 Okay, folks, well, you can tell I always gauge the success of a meeting by the kind of energy in the room and we've got so much energy in the room it's hard to control them I it's got to be you Eric I don't this hour of the day on a Thursday normally people's blood sugar is so low you know they're sleeping rather peacefully through the foreign procession not today it's gonna be great welcome we're glad we're glad you're all here this is a this is a great opportunity for us as we continue the military strategy for them and I do want to say special thanks to our friends at Rolls Royce that are able to make us possible for us to do this for the Washington policy community great pleasure to welcome Eric Olson now this is a I just asked him we'd not met before although I've known him reputation Lee and I assumed any guy with the name Eric Olson who's from Seattle had to either be Norwegian or Swedish and he turns out he's Cherokee okay so I really kind of blew that wide open huh you know it's just so so much my ethnic terror stereotyping he's I should have known however because he's got the reputation for being tougher than a woodpecker's lips and and he's had every command that you can have in the special forces and of course is now at the top and it's a great opportunity for us to have him here thank you thank you and you know this is a this is an important discussion for us to be having as a policy community that thinks about about national security I was up on the hill when the act was created that created program 11 and at the time it was a Hobbesian choice because it was a community that was suffering inside a big military establishment that didn't value it and then the question was how do you promote it you promote it by giving it an independent status and standing but then it created a more structural barriers that we have to work through and I think that's the central question of how do we how do we integrate a force that's out every day far more engaged than normal forces and it has been I think non-stop there but make it part of a whole and we're still working on that and and I this is why I'm so anxious to hear Eric's thoughts this morning and our panelists who are going to share further conversation with us it's a wonderful morning thank you all for coming let me turn it to Ozzie Nelson who's going to do this for real and give you a proper introduction thanks very well welcome everyone my name is Rick Ozzie Nelson and I'm the director of the Homeland Security Encounter terrorism program today I'll be the moderator for the first part of our event which will be Admiral Olson's remarks and then we'll allow the admiral party to depart and then we'll break into the panel which will be hosted by Jim Mikulschevsky Admiral Olson is the eighth commander of special operations command his bio is in front of you I won't read it to you after reading his bio I realized that mine was probably four four sizes too big so now I need to go back and reduce mine if I can capture if you can capture his very prestigious career in such short language I must be able to capture mine but basically he has served in a variety almost every role as a special operator from a staff officer to a peacekeeper to to a direct action individual and he is obviously well respected as and is the first Navy four star seal in the history of the community we were just talking about them beforehand after the Admiral gives his remarks we'll go ahead and go into some questions for the Admiral I'll be the moderator which is me I get the one with a big ruler there are questions and answers not statements and answers so out of respect for the Admiral and his time please limit your remarks to a question and give the Admiral an opportunity to to respond to it and we will have microphones about too so you can answer your question with a microphone but again we are truly honored to have Admiral Olson here and sir I'll go ahead and turn it over to you Martin thank you Ozzie Dr. Hammer thanks for that kind introduction I do claim some Cherokee blood but I also can't deny my Scandinavian roots I am honored to be here with you this morning thank you for being here I relish this opportunity to represent the members of the United States special operations command all that that great force does my remarks today will follow a simple progression I'll begin with an overview of the United States special operations command its functions and its authorities and then I'll talk about SOCOM's role in the current operational environment and finally I'll talk about the future environment and how I see United States special operations command fitting in to what the United States and the United States Department of Defense do in the future at the end of my remarks I do look forward to an informal question-answer period with you I'll be especially eager to discuss what United States special operations command is doing with its its budget and its acquisition authorities my purpose this morning is clearly not to market United States special operations command or special operations forces the people who serve in the operational units are by far the best representatives of the talent and capabilities that this community has to offer I'm more here to educate the United States special operations command and special operations forces are unique within the Department of Defense the roles and missions are unique and and we're unique in how we prepare and present our force to operational commanders around the world who employ them much of this is quite nuanced but I think it's useful for this audience especially to understand it and I don't mean to sound professorial in my presentation this morning at all but I will support any of your requests for college credit what I'm done let me let me begin with a brief history of how United States special operations command came to be and the basic architecture and functions of the command some of you lived through this but it's worth a review this will be a so-called 