 Good morning. So thank you for joining us for the contemporary military forum titled Land Power and Integrated Deterrence in the Indo-Pacific. I'm Lieutenant General Retired Michael Williamson, Vice President and General Manager, Missiles and Fire Control, Lockheed Martin. Lockheed Martin is one of the AUSA's star sponsor and very proud to be a part of this professional development forum. As you know, Lockheed continues to be a prime player in our national defense, and we're excited to be a partner with the Association of the United States Army. We appreciate what the association does for the Army, the total Army, through educating, informing, and connecting, as we see right here at AUSA this week. Thank you for being a part of this program. It should be a very exciting discussion. Now, I'll turn this over to Lieutenant General Retired Sean McFarland. OK, we're going to find out how many retired three stars it takes to introduce a panel now. Thanks for joining us today for the contemporary military forum on Land Power and Integrated Deterrence in the Indo-Pacific. And as your professional association, the Association of the United States Armies, proud to provide forums like this throughout the year that broaden the knowledge base on Army professionals and those who support the Army. AUSA will amplify the Army's narrative to audiences inside the Army and help to further the association's mission to be the voice of the Army and support for the soldier. Of course, we can't do this alone. AUSA relies on its members to help tell the Army's story and to support our soldiers and their families. A strong membership base is vitally important for our advocacy efforts in Congress, the Pentagon, and the defense industrial base, and to the public and communities across the country through our 121 chapters within the US and eight other countries. If you're an AUSA member, thanks. For those of you who aren't, Army professionals who are not yet members, we encourage you to join AUSA by visiting the membership booth, booth 307 in exhibit hall A, or sign up online at ausa.org slash membership. So for our speakers today, we have this deck of cards, Tony, there's yours. Thank you, sir. Commemorating our Medal of Honor recipients. And on behalf of General Brown, our president and the rest of AUSA's team, thanks for your time. We really appreciate it, you being here with us today. So now I'll turn it over to yet another retired Lieutenant General, Tony Crutchfield, Vice President of Army Systems at Boeing to moderate the panel. Gentlemen, over to you. Well, thanks, Sean, and thanks, Mike. It's always great to see both of you, my battle buddies. Good morning, everybody, and thank you for joining us. I'm Tony Crutchfield, your panel moderator, and I'm quite excited. I appreciate General Flynn and AUSA asking me to do this. I've, of course, stayed connected to the Indo-Paycom region. My last assignment was as the deputy commander of US Paycom. And so I'm looking forward to this conversation today and also seeing some great, I think I could say, friends to a congressman. OK, I hope so. If not, edit that out if I can. It is my distinct pleasure to introduce our panel members today. To my left and your right, first will be General Charles Flynn, Charlie Flynn, the CG of USERPAC. Next to him is US Representative Robert Whitman from the First District of Virginia. Joining us in just a few minutes will be Dr. Mara Carlin, who's the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy, Plans, and Capability. She'll be joining us here shortly. She got delayed. Also, Lieutenant General Toshi Kazuyamani, who is the vice chief of staff of the Japan Ground Self-Defense Forces. And then, last but not least, first in our hearts, the newest division commander in the United States Army up in Alaska. We have Major General Brian Eiffler, the CG of the 11th Airborne Brigade. Thank you all for joining us here today. We'd like to start off with the panel's comments, and I'll turn it over to General Flynn. Thanks, Tony. Congressman, thanks for being here. General Iamani, thanks for being here. And just thanks to AUSA for helping us out and giving us this platform. A couple of comments up front that I make. So just to discount a few things that the region is often referred to as the Aaron Maritime Theater. It is not. It is a joint theater. It requires joint solutions because it's got joint challenges. And the Army plays a central and critical role as the leader of the land power network across Asia. I'll also remind people, while the theater is named after two oceans, there's two continents out there, the Asian continent and the continent of Australia. And it's connected by an archipelago land bridge through Southeast Asia. I would also geographically, because I think it's important, if you look back at the Second World War, there were actually three theaters out there. And so you actually, when you're talking about the region, you really do need to talk about it in the subregions. And so I'll make a few points here on the geometry of the geography in the region because it matters. Hi, ma'am, good morning. So from the Western tip of Indonesia to the Eastern tip is going from London to Tehran. The entire European continent can fit essentially in the South China Sea with a little overlap in Vietnam and the Philippines. It is a massive part of the world. Again, back to it's a joint theater with joint challenges and requires joint solutions. There's really three things I think that the adversary has in this region that is concerning for us. One is they're operating off of interior lines. The second thing is they have mass. And then the third thing is they have a magazine depth that's difficult to match. And then of course, Japan sits right at the knife edge of this, right? There's a Russian threat there. There's a North Korean threat. And then there's a Chinese threat. So these complicate the challenges across the region. I would also express to you that what we are trying to do is do a couple of things. And I'll say there's three sort of objectives that we stay focused on in US Army Pacific. One is we're trying to increase our joint readiness in the region. The second thing we're trying to do is we're trying to increase the confidence in the interoperability, the human technical and procedural interoperability, because there's three types of interoperability with our allies and partners. And then the third thing we're trying to do is deny key terrain. Key terrain being both physical terrain because of the criticality, the choke points there, and then the human terrain that exists out there, which is, I know it's 25% of the land mass, but 6 out of 10 people in the world live there. And we're on a path to about 7 out of 10. And 40% of the global GDP exists in Asia. So the strategic weight of this century rests in Asia. And that's why it is the priority theater in the National Defense Strategy and for the national security of the United States. And I'm sure Dr. Carlin will mention some things about that. In the National Defense Strategy, it talks about integrated deterrence. It talks about campaigning. And it talks about warfighting advantages. And so I'll talk about three things that we're doing in US Army Pacific, and then I'll give some context to things that we're doing by way of warfighting, campaigning, and wargaming. But there's three major initiatives that we're undertaking in the region. The first is what I would refer to as sort of a picket line or creating interior lines in the first island chain around into Southeast Asia and up onto the Asian continent. And that is a network that is working with the allies and partners. Security Force Assistance Brigade is part of that. The multi-demand task force is part of that. Ground-based manned and unmanned sensors is part of that, activating our Army preposition stocks that are in Japan and in Korea, and then activating the vessels that we have afloat with APS in the region. It's also activating what I refer to as material activity sets separate from Army preposition stocks in the various locations where we exercise. So the first thing is through picket line Pacific, which is our ability to see, sense, and understand what's actually happening with the adversaries in the region. The second thing that we're trying to do and have done is we've created a combat training center in Hawaii and Alaska and in the region called JPMRC, Joint Pacific Multinational Readiness Center. It is the Army's contribution to PIMTech, which is the Pacific multi-domain training and experimentation capability. Those campuses exist in Hawaii over the eight islands in the archipelagic, tropic jungle environment that we have in Hawaii surrounded by joint forces. It also exists in the Yukon training area and the Donnelly training area in Alaska, in the North where we have extreme cold weather, mountain and extreme altitudes that those forces have to operate, and Brian can mention that. And then also we have an exportable version of JPMRC that we brought into Indonesia in the last two years for Garuda Shield. And this is basically a live, virtual, and constructive environment, much like our training center in Europe and the two that we have in the continental in the United States. Put that in Indonesia the last two years and in 23 we're gonna put it in Australia, in Rockhampton and Shorewater Bay, Townsville area where the Australians are building their combat training center. And then the third thing that we're doing, and this is our contribution to our operational design and the way the Army campaigns in the Pacific is operation pathways, not merely just a series of exercises, it is literally our equation or our contribution to integrated deterrence. And I express the SECDEF's definition of integrated deterrence as a sum of these four parts, capability, posture, messaging and will. So pathways is the push of our capabilities forward into the region. Posture is our ability to operate with the allies and partners in the region to create access points for us to operate from so that we can be forward in the region and do the three things. I'm gonna mention increase joint readiness, increase confidence and interoperability with our allies and partners, deny key terrain. And then the third thing that we're doing as part of pathways is by being forward over time, we believe that that presence forward with our allies and partners actually ties together the land power network that's so vital to the region. So 80% of the militaries in the region are army, they're land forces. Much of the special operations and the Marines come from their army. Four out of five chods in the region are army generals. The security architecture that binds that region together is land forces. I recognize that it's named after two oceans and it's often referred to as an Aaron Maritime Theater but land forces in that region are central because they protect national sovereignty. They protect national sovereignty and that is what is at risk right now is the violation of that national sovereignty whether it's in the air, at sea or on the ground. And much of that is happening on the continent of Asia throughout the archipelago in Southeast Asia out into Oceania. And so our role working with that land power network is to make sure that there is no gaps or seams between the relationships that we have with our allies and partners. Last three points I'd make is on war fighting, campaigning, and war gaming. So first thing on war fighting. So JPMRC is our contribution to war fighting out there at the tactical level and below. That's the training center in Hawaiian, Alaska and in the region. The second thing is, and we just finished a core war fighter with