 After 50 years, the All Volunteer Force remains the best model for the U.S. military. And that's why we celebrate. It has delivered for us operationally and societally. It was the right decision for the U.S. military and the nation at the time. And over the last 50 years, in times of conflict and in times of peace, it has continued to be the right decision. Our force, the finest in the world and made up entirely of volunteers, delivers across the battle space. It reinforces American ideals of personal liberty and freedom. And it offers Americans who have the desire and ability to serve, training, career mobility, and financial benefits in addition to community, connection, and a common purpose. But as so many of you in this audience have studied or observed, the success and endurance of our All Volunteer Force was not a foregone conclusion. I think we can acknowledge that maintaining an All Volunteer Force comes with its own set of challenges. Some of these challenges were clear at the outset. The foremost being, without the draft, can we ensure a broad cross-section of American society will serve in the military? Before ending the draft, the Nixon administration established the Gates Commission to develop a comprehensive plan for ending conscription and incenting volunteers. The commission assembled industry and nonprofit leaders, academics and university presidents, policymakers and former defense professionals, and even a Georgetown law student. Although the head of the commission was initially skeptical in the final report, the commission unanimously agreed that we could indeed maintain our military strength through volunteers. At the time, in fact, there was little opposition in the Department of Defense or in Congress to this conclusion. Three years later, Defense Secretary Melvin Laird dispatched a press release informing the service secretaries that, quote, the armed forces henceforth will depend exclusively on volunteer soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines, before succinctly declaring use of the draft has ended. Since that time, more than 11 million young adults have joined active duty service. And today, more than one and a half million men and women serve in the uniform across the total force. And they have proved the highest quality military force in the world. And yet, even with that rich history and the amazing talent bench of our nation, we face today some of the greatest recruiting challenges we've known. There is no one factor driving this dynamic. We've experienced a global pandemic that shut down many schools, creating the least opportunity for recruiter contact in the AVF's history. The veteran population has gone from 18 percent of American adults in 1980 to less than 7 percent in 2022, further reducing Americans' familiarity with the military. This means fewer Americans have direct ties to a family member, friend or neighbor who has served. And without those direct ties, it's harder to observe the military way of life up close. And we have the hottest job market and corresponding lowest unemployment rate in nearly 54 years. Moreover, the challenges we face in recruiting for the military also seem to be part of a broader drop in public interest among today's youth. In the past several years, professions like firefighting, nursing, teaching, and applications to prestigious government programs such as the Peace Corps and AmeriCorps have all experienced a decline. A recent Gallup poll even shows that there is a widespread dip in volunteerism that predates the pandemic, and this dip holds true for young adults, even as they report the most interest in community engagement in 50 years. Public service and volunteerism are not only life-changing activities, they can be life-saving. So what's going on? Why this disconnect? There are likely many causes that go beyond the scope of this gathering, but one of the most striking reasons that young adults say they don't volunteer is highly relevant. It's because no one asks them to. Today's younger generations have so many choices, so many career options they can pursue. Because a career in public service is a matter of a choice among many, it's important to communicate the benefits of public service, especially military service, to our youth. And the maddeningly ironic reality is that even as recruiting is hard today, the U.S. military's retention numbers are outstanding, with every service exceeding 100% of their goals in 2022. Think about that. The all-volunteer force is proving its value proposition to those who choose it. It creates long-term opportunities for military personnel, while in uniform and thereafter, and in virtually every career field. The responsibility, leadership, and skills developed while in service to our nation reap lifelong benefits for individuals, their families, their communities, and society at large. It is in our national interest to ensure that younger generations consider public service as a career option, and it's also in their interest. In 1975, the University of Michigan began a continuing study of American youth, which asked high school seniors to weigh what life values are important to them. You can probably take a few guesses as to what they found most important back then. Finding steady work, being successful in their line of work, being able to give their children better opportunities than they had themselves, finding purpose, and having strong friendships. These were all at the top of their list, timeless values, values that align with the career in public service. Military service not only offers pay, education, and health benefits and opportunity to travel and experience adventure that generations have prized across the decades. It also reflects values that have increased in importance to American youth since 1976. Those values include making a contribution to society, which has risen in importance by 17%, and being a leader in the community, which has risen in importance by 28%. Take for instance one of my colleagues, Frank, an Army major who recently graduated from Georgetown's McCourt School of Public Policy with a master's in policy management. Frank tells me influential mentors during his young adulthood inspired him to serve. Their pride, their commitment to public and community service, and the constant care with which they tended to the community. These attributes resonated strongly with Frank, who wanted to take part in something bigger than himself and to do good in the world. They motivated him to drive to a recruiter's office to learn about becoming an officer and eventually to commission as a second lieutenant. That's the sense of connectedness