101 of sorts the Department of Defense activated United States special operations command about 23 years ago in fact we're about three weeks shy of our 23rd birthday April 16th 1987 activated at MacDill Air Force Base Florida where the commander and the staff of United States readiness command were sort of reflavered as United States special operations command the first commander general Jim Lindsay who was on his way to take command of readiness command was renominated and reconfirmed as the first commander of United States special operations command in route the this is established as a result of law the unified combatant command was created as legislated by an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act of 1986 often known as the Nunn Cohen amendment or Cohen Nunn amendment depending on whose secretary of defense at the time as a follow on to the Goldwater Nichols defense off reorganization at Congress mandated that a four-star command be established and demanded that it be a four-star command in order to give it true parity with the other unified combatant commands and that it be established to prepare special operations forces to carry out assigned missions and if directed by the president of the secretary of defense to plan for and conduct special operations title 10 section 167 of United States code defines United States special operations command its authorities and its responsibilities which uniquely combined at certain aspects of the other combatant commands the military departments and certain defense agencies so uniquely United States special operations command does have its own budget authorities and budget responsibilities through major force program as Dr. Hamry described it is major force program 11 in the department of defense budget it is provided separately to the secretary of defense for the purpose of of answering those requirements that are peculiar to special operations in nature and the commander special operations command is the manager and executor of that budget additionally we have our own acquisition authorities so that special operations command can develop and procure and develop means in includes research and development activities and then procure special operations peculiar equipment supplies or services and headquarters is also responsible for the development of special operations doctrine just as military services write their own doctrine and responsible for the training and education of special operations skills and knowledge to rely on the services for service common aspects of that but special operations command again is responsible for the special operations peculiar aspects of training education before September 11th 2001 US OCOM's primary focus was on organizing training and equipping special operations forces and providing forces to support the geographic combatant commanders of the world central command European command Pacific command and the like also supported US ambassadors and their country teams this was steady work kept our operational force employed and deployed about 25 percent of the time in about 25 percent of the force on any given day was outside the United States in support of operational commanders and US ambassadors mostly conducting theater security engagement activities with counterpart forces in several dozen countries at a time and over the course of a typical year would have served in 120 to 140 different countries around the world in 2004 with the force heavily engaged in both Afghanistan and Iraq the secretary of defense and the president expanded the United States special operations command responsibilities and when finally codified as policy US OCOM was assigned as the combatant command responsible for synchronizing the Department of Defense's planning for global operations against violent extremist organized organizations and networks synchronizing was not a doctrinal term at the time synchronizing needed to be defined and so it was defined through the codification process that assigned United States special operations command that authority and it is essentially the responsibility synchronization is arranging in time place and purpose actions for maximum or optimum effect but know that I said we synchronize planning we don't synchronize operations the operations themselves are synchronized by the operational commanders to have responsibility for the outcome of the operations and in that case we are clearly in a supporting role and we are a force provider the geographic combatant commanders each have a sub unified special operations command known as a theater special operations command or Tsock through which they generally exercise their operational command their operational authorities these theater special operations commands are themselves commanded by one or two star special operations admirals or generals who work for that geographic combatant commander supported by our headquarters at United States special operations command and with baseball season just over the horizon the analogy is that these theater special operations commands are the catcher's mitts into which United States special operations command pitches are deployed force they then receive and employ the force on behalf of their geographic combatant commander bosses so as a synchronizing United States special operations command reviews receives reviews coordinates and prioritizes department of defense plans that support the global campaign against terrorists and their networks and then we make recommendations to the joint staff and the office of the Secretary of Defense regarding force and resource allocations to meet global requirements this is in response to the demands presented by the geographic combatant commanders and then in 2008 United States special operations command was further designated as the Department of Defense proponent for security force assistance and proponent is another term without a clear definition the authorities of proponency are in fact conveyed in