first core, had Marines, PAK Fleet, PAK AF, but maybe the more important point was my headquarters played the high con to that first core and to the two subordinate divisions, multi-demand task forces and the enabling commands. That hasn't happened on our army in the past, okay? So headquarters need to get in the game of training in the army. And I know that General Papas and some others at Force Comm were helping with that. So there's a couple of examples of war fighting, training in different ways where army forces support the joint force. The second thing, campaigning. So much of what I described with those three things, the interior lines, the training center in the Pacific, pathways, again, that's our contribution to campaigning and that is our contribution to integrated deterrence for the joint force commander and the secretary of defense. And then the third thing is wargaming. This past year we did Unified Pacific Wargame Series. It's essentially the army's contribution to the challenges that we have in the Indo-Pacific. It's much akin to what the global series is for the Navy. And so this campaign of learning that we can do between global and unified Pacific is really important. Maybe what's more important is that from that wargame, and we published a unclassed version of the seven insights, two of them I wanna point out because two of them are games that we're gonna, or aspects that we're gonna wargame this year. The first is indications in warning and collection in the region, and that will be done in January. And then in March, we're gonna have a wargame on joint contested logistics. Much of what Secretary Wormouth mentioned yesterday about the army's contribution to logistics and our ability to create conditions for operational endurance. So again, a lot going on in the Pacific, a lot of great initiatives that are underway. Much has been accomplished in the last 15, 16 months. But boy, we got a lot of work to do and we need all of your help to do that. So again, thanks for your time and I look forward to your questions and I appreciate everyone on the panel again being here today. Thanks, I'll switch with you. Well, good morning. What an honor and privilege it is to be here at AUSA and let me open by saying this. The army is a critical element of the joint force in the Indo-Pay-Com. Let me say that again. The army is a critical element of the joint force in the Indo-Pay-Com, period. Pretty simple and straightforward. There are challenges in front of us. Let's make no bones about it. And the things that we have to do to make sure the army has the capability and capacity in that theater are significant. Just General Flynn pointed out, having those pathways, those lines of operability there, where the tyranny of distance creates a big challenge for us. Logistics, logistics is key in this theater. The army has lots of great operational capabilities in a lot of different ways. The key is how do you link all of those capabilities together? And I'll go to General Omar Bradley who said this. He said, tactics are for amateurs, logistics are for professionals. In this theater, logistics will be the key. And here are the things that we need to do. And Congress needs to be at the forefront of this. The army needs the ability to operate in that theater. And the element of that that's key is sea lift and airlift. We have to be able to get the army to the fight. We have to sustain the army in the fight. The key today as we speak is the ready reserve fleet is at 41 ships. They average 46 years old. The last time there was a turbo activation, only about 60% of those ships were ready to go to sea. In the maritime security program, those are ships that are on call for the United States military. There are 60 ships today. Put that in perspective about the number of ships that were there when we mobilized for the Gulf War. 380 ships. Think about that. Think about the magnitude of what we have to do in the Indo-Pacom. Logistics is key, sea lift is key. We need to make sure that we are as quickly as possible rebuilding that capacity and capability with sea lift. And that means taking the roll on roll off ships. They were purchasing now, getting them into the fleet, making sure that they can move both materials and troops. We want to make sure, too, that we are looking at building purpose-built sea lift ships here in the United States. Let's get that going. I think we can build those when we do multi-ship procurement. I think we can do that at a very reasonable rate and we can do it at pace. Another element that's key, too, is once you get to theater, the question is how do you move things around in theater? Just General Flynn talked about pathways are critical, but pathways rely on intra-theater lift. How do you move things around? How do you make sure, too, that things that are critical to your operations, fuel, munitions, stores, how do you make sure that those are dispersed so that our adversary can't go to one place and say, well, if I just take out these two ships, we're good, no. We want to make sure that we disperse those elements. We want to make sure, too, we disperse our capability and capacity in that region. We want to make sure when we have that long-range precision strike, let's make sure it's dispersed. When we have that long-range capability, that long-range reach, it has to be dispersed. How do we make sure we disperse it? We move it around. We want to increase the risk calculus for the Chinese. We want to make sure they look at it and go, wow, man, we can't go to one place and strike. In fact, we're gonna have to expend a lot of munitions in order to take out a portion of the capability. We want to make sure they go Winchester before we go Winchester. That's the key. And how do we do that? Do we disperse our assets there? We make sure, too, we have Lyft to do that. And Lyft includes intra-theater Lyft. Those are keys. A lot of folks talk about the Navy and the Indo-Paycom, which force has more ships than the Navy, the Army, exactly. And we need to make sure that we continue along those lines. Intra-theater Lyft is gonna be key. Let's look, too, as we envision the scenario that the Army is gonna face there. It is gonna be a critical element of the joint force. And it's gonna make sure, too, that as things begin to unfold, that the Army is there as part of that force that pushes forward, that sustains and holds ground. You know, it's fine that the tip of the spear is the Marine Corps of the Navy, but it's the Army that's gonna sustain and hold. Another element that's key, too, is anything that happens in a Chinese effort against Taiwan is gonna have to involve a land force. You can do all you can in the air and come out across the Taiwan East Straits, but if China's gonna, in any way, shape, or form, try to take Taiwan, it has to go to Taipei. So guess what? The Army's gonna play a critical role there, and I believe the Army will play the critical role in every day from now forward, as it has in the days previous. Look at what's happened in Ukraine. Look at what happened in 2014. When the Russians came in, in their, we'll call it clandestine forces there, to go ahead and essentially take over Ukraine, install their own government, the Ukrainian people said, no, sorry, we're not gonna have that. But what happened after 2014? It was the United States that trained Ukrainian forces. And what's the critical element of why Ukrainian forces are successful today? It's because the Ukrainian Army adopted the structure that we know is the secret sauce for the United States military. They put in place non-commissioned officer corps and a commissioned officer corps. That was the key, and watch how they're operating today. The operational capability that they have is based upon that. We ought to take that lesson, learn and do everything we can in training Taiwanese forces. Now we know Taiwan doesn't have necessarily a standing army, they have a national guard, but we can do the same thing with Taiwan as we did with the Ukrainians. Make sure we train their forces. The army will be the critical element and make sure those forces are trained and have the capability moving forward to make sure they can resist any sort of effort by the Chinese. That is another element of deterrence. Remember folks, it's about twofold. It's about, as General Flynn said, the war gaming and making sure we understand all the scenarios. It's about being able to defeat the Chinese if called upon, but it's making sure we build capacity and capability quickly so we can deter the Chinese. Let's make the risk calculers for them such that they go, you know, maybe we thought about it, but maybe we shouldn't do that because we know the cost that we're gonna incur if we make that move. The way we do that is to make sure too that we have Taiwanese forces that are trained and are capable in the United States Army showed that it can do that in what happened in Ukraine and we can do that again with Taiwan. Those things, I think, are gonna be critically important in that theater. I wanna make sure too that we understand how do we make sure that we are devoting the right resources in Army modernization efforts? You know, the multi-domain task forces are incredibly capable. They're flexible, adaptable force that can move and talking about movement, maneuver in that space is gonna be critical. So maneuver in that area is different than maneuvering as a land force. Maneuvering there is gonna require that intra theater lift. That means Congress is gonna have to make sure that we properly resource the Army in what it does in modernization. And I wanna make sure too that the Army Futures Command, I think, my personal opinion, Army Futures Command needs to be moved back up to a place of prominence. I believe Army Futures Command is gonna be the key for way things move forward. It has to operate directly under the Secretary of the Army. I believe that those things are critical in the pathway forward. We have to emphasize the modernization of the Army and the things that it needs to do to operate in the endopaycom. All of those things I think are critical. So if you talk about logistics, if you talk about those pathways and having the capability and capacity to operate in those lines of operability there within theater, to make sure too that we have the ability to disperse all of our critical logistics to make sure there's not one place where the Chinese can go, to make sure the Army can move about, to make sure the Army can sustain. If the flag goes up, we wanna make sure the Army can sustain that theater, we wanna make sure too that it's a critical element in making sure there's capacity in Taiwan as a land force, as we've seen what has happened there in Ukraine. The lessons that we've learned here recently show us the pathway forward for the Army. Army Futures Command needs to be in a place of prominence in the Army because those decisions and the things going forward are gonna be key. The operational capability of multi-domain task forces is gonna also be key. Folks, I believe that the Army is indeed going to be that critical element of the joint force in that theater. A lot of times it's hard for folks to see that because there's a lot of water out there, but we know sustainment in the ability to not only gain ground, but to hold ground. And just as General Flynn said, I agree with him, there's an awful lot of land out there in addition to the water. How do we make sure we do that? And how do we make sure that the deterrent element of what the Army brings to the table and the ability to operate in that theater is key? And folks, we can do that. You know, I love military history. All you have to do is to look at what the Army did during