 Good morning, everyone. Thanks for coming. Let me, I'm Maryn Leid with CSIS, and I'll start with a couple quick admin announcements if you can turn off your phones. That would be great. Also, for people who might be watching via the web when we get to Q&A, you can email me questions at mleed, m-l-e-e-d, at CSIS.org, or you can tweet them at csis-g-r-n-d forces. And it is a great honor to have Representative Rob Whitman with us today. He's the representative of Virginia's first district. He spent the first part of his career as an environmental health specialist and has served at the local, state, and now national level. He's been a member of the Congress since 2007. And the first part of his career is reflected in his service on the Natural Resources Committee. But we've asked him to come today to talk about his purview on the House Armed Services Committee, and specifically as the chair of the Readiness Subcommittee. I should also say that he serves as a great inspiration for both current and aspiring public policy graduates that, in fact, you can have a career as a public policy maker after getting such a degree. So for those of us who are in that position, we think it's very inspiring. We're grateful for that. So Representative Whitman is going to make a few comments, and then we'll get to an audience Q&A. Sure. Dr. Lee, thank you. And thanks so much for your leadership. And thanks for all the work that you're doing to bring to light critical questions of national defense strategy and looking at realizing the vision and how do we do that? How do we make sure we are properly structuring our forces, not just for today, but for the future and specifically our ground forces? This is a very challenging time as we look at sequestration, bringing down budgets. We're also looking at what should our force structure be? We're bringing down force structure. The question is, how much and how quickly? How do we do that in a way that's not disruptive? How do we make sure we have the proper capabilities going into the future? I want to make sure that we're getting this right. And we have all these things coming together. We have a reduction of end strength. We have sequestration looming again in 2016. And we've made our way through 14 and 15, patching some parts of loss of readiness but not getting all the things that I believe we need to rebuild readiness. Then we also have the OCO funding. And we had a hearing the other day and I've been focusing on OCO to make sure people understand that if we're going to go away from supplementals like we have an OCO, much of those dollars go to enduring mission. How do we continue that enduring mission? And budgeting in two different realms creates policy issues. If you're going to be budgeting under the base budget and then budgeting under OCO, the question is how do you have continuity of policy? If you're gonna fund something here and something there, that makes it even more difficult, especially as it's bifurcated by time. So we have to begin to get OCO into the base budget so we are making those tough decisions we have to going forward. People have to understand what is the impact of sequestration? That's going to be significant. What's the impact of reduction of end strength? How do we reset our force? The one thing we've done with 100% certainty in the past is we've gotten reset wrong. I wanna make sure we get reset at least closer to some semblance of right as we go forward. That means we have to think about not just what we're doing today and we've been engaged in a ground war for 12 years. How do we structure the force into the future to make sure that it can meet the challenges? And certainly looking at defense strategic guidance about how do we have the proper mixture, I believe doesn't look at the whole picture. The whole picture needs to be, how do we have ground forces that have the capability on a broad set of missions? You look at where we are today and you see that we have artillery officers that haven't been firing artillery pieces as part of a brigade level exercise. We have Marines that have been engaged in ground war that are now junior officers that have never been part of a mu, have never been as part of an amphibious unit at sea. We look at what the future missions may be. I think it's gonna include some of those things. So how do we get that force reset? How do we get it retrained? How do we make sure that it has the proper capabilities going forward? While we're downsizing, while we're facing budget challenges, those things are very difficult. And if we look at it in a myopic way and we believe that somehow we can just have a force that does ISR through unmanned platforms and we gather that information and then we deploy special operators to these little places around the world, I think that grossly underestimates the challenges out there. Obviously we have the more conventional challenges with China and with Russia, but I think one of the emerging challenges that we're seeing are groups like ISIS and others. Non-state actors are gonna continue to enforce their will in areas where they perceive and see weakness. The question is, how do we deal with that? It's not in our conventional set of thinking about how we plan for that. How do we make sure we structure a force for that? General Amos, I think, said it perfectly the other day. He said, we may be finished with them, but they're not finished with us. And I think that says it perfectly about how do we make sure we're structuring our force going forward to do that. And there is another phraseology that I think is very, very applicable where a current active duty trainer was telling junior officers in his cadre about the things that they need to do. And he says, we can do this two ways. He says, we can get it right, but we can do it again. And that's where we are. We need to make sure that we get it right so that we don't have to do it again. And my concern is looking at all these different moving pieces. This, I believe, is one of the most challenging times in our nation's history about what's the future direction of our national defense policy gonna be? What is our posture going to be? What are we gonna be capable of doing? What should our national strategy be? Fight and win a war on two fronts? Fight and win on one front? Hold serve on another front? Or be able to at least fight on one front? General Odeirno says that with sequester and with the other challenges there, we may not even be able to fight and win on a single front, depending on the magnitude of what we're facing. All of those things ought to be deeply concerning to us as a nation and as members of Congress. And I know that I have tried to engage members to make sure that those that aren't on the Armed Services Committee have some appreciation of the magnitude of the challenges we face. And we understand the budget challenge, but we understand too that there's that constitutional responsibility in Article I, Section 8, about providing for the national defense. And I wanna make sure that everybody understands that and what it means and what the risks are. And a lot of times we don't talk about the risks and the risks of not having a properly postured and resourced force or this. When we ask our men and women to go into harm's way, there'll be greater casualties. And I believe the American people are not willing to accept that. The key is, is I do believe too that there are war weary and say, well listen, we don't need to be involved in all these things. So the question is, how are we involved to make sure we prevent war? And that's as important as being able to