today's youth also craves and that military service and public service can provide. For the health of our all volunteer force and the health of our democracy and civil society, we must create a renewed call to public service. We must make this ask a persistent one coming from many different directions and of every generation and that strong sense of civic duty will not only propel the success of our military force, it will also attract our future civilian leaders and improve the health of our civil military relations. The United States has a proud history of healthy civil military relations. It has seen its challenges to be sure, but friction is natural and our systems safeguards have been tested and held. We are a nation of laws and of checks and balances, Congress, federal statutes and our courts, the professionalism of our armed forces, the will of the people. These are all guardrails to ensure that we as a nation maintain civilian control of the armed forces. But of course we cannot take this health for granted. That's why Secretary Austin has prioritized promoting healthy civil military relations. I have spent a considerable amount of my career at DOD and from my perspective the professionalism of our internal department interactions across civilian and military lines are the best I have seen. But this isn't just about the department's internal dynamics. Every citizen has a role to play in ensuring healthy civil military relations. Like democracy itself, we all bear a responsibility in upholding and tending to it. It's important, fundamentally even, that we continue to develop mutual understanding and trust between civilians and those who serve. And here's another reason why this maintenance is so important. What we do matters beyond our borders because our civil military relations model demonstrates America's commitment to its founding principles and serves as a model for militaries around the world. Several days ago we marked the one year anniversary of Russia's latest invasion of Ukraine which provides an opportunity to reflect on the stark contrast between how we and Russia treat our service members. Russia has resorted to conscription and is treating its people as cannon fodder. Our force, on the other hand, is professional, voluntary, well-equipped and thoughtfully employed. That's also vital to good civil military relations. We must continue to build bridges and pathways across the civil military divide. It's important that we maintain a deep sense of trust and mutual respect institutionally but also at a human-to-human level by getting to know service members as individuals and as members of our communities. It is important that we demystify our armed forces. Most service members don't want to be glorified or singled out for special treatment but they do want to feel understood. And like Frank, they do want to live a life of service. And they need to be bolstered by good pay and benefits, education and career opportunities, world-class training and world-class work environments. Now I am hardly the first person to raise these issues. I'm not even the first senior DOD official to raise these issues and I can assure you at the Defense Department we are pulling every lever to ensure that we maintain the fiercest and finest force in the world. But we have to understand the challenge America faces is bigger than just the future of the all-volunteer force as important as that is. It is a crisis of civics. So it's critical that we foster a widespread commitment to public service. Service is about family and community and collective responsibility. The truth is we don't need every American to serve in uniform or work in national security. But we cannot afford a future of disconnection, a future without the firefighters, nurses, teachers, public servants or service members we need to advance the common good. We should all consider how we're going to leave the world a better place than we found it. So that's my charge to you and I need your help. We must amplify the importance of service and its relationship to the health of our democracy and I am confident that this renewed call will be answered if it is heard. As I close then I want to note that in addition to the 50th anniversary of the all-volunteer force as I know you all know this year marks the 75th anniversary of the racial integration of the armed forces. With that came the promise of an integrated force and full equality that we could be stronger by drawing on the talents of qualified Americans of every race. Today I am proud to help lead a defense department that continues to expand opportunity to qualified Americans regardless of race or gender or identity reaching from sea to shining sea. We are proud of the steps we've taken to welcome all Americans who are qualified and capable of serving. As this community of scholars knows to be most effective for our democracy the U.S. military must reflect the nation that it is called to defend. That idea has always met with resistance from 1948 when President Truman, excuse me, signed the executive order to end segregation in the armed services, to ending Don't Ask, Don't Tell, to allowing women to serve in combat roles. Yet we know for a fact that each of these steps has only made our military stronger and more effective. And would anyone seriously question the dominance of the all-volunteer force that we have built? I think not. So thank you again for this timely event. I look forward to continuing the conversation with Peter over the fireside chat. Thank you. So thank you. I want to pull on a couple of the threads that you left out, you dangled in front of us. One is that when the shift from conscription to the all-volunteer force was being contemplated, the designers worried that the military would lose its connection to American society. And I don't think they anticipated that the military could get as small as it's gotten today so that those connections, just by sheer demographics, are harder to maintain. So talk to us a little bit about whether you see that as a problem and what the DOD can do to maintain the military's connection to the rest of society, even if they're not going to be joining the military. Sure. I do think it's a challenge. There's no doubt about, as you said, just demographically. And that plays out in all kinds of ways. So it does take much more effort to bring civilian and military closer together. That happens on both sides. On the military side, there's a lot of community engagement that happens, installation to installation, certainly the efforts that we undertake to connect to society through major events. You can think sporting events, other