whatever mechanism assigns one as a proponent but so com responsibilities in this role are similar to our responsibilities for synchronizing the planning against violent extremist networks we assist policymakers in deciding which potential partner nations the United States military ought to work with in what priority and in what manner and then through a staffing process carefully in conjunction with United States joint forces command we receive requests for us for assistance forces from geographic combatant commanders and make recommendations to the joint staff regarding which special operations forces which general purpose forces or which combination of forces are most appropriate for a particular security force assistance mission this is and will continue to be a very collaborative effort in which we advocate and support department policies and direct coordination with our interagency partners primarily with State Department but also with USAID Treasury and justice and many others and security force assistance is emerging as a more powerful term it is he it is becoming a more coherent path through which our nation can better work with international friends and partners is bringing together many disparate uncoordinated efforts under a under a single umbrella so where generally does the United States special operations command fit into United States strategy the most recent revision of the national defense strategy includes the need to strengthen current alliances and build new partnerships to defeat global terrorism and prevent attacks against us our allies and our friends it includes the need to prevent our enemies from acquiring and using weapons of mass destruction it includes the need to work with others to help diffuse regional conflicts and the need to transform national security institutions to face the challenges of the 21st century the national defense strategy also describes the strategic environment for the foreseeable future although foreseeable future is a term that I view as oxymoronic as a as a global struggle against violent extremist ideology that seeks to overturn or overrun the international state system it goes further suggesting that beyond this transnational struggle we will face other threats including a variety of irregular challenges quest by rogue states to acquire nuclear weapons and the rising military powers of other nation states success in dealing with these threats will require the orchestration of national and international power over years and decades to come and this will have to be done in an unprecedented way United States special operations commands piece of the defense pie lies primarily in our global responsibilities to provide trained and ready special operations forces to synchronize department of defense planning against violent extremist organizations and to serve as department of defense's proponent for security force assistance in order to do this it's responsibility of United States special operations command to transcend the boundaries of the geographic combatant commanders before I get into more into discussing what so-called does in the current operating environment I do need to touch on what special operations activities are there are currently 12 activities that are specifically assigned to United States special operations command these are most of them are included in the original legislation that establishes they are defined as core special operations activities in so far as they relate to special operations forces this does not give special operations command ownership of any of these activity areas but it does mean that within each of these act area activity areas there are tasks that are peculiar to special operations in nature and therefore our responsibility to prepare a force to conduct these 12 tasks I'll just read through them briefly their direct action counter terrorism counter proliferation of weapons of mass destruction unconventional warfare for an internal defense security force assistance civil military operations psychological operations information operations counter insurgency special reconnaissance and the catch all other activities as may be specified by the secretary of defense or the president so there's a few obvious ones in there such as direct action and counter terrorism these are clearly bread and butter activities within the special operations community but there's also a few that are more nuanced and I'll just talk about a couple of them because they and your understanding of them are important to our current operations first is unconventional warfare this is often misunderstood as the opposite of conventional warfare it's not unconventional warfare really is a doctrinally defined set of activities that essentially is stimulating and supporting insurgents when there is a government that is considered illegitimate or hostile that is challenged by by a force then supporting that force is unconventional warfare and this was the case in Afghanistan in the opening weeks of operation and during and freedom where there was a relatively mature but relatively incapable force in opposition to the illegitimate hostile Taliban government in place at the time that was predominantly the northern alliance but it was partnered with other forces within Afghanistan and the insertion of a relative handful of 12 men operational detachments alpha green beret a teams then supported and stimulated that northern alliance force and the other anti-Taliban forces in Afghanistan in an unconventional warfare campaign that ultimately led to the Afghans themselves evicting the Taliban from Kabul so unconventional warfare is is essentially the flip side of counterinsurgency and now that there is a legitimate government in place in Afghanistan supported by the United States and challenged by an al-Qaeda supported Taliban insurgency we've transitioned from unconventional warfare to counterinsurgency as an activity in in Afghanistan this counterinsurgency as as conducted by the United