pursue conflict as being able to prevent conflict. So we have to look at that in a couple of ways. And you all have done a great job about looking at all those different policy challenges. How do we posture a force to make sure we have things like global presence, we have deterrence, but we also have capability. So I appreciate what you do in pushing the issue, making sure that people are thinking about these things. These are issues that we as decision makers in Washington need to talk about every day. We need to put them in simple human terms. It's easy to talk about numbers of tanks and aircraft and ships. And I think for most people, outside the defense community, that kind of zips over their head. We believe that we have to get the discussion down with the American people to more elemental levels. And that is, what are the challenges? What are the threats? And then what are the risks if we don't do what we need to do to face those risks? So I always look at the glasses half full. And obviously it is. I believe we'll be able to meet those challenges. And I believe that places like CSIS do a great job in pushing the issues, providing a lot of policy discussion and alternatives for decision makers to think about as we pursue these issues down the road. And if people think that this year's NDAA was a challenge, you just wait until next year. It's going to be a significant challenge. But I'm glad that we are having these discussions because I think this year's NDAA and defense appropriations will push these issues to have to be dealt with next year and in the years to come. And again, thank you so much for your leadership here and we're looking forward to people's questions. Well, thanks very much for those remarks. There's a lot of ways we could take this conversation. I want to start with one of the things that the Ground Forces Dialogue has spent a lot of time talking to people about, which is I think this sort of very basic question about what is the future role of Ground Forces? And you alluded to it to some degree, but I know you spent a lot of time visiting forces out in the field across the globe. And you mentioned you're about to go out to the RIMPAC exercise out in the Pacific. In your mind, what is the role of the Army and Marine Corps in particular in the Pacific and then elsewhere in the world in the next 20 years? Sure, well, I visited the Pacific a number of times from Japan to Korea to Philippines to Australia, Southeast Asia, I see our role there expanding, especially in partnerships. Nations in that area of the world are looking to the United States for partnerships and they want partnerships so that there's presence there, both as a deterrence and as creating capability going to Australia, as you know, we're ramping up our Marine Corps presence there and Australia has been a great partner. We're also properly balancing the force there in South Korea, the Republic of Korea, to make sure we have the proper structure there in discussions with folks in Japan. As you know, they're very concerned about what's the US presence going to be there? What are we gonna do in commitment in the long term? And as you know, they're starting to ask some fundamental questions about what their role as a country will be and how they interact and what their constitution says they can and cannot do from a military standpoint. That I think is precipitated because they're not quite sure what the rebalance to the Pacific means. Ground forces there I think are absolutely critical. The movement of ground forces from Okinawa to Guam and I've been to Okinawa to visit to make sure that transition is taking place properly and in a timely manner and to make sure we do have that presence there. That ground force presence in the Pacific is extraordinarily important to our partners. They look at that as commitment to working with them in meeting the challenges they have strategically in that area. So I think it's extraordinarily important there. I think it's also important in places like Africa. When I went there to visit, we went to Chad, to Cameroon, to Kenya, to Ethiopia and to look at the regionally aligned force there and what they're doing to help augment and train forces not only in peacekeeping but also to deter groups like Al-Shabaab with Boko Haran. All those areas I think are extraordinarily important. The only way you accomplish that is through very proficient, well-trained and capable ground forces. We talk about all the other capabilities but virtual capability as I said is actual absence. I wanna make sure that we have that presence on the ground and capable ground forces allow us to do that. You also talked to some degree about the operational forces learning the lessons of our last 12 and 13 years. One of the other things I think the department is wrestling with is how does the institution, what lessons does the institution take away from that? We issued a report in April about a specific aspect of that on the soldier in squad as a system. And one of the things that I know you deal with on a routine basis in the acquisition element of this conversation is getting the requirements right. And that's certainly an issue that we found. And that fundamental issue of making sure that soldier and squads are well-prepared in a way that we found ourselves not necessarily as well-prepared as we would have liked the last time. That's sort of right in the readiness subcommittees wheelhouse. So where do you see, what steps do you see the subcommittee taking to try to ensure that we don't end up in that place again and that the institution takes away the right lessons about how to prevent that? Well, you point out exactly what the readiness subcommittee has been focused on, and that is reset. In resetting it, looking at the soldier as a system, looking at the tactical level, the squad level, making sure that those squads are properly equipped, they're properly trained. And then how do we integrate them into the total force structure? We look at the conventional element of that. We want to make sure that training takes place and capability and requirements are proper at that level, both in equipment and in capability. But then how do you integrate them at higher levels? As you know, one of the concerns I have through sequestration is that we had the money at the tactical level to do the training, but then we're missing the money at the brigade level. So you can train at that level, but if you don't integrate that soldier as a system into the larger unit and you're not able to train as a brigade, or you're not able to interact with other forces around the world, when you are asked to go, you'll be working jointly with them. That misses a capability that when you're asked to go, all of a sudden chaos breaks out. You go, well, gosh, how did we miss that? You know, we're good at this level, but as a system, as you said, integrating the soldier as a system all the way from the squad level to the brigade level has to be something that we think about. And how do we properly resource that? And how do we become visionary enough to look at what future challenges may hold to make sure that the soldier is capable of meeting that challenge? And there's enough flexibility within the force as far as capability to say, okay, we can adapt to what we may be facing in the future. That adaptability, flexibility, and then sustainability, I think is gonna be critical to future force structure. And that means we gotta think very critically about what's the requirements, and then how do we properly posture our force to be able to not only meet those requirements, but