things like that. More ability to bring us civil society to our bases. We have programs, of course, that try to make sure we have exposure. The ability to reach into colleges and other places where youth are forming opinions of what their next steps are. So that's on the military side. I think on the civilian side, this is part of the question is what is the responsibility for civilians to get to know their military. And I think there is more opportunity, as I said there. I also think that, to the extent that we have a better exposure to public service, generally, there are absolutely unique aspects of military service. But there is a commonality to public service. And to the extent that we have more individuals engaged in public service, I think that also builds more commonality in community with military service. So it seems to me the anniversaries you mentioned, the 50th and 75th, that's an opportunity for a country-wide reflection and not just amongst the tribe of folks who are already watching it. Do you think there's more that the administration can do to remind the people about their military and what it took to build it and what it will take to maintain it? I do. And I think, as I said, Secretary Austin is very focused on this call to service. And I think you'll see a lot in this year, 2023, of us making these points very clearly. First, we're very proud of this military, incredibly robust and ready military, as I said, fiercest and finest in the world. And we need to be talking about that. We need to talk about the quality of the force, the things we're doing to maintain the quality of that force, and how proud the nation should be of that force. And I do think you'll hear much more of that. I welcome you all doing the same. Yeah, I think something like that at, say, Duke University, just to pick a place at random. That would be really helpful. A number of people, though, look at the present situation, look at the challenges that the all-voluntary forces had in recruiting, look at the geopolitical challenges we face, which is very different from the ones we've faced the last 20 years. And they say, no, we need to go back to a draft. What do you think about that proposal? Yeah, I mean, I was talking to you a little backstage. I don't think you should ever callously dismiss ideas. Let me say that. But I think, as I said in my remarks, that the all-volunteer force has more than proved its worth. It's the right model. It's a model that we're going to have to work hard to maintain for the reasons we just talked about. But it provides so many benefits to the service members as well as to operationally on the battlefield that there's no doubt in my mind that that's the direction. We're in the right direction and we should keep heading there. We've got to make it stronger. So I thought your remarks were very careful, scrupulously nonpartisan. And yet in our polarized political environment, I think some people could be triggered by just saying the word diversity or inclusion or something like that. So talk about the challenge of doing this kind of work, of building and maintaining the armed forces in a highly charged partisan environment. That is our present day. It's very difficult, I think, for anyone leading an institution and the military probably more than any, but not, again, alone among workplaces where you're trying to reach a goal. In our case, it's defend the nation and do so in a way that can build unity, builds teams. That's what we're all about when you're in the proverbial or real foxhole. You need to be able to look to your left and your right and rely on those people no matter what they look like, no matter what their background is, no matter what their accent is. And that's what we're all about. How do we build readiness and make sure we can deliver on the battlefield? And in order to tap the talent we need, you just look at the incredible demographic advantage. It's an asymmetry for the United States. Such a huge advantage to us to tap into every last bit that we have. And so that's what we're going to do. Any smart employers would do that is doing that. And we need to be competitive in that fight for talent. So we make no apologies. I make no apologies for the fact that Defense Department's trying to reach the best quality Americans that we can and bring them into the force. And we recognize that to do that is going to be a very diverse force. And our job is to bring them understand their backgrounds and needs and how we bring that together. Let me ask you a question about military service. You benefited from being able to be in government and then time out of government reflect on it. You come back and you serve at different leadership positions. During that same 20-year period, a military officer didn't have that chance, except maybe if they had one-year fellowship. You're in it until you leave and then you're gone for good. What do you think about more flexible in and outer experiences and is the department looking at those kinds of options? I think it's a model we need to do much more of. We do have some authorities there. Space Force actually is one of the components that's actively building in parallel entry models. And we need to really see how that takes off. Sorry, there's probably a Space Force plan. See how that goes? And then borrow from it to expand it across the force. I think we're just going to have to prove the model. But there's no doubt in my mind. Yes, right. There's no doubt in my mind we have to move more in that direction. And we can. We spent a lot of time today talking about public confidence in the military and the pros and cons of it, but also the concerns that maybe, again, as a function of this polarized environment, public confidence might not be as high today as it was, say, three years ago. Is that something that you all pay attention to? Do you worry about it? What can you do about it? Sure, of course we worry about it. I think the trust in institutions overall is obviously, I'm telling the crowd that knows this very well, way down. We are in a relatively good position among institutions. But as part of that overall trend, trust in the military goes down as well. Look, I think it's good for it to not be put on a pedestal. It's an institution. It's an institution that needs to be well led and tended to and not considered infallible in some way. So that part is good to have a healthy civilian respect for the military as an institution. But it is important also when times of crisis come to trust your military, to understand that it will be apolitical. It's going to be ready. It can execute. And it will follow regardless anything that