States is primarily through the conduct of foreign internal defense and security force assistance activities so these include all actions intended to enable Afghan sovereignty and the protection of the Afghan peoples so one can make the case that al-Qaeda is now the unconventional warfare force stimulating and supporting the Taliban in its challenge against the government that they consider to be hostile to them the last core activity that I'll highlight here psychological operations again a broadly misunderstood term it may stir up in certain audiences images of mind control or brainwashing I call it truth-telling for a purpose the truth as a matter of law and as a matter of policy and for the purpose of influencing a foreign audience in a manner that is helpful to mission success and generally and most often for mutually beneficial purposes it does involve the distribution of information to serve again primarily mutually beneficial purposes including those intended to demoralize our enemies so it's a that's a bit about so-coms roles and missions I'll get more into that during the question-and-answer period if you want me to now I'll get into how we do some of what we do so com has responsibility to synchronize a planning to defeat violent extremist organizations and networks these net organizations could be radical Islamic groups they could be narco terrorist networks and other non-state actors who threaten the United States the Department of Defense campaign strategy against terrorism is contained in concept plan 7500 this is 750 pages long it's top secret in classification but in a brief and unclassified manner I can tell you that it is the Department of Defense plan crafted by United States special operations command first approved by Secretary Rumsfeld and then by Secretary of Gates so it became the Department of Defense con plan it it has authority within the Department of Defense it is a guiding plan as it affects other combatant commanders and the military services but it's a supporting plan in the interagency environment for combating violent extremist organizations and it supported by regional plans crafted by each of the geographic combatant commanders around the world it does provide the framework for two fundamental approaches to defeat our adversaries we call them the direct approach and the indirect approach these are terms that are making their way into the common lexicon while the direct approach focuses on isolating the enemy threats and then taking military actions against them the indirect approach focuses on shaping and influencing the environment to eliminate local support to or tolerance of terrorists and their activities so these approaches are independent they cannot be isolated from each other they are certainly not mutually exclusive and both are necessary to form the balanced whole the direct approach as you would suspect consists of those efforts to directly disrupt violent extremist organizations this is capturing killing interdicting and otherwise destroying terrorists their facilities their organizations and their networks in order to prevent them from harming harming us in the near term it also denies access to and use of weapons of mass destruction by violent extremist organizations some of whom have clearly expressed their intent to acquire and use them against us these operations are conducted almost exclusively by military forces do d is in the lead for the United States on the direct approach it's urgent it's necessary it's chaotic it's kinetic and the effects are almost always near term and short-lived well the direct approach is required to mitigate immediate threats the overall effects of the direct approach are not decisive the direct approach is a holding action that buys time and space for the indirect approach to achieve its long-term results decisive results come from the indirect approach in which we enable partners to violent to combat violent extremist organizations by contributing to their capabilities through advising training equipping or otherwise supporting their efforts it includes efforts to increase other governments willingness or improve their capabilities to remove terrorist sanctuaries from their territories and includes military support to activities intended to erode the underlying causes the underlying factors of that contribute to to terrorist activity in the first place the the basic conditions of economic depression religious extremism intimidation and more so stabilizing the environment impacts the enemy in the long term it is the concept of draining the alligators I'm sorry draining the swamp rather than attempting to capture or kill all the alligators so although the direct and indirect approaches are fairly easy to define in theory they are often difficult to distinguish in practice it is a careful balance that is required and often in intertwining people units and capabilities cannot be categorized as either direct or indirect some of the activities that they conduct can be categorized as direct or indirect but only at the time that those activities are occurring and often they occur simultaneously the military is in the lead on the direct approach as I said in the direct in the indirect approach the United States military is to a large degree pushing from behind it's not our responsibility to lead the indirect approach but admittedly much of the capability at least in the United States government to conduct these kinds of activities the mass and the money reside within the Department of Defense there's a balance between the two that again that has to be carefully executed and this is where you will find the core of special operations and in the balance of effective direct and indirect operations the combination of high and high technology enabled tactical skills and the understanding of the operational context of their application a good example of this is what occurs in most days in both Iraq and Afghanistan training with the Afghan National Army Afghan