to be flexible enough to adapt to not just how can we ramp up in six months to meet a challenge, but how can we be capable to fight tonight? And that really gets down to, as you said, to that squad level, because if you're gonna be immediately reacting, you have to have that adaptability, flexibility to be able to do that. And that, I think, is really based in the requirements. How do we get the requirements right? And today, the requirement may be good for today, but I'm not certain that it's right for tomorrow or a month or a year down the road. One last question before I open it up to the audience. You have, I think, been a real leader in trying not only to get your colleagues to look at the larger sequestration challenge, but to find a constructive way through it and to try to actually make some progress in that regard. I wonder if you could talk a little bit more about, A, how you view your prospects for success, and B, the tactics that you're employing to try to get to that end. I mean, you talked about them a little bit, but if you could expand a little bit. Sure, well, through sequestration, I wanted to make sure we got non-HASC members into a secure brief about the current readiness of our forces. So they understood the nuts and bolts of it, because readiness is a term of art and you think you understand it, but you really don't until you get down to the detail. So we had about 90 members that came in and got the secure brief to understand a little bit more about what current state of readiness is and what sequester held if sequester continued. So we were able to do that. Another thing we've done is to try to get engaged those folks that are members of the Budget Committee and Appropriators who are very much focused on the numbers to get them to understand more about what those numbers mean as far as force capability and then what are the challenges, what are the threats this nation faces, and what happens if we don't properly resource them, and what is proper resourcing? How do we make sure we're efficient but not neglectful of capabilities and putting our force in increased risk mode, which is simply more casualties? And I want them to understand the phraseology, because when you talk about risk, I think it flies over most people's head. When you talk about casualties, they go, oh, okay, now I get it. And what we've been able to do is to get members that are very focused on the budget out to visit our men and women in uniform when they're forward deployed, when they're actually in the throes of doing their job under the very trying conditions of being forward deployed. And we recently had five members that went out on an aircraft carrier to do an embark on an aircraft carrier. And I can tell you, they came back with a very, very different view of the military and the capability that we have and what we need to do to sustain that capability. And seeing those 18 and 19-year-old sailors on the deck pursuing flight operations was, I think, a life-changing experience for those members, which is good. That's what we want them to do. We want them to be able to travel to those areas to go to the National Training Center and look at a brigade combat team as they train under combined arms exercise. And anybody that's ever been through that knows that's very different than anything else that they're faced in other areas of training. So the more we get members to understand that the better able they are to make decisions when it comes time to placing priorities in where dollars go. And we know that unfortunately our defense budgets have been disproportionately affected by sequester and by budget cuts going all the way back to Secretary Gates and then the BCA in 2010 and the BCA 2011 with sequester. We know that those additive effects are now having a significant impact. We want members to understand that. So when they're faced with those tough decisions or they're faced with looking at how we develop budgets for the future, they understand what we must do in our obligations to our military. You've also talked some about ways to get to finding the resources to do that. That's right. Again, in some ways that are creative and may actually offer some potential for compromise. So thank you for that. Sure, absolutely. Well, I think there are a lot of opportunities out there for us. And we have to look at every realm of possibility both on the revenue side in looking at restructuring our tax code to encourage economic growth as well as on the spending side. And I tell people you can't balance the budget on the backs of our men and women in the military. You have to look at the autopilot spending program. So if we look at all of that, I think we can come to a point to properly resource our military for now and in the future and do the things we need to do to address the debt and deficit. Okay, great. Well, I have taken too much time. Let me open it up to you all if you could raise your hand and they'll come to you with a mic. If you could wait for the mic please so that other people could hear and then briefly identify yourself. And if you could please be concise in your questions. Tom Oakley represented myself in the Army Reserve. So there's a very contentious issue right now between the Army and the Army Reserve or National Guard. And so just wanted to get your take on how that works out and this idea of a commission punt it off to the commission or a commission having value and just get your perspective on this issue. Thank you. Well, Tom, that's obviously an issue of the day. I appreciate your service. First of all, we appreciate what you do. Our National Guard and Reserve components are critical. We can't go back to them being a strategic element of our force capability. They need to be an operational component. The question is, is how do we properly structure them going forward? And there is obviously with the downsizing the question is, is where does all that occur? General Odierno trying to strike that balance there obviously has had some pushback in certain areas. As you know, Congressman Wilson has been very, very forward in saying, how do we make sure we have the proper balance there? I want to make sure that we get it right. There's so many different pieces in states of flux, whether it's end strength, budgets, those sorts of things. If you try to determine too many things when all the other parts are moving, you never end up getting it right. So as much as people look at it and say the commission is punning it, the commission I think does give us a little bit of breathing room to really ask the fundamental questions to get some good information back and to let some other things mature as decisions are being made to figure out where do we go? So I do believe again, the operational component of the garden reserve is critical for whatever we face in the future. So I think their role is actually going to increase. The question is how into what magnitude? So and I think the commission gives us an opportunity to do that. Would I like to make a decision quicker? Yes, but I'd want to make sure we make the right decision. So the commission I think gives us the ability to do that. I've got a Twitter question here about Randy Forbes having stressed naval investment. Yes. And it says, you stress ground forces. I neglected to mention that you're also a co-chair of the congressional shipbuilding caucus. So that may reflect the fact that you're here under the auspices of the CSIS ground forces dialogue. But the question is, where should our budget focus? Let me put you straight on the hot seat on that. Oh, well, and I should be. Ground