is legal or provided from political leadership. So that's where I think we want to be. And I do think that's really challenged in an environment in which the military is weaponized in a political sense. So that's something we work really hard every day to stay as apolitical and focused on our mission as we can. And do you think the department's interested enough to say to buy copies of books that might be coming out on this topic in the near future? Don't answer that. Let me ask you a question about Congress. So you are confirmed. So you answer to Congress. And it's a new environment in Congress. What is your expectation, say, for the support for funding the military at the level that needs to be funded? We have very strong support, bipartisan support, for our defense planning and the budgets that go with it. Really robust outreach and routine interaction with members of Congress. Secretary and I just met with what's called the Big 8, the chairs and rankings of the four major committees that deal with defense on the Hill just this morning. That's not unusual for us to be in regular dialogue. That dialogue is really important in order to be able to build out that trust and confidence that you've created, in this case, in your question of defense budget that really reflects the needs of the military. You can explain why you're asking for what you're asking. You can answer the hard questions that you're happy to go into detail with them in the right environment rather than say, that's classified, you don't need to know that. We don't do that. We get into a dialogue with them. That's part of civilian control, too. And really respecting the fundamental constitutional role article. One role of Congress is really important to how we approach civil military relations. And it's important to how we are then are able to actually execute, of course, particularly given Congress's central role in funding. So I'm going to ask some questions about civilian control in a moment. But first, I want to one more societal level context. At the time that the all-volunteer force was being created, actually, because it was created, the reason had to do with the disappointment in the way the war in Vietnam went and the sense that we needed to go in a different direction. The end of Afghanistan has been compared to the end of the war in Vietnam in different ways. And the challenges that might face internally in the building, rebuilding, re-centering on military professionals, et cetera, talk to us a little bit about how you are thinking about that part of the job, reorienting the military to the current threats and processing the lessons learned from the last war. So China is our pacing challenge. We're very, very clear that we think the PRC is developing out the kind of a suite of military capabilities and intent that really threaten US interests. And that's been the focal point for our strategy, both officially codified fuel in our national defense strategy from 2022, but operatingly so from the time we came in in this administration and pulling from the prior administration. So that does absolutely focus my day every day to make sure we're putting together the concepts and capabilities we need for the ability to create stability to make sure we can deter threats. We're not looking for conflict. What we're looking to do is make sure we compete effectively to deter threats. And again, PRC is the pacing challenge. That is very different than the decade or so that I was also present for much of during the global war in terror and including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. So really shifting the force to where we think we need to be ready in order to create stability, that's our focus. But just picking up again on the theme of lessons learned from Afghanistan and how that shapes the profession, do you see it working its way through the building in the same way that the lessons learned from the Vietnam experience worked its way through the building in the 70s? Yeah, I don't think I have the parallel in mind that you have. If your question is, as a matter of professional military education and learning and doctrine development, there will be, as there is in any era, a review again of that full global war on terror, however you want to call that period, Iraq, Afghanistan, and other counterterrorism related fights, nation, building quote unquote counterinsurgency, absolutely. I think we are a learning institution. It's one of the great things about the military. And folks work hard to make sure that lessons are not only learned, but are learned from and put into employment, so I do expect that. OK, so now let me shift focus to civilian control. That part of your day-to-day job 24-7 is to assist Secretary Austin in being the civilian in civilian control. You've been doing that, though, for much of your career at lower levels. So what do you now know as deputy that you did not know as under or more junior? What are the things that you see now from your current perch that were harder to see? Yeah, I would say it's this interesting combination of having run transition for the Defense Department coming into this administration. It's that an institution that I found so healthy, and it is healthy, and there are incredible people all through it, that there's fragility in that, that institutions, you know, have to be nurtured. And we cannot take for granted from civilian control to more fundamentally kind of the health of our public institutions. That is probably the number one thing that I took away. I know my dear friend Alice Friend is here. Dr. Friend came with me into the Pentagon. She was there before I got there day one in this administration, and I think she would probably agree that fragility was very clear. It's going to take a lot to make sure these institutions can withstand political wins, especially when they're targeted at the military personnel, when they're targeted at civil servants. It's just really hard to continue to attract and retain talent and keep people believing that they're contributing to mission. I'm really proud of what we've been able to do to get everybody's kind of frame of reference back there, but that's something that I wouldn't have seen before, took it for granted before. And are there other lessons learned that you brought with you from your previous experience? You said, okay, we did it this way. I don't want to do it that way this time, or I want to redo that play, because that worked. Yeah, I would say my entire career has been about lessons learned to apply now. And they're really about incentives and how you align organizational incentives to achieve goals. It's