 So I think we have 30 minutes to do this so I think we're gonna jump in I got like five questions And maybe more and I don't think I want to waste a lot of time one thing You know when we do these kinds of interviews a lot of times they're saying oh the army is at a critical moment it actually is because a lot's going on and You know, we'll see what a Trump Pentagon will mean for the army, but one particular question. I wanted to ask was The campaign has signaled that it doesn't like some of the their word social engineering in the military including women in combat transgender wondering what your thoughts are on Is it too late to roll back that? Some of those initiatives are they too far along? What are your thoughts first? Let me say I've never liked the word engineering when it comes to this because I think what we're doing is just building off of shared values of opportunity and inclusion And and the path to do this over decades going back to integration of the military Has never been purely linear, but I do think It's very hard to roll things back completely for a number of reasons society is changing very quickly The soldiers we assess just in the active component 60,000 soldiers a year They come out of a different society than I came out of and And so that that's one aspect the other aspect is when you're leaning in or looking into making some of these changes The debate is whether or not you're going to let someone wear a uniform Which is a very different discussion than whether or not you're going to make someone take the uniform off so I do think This this tide is moving forward and is is Difficult to stop that doesn't mean it doesn't have pivots and ups and downs and so forth But I feel pretty confident that that these changes in this direction is here to stay is the is the Transgender initiative More in its nancy and so maybe easier because these guys Potentially come in and say we've got a new new plan, which is to undo the old plan Sure, anything that is new a story You know in the early stages is is easier to unwind or to change But a couple of things one in many ways these policies were coming up with are just catching up with what's already happening out there we already have transgender solar sailors airmen and Marine and Trying to find a way for them to serve with dignity and for commanders to give some help and guidance to commanders Who were being left to figure this out on their own was really the the goal we had in mind here And it is all the science now the medical community treats it as a medical issue Which is how we're treating it and that that's a hard thing to walk back and the other thing is the numbers just aren't what People thought they would be or expected they would be and I think what we see over and over and over again Certainly in this administration starting with don't ask don't tell is these implementations are actually pretty smooth one last one on that is it is it possible and this is kind of above your pay grade, but you know the army and the Navy and the Air Force on women in combat had kind of a general view of it Marines may be a different Can you imagine? Some services going one way and other services emphasizing enough going a different direction Yeah, I think in almost anything you can imagine that that's one of the One of those questions that's always out there. Why do we have four services? Why don't we just consolidate to one? Well, each of those four services is pretty immense The army is the second largest employer in the country behind Walmart And part of the value and the beauty of that is that you have some competition and some different ways of doing things And you can learn from each other and so in all areas you see the services doing a little bit differently, okay? As far as I know Trump campaign where the transition folks have not made an appointment with the Pentagon to talk transition yet Let alone the army, but just kind of generally speaking and as I was saying to you backstage like There might have been an expectation that you might have stayed on a little bit longer You had things you wanted to do things that are probably not yet complete so kind of Two questions in one like what's your message to the transition people when you do talk to them? And what are the things that you had hope to do that you're? Hoping they will continue Gordon. You always have at least two questions in one night So the the I've worked kind of on the incoming side of two transitions Clinton in 93 and then was early in an Obama and and In as is the case in every transition the main message is we're here And we will do whatever is necessary to make this as smooth as possible We have a hundred thousand soldiers outside of the country right now in a hundred and fifty different countries In combat in harm's way there can be no gaps There can be no seams and that is the first and only priority and we're completely dedicated to that and whenever they're ready to talk We will do whatever They need us to do to make the transition as smooth and fulsome as possible And as for me thinking about whether I was going to stay or not stay I've done this long enough to know that what you hear in November isn't necessarily what you see in January And so I wasn't you know I had thoughts about what I would do if there was a longer tenure But I was also approaching the year to make sure that Whatever I was working on at least would leave some modules that were complete and can be built on or had What I what I call escape velocity it would it would continue after I left But I think what I was really focused on and will and we'll talk to whomever replaces me If he or she wants to talk about that Was further defining what the army needs in the future the army in the last 15 years really has been pulled into the day day after day after day after day Stripped a lot of investment out of the future even a lot of the intellectual process of thinking about the future so really with General Milley focused on what the army needs in the future and then Trying to make sure the army was structured to deliver on that We have a lot of creativity a lot of innovation