forces are a critical component of that. We can't forget about ground forces, but we have to remember too that major portions of their ground forces are going to be sea-based. Obviously our Marines have to be able to get to the fight to be able to have that forward presence. And having the proper naval force structure is critical. And we're at a tipping point as far as how is our Navy composed, what mix of ships do we have, how do we make sure we have the right strategic element? We've got to get the next generation ballistic missile submarine built. That's a big cost. We took the first step with this this year in carving out a place in the budget to do that. Now we just got to put some money in there to be able to do that. Refueling aircraft carriers is critical to have that forward presence. Looking at the proper composition of our surface combatants, do we put in a semi-ready status, 11 cruisers? And if we do, what does that mean? Another big issue. I think one of the more important issues are amphibious ships. How do we make sure the Marine Corps has a proper capability through our amphibious fleet? And having LPD-28 now moving forward, I think it's critical, giving us room to make sure we get the next generation amphib vessel right, the LXR, that will replace the LSD. How do we make sure we get that right? How do we have the proper time to design it, to bring it to production, to make sure we get it right, to where we don't have cost overruns as we get it to production? And how do we make sure it serves the purposes that we need not just now, but in the future? So sea power is absolutely critical. And my support for ground forces is that we can't not have ground forces or we can't take away from ground forces to not have the capability necessary to be able to not just be able to gain ground, but be able to hold ground. And that's a critical part of this whole formula. So how do we get the right mix of naval forces, of ground forces, and the naval force part of that is an integral part of how we sustain ground forces. So it's not that I'm neglectful of sea power, but it is part of the entire picture of how do we have the right mix. Okay, one up here, and then one back there. Hi, Dean Stoline, the American Legion. I'd like to stay on the ground forces issue for a minute, but one of the things we're concerned about is the Army. As I'm sure you've seen the DOD reports that both the Army National Guard and Army Reserve are having recruiting retention problems. One of our analysis of that is that even though the Army Reserve and Army National Guard have been operational since Desert Storm, they're still treated like second class citizens. One of the elements we're working on is end of service physicals for retirees and people leaving. In the active component, they get it as a mandatory out processing, but in reserves it's still at the option of commanders. There's a bill in Congress to change that, but both the Democrats and the Senate and the Republicans of the House are not letting that bill through. And I was wondering, as a readiness issue, with the fact that they're already having recruiting retention problems now, how do you resolve that if you don't look at the healthcare needs of these soldiers that you want to be carrying that equipment that you're trying to get them ready for? Well, I think the healthcare component of our Reserve and National Guard forces is a critical element of, as you said, how do we make sure we address retention issues there? And recruitment, it also affects recruitment into the future. I see that there is a way forward for that, obviously in the whole discussion, that's a piece of how you put the puzzle together. So I want to make sure that we do address that, that we do assure sustainability of those areas of the force. They are critical, and I can't emphasize enough how critical the Reserve and Guard components are to our force structure going forward. And we have to make sure that we get those elements right, and we have to make sure too that they feel that they are on the same level field of consideration as their value as their active duty components. And that's incumbent upon us as decision makers to make sure that we get that right. I do think ultimately we get there, sometimes the journey is the interesting part of it. So I am very, very much in favor of making sure that we address that, and I'll continue to push that with other members there on House Armed Services. I think it's a component of several other areas of other committee's concern, so we're trying to navigate that process through it. Well, that's true, but it can be seen. That's right. And it seems to me that you've got two big pots of money in there, which could be resolved if you have paperwork that helps the program. I agree, and there are disparities there that absolutely need to be corrected. To me, they're pretty simple and straightforward. It's a matter of getting the resources to the right place. And as you know under the VA, it's not a question of resourcing there. It's a question of making sure that we get things done in a very fast and efficient way to make sure that benefits get to those folks that qualify for those benefits. And just as you point out, our reserve and national guard components are critical elements of that. And there can't be that disparity there. If there is, then it creates problems, systemic problems within the guard and reserve. I've got one back here and then one in the back row and then over here. Leandra Bernstein, Rio Novosti. This is a broader policy question about the United States and our allies. Basically, since September 11th, our international interests have broadened significantly. We have responsibilities to our allies, thinking in particular the NATO allies and allies in Eastern Europe. And how do we prevent getting into a sort of Thucydides scenario where because of our alliances, we're drawn into a conflict that, for example, with Russia, with China on account of our allies, that we're not prepared or necessarily to have a national interest in fighting? Sure. Well, that brings up an issue that we've had a lot of discussion about. General Breedlove, the Supreme Allied Commander of NATO came over to brief us about the situation as it built in Ukraine, Russia, and the Baltics. And as we looked at our partners in NATO and saw the capability there, there was a lot of concern about the present capability, which is waned. And our partners in NATO and the obligation that they have under our NATO agreements to provide resourcing for their military. They are not close to the 2% of GDP that they're bound to put forth. We have to, as a nation, continue to push our allies there. They cannot expect the United States to do everything and they can't expect us to be drawn in if they don't have the capability. So I think that's a fundamental question that we have to ask of our NATO allies, and that is what are you gonna do to stand up to your obligations under this agreement? And if you don't do that, you cannot expect the United States to do it all. So I think we have to be more aggressive with our NATO partners. Obviously, we have the issue firmly in front of us now with Ukraine, with Crimea, and how do we deal with that? But I think the longer term issue is how do we make sure that our partnerships are sound and that members under NATO are living up to their responsibilities and not expecting that the United States will come to their aid without them properly resourcing their capability in those areas. And that keeps us, I believe, from getting drawn in because we're the force of last resort. So