about making sure that process, which is often poo-pooed, is really fair, transparent, efficient, effective. Folks understand how their voices are heard. Obviously, this plays out in civil military relations. Everyone can think of their favorite examples. Were the voices heard? Did they have an ability to air? This is in the principles I know from the letter that was signed. All of that becomes really important, and that is what I have learned over the years. I really have seen it all in terms of how folks either invest in the institution to build it up and make sure it's stronger and where they're just trying to get something done fast and inevitably those routes of change never take. And I would like change to take. So I'm attending to the routes. You mentioned the letter. I wanted to ask you about that. When you saw that come out in September, what was your reaction to it? And if you were editing it, would you make changes to it? No, I thought it was excellent. I'm like, I'm sorry to say that. No, that's good. I feel like I should critique it. No, I thought it was excellent. I think what strikes me more than anything very much on this same theme is that it's so self-evident if you took yourself out of the context and said, why would a group of senior leaders on a bipartisan basis think they had to sit down and recapitulate the Constitution and things we take for granted, the old standards. I think it was a great reminder again that there is this apolitical history and set of constitutional tenets that form the basis of why we do what we do. And they are worth protecting and defending. And that is what we should focus on. It's a good reminder. And when it came out, did you think this is alarmist? This is going to scare people? I don't recall. No, I don't want you to have a negative reaction. No, I didn't have any kind of negative reaction like that. I thought it was good to have a reaffirmation. So this will sound like a special thing. But maybe I should be asking you, how did you feel when it came out? Is it feel like maybe some therapy might be good enough? I felt gratified that it came out is what I felt. But, and I know you think I've done enough special pleading already, but I actually think that that is a useful touchstone for confirmations and nominations. So I'm hoping that the Senate will pick up on that and ask future deputy secretaries, future co-coms, and et cetera, do you agree with this? Is this your understanding of civil military relations? And if not, how would you change it? That would spark a interbranch conversation about civilian control that may not be fully as rich as it otherwise could be. And so. Yeah, most people may not know that we have these advanced policy questions when you're up for a confirmation. And there has long been a standard set for the Senate Armed Services Committee of what I would call civilian control related questions. And those are really important, too. They're affirmations for one to say, yes, I agree with this. And so, yes, I think the set that you're putting, that will be put forward in that particular article are perfectly viable set to propose. So what was different four years after? So you served, you saw the Obama administration up close. Then you were out for four years, you came back. Not just in your. I was out for a decade. OK, but not just four. Almost eight years. Not just in terms of change in elevation, but you saw what is different about the building? Well, as I said, I think what was really striking was just fragility and trying to get things into a regular order to use a term. Again, that is in that article, probably something people don't recognize that they need until they don't have it. We heard loud and clear over the course, particularly of the first year, how much that was welcomed from both the military and civilians who were in the Pentagon. That was lacking. It wasn't lacking the entirety of the prior administration. I don't mean that. But it was certainly lacking when we came at this beginning of the Biden administration. So again, just making sure that there's a system of governance that's focused on goals and priorities and moving the ball forward in a way that is fair, transparent, and effective. That's, I think, the biggest thing that I noticed needed to be done. I think we've done a good job of that. What about the joint staff? How was that different? Or was it when you're interacting with the joint staff, you said, oh, yeah, I remember this is exactly the same. Was there any change in interactions at that level? Yeah, I wouldn't say categorically. We have excellent relationships between OSD, if that's what you mean in the joint staff. I don't mean to sound obnoxious, but I'm above the joint staff. So they treat me very well, I think, is how I would put it. But yes, I think OSD and the joint staff work very closely together. And we've seen, I think, a very positive trend. I think anyone who has been around that that I speak to on the OSD side and on the joint staff side tend to say the same thing. And as I said in my remarks, it's pretty strong. It's the strongest I've seen. So I'm about to turn to the audience. So if you want to get questions, get in line. But my last question to you is you're going to be spending a lot of time in front of Congress, probably you and the team. And they'll be asking you for a lot of things, a lot of answers to questions. And you'll be asking them for a lot of money. But aside from money, do you have the authorities that the building needs? Do you think you have the legislation that you think the building needs to do all of the tasks you've outlined for us today? The number one thing we need is on-time appropriations. You can't be working in a competition against another major power and lose months of every year and years over the last decade in total without having appropriations. And we can't do new starts when we don't have appropriations. We have lots of challenges moving forward on big ideas on modernization. So that's the number one thing we need, we need the appropriations bill. The other kinds of authorities, yes, every year we put forward authorities that would help us. But I wouldn't say any of those, we aren't sort of crippled in any way with on-time appropriations and in strong partnership with Congress. And they have given us a lot of authorities. Honestly, oftentimes it's on our side to make sure we're using the full authorities that we have. But yeah, they're little tweaks we can move forward on. They're in personnel policy. We just talked about some areas where if we can demonstrate good use of the authorities we have, we might want to go for some