World War II, and you can see the Army has incredible capability in that theater. Let's make sure that we have the will, the wherewithal in the direction so the Army has the capability and capacity to have what it needs to operate in that theater. Congress has to play a critical part of that. And I appreciate what the Army's doing to make sure they're charting the path forward and being very aggressive and forward, looking about what the Army will do to be that critical element of the joint force in the Indo-Pacon. Thank you, sir. Dr. Carlin, it's great to have you here. We met years ago when I was actually, it's good to see you again. I don't know if you remember me, but... Indeed, it's good to see you. It's great to see you, and please go ahead with your comments. Thank you, and thank you so much. It's a treat to be here. I apologize for showing up late. I feel like I should make a logistics joke which would resonate with this crowd. But look, I really appreciate the opportunity to speak at AUSA this morning and with such a fantastic group of panelists. And I know y'all are gonna throw a lot of hard questions at us as well, so I'll speak a little bit quickly. I thought what I might do is spend a few minutes talking about integrated deterrence. This is really kind of a key concept in the national defense strategy, and then a little bit about kind of what we're seeing the Army doing with it in the Indo-Pacific. Although you heard General Flynn's fantastic exposition and have seen, no doubt, his real leadership on this. So look, in integrated deterrence, y'all have heard this term a lot, and y'all no doubt also know that the national defense strategy is really premised on this urgent need to sustain and strengthen deterrence with the focus on the People's Republic of China. And we have heard about deterrence, frankly, since all of us were young, no doubt. So what I wanna do is help y'all understand why this concept's a little bit different, why we felt this need to kind of mature this concept, and really pull together this new approach that brings to bear all of our resources, and by all of our, I really mean all of our, right, across the Department of Defense, across the US government, and really with our allies and partners. So I find it best to understand the concept of integrated deterrence, frankly by breaking it up and do its two words. So let's do integrated, and then let's do deterrence. So integrated, who, what, where, what are we talking about, right? What you wanna do is you wanna think about three cohorts that are being integrated. The Department of Defense, the Interagency, and our allies and partners. And there are responsibilities incumbent on all of those when we're thinking integrated. So inside the Department of Defense, this is the one, no doubt, we're all probably most interested in, right? For us to integrate inside the Department of Defense, it means we've got to have a combat credible force. It means we have to be able to look across theaters, across the spectrum of conflict, to really, and excuse me, and across domains, so that we can deal with challenges. Let's talk about what that looks like, right? Across domains, obviously we're sitting here, we're talking a whole lot about land power, but that doesn't mean that we are not thinking about all of the other relevant domains because frankly, our adversaries are as well. We know what today's character of warfare looks like. We know how it's changing. We have got to look across domains, across theaters. We know this as well, right? We see the perturbing behavior of the People's Republic of China in the Indo-Pacific, and that is a real concern. We also see it in other regions as well. We cannot just only focus on the region we might find most interesting. We have to look across regions. And we have to look across the spectrum of conflict. I really appreciated the citation of the 2014 Invasion of Crimea because it was such a good lesson, I think, for all of us about how adversaries can move across that spectrum of conflict, right? Where we saw what was kind of this gray zone effort, right? It wasn't exactly sure what was happening, and it took us all a while, I think, to really diagnose and then to be able to kind of move forward. So we have to be comfortable moving across that spectrum of conflict. What's happening kind of in the gray zone and hybrid warfare? What's happening in the conventional setting? How do we understand how our adversaries or challengers are looking across the spectrum of conflict? And how do we get comfortable doing that as well? So integrated, inside the Department of Defense, that means we are looking across domains. We are looking across theaters and we are looking across the spectrum of conflict so we can have a combat credible force. That's kind of what's most incumbent on all of us. Then we've got to cross our interagency. We know that we are most successful as a U.S. government when we're all focused on our comparative advantages, right? When our diplomats are focused on delivering in their world, when our treasury colleagues are focused on just sanctioning the heck out of our adversaries, right? When all of us are showing up across the interagency, doing what we do best. And when we try to do one another's roles, there's opportunity costs and we're not nearly as good as it is as well. So that's that second cohort of the interagency. And then there's that third cohort, our unparalleled network of allies and partners. And wow is that extraordinary. There is not another country in the world and there sure is not another country like Russia or the People's Republic of China that has anything anywhere close to it, right? Allies and partners in regions across the world that want to collaborate, that want to work together, that often have a very similar vision of what Wright looks like. You heard General Flynn speaking just a little bit about the extraordinary work that he and his team are doing with our allies and partners across the Indo-Pacific. And we just see this in spades. It brings a comparative advantage as we deal with challenges. So that's the integrated piece, right? Those three cohorts inside the Department of Defense across the interagency and with our allies and partners. Now deterrence. Now again, we've all known what deterrence is and even in the post 9-11 wars where frankly the concept of deterrence perhaps wasn't as relevant given the sorts of challengers we face like Al Qaeda and ISIS. Nevertheless, we've all had the idea of deterrence in the back of our mind. And what we're trying to do with the idea of integrated deterrence is evolve that a bit and mature that a bit and be a little bit more rigorous about it. So we're used to kind of traditional logics of deterrence, right? Deterrence by denial of benefits. You can't achieve what you are trying to achieve, right? Or deterrence by cost and position. Wow, it is going to be so painful when you try to do that thing. We're trying to mature the notion, for example by deterrence by resilience, right? Making it so that even if you see a challenger and adversary try to do something, the impact bounces off. And then you get to think about escalation on your own terms because you're resilient, because you can withstand that first blow. For all of this to work, for these ideas of deterrence to work, we've really got to have good feedback loops, right? We've got to have a good understanding. How does the adversary perceive what's going on? And are we having the impact we think we are having, right? That's a hard conversation to have because there's often resources and attention put toward an issue, but we really have to be rigorous, right? We have to be comfortable looking and saying we have tried to do X or Y, did it work? And then really being able to learn. So this idea of integrated deterrence, it's really trying to help us learn to have these feedback loops so we can figure out across the department, across the interagency, across our allies and partners, are we actually deterring effectively in the ways that we think we are? And if not, where do we need to make some adjustments? So you all know that the Army is doing just some fantastic work in this space. And I would, for a moment, though, shoot it out a little bit beyond the Army and look at just the joint force writ large. You all saw the President's budget come out, largest budget request in Department of Defense history. And I hope when you read it, you really saw just the serious focus on building a combat credible force, right? A combat credible force that is focused on dealing with strategic competitors. Now, when you look at some of the great things that the Army is doing in the Indo-Pacific specifically, right, the multi-domain task force, for example, I would really focus on the size of what the Army is doing. And I would also focus on the shape of what the Army is doing. And I say that because I think both of those are pretty interesting. So the size, you've heard General Flynn speak a little bit. There's some great case studies here, in particular, the exercise that the Army has traditionally done with the Indonesians, Garuda Shield. So this was a bilateral exercise the Army did with the Indonesians and that was great. But actually what the Army has been able to do lately is change the size of it dramatically, right? So now you have 14 countries participating, not two. You have 4,000 troops participating, right? Not just folks from, again, the United States or Indonesia. That's a great case study of how we are working with that unparalleled network of allies and partners and really changing the size of what we're doing, right? But I also noticed that it's the size that's interesting. It's also the scale that's really, excuse me, the scope that's really interesting or the shape, right? What we are seeing with the Army in the Indo-Pacific is new efforts, new approaches, new operational concepts. A lot of creativity, frankly, a lot of innovation and that has been important. I think looking at some of the work with Patriots in the Philippines has been just a fantastic case study there. So I note all of this because for integrated deterrence to work, what you are hearing is that we have all got to work together. We've all got to work together in a pretty focused and tailored and deliberate manner in really ensuring that we are able to deal with these challenges that are ahead. And I think when I look at the work that the Army is doing in particular in the Indo-Pacific, we've got some really, really big shoes to fill and that's fantastic. Thank you all very much. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Ohayogazimasu. I'm a Lieutenant-General Yamane, Vice-Chief of Staff Japan Ground Services Defense Force, JGSDF. And thank you very much. Invite me to this excellent panel. As my opening remarks, I would like to explain the strategic environment surrounding Japan and introduce JGSDF's efforts. So, next slide, please. In the vicinity of Japan, PLC, North Korea and Russia are strengthening their military power and intensifying their military activities which can be regarded as a critical point for security and stability in the Indo-Pacific region. North Korea has conducted ballistic missile launches repeatedly this year and been unilaterally escalating its provocations against the international community. Russia is now invading Ukraine. This is a clear challenge to the existing international order. PLC continues unilateral attempts to change the status quo by coercion in the East and the South China Seas. On the right bottom slide, as science and technology advance, warfare shifts to include new capabilities across several domains, including outer space, cyber space and electromagnetic space. On the next slide, let's take a look at the environment surrounding Japan from a different angle. Next slide. This picture is rotated approximately 90 degrees and Japan is highlighted by the yellow outline. The Japanese archipelago can be seen as a lid of the Eurasian continent. The dotted lines show the activities of the naval and air force of PLC and Russia. The PLC Navy and air force have expanded and intensified the activities in the ocean and airspace surrounding Japan, including the areas around the Senkaku Islands which PLC selfishly claim. In addition, PLC and Russia have made progress in military cooperation in recent years and have also intensified bilateral exercises near Japan. In other words, the expansion pressure from the Eurasian puts serious pressure on Japan as our country is located as a lead geographically. Japan's position puts increased pressure on our country and this pressure has been particularly high in the southwestern islands of Japan in recent years. In addition, various conflicts of national interest exist in this area. Therefore, it is very important to be stable of this area. This area has a significant impact on the stability of the entire Indo-Pacific region. Next slide, please. In order to respond to these status situations, let me explain Japan's endeavor. First of all, the goals of Japan's defense to create a desirable security environment, deter threats and respond to them in the event of crisis. Japan will achieve these goals through its own national defense architecture, the US-Japan alliance and security cooperation. Based on this concept, the JGSDF has also been strengthening its defense posture. Next slide, please. This slide shows JGSDF's activities from peacetime to the so-called gray zone. In peacetime, the JGSDF continues ISR and information-gathering activities and deters the occurrence of incidents by preventing escalation through exercises and sending out strategic messages, thereby contributing to area stability. In this regard, the JGSDF is trying to strengthen its operational capabilities in new domains, such as cyber, electromagnetic, and cognitive domains in order to offset the asymmetric enemy military capabilities. In order to avoid a lack of forces in the southwestern area, the JGSDF is establishing camps in remote islands. We are shifting our focus on military affairs from east to west. Next slide. Furthermore, in the event of an escalation, the JGSDF focuses on establishing a response posture ahead of the enemy's actions. By doing that, the JGSDF imposes a higher cost for the changing the status quo to make the enemy abandon its aggression. For this reason, the JGSDF is strengthening capabilities in new domains and enhancing maneuver and deployment capabilities to deploy units in the southwestern region. If unfortunate military aggression against Japan occurs, each response is conducted jointly. The JGSDF executes each operation such as joint anti-ship, anti-ground attack, and integrated air and missile defense in accordance with cross-domain operation concept, while contributing to intelligence activities. Next slide. In order to strengthen deterrence and response capabilities of the US-Japan Alliance, JGSDF is trying to improve cooperation between the land forces. Here, I will explain about training as an example. First of all, the JGSDF has been collaborating its cross-domain operation CDO with MDO of the US Army in Yamasakura and Orient Shield exercises, while also collaborating our CDO with EABO of the US Marine Corps in Result Dragon exercise, et cetera. Another effort we are pursuing is the expansion of existing bilateral exercises to multilateral ones. It is quite significant to make US-Japan exercise multilateral, as I will explain on the next slide. Next slide, please. Japan is eager to maintain peace and stability and considers it most desirable for the international community to prevent wars. To this end, the JGSDF continues its efforts to build a desirable security environment. As part of these initiatives, we are conducting senior-level exchanges, strategic dialogue, bilateral and multilateral exercises, capacity-building cooperation, and international disaster relief activities. According to these activities, we should strengthen cooperation with other countries in the region, such as the Quad, European countries, ASEAN countries, and Pacific Island countries. Through these initiatives, we intend to mitigate and eliminate the stabilizing factors in the Indo-Pacific region, and to build a common foundation to deal with regional issues cooperatively. For this purpose, the JGSDF will strive to stabilize the region through multilateral cooperation by maintaining and strengthening networks with other countries' ground forces based on the relationship we share with U.S. forces. In this context, we believe that the multilateralization of exercises will truly be the cornerstone for building and strengthening land-powered networks. And I strongly believe these activities will serve as a foundation for free and open Indo-Pacific. Next slide, please. Last but not least, Japanese government has decided to fundamentally strengthen its defense capability within five years based on the basic policy, as we call big-born policy, under the leadership of Prime Minister Kishida. This could be the largest decision-making since Japan started to take steps as a peace-loving nation after the Second World War. In other words, Japan is currently feeling serious threat. It can be said that the strategic environment surrounding Japan is extremely severe. Under these circumstances, Japan will achieve the stability of the Indo-Pacific region and the defense of Japan by means of three efforts such as strengthening its own national defense architecture, the U.S.-Japan alliance, and security cooperation. Thank you very much. Thank you, General. I just mesmerized by that great picture of a mountain with snow on it, so I appreciate that. I'm General Brian Eifler. I'm the commander of the newest division in the Army, the 11th Airborne Division. It's a very unique division. I'll talk about that in a minute, but the creation of it, a lot of people ask why we did that, but it is a convergence, a unity of mission, purpose, and identity that was just was lacking up in Alaska in the forces. And we've always had some capability up there, but now it's unified, it's focused, and it's growing in its capability. With the unique organization of an airborne division up there, it's not, again, a unique division. It's not completely airborne, half airborne, half light, air assault, which provides capabilities in the region that we are developing and continuing with our allies and partners. But also that unique mission also extends not necessarily just in Indo-Pakum, but obviously we have to support the Indo-Pakum Theater and we are integrated in that, but also one of our additional missions as given by the Chief Staff of the Army and the Secretary is to be the Arctic and Mountain Force for the Army, the experts in that. And so, because we do that, we also work a lot with our Arctic allies and not just Arctic allies in Scandinavia and across and with Canada, but also in the region, we have extreme cold weather mountain countries that we work with, like Japan and Mongolia, Nepal, India, and Korea, and we continue to foster those relationships. So having that unique organization and then also in a unique location, anybody by a show of hands have been to Alaska? All right, keep them up if you've been in 30 below or colder weather, okay? It's a life-changing experience and to use that and to train in that on a regular basis to operate in it, let alone fight in it, it takes a different type of soldier and it takes unique equipment and that's what we're developing up there in Alaska. And so we do a lot more training in the winter. We flip the training cycle. Most forces in the Army do a lot of heavy training from the spring through the fall. We've reversed that and right now we're starting our heavy, intense training. We've had our first snow up there and that's what we do through the winter, high intensity and get back that Arctic ethos that we used to have up there decades ago in Alaska. So we're focusing not just on our metal and our key task in the region, but we also have to be those experts in extreme cold weather and mountain terrain and that is not easy. And as we know, that's not for everybody. So again, I wanna make sure we have time for all the questions that we're gonna, but I just wanted to say thanks and down from heaven comes 11. Well, thank you all for the opening comments. Certainly gives us something to think about. I'd like to transition now to your questions. We have a microphone. I see one microphone up here and I see our public affairs staff is also here to help us. Can we get a microphone over on this side also, please? And is there another microphone? Can you come up? Can we get a microphone up there? So we're, you know, so you're... You can use mine. Yeah, okay. So I invite you all to begin to ask questions either by coming up to the microphone or having the sergeant here give you a microphone to ask your question, please. Here's one in the front. Thanks to all the panelists for our outstanding presentations. It's such a critically important topic. I have a question for Dr. Carlin. Does the DOD, the Interagency and the Partner Network have the infrastructure and tools to coordinate actions and measure effects, the feedback loop you talked about to achieve integrated deterrence? I really appreciate that question because it shows that it's one thing for us to have these really good ideas. It's a whole another thing to operationalize it, especially this point on, do we have the organization infrastructure on the feedback loops, right? It's how do we make integrated deterrence real? And it seems to me to do that, you have to have an idea of everything you're doing, vis-a-vis a topic, right? All of the relevant folks involved. And then once you have an idea of what that looks like, you work closely whether with kind of experts in the intelligence community or other smart folks on a topic to try to figure out, okay, did we have this effect or not have that effect? And you've got to do it in a cumulative way as well because you're probably not going to see it on one discreet issue. You'll have to take it in and then you have to work it back into your system, right? There's this great study that was done on Pearl Harbor about signals and noise by Roberta Wolstetter. And Wolstetter focused on this idea of there's all this noise, how do you figure out what are the signals that you're sending and how do you adjust in terms of those? So we're working on it is my answer. We're working hard and to be frank, the Ukraine war has actually been a helpful effort for us to test these things out because as you all know, starting kind of late last year, as we were starting to see in indications of what the Russians were going to do across the department, across the interagency and with our allies and partners, we started to figure out, okay, what's this going to look like? How do we understand it? What will we be doing? And that actually put in place kind of some structures that have been tremendously helpful. Now, on one level, when you're in a crisis, there's kind of an urgency there to think of new structures and test them out and stress test and see what works or doesn't work. And so we are making this progress. I think what will be important is, as we continue to refine it, no doubt, but also to ensure that it gets kind of baked into our daily battle rhythm. It's not just the crisis issues, although those will be urgent and acute