I wanna make sure that we continue to aggressively push that issue with NATO. And if it's gonna be an effective organization, all the members have to do what they are required to do in order to make that an effective group. The potential is certainly there to be drawn in as the force of last resort. Well, don't worry about it, the United States will always jump in. And the problem is, is we'll be in that position if we don't force our NATO partners to do their fair share with that. And that's how we prevent getting unnecessarily drawn in those situations. We had a question in the back, right there. Hi, Gary Storj, and I'm a retired Lieutenant Colonel, Army. I run a company called TS Light. My question really for you is requirements. We don't get them right ever, okay? And part of the constraint there, I think, to some extent, is not you personally, but you and your colleagues in Congress and the Senate, who wanna tell everybody what you gotta buy, where you gotta buy it, and why aren't we jumping past the fifth generation fighter, blah, blah, blah. A great point, and there is a role for Congress. If you look at times when Congress has interjected itself and said, listen, we're gonna go in a different path than what the Pentagon has charted. We wouldn't have UAVs today if it weren't for that or MRAPs or those sorts of things. So there are times when Congress has acted appropriately, but there are times when Congress has said, well, listen, we're gonna go with legacy systems because there's an interesting, continuing legacy system, rather than saying, how do we best meet the needs of our war fighters? That's that tricky balance. And I will deny that Congress has stepped in and done some things where probably it would have been better to have the services determine requirements and to get things done. But in our representative form of government, that's one of the elements that we have to deal with. The way that we make sure that we avoid poor decision making is to have discussions like we have today to make sure we lay all the options on the table. So members of Congress are more informed and more educated about the challenges that we face. How do we properly resource those challenges? And how do we make sure that we have the proper structure in our systems, in our force to meet those challenges? As I said before, there's one thing we've done at 100% certainty is we've never quite gotten it right going forward. The thing is, is there are things we can do to limit where we've gone far astray from where we need to be. And I understand your frustration with requirements because many times requirements don't always take in current information. Or many times too aren't forward looking. We need to get more forward looking with our requirements and make sure we understand not just how do we meet the challenge today, but what might those challenges be in the future? And how do we make sure there's enough adaptability and flexibility in the requirements to make sure we can adapt or flex to what the future challenges may be? I think that's critical. As you know today, once the requirements are set, it's tough to be able to move out of those. And then that puts us in that tough spot when we have to adapt to whatever is out there in the future. So more flexibility and adaptability within our requirements is a good thing. And that's where we need to be going. I think we have one here and then one in front of him. So the other strike time. Hi, Joe Kumar, State Department. Do you see a role for non-special operations Army in the future in Africa in an advisory capacity? Joe, I do. And just having been to Africa and looked at the regionally aligned force there, they're doing a tremendous job in helping those indigenous forces there develop capability and to make sure that they can pursue operations to maintain security in those areas. And we know the instability that's rising up in those particular areas. But when you have countries like Chad that's shown a significant capability, especially when things broke out in South Sudan for them to go in along with army forces to help restore order and then to maintain order there, I think that type of capability is critical in the future. So the idea of the regionally aligned force to do the training, to do the advising, to make sure they're stability in those areas, I do think has long term viability. And I was very impressed with what I saw there, how those governments were reacting, how the leaders there were reacting, how the military leaders too are adapting their methodologies, their strategy to advise from US forces, how they look at challenges throughout the region, how they're willing to address those challenges outside their border, which is key, especially when some governments there are weak or don't have the wherewithal or in some instances are corrupt and won't address these issues. Having that capability in the area and having US forces help build that capability, I think it's critical. Right up here. Good morning. Mike Miller with Raytheon also, a first district constituent. Thank you. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about the parent policy dichotomy in Congress when we have the effects of sequestration on DOD and then the services budget to reflect those lower resources that are available to have Congress say, no, we won't let you, for instance, retire the A10, which is critical to supporting those ground forces. And then the uncertainty that causes an industry when we watch DOD go through this flail and the uncertainty in industry means we're not investing in future R&D programs because it's not a clear path as to where this is all gonna end up. So we shortchange our own warriors when we do that because of the fact that there's not a clear picture of what's happening on there. Well, that's certainly a frustrating part of what we're going through right now, determining, how do we properly structure the force? How do we determine which systems to keep, which legacy systems are critical, which ones are not? I think with the A10 it's a question of, how do we ramp down that portion of our capability as we ramp up the F-35 portion of that capability? I understand people's concerns, some of it being parochial, but some of it too, being in a broader perspective, we have to, though, push those particular issues. And I believe that not just this year, but even more so next year, when we do National Defense Authorization Act next year and do budgeting next year, the issues of continuing to fund the A10 of funding elements even within the shipbuilding budget are going to force Congress to make those tough decisions. So this does become a forcing mechanism. It does create uncertainty, obviously, within the industry and even within the service branches to say, well, listen, we kinda counted on the cost savings from retiring this system to be used in other areas of modernization or developing new capabilities. And I understand their hesitancy there and then what they have to do other places to try to push and pull to make things work. I also understand too that we have to be mindful that the suggestions brought to us by the service branches do have merit and we need to look at what's the effect if we say no to that and it can't just be simply, well, you guys figure out how to accrue those savings somewhere else and then what does that mean for other systems or modernization or capability that needs to exist for the future. So I wanna make sure we have more of that discussion. Now on my side, for me personally, I voted in favor of retiring the A-10 because I thought it was one of