others. I think personnel policy would actually be high up on my list. On the acquisition side, we have pretty good authorities. There are some standard, that's not law, but standard ways of interacting between appropriation cycles that it would be great if we had more flexibility from Congress on how we acted in between appropriation cycles so we can move forward promising new technologies and capabilities. And you said you had very fruitful meetings with a gang of eight. Are you optimistic that you're going to get on-time appropriations and the things you need? Or are you moving into this year looking at the challenges across the river and thinking maybe not this year? Yeah, I'm always optimistic. I don't think I would still be in public service after 30 years if I didn't fundamentally believe that this nation has great opportunity and great promise and that includes our ability to work within Washington to get the American people's work done. So I'm optimistic. Good. Let's go here for the first question. Thank you so much, Madam Deputy Secretary. Thank you so much for your remark. My name is Brian. I'm from Taiwan and I'm a junior here at the School of Foreign Service. Today's topic is about the 50-year anniversary of the all-volunteer force. But if I may please, I want to ask you a question about U.S. and Taiwan military relations. So pursuant to the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act, U.S. arms sales to Taiwan has long been confined to defensive natures. On the one hand, this was intended to not provoke China. And on the other hand, this is because Taiwan still had the potential to assault China back then. And this nature of arms sales prevented this. However, fast forward 40 years to 2020-23 right now, Taiwan has already lost its ability and will to assault China while China is growing more aggressive against Taiwan. Moreover, possessing only defensive weapons, as we have seen in the Ukrainian case, fails to effectively deter enemies from waging a war. And in the case of a war, fails to quickly, swiftly push the enemy out. On the other hand, countries like Israel with effective offensive weapons were able to deter wars. I think you want to ask her, can we do offensive weapons? Ask the question. Yes, exactly. Great question. Thank you, thank you. First of all, I find essay. So thank, it's well put together. United States is committed to the Taiwan Relations Act. We are absolutely committed to assisting Taiwan in self-defense. I disagree with the premise of your question entirely. I think, first of all, that there is much more that Taiwan could do alongside partners like the United States to strengthen self-defense. Those are not just systems. Those are improvements that are already underway or talked about in Taiwan with regard to the improvements of their own military. Talk about professionalization and the advantages of making sure you have longer conscription cycles and other things of that sort. I'll just also add that Taiwan does have partners and friends to count on. And its ability to deter aggression against it is not it's alone to bear. And that's why the United States works so hard to make clear, as I said, that we are a force for stability. We're not looking for conflict. But we do believe that the state of affairs across the Taiwan Strait should be maintained peacefully. Let me sneak in my own Taiwan question on the back of that. Many folks outside who are opposed to the efforts in Ukraine say we shouldn't focus on Ukraine. We should focus on Taiwan, that it's a distraction. And we're sending weapons to Ukraine that are needed in Taiwan. So they try to put the two theaters against each other. That's not the Biden administration. If you explain what that argument is missing, if you would. Sure, there's a couple different elements. We start with the concrete part, which is we are not trading off arms, for instance, that are in the foreign military sales process for Taiwan. We're not giving those away or selling them somehow using our authorities from Congress for Ukraine. Two totally different processes, the presidential drawdown authority that we've been using for the kinds of systems that folks are familiar with in the Taiwan case. Those are coming out of US stocks, older systems coming out of US stocks. Taiwan, those are purchases for new systems. So that's sort of the most concrete version. Here's the bigger strategic issue. What the Ukraine crisis has demonstrated is that a country that is willing to defend itself, that can bring the will and the capability, can really attract substantial international support if there's an aggressor against it. And that is a big takeaway for Russia. It's a big takeaway for Taiwan. It's a big takeaway for the PRC. They are seeing incredible economic effects on Russia. That worries them. They are seeing the unity of not just Europe, but an international community in support of Ukraine. That worries them. And they're seeing that the United States is actually galvanizing its industrial base and thinking about how that industrial base can perform not only in support of the Ukraine crisis, but in future conflicts. Dr. Groves. Ma'am, Dr. Brian Groves. I'm a Colonel at Army Forces Command. I spent my last couple of years prior to that on the joint staff, so I'm glad that you felt we treated you well. I'm glad you did too. Yes, ma'am. So yesterday, the National Military Strategy was delivered to congressional leaders. I had the privilege of helping lead that team during my time there. And so I'm interested in your perspective on the role that authoritative documents, largely in this case, with the NDS and the NMS that are congressionally mandated, play in their interaction with each other and at the Hill's oversight of DoD. And anything that you might want to share about that. Sure. So I think the rich history and even the incentives that drive strong alignment and codification, through multi-layered, whether it's strategy documents, planning documents, et cetera, that's really healthy inside the military institution. It helps to make sure that commander's intent and guidance is pushed down all the way through the system and is a continual opportunity to reinforce the tie of the goals to the actions that are happening at lower levels. I'll just add a secondary piece to that, which is when you're at the lower levels. It's always good to understand how you fit into the system, because as I said, part of what is such a great proposition in the military or in for civilians in public service is how am I contributing to mission today? And that sort of cascading of documents and formalization of ties really always helps