in soldiers in our civilians And there are a lot of things the army does really well Despite the processes that we have in place and the barriers that we put in front of those innovative and creative people And so trying to help structure restructure the army For the way Innovation exists today and technology is fielded today so that we can deliver on that vision for the future We're kind of the two things that were really in the back of my mind and then thirdly because you're always thinking about your people really Wanting to think about behavioral health very differently the the army has done a lot to move behavioral health out into The operational level so that it's there if it's needed But I think we need to fundamentally shift the paradigm here Which is not there is help if you need it but of course you're going to need help and and special operations command is not a lot of work in this actually that that this should be an Expectation based on what we ask a soldier to do day after day after day after day deployment after deployment That it's not there if you need it You're gonna need it and it's a part of your program when you return when that de-stigmatizes it Yeah, nobody has to say like raise their hand and that's what And I had a question about special forces folks, but That community is a smaller community that Where they can kind of road test ideas and be kind of innovative when it comes to resilience and that kind of stuff How can you or how would you hope that maybe somebody would expand that model to the to big army? Well, there's a I think first of all it's expanding the model big army But it's also thinking about the the transition from one-year soldier to becoming a veteran because we are we've been focused on this for years now There's a lot of research underway. There are a lot of new programs in a way There's a lot more to do to understand PTS traumatic brain injury how you should treat it And and the veterans medical community Focuses on for a number of very valid reasons different things And so I think there's some things that we can do that the two medical communities Maybe to overlap on that transition a little bit more but in terms of Institutionalizing I mean special operations is smaller than than the army It's a lot bigger than it used to be and so they've shown you can scale some of these things and how they acquire weapons and what they do on behavioral health But you know the analogy is what what when we when we run a platform hard we bring it back we strip it down and you know put it back together and I think We need to think about our soldiers that way and special operations has been doing this for a while What is you know special operations forces have been kind of the force of choice certainly for this administration Over the years But a guy was telling us the other day that you know when we look at the Operations in Mosul and then soon kind of more expansively in Raca, you know that frankly some of these SF guys are You know stretched a little bit not stretched too thin the person was careful to say but But clearly like there's some where there Can you talk a little bit more about how to address those particularly in that community how I address that stretch Well, we you know army special forces and US special forces are an incredibly lethal power It's amazing what they can do it and what they do Many times a day day after day after day We are working them really hard army special operations command Is putting a plan together to has a plan together to to mitigate this which is a whole series of things behavioral health family programs? Really trying to focus on how we can sustain readiness because that's part of the problem when you're running this hard You're impacting your readiness and we need to keep doing more on that but part of what we've recognized too is as As amazingly capable as our special forces are in partnership with a lot of other countries special forces They can't do everything you need you need your full army and you need the the the joint force To have the total and long-standing effect that you want Do you see other kind of major muscle movements that need to kind of occur to You know assuming the new folks come in and say we want to use Continue to use these guys at this kind of rate like what kind of major muscle movements might you even recommend to the transition folks About what they should consider doing to kind of set those guys up. I think I I mean I I Support the the strategic plan the president has in place now I mean you can use special forces you can send them in night after night after night after night But you need something else to to clear ground and then something else all together to hold ground And so that's why for the second element you need your larger conventional army for the third element You need to be developed these other these countries that we're in need to be developing forces And so that's why a large a large percentage of of our effort and our people are in Afghanistan In Iraq helping build the police build the military because something other than us needs to hold whatever we've gained Um segue to a size question size always matters with the army in particular I Think you're going to 450 450 that for the in the active in the active side. Let's not forget our friends in the reserve and the other group But as you go to 450, I think that the kind of number that I think some army leaders had embraced was more like 490 Talk about, you know, and I should say new demands on the army in particular with the Contribution in NATO that starts I think this year about a thousand folks and then you've got a heavy brigade on rotation six to nine months Going in and out of Europe, but if you do if you count it differently It's really like a division because one's on the staff one's there and one's regenerating right so a lot of demand there So can you address, you know, kind of the size of the army and also? What's the analysis that's been done to kind of? Defend those numbers because I think that's one criticism that sometimes the army just as a let's do more numbers But the capabilities