National Police Afghan Army commandos the Iraqi special operations forces at a very high level training eating living planning fighting with them when when the counterpart forces fight with us in support it looks like the direct approach they look like us they move like us they shoot like us through night vision video it's difficult to tell them apart from us it looks very much like the direct approach when they burst into a room in the middle of the night to put the habeas grab us on the bad guys separate the the good from the bad the ultimate effect of this ultimately though is enabling partners to combat violent extremist organizations themselves so that we can leave and they can control their own destiny that intertwining happens several times a night in several places across Iraq and Afghanistan it consumes most of our special operations force that we provide on any given day whether it's in Baghdad or Anbar or Marjah or Farah another example from Afghanistan comes from special forces teams living in remote camps well apart from any other military force their purposes to understand the local environment steep themselves in it and contribute to local security by identifying and supporting the tribal and village leaders who are willing to take action against the Taliban support in this case in this case comes mostly in the form of schools wells bridges and other development projects as rewards for anti Taliban activities in these villages and as you can imagine this is very sensitive it's quite dangerous and it's being done every day by special operations troops in their 20s and 30s our nation's special operations forces are also at work applying the indirect approach elsewhere around the world we are typically in 75 to 80 countries on any given day mostly conducting unit to unit engagements and training events these operations involve the special forces a team a seal platoon marine special operations team Air Force combat aviation advisors often working in remote places with a relative handful of counterparts and for many of the partner nation units this is the most prestigious training that they will get all year and it leads to some very important relationships we do many civil affairs operations during which our forces work with local leaders and us a id whenever and wherever possible to determine which schools need to be painted and where schools and where wells ought to be dug or what else will bring value to our presence we normally contract with local people to do the work so everybody wins but the key to success in this balanced approach is persistence building partnerships is key and it requires a fostering of long term military to military relationships and ideally these military relationships will survive the temporary vagaries of politics the decisive effects of our nation's persistent engagement with partners around the world can be clearly in places like the Republic of the Philippines where for over five years special operations forces have been advising and assisting that nation's armed forces in their successful campaign against radical Islamic insurgents who are linked to al-qaeda in their southern islands even more pronounced are the effects of our nation's persistent partnership and military engagement in support of columbian forces where for over 10 years us special operations forces have been advising and assisting the armed forces of columbia in their fight against the leftist FARC in recent years the columbian armed forces have dealt serious blows to that organization and as you all know in about a year and a half ago it culminated in the dramatic rescue of us and columbian hostages the significance of that operation is that it was planned led and conducted by the columbians themselves columbians who had trained with and among united states special operations forces for several years it's a testament to the time and the resources and the efforts that our nation is committed to enhancing their capacity over the last decade in order to best train our people and put the people in the right place at the right time we do need to have an understanding of our current and future operational environments the united states special operations command headquarters has developed a way of thinking about the future world we don't pretend that this is an estimate or a forecast simply a way of thinking about it it's based on trends and connections that we see emerging a prioritization of those which ones are positive that ought to be encouraged which ones are negative that ought to be challenged in some way we see an increasing globalization complexity and chaos emerging from from this thought model there's an increasing demand for natural resources beyond oil that's driving people to move and and to compete within the regions or around the globe regional economies and societies and cultures are becoming increasingly intertwined by the growing global networks of communication and finance and trade the nature of the geostrategic environment is clearly changing until the end of the cold war the bipolar nature of the strategic environment allowed nation states to effectively hold global friction points to a manageable level the security environment was actually less complex but national economies were also less intertwined and and less interdependent and more importantly nation states themselves exerted control over information that equated to a primacy of influence over their populations but today the strategic environment can no longer be viewed in the pure westphalian model of nation states although that model will endure as a model of international order for some time to come rather the international complexity now has supranational and national and non-state actors competing for strategic influence and access across the globe the the friction produced by the interaction of three dominant factors these being transnational crime violent extremism and significant migration are driving much of the way the world behaves