those tough decisions that we needed to make. Obviously, I'm in the minority on that but I still think it's a situation that if we don't have those discussions, not just about the A-10 but what is keeping the A-10 as a legacy system mean for the future then we won't be in a position to make those tough decisions into the future. And I think the uncertainty that you bring up both within the Air Force and then within the industry is a real situation that Congress is gonna have to deal with. Up here? At Tom Davis retired US Army and retired corporate officer in the defense industry, looked at life from both sides. I was at a meeting in another public policy group not too long ago and a lot of their military fellows were there, of course all of them have recently come from unit command of some sort in all the services and as I was listening to them talk, something you said earlier kind of came to me when you said readiness is kind of an art as opposed to a science. And I remember in the early 1970s when I was artillery commander over in Europe in historical sweep I can see that we were taking a lot of risk and readiness back in those days. It was underfunded. I think that led to General Myers comment at one point about the Hollow Army and so forth. And I was listening to these fellows that just come from these unit commands and I could hear echoes of the 1970s. We're doing a lot of individual training. We were used to run two miles in the morning, we run five. We go to the motor pool a lot and we wipe off the windshield. So we spend a lot of time on the rifle range. You're not getting a lot of the collective training and the joint training, the exercise training and so forth. That's apparently where what's been the decision to take risk and where some of the cuts have been. Your comment about readiness is an art as much as a science. Are you comfortable that you've got a good feeling from your perspective on the committee about trying to get into the details of the weeds about whether or not you can pull apart what readiness really is. You can be very ready at the individual level and not very ready at the unit level and that's not gonna jump out at you at the sea ratings that you're gonna get. So I was just wondering if you are comfortable that the committee has a good handle on exactly how they view these things. I think we do and it's always a continual effort to make sure committee members understand with breadth and scope what readiness is, where a current state of readiness exists and then what do we need to do to build readiness. I do believe folks understand that it is difficult though to look at it at every level and when you look at it and say, hey listen, we're ready at the tactical level at the squad, platoon and company level. We've done our exercises there, we know how to function at that level but if you look at when those individuals are called for, how are they gonna function? They're gonna function at the battalion and brigade level and if you don't train at the brigade level so you can function with other units and if you're gonna be operating jointly with other international forces, if you don't train at that level, we see what happens. Chaos breaks out. In fact, I was in Australia talking to the commander of their navy, great example. We were doing a joint exercise with the Australian Navy. He was livid because his Australian naval officer had to walk out on the deck and use a cell phone to communicate back to the Australian Navy because of the lack of communication between those systems. Now that's the only way you test that out is to have those joint exercises and to train at that level. You don't wanna find that out when you're in the middle of a conflict. So training at that level points out challenges, points out weaknesses, points out places where we need to build capacity and if you don't do that, then you never get to that point and the only time you learn that is the time when you can at least afford to learn that and that's why I'm anxious to go out to the RIMPAC exercise this weekend to look at how all these different forces are interacting, where things are going well, where they're not going well. We're also gonna be interacting with Chinese forces out there in the Pacific. That's gonna be a very interesting thing to observe too to understand how does that interaction take place and what's the feedback from the Chinese and from our forces and from our partner nations out there and how they look at that. So I think having that understanding from readiness in that it's a tactical level readiness but it's also a strategic readiness and how we have that on a continuum and understanding that you may be ready at the small squad level but if you're not ready at the brigade level then you're truly not ready. If I could follow up on that a little bit to take this in a slightly different direction. Because we have optimized our force training in the last 12 or 13 years for the particular conflicts that we have been in, there's a sort of concern about whether we've lost the institutional knowledge about how to do full spectrum or however you wanna characterize it. Really disciplined home station training and at the same time that we've lost the resourcing to do that even if we understood exactly how do we create that or to create it, a new for a broader mission set. Do you, given what you see on the committee and what you've been able to observe out in the field have a sense of how that transition is going when we've got company commanders, platoon leaders, first sergeants who have extremely deep experience but in a narrower band of the operational spectrum then they're gonna be required to do in the future. And one of the elements of this is that sometimes the older crowd who understood that problem set differently in many cases now resides in the private sector. And at the same time that we're trying to get a lot of efficiencies out of cutting contracts and the rest of that. How does that equation seem to you now and how do you think it evolves? Well, I think it's real as we talk about reset you're exactly right. We've been engaged in a ground war now for 10 years. People have extraordinary experience but in a very narrow range of operations. And I can guarantee you that the challenges they face in the future will not be exactly like what they have faced in Iraq and Afghanistan. So the question is how do you make sure you train to develop that capability? And how do you redirect that training and the force capability for that? It doesn't happen quickly but you have to make sure that you're prepared for it by saying okay, as folks come back we're immediately gonna begin to resource that and that's why on the readiness subcommittee I've tried to focus on making sure we have that capability. What we've done in one aspect is to fund two special MAGTAPs to make sure we have that flexibility in SENTCOM and SOUTHCOM to do just those sorts of things. Now it takes a while to get those MAGTAPs trained to get them equipped and to have them capable of pursuing that mission. It's up to us as members of Congress to make sure we continue to push that as we look at resourcing that we emphasize in the policy we direct and the things we appropriate to is to make sure that that training element gets done and also in the reset of the force to make sure too as equipment comes back and as modernization takes place that it's not modernization and upgrading of equipment for today's mission it's upgrading that equipment and modernizing it for the mission we expect to face a year, two years, five years down the road. Now we're never