question is left aside. Well, there's a lot more than two questions in that one. I know right I'll come back so I'll start I start by saying when I when I moved to the army last year on my first tour I had a senior general asked me if the Secretary of Defense had sent me to the army with secret instructions to shrink it more because the army is You know sitting at the Navy table its chair sitting at the Air Force chair I was so the Navy the army always feared they were going to be a billpayer for some of these big technological investments of the future and That's not why Carter sent me to the army. He didn't talk about that at all He did say you have to get them away from talking about themselves as a number a and be 450 480 490 520 whatever it is is not the number because that's just the active component and we cannot do what we're asked to do if we Don't think as as fully as possible as a joint force all three of the components are important But you know the number by itself doesn't really tell you a lot There is a lot of analysis behind the number, but you can't there's no Precision to this because it's all about risk and so you can come up with these different numbers In the context of the joint force and then just describe what the risk is in certain scenarios You know, there's no question that that the army is being Worked hard the 450 target for the active component when when that was agreed to because all this takes time to implement into into achieve was before Russia was being so provocative On the on the border with Eastern Europe before China was getting More provocative in the in in the Pacific before we saw what ISIL was doing in Iraq and in Syria and as I said soldiers already in 150 countries a day as it is and so there's a bit of a stretch there but I but I caution people to get away from thinking about it just in terms of four structure numbers because If that's the focus to not be 450 but before 90 or 520 or whatever it is you could end up creating greater imbalance and actually lead to more hollowness because Those people cost something we need to make sure if we have that number that we also have the money to keep them trained and to equip them And then there's tail that goes into the future for a very long way So whatever your future modernization plans are there over a larger force So I think it's important that we We don't oversimplify these things about the number of soldiers the number of fighter squadrons the number of Carrier strike groups and think about the totality of what it means to have them and have them ready And as far as the analysis There is no shortage of analysis on any of these things We could all do a better job of communicating the analysis and what we're thinking in the context around it There's no question about that, but again This all then you can do all the analysis you want and it gets down to judgment calls and and conversations about risk And about balance art not science On yeah, and as a guy was saying to me yesterday You know it's unclear which Trump will show up to govern on one hand He's sent the message that there are inefficiencies even even in DoD on the other hand like probably wants to send You know more money toward toward the building. I There's no question. There are more efficiencies to be found in an organization as large as the Department of Defense That's never that process should never stop But I think We have sort of approached efficiencies over this administration of kind of identifying them and taking the money before we necessarily implement them And we haven't caught up so I I would caution about Banking on those dollars right away, but I absolutely would say don't ever stop looking for it's not just efficiencies in pulling money out of the system It is doing business differently, you know, we used to drive Technological change we think about stealth the internet GPS or what have you and in and we still we do incorporate and feel technology very well But in many ways we cannot keep up with what the private sector is doing how the private sector iterates on technology And so it's not just changing to get more money out of our system It's changing to partner better with places outside the Department of Defense that are doing things. We need to embrace I Had another question, but you've greased this kid so well for my next one that I think a previous I think senator Codman's here I think he's one of several people who have pushed the army on You know buying off-the-shelf stuff commercial stuff that's available and as you're familiar there was a ruling Against the army for essentially shutting out One particular tech firm who wants to do work now Palantir When you work for secretary Carter, certainly you're aware and you know Carter has pushed this idea of bridging the gap between the building and the and Silicon Valley I Know you're not going to comment about the legal issue But can you kind of talk more broadly about is the army open for business with tech firms? And is it willing to embrace off-the-shelf stuff? Which is cheaper typically cheap typically cheaper faster ready to go Yes, there is more work to be done, which was which I intended to be a real focus of mine General Milley's really You know interested in that as well. I believe the faster you get things into the hand of soldiers the better Because we'll they figure out how to learn how to adjust how to use things differently and give us feedback very quickly Some of that's off the shelf some of that stuff. We sort we already have that we can modify It's not just Silicon Valley First of all technology is not just Silicon Valley. It's not just Silicon Valley There's a lot of creativity innovation in our defense industrial base We need to find better ways to partner with them as well We need to open ourselves up to all of this because Technology is being developed differently and in faster and faster and faster cycles right now And we need to change to be able to get that in and feel that getting the hands of soldiers faster So absolutely You know one of the one of the many nice things about having lawyers around as they tell you a whole