and and these have become dominant global factors the internal controls of nation states have eroded and sovereignty ain't what it used to be territorial sovereignty can still be defined and defended to a great degree but economic sovereignty informational sovereignty and cultural sovereignty are under continuous challenge in areas where governments are not able to wield great influence over their people or support their basic needs non-state alternatives are likely to emerge individuals may identify less with the state and in some cases return to historical and enduring affinities of tribal alliances natural terrain boundaries and familiar cultural norms they may accept substitute governments that provide structure and process with intolerable limits and the legitimate government then becomes less relevant in these places and the non-state actor then gains local dominance this is generally a destabilizing factor where it occurs and it's an opportunity for crime and extremism to take root United States special operations command deliberately leans forward to ensure that proper resources and tools are being applied in these regions we call it moving ahead of the sound of guns as as proud as we are of our ability to respond quickly to gunfire when it occurs we are at least as proud of our ability to move ahead of the sound of guns in order to prevent that sound ultimately from occurring in in places that are at risk again last week United States special operations command forces were present in 79 countries around the world to the tune of about 12,000 people not surprisingly about 10,086 percent of special operations forces deployed from the united states were deployed into the u.s central command area of responsibilities that's where the most urgent demand is but while we were deployed to dozens of countries around the world we were in direct combat in only two of them iraq and afghanistan we were at risk in perhaps a half a dozen others so who actually does this i'll talk about that for just a minute special operations force is now total over 58 thousand people about 52,000 of them are in uniform and except for a couple of thousand at us socom headquarters the force resides primarily within four service components us army special operations command navy special warfare command air force special operations command and marine corps forces special operations command and in one subunified joint command the joint special operations command slightly more than half of the total force is in the army component and the total force includes many of the forces that you would expect and are aware of the army special forces of the green berets army rangers in the 75th range of regiment helicopter air crews rotary wing aviators in the 160th special operations aviation regiment the night stalkers active duty civil affairs and active duty psychological operations practitioners are under the command of special operations command when they are in the united states air force fixed wing air crews largely flying the variants of the venerable c-130 hercules platform but getting more and more into smaller platforms including the tilt rotor cv-22 variant of the special operations variant of the osprey air traffic controllers who can operate independently in remote areas and and para rescue medic para rescue medics from the air force navy seals combatant craft crewmen and many submarine operators and marine corps rain assault forces and foreign training specialists and then all of the vehicles and airplanes and helicopters and boats and logistic support and intelligence experts and administrative specialists and in and technicians and instructors and strategists who support that force are within the united states special operations command there's a plethora of other disciplines that give the force its capability and its sustainability about four fifths of our force is active duty with about one fifth in the guard or reserve this is a significant shift from five years ago we were about about one third in the reserve component as opposed to the one fifth that we are now about two-thirds of our force is non career special operations forces meaning that they serve in the special operations community for an assignment or two over the course of their careers about one third is the soft careerists those who volunteer are selected who go through a training program that typically has an attrition rate associated with it and then who earn a MOS a military occupational specialty that that assigns them to the special operations forces for for most of their careers our operators average close to 30 years old this is significantly older than general purpose force units they're about 70 percent married and they are doing what it is they came in to do about half of our force has come in since 9-1-1 and they are doing what they expected to do at the heart of everything united states special operations commandos is the special operations warrior these are real people who go forth and conduct the difficult and dangerous missions that this nation asks them to do to solve the complex problems to endure the challenges that make our strategies work the complexity of the operating environment requires that special operations forces be of the highest quality that they maintain the highest levels of war fighting expertise but also that they understand where they are that they have knowledge of the regional the sub regional micro regional environments in which they work too often special operations are thought of as unilateral high-risk one-shot deals there are many times of course when that is the case but what's truly special about special operations is the ability to work with and through others in pursuit of mutually beneficial outcomes to unusually complex situations and fundamental to this effort is our recognition that humans are more important than hardware and that quality is more important than quantity in special operations forces we believe that substance trumps theatrics