and crucial, but also those longer term challenges as well. Thank you for asking that. I actually, so I think we need to help the department out as well. I'll give you an example because Dr. Carlin mentioned it. So Garuda Shield, to me, that is a measurement we need to give back to the department, say look, it was two countries, now it's 14. And then I'm down in Australia and the Rock Chief of Army, Australian Chief of Army, Japanese Chief of Army, General Yoshida. Now we're talking about, he had an engagement with the Phil Chief, the Philippine Chief, General Bronner, and now the Philippine Army wants to participate in Orient Shield and Yamasakura. So to me, these are indicators of measurements, where the DOD, the inter-agency, and the allies and partners, the three parts of the integrated piece that Dr. Carlin talked about it, and then the four parts of integrated endurance that I talked about, capability posture, messaging and will, that's where these things kind of come together. And I think we're in the early stages of it, but I think that the feedback loop that she mentioned, the military contribution to that is, what are we actually seeing with the allies and partners in the region and their level of participation in various exercises? Honestly, what was going on in Indonesia happened at the same time that all the foolishness was going on around Taiwan. And to a country and to a leader, they were sort of like, hey, you know, we're down here with 14 countries training together, rehearsing together, creating opportunities for unity and collective commitment. And this is what the Chinese are doing. I mean, I think that it became very real to them that there's a difference between the way they're behaving and the way we're behaving. And I think that's the kind of feedback that we owe the department. Hi, gentlemen, John Klein, Johnson Controls. I really appreciate y'all's presentation and I really like the visualization general that you described as the picket line on the first island chain. And it clearly shows that infrastructure is really important to the mission that all of y'all have to do. What kind of technology do you need from your infrastructure to make better decisions as a warfighter? Thank you. Well, I know Laura Potter's sitting here right in the first row, so I mean, we need some deep sensing capabilities and we're starting to work on that with an aircraft Aries over there that's flying out of Kadina. There are ground sensors that we need to put in locations because I think that the aerial layer and the space layer by way of balancing a portfolio, I think we've got a lot and I won't say a lot, but I think we have a portfolio is heavy in air and heavy in space, not to say that we don't need those, but we need a terrestrial manned and unmanned sensor network out there just as much as we need additional air and space assets. So getting things on the ground that are all weathered, that don't necessarily need a bunch of people to maintain them. Some of these sensors we can just basically put there and go check on it every once in a while. Some other ones will need to put people around, but for the most part, we need some terrestrial sensors. We need, you can't get tightened out there fast enough for us and if I had an empty checkbook, I'd buy five Aries aircraft because of the deep sensing requirements of the joint force and then I would also express that, so this is a big difference between the multi-domain task force and what the multi-domain task force does. It will provide fusion of sensing of all targets in support of the joint force and it's going to pull together those targets for the joint force and so having other technologies that can help us on the ground to balance out what's happening in the air and what's happening at space then I think that we're in a much better place. Second part of this is that when we do this with allies and partners, there is an information sharing element to this that is beneficial for not just the United States but it's actually beneficial for these other countries as well. And so that is another aspect where industry can help us and I know they're there. We just need to get our hands on them and get them out there. Thank you. I'm Sangmin Lee, I'm reporter from Radio Free Asia. I have a question about North Korea to General Fulin and Dr. Kalin. As you mentioned, the North Korea continued launch ballistic missile and then they claim that they have tactical nuclear weapon unit to use. So given this threat from North Korea, can you tell me what your specific measure to deter North Korea's threat? In related to that, do you consider deploying additional third in Korean fast Korea to deter North Korea's threat? All right, thank you very much. Look, this is obviously a serious concern that you're raising and I wouldn't of course hear, try to talk through any kind of dilemmas or policies or debates that we're having. I would just say that North Korea's actions have, excuse me, continue to remain a serious concern for us and moreover, I would say for a whole lot of our allies and partners, both around the Indo-Pacific and around the world and it's an issue that we monitor very, very closely. My feelings are mutual. I think General Yamani expressed it quite well that in the last couple of months they've had some numerous irresponsible and dangerous behaviors, so keep an eye on it. And I'm actually encouraged with the training that we are doing in Korea because actually the scale of that, the scope of that, the complexity of that is much better today and on a very positive path because we need that with our rock counterparts, the 8th Army Commander sitting there just to the end of the aisle that you're in, sir, if you wanna ask him a few questions at the end, that's fine too, he'll give you more details. Put him on the spot instead of put a microphone in front of him, so. All right, other questions? Let's go this side of the room. Mark McCarley, this question is directed to Lieutenant General Yanani. Sir, is there an expectation that Prime Minister Kishida and the diet will make modifications to the Constitution to allow extraterritorial deployment of your forces in defense of the Indo-Pacific region? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Thank you very much, very good question. But as you know, I'm a military officer, so I cannot say anything. But now, Japan is on the way to change so many things. So that means I think if we don't change anything, we cannot protect our country. So many politicians and also so many workers for the nations is trying to change the Constitution. But I'm not sure we can do it or not. Sorry. I'm gonna give an observation on what General Yanani just said, because I was out there in 2014 and I left in 18 and this is about change. The things that I have seen, the Japanese ground self defense force change and the way we are training is really remarkable in just a short, very short period of time. Just one example, their future operating concept cross-domain operations is very much like ours with multi-domain operations. So there's a lot of synergy that gets created when the forces come together to do the training and the conversation is a lot deeper, it's a lot richer and the interoperability, the three forms of it, the human, technical and procedural parts of it, it just advances much faster given the seriousness by which the Japanese military leaders are actually conducting training and experiments and exercising with us. Good morning, Major Russell, three-core G5. So the US Marine Corps recently released their plan to reshape their formations to meet the challenges of the Indo-Pacific AOR. Their divest to invest strategy resulted in the loss of two artillery tanks and other enablers to support a force structure that supports standing forces and their EABO concepts. So what is the Army or how has the Army taken advantage of interoperability and other power projection between the first and second island chains? How do we plan on training that at the operational and the tactical level vice core and above? Yeah, okay, so first, what I would say is that I'm very encouraged by, so the third Marine Latoral Regiment just stood up a few months ago in Hawaii. The third MLR is gonna participate along with the first MDTF and the third MDTF that we just built in Hawaii or building in the JPMRC rotation in Hawaii. So to your question, it really starts with us training together so we can compliment one another's capabilities on their future operating concept and then the organizations and the way that we are progressing with our future operating concept. Now, more specifically forward, so there is a lot of coordination that happens between the Marine Corps and the Army of the Pacific and special operations and our allies and partners. When I talk about the land power network, it's really those four parts. It's not just the Army, Army, Marine Corps, special operations, allies and partners. So all of the legit, I shouldn't say all, but a good deal of the logistics that we end up sharing and co-using during our exercises, much of that happens between the land forces. Watercraft, we move the Marines quite a bit with our watercraft and just in Australia, in Coulendong, they had watercraft out there, LSVs and LSUs moving those forces around on the northern part of Australia. So, I mean, there is a number of opportunities in the Pacific because of operation pathways and the exercises that go on between both the, with really the land power network where we're learning from one another on their future operating concept, ours and then the capabilities that each one of those new formations are bringing to the region. If I could just add one point, because I really appreciate the first part of your question, which was highlighting what the Marines are doing and the changes that the Marines have been making over the last few years. I think it was 2019 or so when General Berger first started pitching this idea of force design 2030. And you all have seen a whole lot of conversation about it. It's a pretty big deal to say the strategy is taking me in a different direction so I need to actually make meaningful change in line with that. So, I just wanted to offer huge kudos to the Marine leadership, to the Marine Corps leadership for being willing to do that. I appreciate General Flynn's spot on point about just how much learning there is that's going on that. But you've seen some really important leadership there and that's not an easy thing to do. If I can add one thing to that. I appreciate too force design 2030 and the transition that the Marine Corps is making. One of the elements though about the divest to invest strategy that I think is problematic is that you are making an assumption by divest to invest is that our adversaries are gonna wait around as we develop new technology and we modernize. And let me tell you, they're not gonna do that. So what we have to make sure as we are making that transition and modernization I think it's wrong to call it divest to invest. It's redirecting our investments. It's making sure we're on the path to modernize because what we have to do is to be able to take existing platforms that have some capability left and making some changes to them to make sure we extend their lifespan as we are putting in place new systems as we modernize. We cannot go through a bathtub. We can't say, oh, we're gonna divest in all these assets and then we're gonna wait around five, 10 years. And remember, all of our dreams come true outside the fit up, right? So I wanna make sure that we are doing things inside the fit up, make sure the palm reflects that and make sure too, that we're having a thoughtful transition