief operations as well so there are a lot of things that this vehicle will bring us and so we're looking at it very hard we have not yet finalized exactly what the requirements for that vehicle are going to be because we're very much aware that we need to get the vehicle right we need we need to make sure that we've thought through and have absorbed all the lessons the efv so when we do go forward to industry with it we're going to have a package that's going to be first of all affordable and second is going to give us the operational capabilities that that we think we're going to need so those are the three equipment things that that I thought I just that I thought I'd throw out at the end and I could talk a little bit more a little bit more about that as well so that concludes my prepared remarks this morning I've touched on a number of things and probably the most useful thing for all of us will be whatever questions you you want to have and I'll be certainly very happy to entertain those thank you all right thank you sir while they're uh removing the podium there I got a host of questions and notes that I took as you were talking and it strikes me that uh you bring a lot to this job that QDR needs you've got the combat experience you've got the joint experience you've got the command experience but in many ways those are all just elements that that lead up to a larger picture you alluded to the connection to the strategy and how while it's not going to drive the strategy it has to validate the strategy which of course may change while you're in the middle of this QDR process if you go back to the defense strategic guidance that was issued last january um almost immediately you had commentary from the chairman of the joint chiefs on down that um a reduction in funding would require a revisit of the strategy if you will um to some that says your strategy's got to fit your funding you've been involved in the discussions all along about whether or not the QDR ought to be fiscally constrained we use that word fiscally informed last time I'm not quite sure what informed means in that regard but we also know that at the working group level a lot of QDR efforts are in fact fiscally constrained as part of that process it's just when you roll it up to the final product how do you address the question of fiscal constraints as you're thinking about preparing for this QDR particularly with the uncertainty of whether the strategy may change or be modified along the way obviously at some point if resources diminish significantly you're not going to be able to execute the strategy that's before us now don't know where that knee in the curve is uh I think we're going to look very hard at that and I would think that kind of examination would be a useful precursor or first stage for for a QDR you need to try to find that point because you know you can stay with a strategy at some level and there are advantages to staying with the strategy if at all possible it's you know it's only a year old it's signed by the president it's a good sign of continuity if you can find a way to continue to execute the core components of that strategy even during a period of fiscal pressure you may not be able to do that and I don't know where that point is we all I think recognize there is such a point just but I think that's something useful that you could you could discover at the very beginning I also believe that certainly the QDR is going to have to be informed driven choose whatever words you like you know by fiscal reality and I think it that's why this QDR could be particularly useful if that's the case and you know we just don't know we'll see what you know is OSD considers how they want to move ahead and and recognizing as we all do that it is an OSD driven process you know services participate we're eager to participate but nonetheless you know it ultimately will be the secretary's report you know in connecting the QDR and the strategy to the programs in DOD those of us who have been at this for a while recognize that one of the real strengths of DOD is the fit up is the future year defense program and the fiscally disciplined programming process that goes in with that this is served as you pointed out the Marine Corps in very good stead really from the time of the base force on forward the timing of this is really kind of interesting because you've already wrapped up the 14 to 19 fit up perhaps not connected to what the final resources are going to be we'll see that play out as the rest of this year goes by you don't really update that again you might update it for 15 to 19 in a 15 budget but the next real guidance for a fit up is about two months after this next QDR is finished in other words you'll wrap up this QDR and deliver to the Congress about February of 2014 along about April of 2014 you'll be issuing the internal guidance for the 15 the 16 to 21 fit up the first fit up that'll be post Afghanistan post Iraq the first one that'll be post whatever deal we end up with in terms of funding do you aim the QDR at that fit up and it at being the basis for the guidance for that fit up going forward I think you could you know reports do in February of 2014 historically the QDR QDR is finished before then so they can be you know coordinated massage I I think that's probably possible you know I think that obviously that's a that's a decision that'll be made in the secretariat as they look at it that's certainly something that you could aim for and it and then you know you begin to connect programmatic reality to it one of the criticisms of past QDRs it allows you to hang something to it at the very end which might again argue for a significant QDR then let me back from that because you mentioned phase zero and Marine Corps flexible and an ability to operate in austere environments and dispersed environments you know phase zero kind of a sense when we did our study last summer of the of the possibilities of pivot to asia force posture change for paycom Marine Corps clearly plays a very strong role there not just because of the movement of Marines so from okinawa to guaman austria and the creation of the four dispersed mag tafts but at the phase zero and enormous opportunity with dozens of countries around the regions for engagement at a host of levels from humanitarian assistance and disaster