bunch of things You can't talk about so they shield you a little bit So I can't I cannot talk about that case Right, but I hope we use it and and all other cases as a learning opportunity for how could we do things differently? Because I do think in in some ways. We're speaking different languages now We need to figure out how to collaborate better because it seems you know We can say here and I think anybody would agree with kind of what you're saying But the the military bureaucracy can get in the way and it doesn't always get the memo about what leaders Want to achieve it's not just it's some you know I keep going back to something Secretary Gates said when he had his farewell address and he said bureaucrats and bureaucracies are different things And nobody suffers the bureaucracy more than the bureaucrats have to fight it every day These are rules and procedures Bureaucracies are additive something bad and they're always steering by the way something bad goes wrong You had a process to prevent it from happening again And you layer and you layer and you layer and you layer and you layer and you create a whole bunch of people whose job is to Say no and we've got a lot of people who do want to get to yes And that's one reason we set the rapid capabilities office to try and field some of this stuff faster And it's not meant to be a workaround for the entire acquisition process We need to keep reforming that and making it more agile and responsive My kind of ink, but what I call an ink block question kind of back to where I was going to go is you know because we are Where we are in terms of military strategy overseas and what do you say 150 countries the armies deployed But not in huge numbers right and then people associate the army with huge numbers generally And so my question really is is is there? Does the army suffer from some kind of identity complex? Because we're not doing what people generally associate the army with doing major occupations meet big forces You know in some ways that's that's a question. You could have asked me in any of the jobs I had in any of the military departments I do think that before you work for the army before I work for the army Yeah, any jobs in the army as well the They the services do try to do tend to focus on that tip of the spear kinetic thing Because that's what they identify with and and what I found moving from service to service and no more more so than with the army Are all these unbelievable other capabilities they bring to that are required for the army to be the best army The world is ever known but that they bring to the joint fight and that they bring to the coalition fight as well And it's it's an impressive Group of and I don't even like the word enablers because I feel like it Doesn't give enough power to what that part of the army is and and we have thinned that out a lot to support that tip And so that's that's been a struggle But I don't think they have I don't see any sort of existential issue about being spread thin in small groups over 150 countries it does impact how we're structured We've proposed Setting up training advice and assist brigades that are smaller than a regular brigade because right now when we create those we We take the leadership out and a part of the brigade we separate them and it impacts our readiness to Recognize that we are fighting in many different ways and working in many different ways around the world Are you is there a readiness argument to be made for? I think everybody's kind of lining up to to make a big argument And you it potentially won't be here to make that argument with the new folks and on the hill, but is there a What's what's your kind of a general assessment of army readiness right now? We're on a path to get to our readiness goals really in this in this fight up but You know they say in the military no plan survives first contact with the enemy and the enemy gets a vote And we don't know what we're going to be asked to do in the next five years and and I I'm cognizant of time. I want to just say one thing I get asked all the time What's the biggest threat to the army and there's two ways to think about that? What is the geopolitically? What is the biggest threat to the nation to the army? So that's where is it Russia is it North Korea is it ISIL? but I I think of that question in terms of my 2010 responsibilities as secretary of the army in the Department of the army in many ways I'm a CEO of a business unit and the biggest threat to the army that I that I've been working through and to the Air Force into the Navy Marine Corps has been the budget instability and so all these issues that we're talking about readiness technology modernization force deployment if we had some More stable baseline which to plan we could I think get to a lot of our goals faster Okay, I know we had two seconds left, but I know a guy Just quick. What are your plans assuming that things end for you next day next week? I My my model in all this was was the man who hired me out of college One of the two Rudy de Leon who in the Clinton administration at four jobs and Ended his deputy secretary and I'm like well, that's what I want to in the bomb administration. I want to stay eight years If I can have four jobs, I'd be great. I had nine so I overshot a little bit and Pace myself but be tired at the end so that I I know I've Contributed and so my plan was always to be someplace really warm come January 21st And that's yeah, I we are committed to doing whatever the incoming team needs for us to do on the transition And some people stay and some people don't But the the plan is to take a break and and figure it out later. I this is this is an Amazing job. It's a huge honor I and it's a struggle every day But a but a joy every day and I don't want to waste any ergs Thinking about what's next and getting caught in the mob the transition because I've been through a few of those and they the anxiety grows in A way that's suffocating and so I'm I'm gonna just hold the stick until they drag me out of the building And then I'll go and rest for a while. We may see you again. It's Dr. Fanny. Thanks so much