that sends a clear message to our adversaries that we're not gonna wait around. We may have some older systems, but guess what? We're pretty creative and pretty imaginative. We're gonna make those new systems even more capable as we bring on board even more capable new systems in making sure that we're using technologies that are out there. We can develop things in real time. We can use digital twin technology to test things, figure out do they work, don't they work? Let's make adjustments overnight. Let's make those platforms more effective. We can do that as we transition to new technology. AI is another place where we have tremendous capability. Those are things we have to bring forward on a daily basis and we have to operate at the speed of reality. And we also have to be willing to take risks. Reasonable risks, not ridiculous risks, but we have to be able to take risk because here's the situation. Our adversaries, China, start with a blank sheet of paper and they go, you know what, we can thought manage our direction where we need to go. Here in the United States, when you start down that path, what do you end up with? A whole page full of no you can't do this, no you can't do that, no you can't do this. This is not a requirement there. We have to make sure this becomes a program of record. We have to get more adaptable. We have to be able to break down the impediments in the bureaucracy to make sure we get technology much more quickly to the warfighter and we modernize at the pace of reality. Hi, Caitlin Kenny with Defense One. My question is on training of Taiwanese forces similar to Ukraine. How likely is that? Can you, what do you envision that training would be? Would it be in country, in the US? Just in exercises or all three? What kind of training tactics, weapons? And then are there any concerns on an escalation with China like we saw with Speaker Pelosi's visit if we do something like that? Thanks. So a couple things. One, last week we had the Lui Wei talks for the 20th year. So the point in saying that is that for 20 years, the Taiwan Army and the US Army have been having an annual week of talks to determine what are the operations, activities, investments that we're going to focus on for five years. So we do it every year and we look out five years. Last year, General Xu, the chief of the Taiwan Army came. This year he sent his vice chief, but last year I invited him to come visit JPMRC and he's come into Hawaii in about three weeks to see, I think it's second brigade of the 25th go through their rotation in Hawaii. I bring that to the front of the answer of the question because in those talks, they actually ask us, what's the help that they need from us? And it's a range of things from mobile training teams, but it's also assistance with planning, operational planning, tactical planning, but then also tactical training to increase the proficiency of their tactical formations. It's done in a wide range of ways. For example, exercise Northern Strike in Michigan with the Michigan National Guard. That's a big exercise where they come back to the States. And so these are, and then the Security Force Assistance Brigade that is at the talks, but then we work on ways for them to provide assistance with tactical proficiency. And so I'm, from the talks last year to the talks this year to the second party of question about, I think what recently happened there in and around Taiwan, there's a renewed sense of urgency and focus about regaining and focusing on proficiency in planning and in training. And so we'll continue to work with them through these talks and put things down on paper so that we can find ways to work together to help them. Hello, Colonel Mark Sturgeon. I'm a student at the U.S. Army War College. Given the integral role that the Army plays in deterring Russian aggression in the European theater, to assuring our allies, enabling assistance to Ukraine and meeting our NATO obligations, does the Army have sufficient capacity as currently structured to meet its integrated deterrence requirements in the Indo-Pay-Com? And if not, what are the areas where we need to grow? How do we need to restructure? Thank you. So a couple things, one, and you may or may not be aware of this. So we are growing. The first MDTF was stood up a couple of years. That's a sign. The third MDTF is standing up now. There's a theater fires element in my headquarters at the theater army. There are parts of the enabling commands that are growing. There's a composite watercraft company, an active duty composite watercraft company that's going into Japan in the 24, 25 timeframe with the MSV light, the modernized watercraft that we're getting. So there are structural adjustments that are going on in the theater army that address the heart of your question. Is there adequate capacity? I would tell you, given the things that we are creating and the assets that we have available right now, I would say yes, we have what we need to do, what we need to do in the region. That's actually not where I'm concerned. It's more about creating the conditions forward in the region with the allies and partners than I am with the actual capacity of the army, of the theater army in the Pacific. I'm more concerned about the 25th Infantry Division, 8th Army, 11th Airborne, the theater enabling commands, making sure that we have a routine and cyclic way to generate forces in the region and then deploy them and employ them in the region with the allies and partners. I'll tell you one thing that's really valuable right now. We used to pack up our tactical formations in Alaska and Hawaii and send them back to Louisiana through the Panama Canal. So that force was essentially not available because it was disaggregated between ships and then it had to get off in a port in Texas and get on rail and go up to the training center in Louisiana or when I was the 25th commander, we sent the aviation to the West Coast and they self-deployed from California to Louisiana. So they're not in the region. Now they're in the region and they need to stay in the region and they need to train in the region. So the sum of the parts is that we actually have more structure by being forward in the region. And if you wanna call the line between Hawaii and Alaska, the third island chain then from my perspective, we're in a good place and we're in a good place now. We need to stay in that place and then keep pressing forward with all the organizational adjustments that I was just discussing. I'll go a step further because I saw a general hell way go over here. There are some sustainment capabilities that we're gonna need in the theater army so that we can create conditions for operational endurance of the joint force. We need more composite watercraft companies. So that's why we're war gaming. So as an Army War College student, you would appreciate that. That's why we're war gaming, to find out where those gaps are so that we can then go back to the department of the army, the department of defense and say, hey, here are our gaps. These are the capabilities that we can either kill or fill to fill that gap or make a choice to not do that because there's other things that we have to do but the region and the army requires some additional capabilities but I think it's within reach given what we're doing by way of planning. Thanks. Any questions? I wanna make sure I'm helping the sergeant get her steps across this room. So we're coming back this way. Anything for the middle? I don't remember over here, sir. Where are you? Right here? Got it, thank you. So I'm really getting your steps now, sergeant. Thank you. Christopher Woody from Business Insider. Two questions. If I may, General Yamane, your presentation focused on the Southwest approaches, given tensions with Russia, does the ground self-defense force have to refocus or re-emphasize Japan's Northern approaches and then for the other panelists, regarding army logistics, in logistics enterprise, where can the service branches collaborate and coordinate and where are the service branches' needs unique in areas where they'll have to focus on supporting themselves? I read last year, as you know, more than 20 years ago, Japanese defense posture was concentrated on the North. So every facility or very big money was used for the defense of the Hokkaido. It's the northern part of Japan against the Soviet Union. So now Japan is trying to shift some posture troops from North to the West or South. But the basic capability remains in that Hokkaido. And also Hokkaido has a very big, not big training field. Yes, Japan is very small. So, and also the such kinds of the environment for the training is very good. So now we have the two brigade and two division we have in Hokkaido. So I think that about the only posture is enough to against the Russian pressure. Yeah, I think. And but another point is we need to, we need a transformation about the capability, especially for the, for example cyber space or electromagnetic space. So we need to change some capabilities of troops in Hokkaido. That's all. On the logistics question for this different services, I think the way I respond is that, in the exercise design out in the region, so our funding streams are not, they're not designed to do that. So what we have to do and we're doing is finding ways to, in say operation pathways is into the planning is create ways where we can share common user logistics, fuel, band-aids, I mean, you name it, those items that each one of the services gonna need by a way of commodities to support and exercise. The other aspect and I touched on this a little bit in my opening is these activity sets that I'm talking about. So they have sort of a dual use that's very helpful. One is if we leave common user logistics on the ground in various locations, say a warehouse or buildings that we lease, then we don't have to drag it back because we brought it in. So there's transportation savings. But if we also have the types of equipment on the ground that can be, that kind of material can be used in a humanitarian assistance disaster relief response effort, then that's less we have to drag forward and we have speed to action, speed to need in the event that there is a earthquake, typhoon, tsunami, you name it, because eight out of 10 of them in the world happen in that part of the region. This is something we're trying to do in Oceana on the island nations. And it's also something we're trying to do in the region. And actually this last year, I'm very encouraged by some of the places and spaces that were able to put these things in without a whole lot of faces being there, if you will. So because I think that that's a really important part of what we're trying to do. And the services can come together because the common use of logistics that a theater sustainment command in the Army, they can work that with each of the services, we keep it on the ground, we consume it, and then leave behind any of those types of things that are gonna be used the following year. So. They added that. One of the places I think has the most promise for logistics and it's a place where I think the greatest need is that sea lift. The problem is who's gonna be the bill payer? You know, everybody says, hey, listen, the need we see is there. The bottom line is the Navy says, hey, we don't wanna pay for it. The Army says, listen, we've got lots of different needs. We don't wanna have to pay for it. So it's kind of the you pay for it, no you pay for it, no you pay for it scenario. And the bottom line is it's in the interest of the entire joint force to make sure we have that logistical lay down. Both large scale lift and sea lift and intra theater lift. I think there is some