that knowledge trumps doctrine that finesse trumps mass and that presence without value is perceived as occupation it is important to be able to accurately predict the effects of our behavior in the unchanging context of geography culture and history of the places we go to do this requires understanding that we simply don't have and we in the special operations forces do pride ourselves on being somewhat more qualified with respect to languages and cultures and regional expertise than than the broader military forces but we remain under qualified in many key languages and dialects and under educated in many key areas we continue to expand these programs we continually stress the need for a few individuals to be thoroughly steeped in other languages and other regions we've collectively termed these projects and programs Project Lawrence inspired of course by T. E. Lawrence of Arabia who's an imperfect model but one who does convey a sense of the value of local expertise this is intended to produce individual regional expertise in a way that simply doesn't exist now so that we can gain and sustain a credible persistent approach in in these regions these initiatives include an exploration of innovative options to permit specialization without sacrificing promotion opportunities or retention and this is a cultural challenge within our own military and as important as retention is to maintain our investment in people recruitment is equally important we do seek the right people for the right jobs we hire the best people we can for the jobs that we assign them to do one example of this is an initiative currently primarily within the army it was stimulated by a request by special operations command it was supported strongly by the secretary of the army it was approved by secretary of defense in november of 2008 and it was implemented just over a year ago in february 2009 this is an initiative known as MAVNI military sessions vital to the national interest and under this program visa holders not citizens not green card holders but visa holders who are in the united states for a period of of two years are eligible to enlist in the united states army there is a vibrant blog on this a number of visa holders in the united states are communicating with each other about the advantages and disadvantages advantages of enlisting the united states military but the response has been tremendous and 14 000 people have filled out the form that indicates an interest in enlisting the army 4 000 of these indicated an interest in serving in or in support of special operations forces over 800 are now have now enlisted in the united states army 172 are under orders to the special operations community 81 have already reported for duty all of them speak english as a second or third or fourth language 82 percent of them have at least an associate's degree one third of the master's degrees that enlisted into the united states army last year enlisted through the MAVNI program so if i sound excited about this i am it is uh it is one that we continue to support and consider ourselves primary to be of primary benefit to us we do recognize that the non-military and non-government sectors of american society as well contain specific areas of expertise that are essential to progress in the military campaigns in this new normal from anthropologists to x-ray technicians we do have to embrace disciplines and knowledge outside of traditional military fields we need to find ways to bring this into our world the concepts behind balancing direct and indirect approaches and what amounts to or what some describe as a global counterinsurgency effort are not new to how we conduct irregular warfare in in many ways the cold war was the aberration and this is back to more traditional forms of warfare i'll i'll quote pure military skill is not enough a full spectrum of military paramilitary and civil action must be blended to produce success the enemy uses economic and political warfare propaganda and naked military aggression in an endless combination to oppose a free choice of government and suppress the rights of the individual by terror by subversion and by force of arms to win this struggle our officers and men must understand and combine the political economic and civil actions with skilled military efforts in the execution of this mission i'm quoting president john f kennedy in his forward to a 1962 united states army manual on special warfare special warfare being the community that ultimately evolved into the joint special operations community that i now serve pure military skill will not be enough while the ability to conduct high end direct action activities will always remain urgent and necessary and the highest end most technology enabled man hunting and thing hunting operations are conducted by special operations forces we acknowledge that it is the indirect actions that will have the most decisive and enduring effects the balance and intertwining of direct and indirect are key and so now i'll quote sun sue there are not more than five primary colors blue yellow red white and black yet in combination they produce more hues than can ever be seen there are not more than five cardinal tastes sour acrid salt sweet and bitter yet combinations of them yield more flavors than can ever be tasted in battle there are not there are not more than two methods of attack the direct and the indirect yet these two in combination give rise to an endless series of maneuvers the direct and indirect lead on to each other in turn it is like moving in a circle you never come to an end who can exhaust the possibilities of their combination and that is the business and the beauty of special operations forces i am ready for your questions i'll say up front that i won't provide any meaningful detail on specific operations that are being conducted under a geographic combatant commander's authority but i'm happy to talk about just about anything else you would like to address thank you very much