orient folks to where they fit in the system and how it connects to bigger national level goals. So that's my view. And I think Congress has been able to codify that, including the NMS over the years to help, regardless of what administration is, help kind of create that discipline. Good afternoon, Madam Secretary. My name is Major Sharon Sosparo. One key element mentioned here, but emphasized in previous discussions regarding the AVF, is the increasing importance of women and immigrants and the role that they'll play for our future forces. However, there still remains barriers to our retention and meaningful employment. Despite fairly good retention numbers, retention of women remains very low. I'm confident that should you ask any minority military member how to remove these barriers, they would have an answer. But their recommendations often get stuck in the frozen middle. How do we raise the real concerns of our underrepresented groups to catapult action? Yeah, I mean, I just wanna validate again, the premise in this case, which is that the retention rates are lower for women and for minorities in the armed forces. So we know, again, a set of retention overall is quite high. It's something to lean into, which is once we have folks in the force, we do a better job retaining them. So we wanna make sure we can have that same quality of retention and advancement, of course, as part of the issue, which is we're not in the right proportion in our advancement, and so retention is always gonna be challenged when that's the case. So I think one of the first and most obvious things I would say is we need people above the frozen middle. And so that's where you see, right now we have several of our combatant commanders, our female, we have the VCNO is female. Those sort of senior, they're not just role models, they're decision makers. They're not just in the room or at the table, they're at the head of the table. That makes a huge difference. I can tell you firsthand, representation matters. And so I think making sure we have, in this case, women, but a force that is representative all the way through its ranks is one of the best things we can do to make sure that we understand the barriers and we can remove them. There's lots of other efforts underway, of course, throughout the department. As I said, I think the goal, always in the Defense Department, is to think about readiness and how you build a holistic view of readiness is making sure you're looking out for your teammates. We have a massive effort underway, for instance, on countering sexual assault and sexual harassment. That affects people of all genders, but it certainly affects women more than others. I think that's a big piece of our retention story, as well. Can I ask you to apply that question to the civilian side of DOD? What changes have you seen over your career in terms of opportunities for women and also the experience of women serving in national security posts like DOD? Yeah, I think in DOD we, you know, selfishly, I think we do pretty well. It's something we're constantly looking at, certainly for the political pointies, but also for the senior career. I was a senior, I was a career SES, excuse me, before I became a political appointee, so I'm particularly attuned to that and I don't have the numbers at my fingertips, but they're relatively good. I think across the national security community, it continues to be a challenge, so it's something to watch overall. Okay. Thank you, Madam Deputy Secretary. My name's Christian. I'm a first year master's student here and teaching assistant with the security studies program at Georgetown. Acquisition and budgets have been talked about a little tangentially today. Obviously it's important to innovation and the small business strategy was just released, I believe, last month, but pertaining to civil military relations, are there any changes that you would recommend in terms of the distribution of responsibilities between OSD and the military services when it comes to acquisition, budget, or innovation at large, whether it's like bureaucratic structure or agency of the individuals involved? I would not, to really the question you're asking, I would not currently recommend reversing the last round of major acquisition reforms. We can make it work. I think one of the biggest, how do I put this? For folks who have not lived in an organization or institution, I think it is common to underestimate how incredibly disruptive it is to constantly change statute slash organizational structure or wiring diagrams. I'm not interested in that right now. I'm interested in getting after how we modernize as quickly as humanly possible and that basically means work with the system we have and start moving it, get the right people in the right jobs, remove barriers, work with Congress where necessary to build the trust to get the next level of effort going. But right now, I think it's working just fine having the services have more acquisition authority than they had, say, a decade ago. Not saying that's what I would have recommended, but I think the system that we have today we can work with and that's where our focus should be making it work. Hi, Dr. Hex. My name is Samuel Chen. I'm a freshman at George Washington University. Thank you very much for your talk. Funny enough, I'm also Taiwanese and I think the last two people have kind of asked the questions I kind of wanted to ask. So I just wanted to talk to you about the planning, programming, budgeting, executing part of Congress, PPBE. In regards to modernization, I suppose we can go in that direction. I've done a lot of readings on the value of death when it comes to how a lot of our modernization programs kind of fall through because of the constant two year cycle. I'm not quite sure your exact role when it comes to planning and death on budgeting, but if you can make any policy recommendations for either Congress or for OSD on how we could better avoid that value of death, how would you go about it? Thank you. Sure, absolutely. First of all, you said PPBE and value of death, so I'm so happy. This was all worth it just for that. My happy place. So there are many challenges because there are many valleys of death. There are many points of transition within the defense enterprise in order to get a capability from, let's say, at its basic research and engineering stage all the way to fielded capability. And it changes hands many times over. It actually relates in some ways to the prior question. So my goal is really to identify which of those valleys of death are most impacting, negatively impacting the ability of the warfighter to get the capabilities