really good at predicting but if we at least try to envision what that may be like and we have flexibility and adaptability and what we are preparing for then at least we're in a better situation than we have been in the past and I don't think we're gonna have a luxury of time whatever breaks out in the future is to say like we did in the Gulf War say well we'll stage in Kuwait for six months and we'll ramp up and we'll get people trained and then boom we'll be ready to go. I just don't see that as the likely scenario so that being said the reset is gonna be critical. Right here. Good morning sir Dave Oaks from the Logistics Management Institute. In the next couple of years do you anticipate any increasing appetite in the Congress for another BRAC round particularly for the publicly owned industrial facilities as we draw down the forces and the budget? Well Dave I can tell you right now there's not an appetite for BRAC and it's not because we don't wanna go through that process which is a difficult one but it's because there's so many other moving parts and if we're gonna get this right we need to finish some things we need to understand where's end strength gonna end up how are we gonna properly resource in the face of sequester in the face of transitioning out of OCO? I wanna make sure we get that right. We're doing an overseas basing evaluation right now. How do we make sure we got overseas basing right? Let's get those things done first before we start to go down the road of a BRAC and if you notice in this year's NDAA we did say no BRAC but we did ask the service branches to identify over capitalization in where they could save money in the next six years. The service branches are saying hey we need that money to be able to reinvest and modernize, let us do a BRAC. We know the last BRAC didn't result in that. 2005 BRAC we don't save money until 2018 so it really wasn't a BRAC it was more just kind of a realignment. I wanna make sure we at least understand up front what are the pieces and what are we considering as to what leads us to a BRAC? As you know before in 2005 the decision was to do a BRAC and then afterwards the evaluation was done about well what will we save and what would a BRAC look like? It was backwards. And what we're saying now is okay give us the information you talk about needing a BRAC you want a BRAC give us the information up front not specifically to the facility but specifically what would you be looking at saving? How quickly could you accrue those savings? So we have some understanding about what really could happen instead of saying oh do a BRAC and then oh gosh now we figured it out that it'll take 10 years to save the money that they thought would be saved in a shorter period of time. So I think we're trying to put now the cart behind the horse instead of in front of the horse. Sure. One of the other commissions that is out there doing its work is the compensation commission and they recently released their interim report which I would very generally characterize as having said the problem may not be as acute as many might characterize it. I'm interested to know A how you view that piece of the puzzle and B what your expectations might be for that commission as it does its work and where it fits into the longer term debates that you're having. Well you know I've had a long term discussion with Chairman Dempsey about compensation and benefits and how do we make sure we are addressing that as part of the cost within DOD but being very mindful that you have to be very careful about how you would change that because if you don't do it properly it severely affects recruitment and retention. So we want to make sure we're looking at it in the proper context. The commission has said as we ramp down in end strength maybe the magnitude of this isn't as much as we believe it to be. I think we need to understand the numbers behind that. I think we also have to understand too going forward that we cannot in any way walk away from our current commitment to men and women that are serving today. So in my mind if you're going to address compensation and benefits and make any changes you would need to be talking about what would the future of compensation and benefits look like. You cannot do that for current force structure. If you do I think it's terribly disruptive. It will affect not only recruitment but retention. I think we have a commitment to those men and women in uniform as they've raised their right hand and swore to uphold and defend the constitution. We have a moral obligation to them to stand behind the benefits that they've earned. I wanna make sure and the compensation that they've earned I wanna make sure we stand behind that. So as we look at the outcome of the commission in its final report I think we need to look at how do we make sure that we are standing by our commitment for the current force? And if there are changes to be made what would that look like for the future force? And how do we make sure too that it doesn't have a negative or deleterious effect on capability, on the individuals that are coming into the military. I mean we have the most skilled force in the history of this nation and it's a volunteer force. And volunteer forces are more expensive to recruit and maintain than a conscripted force. We have to understand that that's the cost of doing business there. The question is, is do we wanna move away from that? I don't think we want to. I think we want that very skilled and capable force and if we're gonna affect compensation and benefits we better be very mindful exactly how we do that and what the impacts might be and we have to stand by those folks that are currently serving. Other questions out there? I'll keep, I think we've got one right here. Natalie Pleva, Austrian Embassy. I do have a rather specific question and it refers to the modernizing of equipment that you mentioned before. Do you see a need or an added value, especially in light of budget constraints when it comes to cooperating strong with foreign companies in order to assure continued innovation meaning the role of maybe foreign technology or technology from abroad? Well that question comes up constantly about how do we integrate foreign technology? You have to be careful about that and how you integrate foreign technology and not have security issues as far as the systems that we developed. A lot of back and forth about even the components of our systems, things as simple as printed circuit boards. If they're made overseas, what impact does that have from a security standpoint about construction of our system? I think that there are opportunities there for us to work with foreign partners. I think though it's very specific about what those foreign partners would bring to the table, how we would utilize what they have, their technology to make sure that it doesn't affect the capability of our systems from a national security standpoint. So I do think it's there, but I think the devil is in the details about how you would partner with those particular companies and then what you're partnering with and the level of complexity in the systems that you're working with them on and then how critical are those systems and how secure is the information that those systems are dealing with? I think those are all critical elements about how we partner with foreign companies. Can I ask the inverse of that question about exporting US equipment and technology? In your mind, this administration has put some effort toward easing some of the existing restrictions on those things. Do you think that has gone far enough, fast