response all the way up the problem is that the recognition of the value of that force structure is usually only valid if it's attached to a major war plan in a phase two phase three kind of kinetics you got a challenge of phase zero operations that are no longer attached to any longer term higher escalation piece if you will how do you wrestle with that because it's not really a resource issue how do you wrestle with that is that something like QDR you know the department models high and war really well looks at looks at mco relationships between mco forced demand for mco and post mco stability operations pretty well uh department has not i would argue measured very effectively the phase zero phase one we're going to we're going to carry that argument forward and we'll see if it gains traction or not but i do take your point that it has not been well measured historically by the department from a quantitative sense and that tends to ultimately inform force structure decisions so maybe as the defense strategic guidance flows through this qdr it'll give you both the requirement and the opportunity to create that framework and allow you to validate and justify that use of forces as a design parameter we think it's a great opportunity to do that and i think everyone would agree if you can stay at phase zero phase one that's where you'd like to stay for a host of reasons for for the rest of our lives if we could absolutely my final question then i'm going to go to the questions that are being turned in i see there's a lot of note cards already coming in there you know i can see why the commandant would pick you to do this right you're you're one of your roles is to protect your service another of your role is to be prepared to offer what your service can offer as the qdr evolves but in some ways is there a third role which is really to look for opportunities that nobody could anticipate if you will and figure out how to take advantage of those opportunities in real time as this is unfolding is that a role that you see for yourself and how do you prepare for that role well there are a lot of smart guys in the marine corps that are looking at that i would i would throw out no kid in the the special purpose mac tap concept we're tinkering with right now which has been born very quickly and is moving forward and we think is going to actually actually answer a very real need on very short notice for for combatant commanders forward yes short answer is yes but many many smart people much smarter than me will be looking at that and that special person thank to have you could scale up scale down scale up scale down it'll it'll begin small and could stay small could get larger could could will initially probably be land-based but it's going to have the the ability to operate partially at sea to be a hybrid model as well you know as we go along as we gain experience with it practical real-world experience will determine you know how best to employ it could dovetail nicely with the phase zero phase one we think so absolutely that's really quite good let me turn now to our our audiences questions nade fryer dr marne lead how do you guys want to proceed have you figured out amongst yourselves who's going first and you've got a mic so you're ready to go general thanks for being here we really appreciate your insights first question i'll start out with i think it's it's connected a number of people have asked about the concept of risk and where you where the department should or can take risk specifically we seem to be entering a period where traditional as you put it mco considerations are actually rising in prominence with the dsg the deter defeat mission is clearly focused on on that and we're leaving a period where we spend a great deal of time on irregular challenges and operations i'd like to first get your view on where the marine corps sits on the risk balance between those two and second sort of how you feel the department should look at that as well sure first of all i think the department needs to take a very nuanced look at risk in that different elements of the department are going to take different levels of risk when applied to different planning contingencies now to take that directly to the marine corps based on what i've said this morning i think it's obvious that the marine corps is going to accept a lot higher level of risk in mco operations uh you know we're gonna we're going to build a force we'd like to build a force to do forward presence to do crisis response to do that middle weight uh to do that middle weight response we don't uh we don't say we're not going to play in an mco because we want to be there and we think we bring something very real and very capable to the fight as we've seen aptly demonstrated over the last 10 years but nonetheless as we look at our structure and our our force we believe that you know you can't particularly in a time of austerity and we're entering that period of our austere austerity you can't do everything all forces can't do all things so that's where the department writ large could perhaps take a you know a very discriminating look at what forces they want to take what risk what risk at what level and for the marine corps as i've already described you know we would try to minimize risk in our presence in our crisis response capabilities and would accept a slightly higher level of risk uh in mco and higher in sir thanks for being here uh there's a question here about the uh importance of forceful entry which you discussed and whether or not there are any or should be any initiatives focused on better integrating army airborne force-borne capability special operations and marine corps capabilities i think the joint operational access concept the joint staff is actually we are participating and taking a look at that uh so yes i would say i mean that's that that's that's a pretty straightforward uh that's a pretty straightforward response they're going to be places in forceful entry you know where amphibious forces are not going to be relevant just like they're going to be places in locales where airborne forces aren't going to be relevant and then they're going to be places perhaps a lot of places where you can use you can apply elements of both of them and we certainly would certainly would welcome that and and we'll have no