that she or he needs and going after removing those barriers. So some of the places that we are focused on are what's called transition, which is probably the most directly relevant. How do you make sure that you can transition capabilities in any one of those break points? And there are things we need from Congress to do that. Congress on the authorizing side has created some transition funds that help us work between appropriation cycles. The appropriators don't like those kinds of funds because there's a lot of flexibility in those. So we work hard. We were given some appropriations, for instance, recently. We're working hard to prove that we are using them appropriately. And that's the kind of thing that we try to do to sort of then be able to scale that. So that's transition. We're looking at security processes. So that can be security clearances for contractors, making sure that the security of facilities is easier so that building out a system isn't left only to those major prime contractors who can absorb the transaction costs, but that, say, a small business could still be competitive if we can help them get a secure facility. That's another example. We're training our acquisition workforce in the latest approaches. So we have lots of different authorities. Other transactional authority is an example that many folks on the Hill have tended to be okay with. We have these middle-tier acquisition processes that we pursue, also authorized by Congress, but they're still a little suspect of how we use them. So making sure we use all those authorities really effectively means we have to train our acquisition workforce to know how to use them. And so those are just some examples. Bottom line, there is no silver bullet. It's not a wiring diagram. It's not a new authority. It is making, looking at the system at a systems level and making sure you understand where the, in a nodal analysis way, where the hard areas are and working those hard areas to make sure we can get the warfighter what share he needs. Buried in his question was another one that maybe you could take 36 and answer. He said, I don't know what the deputy secretary does. Folks might not know, outside might not know what the deputy secretary does. So can you just give us the 32nd version of what your job is as deputy? I think the 32nd version is that I am essentially the COO. Back to the advanced policy questions. One of the things Congress says is, do you intend to follow the normal division of labor between the secretary and the deputy secretary defense? And the answer, they ask both secretary Austin as a nominee. And the answer we, of course, both game is yes, which is the secretary generally speaking is focused up and out. He's looking, he's, you know, working with allies and partners. He's working closely with the White House in the interagency process, et cetera. I am very much focused down and in, as we would say, a chief operating officer of the organization trying to make sure his priorities are executed and implemented throughout the department. Great. And last question in the back there. Hello, Madam Secretary. My name is Gabriel Beltran. I am originally, I was born in Columbia, but I joined the Army and I just got out like around two months ago. I am in the security studies program in the first semester. As you were saying, I've seen the diversity in the military right and the open doors that the military have for minorities such as me, as you can tell by my accent. And so while I was in the military, I learned so many things and it was such a great opportunity. However, one of the things that I always wanted to dig a little bit deeper on was the mental health of soldiers, right? I'm also a survivor spouse and I have seen how, I have seen the effects on the mental health of soldiers, right? And I also saw so many times how difficult it is for senior leaders to realize about the challenges on this. So I believe that our military force is as strong as their people, right? And I wanted to ask you, so on your level, on a senior level, what are the changes that you have seen that improve the system that senior leaders have to address the mental health issues on soldiers? Thank you. Yeah, no, thank you. So glad you raised the topic. We have, of course, in the nation, a mental health crisis. I think everyone is well aware that we don't have enough providers across the nation. We have burgeoning interest in mental health, which is fantastic that we are increasingly normalizing the view that health is health is health, and mental health is part of health. And that's true in DOD as well, and that's a sea change, that's a cultural change. It takes leaders, and we do have leaders in uniform who are good about tweeting or writing or otherwise indicating, hey, I'm off to my mental health appointment now. That becomes very important. Same on suicide prevention, where our willing to talk about suicidal ideation and the way they have overcome suicidal ideation, things of that sort. What we have found really works well, our small group interactions, that's true basically of any training. And so we're increasingly using that, couple other tools that we're doing. I mentioned before that we have put a substantial investment into countering sexual assault and sexual harassment. We have built something called the Prevention Workforce. We are hiring thousands of Prevention Workforce members, and while the core of the purpose behind them was to counter sexual assault, sexual harassment, they're really gonna be focused on self-harm and harm issues, behavioral issues that are intersectional. And so that is mental health being one of those. So we think that major hiring of Prevention Workforce, some of which will inevitably going to have to be re-skilling for the reasons I pointed out in terms of the mental health provider crisis. I think that's gonna be really important. Last thing I'll just mention, because we have a lot underway is tele-mental health. We have greatly expanded the provision of tele-health for behavioral specialists and mental health appointments. That's particularly important for those who are in remote locations. Alaska would be a good example of that. And we have increased over the last year something like 60,000 plus appointment availability, and we're continuing to expand that through the Defense Health Agency. So thank you for what you do down and in. And on behalf of the Georgetown Security Studies Program and the American and the World Consortium, thank you for coming out once in a while and talking to your people. Thank you for inviting me. So thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you.