enough? What's your view on how we're doing in that regard? Well, I think we're doing better. I can tell you, I've had a number of companies come to me and said, Rob, I can't export over-the-shelf technology where my competitor buys it off the shelf in another nation and can sell it to this company, yet I can't sell it. So I think there's been a closing of the disparity there to where companies now are able to transact more business in that realm. I'm not sure we're quite to the right balance point yet because there's still instances that come up where you look at it and go, where maybe there's too much caution there. And I wanna make sure that we are not giving out technology that we put a lot of effort into and that's critical to our national security, but I wanna make sure too that we're not encumbering our businesses here from transacting in business that they would otherwise, in any other country, be able to transact and that's not purely in the national security interest. I think it's a journey. I think we're still on that journey. I don't think we've reached our destination of that proper balance at this particular point, but I do think that there have been significant strides made. I do think what the State Department looks at in determining or giving their blessing on allowing those transactions to take place has gotten much better. It's gotten much more timely, so these applications aren't sitting out there for months and months on end. People are getting clearer answers than they have in the past so they can determine, well, what is it about this product that makes it something that you won't approve so they can understand maybe how they can tailor that product to be able to actually export it? So I think in those realms, things are going better, but we're still not, I think, where we have that proper balance. Okay. I think we have time for probably two more questions so people are pulling back. Now is the time. We've got one back there. Thank you, sir. Michael McDonald from American Apparel and Footwear Association. I kind of want to get your thoughts on the impact of certain industrial bases and their health have on the art of readiness. Speaking specifically from my industry, we do apparel, footwear, and textiles for the military. We are not at surge capacity as an industrial base. If we are required for a surge, we are going to have to quite literally stop calling them our men and women in the uniform because we won't be able to manufacture enough for all of them. And the general answer I get is all industrial bases are hurting for defense contracting. And while that's true, it's not necessarily a helpful response. And while that entire piece of the pie has been cut by more than half, the piece of the pie that is going to federal prison industries to manufacture uniforms for the army has grown by almost 200%. So the law-abiding citizens that are losing their jobs because the industry is hurting, even more of those jobs are being lost to the prison industries which is exacerbating the problem. And it's going to continue to get worse until there's a solution being made. So while I understand that there's budget constraints, there are solutions that can be made to kind of stifing that and to help support the industries. I kind of want to get your thoughts on that. Absolutely. Well, sustainability of the industrial base I think is critical. And Chairman Thornberry and I have been working vigorously on acquisition reform. How do we make sure that we are fixing the system of acquisition to make sure we understand how those decisions are made that LPTA, low price technically acceptable, isn't the driver. The best value is the driver. And again, best value are life cycle costs and again, sustainability. How do we make sure that it's not just the cheapest to buy now, but how much does it cost to maintain that? If you're buying something that has a low upfront cost, but it costs more to maintain through its life cycle and you actually end up spending more, that's not a good decision. So what we're trying to do is to make sure we get the best value and that also in the decision making that we don't emphasize as much process, but that we emphasize people. And really decision making is an interaction between the industrial base and the customer being the Department of Defense and the acquisition professional. And how do we make sure there's a clear exchange of information so we understand what's the requirement, what's the customer's need, how do you sustain that? What are the life cycle costs there? So when decisions are made, the decisions are made in the best interest of our military, but also in the best interest of the industrial base because sustainability, that industrial base, is critical to making sure that we have the capability and the capacity to meet future needs. So I think acquisition reform is a critical part of that in how we make the decision and how we determine the importance of sustainability, which goes right to your question about making sure the industrial base stays viable. Not just today, but into the future and making sure that that capability is there when we need it and how we need it. If I could add on to that question briefly. When we conducted our analysis of the soldier system, one of our conclusions was that the army in particular did not have a good institutional sense of the health of that industrial base because it's so varied from very highly technical night vision devices to boots and boot laces even and things that are generally perceived of as commercial off the shelf, but to some degree are not necessarily. And that the entire system would benefit from a better understanding of what that industrial base actually is and exactly what its health is. So we would certainly encourage any efforts to get a better feel for that. Well, and we've been trying to emphasize to the development of a professional acquisition community and building that up, they can show that they have the understanding of the critical nature of the industrial base and all the different aspects of it from the smallest to the largest elements of it. I think it's critical going forward and you know, we have through the years had a waning of our acquisitional professional base within the Department of Defense. They are ramping it back up now. The key is to make sure that they develop that understanding and what we've emphasized is to make sure too that they reach back to those folks that have had experience from years past. So they don't have to relearn the lessons of the past so they can actually hear from folks that have gone through this, that have been through these times where decisions have not been made in the best interest of the longterm and learn those lessons rather than have to go through those lessons themselves. But you speak of a very important part of the whole acquisition element and that is understanding all the different parts of the industrial base so we have sustainability. Well, sir, we have, I believe, exhausted our time with you. We know you have a lot going on so we very much appreciate you taking the time to come. We thank you for your leadership on the committee and we wish you luck in your efforts. Well, Dr. Lee, thank you for your leadership. Thank you for CSIS and the great things that you all do in bringing forth these analysis of policy to make sure we're getting defense policy right and to make sure we ask the right questions and consider things outside the normal conventional realm of how we would normally address these issues. So thanks again. Thanks for your leadership. Appreciate it.