no issue with that i think we rolled out the joe act here about a year ago and are still eagerly waiting for the follow on pieces together as they come forward maybe they'll wait until after the qdr the audience is uh asked another couple of questions on the linkage between the army and the marine corps um clearly there's been a relationship that's been forged over the last 12 years between the two services in the extended operations in the greater middle east and the question is going forward how do you see the army and the marine corps sort of codifying what they've learned over the last 12 years and also cooperating on you know a vision for the future of ground operations as well as you said there's been a lot of a lot of close interaction between the army and the marine corps over the last over the last decade i i've commanded soldiers in combat and i've had soldiers lead me in combat in a couple of different places so we've got a very close relationship with the army however the fact of the matter is the marine corps is naval we're a naval force that's that those are our roots and we're going to continue to emphasize that as we go forward the army is the the force of decisive action for the united states of america in a land campaign it is the heavy force that's going to come and ultimately win the land war the marine corps is not going to do that although we can certainly participate in those large land campaigns the marine corps as a naval force is going to be the force that will buy time for the army to deploy perhaps do a variety of things to shape the early battle space to allow the army to enter but we are not a second land army to use a phrase that that you that you hear a lot here in the last in the in the last few months we're not that we're a naval force very different capabilities although we have had the capability to work very closely with them over the last few years in campaigns that are actually pretty far pretty far from the water the question is about sort of what some might call niche capabilities uh one on the contributions of marine corps civil affairs in phase zero and phase one how you see that evolving over time and then also one about uh marine corps cyber and how you see cyber forces and marine corps contributions in cyber changing future warfare sure more for cyber is going to be an element of the marine corps going forward we're still looking at what the final contribution of marines is going to be to that but but i can tell you as a former j5 and a combatant command cyber considerations fundamentally permeate every bit of operational planning that you do you think about it from beginning to end so it's so interwoven and everything you do it's really not it's really not separate we're not as good at it as we need to be yet we're going to get better uh and the marine corps recognizes this and so you're going to see marines significant numbers of marines and i don't know what the final number is going to be because we're still looking at it but the marine corps is going to marine corps is going to have a seat at the table and cyber and we're going to make the contribution necessary to have that seat at the table as we go forward now for marine civil affairs that's another uh structure issue that we're looking at in the force optimization review group as we go forward clearly phase zero phase one great opportunity for for those guys gals to be to be effective uh don't know exactly ultimately where they're going to reside what the reserve active component mix is going to be but we're looking at it another question here on um outsourcing and contract support for the marine corps um the question really is the idea that the army does make up a lot of a lot of gaps in in uh some of its capability through contracting and um outsourcing um there's the question is is the marine corps looking for more or less opportunities in that regard um and and how does it see that in expeditionary operations in particular the relationship between contractors and and regular forces yeah that is not a subject that I am an expert on but I am I know a little bit about uh the standard that we want to have for support in a in a uh in an austere expeditionary environment which is about 30 days and we look for that to be self-sustained and you're going to have very minimal contract support during that period of time that's probably the best way that I could answer that question you know anything we do in terms of contracting particularly in a in a forward area in a combat zone is going to be made with an eye to frugality austerity and ability to act uh very quickly when David discussed this to some degree the relationship between the qdr and the budget um it was the I think David has somewhat optimistic underpinning assumption that we might actually get to clarity um that could inform the qdr's efforts we have a question here about uh if that might not occur is it possible to when you have a budget crisis every year or multiple times a year how do you handle that if you don't have at least some reliable outlook for the future as you undertake this effort well if you plan multiple scenarios you plan to abandon outcomes uh it's harder to plan like that but we can do it you know we can change from the quadrennial defense review to the quarterly defense review and that would probably allow us to keep up if you will right and that standing bureaucracy has got to do something in between the four years of course what it does for your career i'm not quite sure right so um where does the marine core have potential capability that it might have too much it might have too much capability or has over the last 12 years uh gained more than it than it needs and and where does it specifically not have enough sure uh well we had 202,000 marines when we were fighting too large land wars you know the product of the marine core is the individual marine and so we're now drawing down to we're drawing down 20,000 marines we're shedding excess capability that 182 force is a pretty lean force there's not a lot of fat in there so we would argue that we have made those cuts coming down to 182 uh and you know we may have to look at it anew based on a resource picture that you know is yet completely not completely developed and we'll see how that shakes out but we would argue that we've shed