crossover with General Flynn said in what we can do in intra theater lift as we disperse critical elements of sustainment, fuel. Everybody has the same fuel need. How do you disperse that in ways where all the different forces are able to use that and know where it's located. The same with other stores that are in common for the joint force. I think you have to do that. There also has to be to an element of commonality in how we talk about logistics in the theater. I know each of the service branches has their own particular needs, but I do believe there needs to be a conversation to get around how do we make sure not only do we get the sea lift, but how do we find lines of commonality in the operational concepts for the Marine Corps and force design 2030 for the Army and for that matter for the Navy in the Air Force. There are some logistical needs that they have there. Listen, the Navy is gonna be part of sustaining that sea lift element. We have to make sure too that we have conversations with private partners that are part of the maritime security program. Those conversations are going to be critical. And again, we've got a long ways to go in the short time to get there as the old song goes. We wanna make sure we're getting those things done now because I look at it from this standpoint. Logistics, specifically sea lift in that theater is the most common thread of where we need to be in order to have the necessary deterrence effect there. The Chinese look at us right now and say, you know what, we don't have to do a whole lot. We don't have to fire at anything that'll shoot back at us. All we have to do is be able to take out a very, very weak logistics chain. That's gotta change. Yeah, I would just add that force structure, of course, does not change on a dime. What does change is experimentation and operational concepts and our ability to weave together new and interesting things in different ways. And for us to be able to do that, that's going to really get you to kind of this dispersed, this resilient approach, one in which you can show, frankly, the People's Republic of China as we have historically that our approach to logistics is simply second to none. Hello, Paul Knapp, Wisconsin Adjutant General and state partner with Papua New Guinea. And looking at recent agreements between PRC and the Solomon Islands, what, in terms of the feedback loop and lessons learned, what can we learn from that on how we need to be the partner of choice? It's nice to see a fellow cheesehead. Thank you for raising this important issue. Obviously, we have watched this engagement between the Solomon Islands and the People's Republic of China very closely. And we continue to watch it. We have a history, as I know this crowd is quite familiar with, with the Solomon Islands to put it lightly, and indeed just had a very big interagency delegation led by the Deputy Secretary of State out there to in particular commemorate some of that history and some of those sacrifices that were made by the US military. And so I would say for folks who kind of wonder how much this matters, I think there's a whole lot of evidence literally sitting there on that island to show that as the case. One of the big things that struck me is just the need for us to make sure we've got an interagency approach here. There is no doubt a Department of Defense element here, but really ensuring that looking across the US government, we've got different ways of engaging our partners like in the Solomon Islands. That's really, I think, going to be, going to be the most important. Hey, Paul, good to see you. Just to sort of highlight a couple of things beyond what Dr. Harlem has mentioned. I mean, I do think these small teams, the CAT and the Oceania Engagement teams of a diverse set of skills, civil affairs, engineering, medical, religious, you name it. I mean, they're very powerful in those small countries. And if we can use COMPO two and three, the Guard and Reserve there, because they oftentimes are from within the region, they have the cultural sensitivity and the tribal nature of the state of those various island nations there. That is a very, very powerful ingredient to solving some of the problems. And I hear it in volumes back from the point Dr. Harlem made about the interagency aspect of this because they are reflecting back in very strong ways about the power of those small teams coming together, the help, the people and the military and the police and the government come up with ways to overcome some of the challenges that they have. As you know, those island nations out there, they really have to recover from a natural disaster and their concern is being able to get a power grid back up, an airfield appear at a port, a hospital or clinics and some roads so that they can jump back once one of these natural disasters happen out there and they happen all the time. And so I think this is one of the areas that we in the Army have a very strong suit with Army Corps of Engineers and other vertical horizontal engineers, nurses, doctors, PAs and civil affairs teams that can come together and bring a wide range of skills together but they work as a team working on behalf of the interagency that is there and trying to pull together the DOD efforts, the Department of State efforts, a wide range of other interagency efforts and most importantly what the nation wants, what the island nation wants. And so we're continuing to do that. We have I think five teams and five different island nations right now and they jump around to keep that presence here. I will also say that like all island nations during COVID it got very difficult, right? They had to shut down and they had to close things up for all the right reasons. Now they're opening back up and of course the adversary is in there too handed money off and that becomes a dangerous exchange of what we're doing but again, I think we're on the side of angels here doing the right thing in there and helping the people and helping the government help their own people. Maybe add one thing to that. I think it's critically important to understand the history of where we are today from what the United States had spoken. It's been almost six years ago now where we said, hey, we're gonna rebalance to the Pacific. And as I've had an opportunity to go there and visit with a number of nations both in ASEAN and the island nations, they give us a big smile when we come and visit and they go, you know what? You guys are great talkers but we haven't seen a whole lot of action and what those ASEAN nations are looking for in the island nations are looking for is action. Now listen, I think a lot of the things that have gone on at the mill to mill level are good and I think those things demonstrate a lot of goodwill but I think we have to be able to get to the next level and that is the government to government relationship there. Those things hold an awful lot of promise. There is in the works and hopefully they're almost to the point of formalization of Pacific partnership with those island nations. We've had some great meetings there. There has been a dedication of funds to do those things to counter what the PRC is doing in the region. If we are going to have impact, it has to not only be the great work that goes on with mill to mill but it has to be government to government and they have to see results. You know, it can't just be oh yeah, we're gonna rebalance the Pacific we're gonna do all these great things. Actions are the most telling element of our seriousness about the rebalance to the Pacific. In the back, right in the back. Hi, Justin Katz with Breaking Defense. My question is for Representative Whitman. Sir, you described earlier the push and pull between the Army and Navy when it comes to sea lift. The Navy manns the ships but in a joint fight the Army is gonna have to use the ships and that fight has been going on for several years now probably more than that. I'm wondering, you know, Congress is gonna be the one who has to end that fight. How do you realistically see it ending? How do you think Congress is eventually gonna have to break this impasse? Thank you. Well listen, I think there are a couple of ways. First of all is we have to be consistent in dedicating resources towards logistic ships. We have to make sure we consistently fund that. We have to look at doing multi ship procurement and I think there's a different mechanism we have to use to procure those ships. We've seen that we've given the Navy the permission to buy these used roll-on roll-off ships that has been incredibly delayed, should not have been delayed, but again, the Navy just says, hey, it's not our gig and we're not in a big rush to go ahead and buy those things. I think being able to use a provision under the Maritime Administration is a great way to go. They are in a position to be able to do that, to purchase those ships. We also have to go down the road too building our own purpose built logistic ships. Not everyone needs to be a row-row. Many of them need to be purpose built. We ought to do that. We ought to do multi ship procurement, make a long-term commitment there. We can bring down costs and actually make those ships affordable, but Congress has to not only give the direction and we have, remember, we've given authorizing language to purchase those ships and we've even put the money in there. What we have to do is to, I think, look at different mechanisms to execute. That Marat, I think it's probably the direction to go because we've seen the Navy just isn't interested in executing it. Things have been very, very delayed. And listen, I understand the dynamic. The Navy runs the ships, but it's not in their direct interest to say we're gonna have them available. The Army has many things it needs to do. I understand it's hesitancy to say we don't wanna get too far out in front of this because then we end up being the bill payer. I do think, though, it's Congress's role to say this is the resources that we're gonna put together and Congress decides how those allocations take place amongst the joint force. Remember, this is a joint responsibility. There will be elements of sea lift that will affect all the service branches, the Marine Corps, the Navy, the Air Force, and the Army. Therefore, we need to look at it in that joint realm. And the bottom line is funding, long-term certainty, and getting these ships built at as fast a pace as possible. I'd like to ask the general owner for a question. On something that General Flynn alluded to earlier, and I know it was an issue while I was in uniform there, something, one of the challenges, and that is the importance of having a regional combat training center in Indo-Asia Pacific. Could you touch on that? Why is that important? And what are some of the things you're doing in your division, maybe in Alaska, to help with that? Yeah, thanks for that, sir. And I know General Flynn hit on it a little bit earlier, but some people can say the cost effectiveness of sending units from either Hawaii or Alaska is to an NTC or JRTC is just 40 million about in transportation costs. And so we can definitely cut to that. But the bigger reason is really to stay in the region and stay ready and stay relevant. If you have your equipment outside the region, you can't deploy with it, you can't train with it, you can't fight with it, you're not really maintaining that readiness from that far away. So being able to do it in theater, in the region, and in an environment that you're likely to have to operate or fight in, that's a game changer. And we've seen that for the 25th, and we've definitely seen it for our first round of it in Alaska, and we'll do our second one here this winter. The other thing that it does, and that the CTC rotations and NTC, JRTC are very high skill of very well resourced and equipped. But, and I think what we need to do is invest equally amount into the JPMRC. It's here to stay, and we need to do that. And it's helping us with our readiness and it's helping us specifically for the Arctic Angels to get back into that Arctic ethos that we had a couple of decades ago that were getting back as the contingency force for the Arctic, but also in the region. So, yes, sir. I'm gonna make another comment, and Brian, you can add to this, but we, our material solutions to operate in the Arctic have not been a focus area for the Army in decades because the conveyor belt back and forth to the Middle East. So, in addition to the skills and proficiency of being able to live and operate first, then you can fight. There are some material solutions that we, with our equipment, that we have to relearn, and we are gonna need to do it at a very rapid pace. Everything from batteries to treatment of casualties to evacuation of casualties to how weapon systems operate at minus 10, minus 20, minus 30. I mean, it's just flat different, as you can all imagine. So, maybe if you wanna talk a little bit about that, too, because we have to get back into the PEO and to the ASALT industry to help us solve this problem because we're not gonna be able to solve it overnight, but we need that kind of equipment. And that is a laboratory that is free of charge for us. I mean, there's nowhere else that we have 14,000, a division worth of troops and attack aviation, medium lift aviation, heavy lift aviation, engineers, you name it, the payload of capabilities up in Alaska is in the Arctic Circle, so it needs to be focused on so we can learn at the scale that we need to learn at with those forces, and you're free to talk. Yes, sir. No, thanks for that. And yeah, we are an airborne division, but we're also an Arctic airborne division. And that uniqueness of that is very tough for the Army to deal with because it is an itch capability, but it's necessary and needed. And so we're helping and trying to help educate the Army and all the industry of what it takes to live and operate, let alone fight in that environment. If you're in the airborne and yeah, there's some things you have to do distinctively different in airborne operations in the Arctic. Same thing with air assault and ground operations. Touching metal at 30 below is gonna change your life. You can't do things. Anybody have problems changing their windshield wipers? Okay, I would admit it. I have changed, nobody? Just me, okay, great. A lot of honest people out there. Changing them at 30 below is something that you're not gonna do. You're gonna put it in a garage or something like that where a lot of the design of what the Army does to function across motor pools or wherever. Sean Barnaby down in Fort Hood has got motor pools as far as the eye can see, but there's no roofs. There's not a lot of garages for all those vehicles. In Alaska, you have to put a vehicle in the garage, for three days before you're gonna do maintenance on it. That's a significant life-changing event if you're a mechanic or you're an operator. There's some things that you have to do different to be successful in the Arctic. And that's some of those gaps that we've gotta fill with our Army and with our industry to get to that level. It is definitely something that we're working on with the Army, with combined armed center, as well as with industry. But as we say with everybody, you could come to Alaska with all the tourists in the summer and really enjoy it. It's really beautiful. But truly, people that are friends of ours come in the winter because that's where you find out what it really is all about. And that's what we're trying to help because as General Flynn said, to live and operate is one thing, to fight there is a whole nother issue. So one of the thing is the Indian Army asked us last year to train at 10,000 feet up in the Himalayas. We had sent them some extreme cold weather gear over the last couple of years, some 15,000 individual sets and then 15,000, I'll say sort of small unit sets because operating at that altitude and in those conditions is, as Brian described, radically different. So this is also where, and they just asked to delay it to December. So it was in October, now it's in December. You can imagine the conditions at 10,000 feet along the Himalayas, but now we have a force capable of being able to say, yes, we'll be there. Whereas before that may not have been the response of the United States. And so that is the advantage of training in the environment and in the conditions that you are most likely to operate in. And so that's why I am such a strong zealot, an advocate of training in the environment and in the conditions that you're most likely to operate and that's the criticality to those training campuses in Hawaii and Alaska. And I see Sean here with this time in Europe. We would have never asked forces to come back from Europe to go to Louisiana and California, never. And we can't do that with forces in the Pacific. They must stay in the region. They're more ready, they're more responsive. And candidly, they're better prepared for the most likely conditions that they're gonna have to operate in with the allies and partners. And we are surrounded by joint assets and the multinational partners, I'm gonna have to close the door on some of them because we just can't accept as many as we want. Just in Hawaii, there's 11 countries that are coming out to participate. Four with companies and seven with observers. And I know the following year, they're all gonna want to send a company, as I mentioned, the Taiwan Army wants to send a company in 23. So again, this is just a absolutely right thing to do. It's a great initiative and I'm very proud of what the 25th Division and 11th Airborne Division have done to get this together with JPMRC and the training support brigade, the 196 that we have out in the Pacific. So. If I could just add one point, which is not only does one have better preparation, when one is training in the environment, one's dealing with challenges, but deterrence looks very, very different because it really shows that you can no kidding deal with those challenges. Well, thank you. Thank you all for your questions. I'd like to spend the last couple of minutes that we have first to have General Flynn give us some final thoughts before I close this out. I think I've been talking enough. I'll just tell you, thanks, really thanks to the panel members. Thank you all for being here today. General Imani, great to see you again, sir. And Dr. Carlin, thanks. I know you got a crazy schedule, but we need your help. And I would ask you all to continue to assist in our efforts out there in the Pacific and come visit us to see what the soldiers are doing, to see what the units are doing, and to understand and get a sort of fingertip feel of what's happening in the Pacific is really important. I'll end on this comment. I have been in 10 countries in the last 110 days and I will tell you while there is some concerning news in the region, I am very optimistic about the network of allies and partners that are coming together to unify and have a sense of collective commitment against the irresponsible behaviors of not just China, but North Korea here in this last year as well. So I would just tell you all while there are challenges, I am very optimistic about what I'm hearing from the allies and partners in the region about the multinational and multilateral and joint approach that were taken to counter some of that irresponsible behavior. Thanks. Well, General Flynn, thank you so much. Thanks for your leadership. Dr. Carlin, General Yamani, General Epler, thank you all so much. What a great honor to be here with such a distinguished group of panelists. I think if there's one takeaway from this panel and what you've heard today is that there are significant challenges out there, but the United States Army, our Department of Defense, the Japanese Army, for that matter, Japan are up to the challenge. Folks, we are going to be able to meet this challenge and I think that we will indeed prevail. I think we can deter that aggressive and unacceptable behavior around the world, no matter where it originates, whether it's North Korea or the PRC or Russia, wherever it may exist, because of the incredible determination and talent of our fighting force and the relationships that we have with others around the world. Remember, our relationship with other nations is not transactional. This is about doing what's mutually beneficial for both nations. That's what makes our agreements with other nations different. And I believe that that is a foundation for what we need going forward. I believe that's a foundation for making sure that we indeed have a world that's safe, a world where all of us collectively that have the same mindset about what freedom is all about will indeed deter those nations that have a mindset that is other than that. I think there's great opportunities there. Let's not underestimate the challenge, but folks, if there's anybody on the face of the earth that can meet that challenge and prevail, it is our United States military and the joint force and the relationships that we have with our partners around the world do not underestimate us. We will prevail. Thank you for just a terrific conversation. I have learned so much from all of you. I think Congressman Whitman just said it perfectly. The only thing I would add is there's this wonderful quote by Winston Churchill, where he says, however beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally assess the results. And what I appreciate about the conversation we just heard today is that the results are looking pretty darn good. Thank you. Oh, so thank you very much. In the future, of course, we, we mean the JGSDF wants to enhance the relationship with the United States Army and also United States Marine Corps. And also, this is my personal opinion. The Japan, Japanese people should know about the, how severe the circumstances of Japan. And when we discuss about the security about the end of Japan, so many times that discussion shifts to the problem of the budget. Yeah, but I don't think so. So we need to know what will happen or what is happening now. So in the future, we continue to discuss about this security environment and we will do our best in the future. So thank you very much. Thanks, sir, honor to be on this panel up here. And the 11th Airborne, the Arctic Division will be in the Himalayas, as General Flynn just said. And that'll be in December, where we like it in the winter. And then we'll also be in Northern Japan with the Operation North Winds with their extreme cold weather element up there in the mountains and the cold weather. And then we'll also, again, to talk about our duplicity about of our capabilities, our mission set, we'll also do a little bit with Finland this winter. So again, if you want a challenge, you want to be a part of a special team out there on the net, if you think you got what it takes, come on out and join the 11th Airborne. Who will? Who, Airborne. Hey, to close this out, I would just like to thank AUSA for bringing this distinguished panel together. And more personally, I'd like to thank a good friend, General Flynn, for letting me be part of it and Congressman to see all of you. Maura, it's just wonderful, General. We spent some time together also and it's been an honor for me to be here. And because I've always been a firm believer that you train the standard, not the time, I'm going to give you a five minutes back. How about that? Thank you.