you know a number of capabilities and and particularly with our in strength as we come down i would note that it's been our advantage here at csis that you've slowed down your accessions because we regularly get really good interns who are waiting for their basic and they get to spend a little time with us here so you can keep doing that for a while it's fine with us uh you talked about the importance of and emphasize the marine core as a maritime force um but if the navy is unable to sustain the rotational schedules that support the deploying uh you also talked a little bit about marine being also a forward foot on the ground on the ground side at that point if it becomes clear that the Navy can't sustain the the deployment tempo that you would like do you shrink the marine core or do you become less maritime what choice do you see uh in that instance well we'd prefer to work with the navy to find a sustainable amphibious warship fleet level that would allow us to continue to deploy and meet you know the combatant commander's requirements there are a variety of other ways you can approach it you can look at you can look at capabilities that don't require you to use amphibious warships we don't as a general rule like that because those ships are not built to go under fire in fact in many cases there are legal requirements that limit what you can do with them under fire so that's not a desired case for the marine core and i want to i want to emphasize that nonetheless you can look you can look at those alternatives the special purpose magtaf that we're looking to potentially move out here in the near future is initially at least going to be land-based and the the range the flexibility the versatility of the v-22 osprey gives you remarkable capabilities in an area for example like the Mediterranean the north african-latoral the levante you can centrally position something and reach a lot of different places with the v-22 now obviously a v-22 is not going to give you the capability that you're going to get coming from the sea off an amphibious platform nonetheless for a variety of missions that we can still fill those with the v-22 so in answer to your question you know as we go into you know in the months ahead as the budget picture begins to find it begins to firm up and as we get into the q dr we'll be working closely with the navy on the on the size and number of amphibious warships it is safe to say that is a matter of great interest to us i think we're gonna have to have marines learn how to deploy on strategic ballistic missile submarines the only ships that are left all right an emerging topic that seems to be of great importance to the army and i think we'd be interested to hear what your perspective on it is this idea that increasingly forces deployed ashore left operate in more wmd environments and it's a it's a skill that's somewhat atrophied one might actually say for the forces over the last dozen or so years so that there's the there's both the ability to operate in cbrn environments as well as the ability to respond to the loss of control over cbrn assets and how the marine corps views both operating in the environment and the potential mission to have to seize them sure that's a that's a task that a marine expeditionary area unit is capable capable of executing you know over the last 12 years while we have deployed large forces to the sent com a or to fight to land wars we have still maintained new deployments outside the the sent com a or and those forces have had that capability now obviously the force has been focused on other things the force writ large those are skills that you can pick back up not immediately but fairly quickly because they're essentially cbrn defense is essentially a trainable mechanical skill that you can easily you can easily put back into a unit we will we are interested in working the wmd issue like i said muse are already part of that part of that solution obviously special operations forces play a significant role in that as well and as we go forward we're going to look to continue and increase our integration with special operations forces as well so we think it's an area that we're going to be interested in exploring let's do one more and then we'll wrap it up sir you talked about the evolution of getting to a good set of requirements on the combat vehicle and i'm wondering if the marine corps feels like you've had enough opportunity to have an open level of dialogue with industry to both understand the cost tradeoffs and the implications of different requirement trade space and and also some where their risks and opportunities are so has that been have you been able to have the dialogue that you think that need in order to get to the requirements that you want we think we have to have that dialogue to have any chance at all a producer a useful vehicle and it's continuing now it is not yet complete but that that process that dialogue with industry is continuing like it's an extremely it's an exquisitely complex vehicle it's got to come from the sea at whatever speed you finally want it to come at it's got to be able to transition to shore and it's got to be able to move marines around on shore now we don't see it as a probably as a Bradley competitor not fighting you know not fighting pure combat vehicles ashore but nonetheless that's a pretty stiff order to put on a vehicle so we want to get it right and that requires extensive discussion with industry and that's ongoing now well general you came in here today to kick us off in this discussion series on the QDR I think you've not only reflected on a lot of the issues that are relevant for the United States Marine Corps in that process but as well on the broader QDR process and the challenges that DOD faces I think those of us who look at it from the outside can see the complexities but sometimes have a harder time seeing the solutions and and you've explored some of those options with us today as well so I want to thank you on behalf of CSIS and for being here with us today I want to again acknowledge our gratitude to our sponsor Rolls-Royce North America for making these forms possible and I want to invite you back when you've got more answers and you can come back and tell us what they are thank you thank you very much thank you very much I appreciate it it's a delight