 Let me just take a moment to introduce our panelists. I'll do that very briefly and not to the extent that they deserve. I think I was counting, and I believe there's about 100 years or so of expertise sitting up on the stage with me. I'm not going to tell you how it's distributed among them, but there's a whole lot of knowledge. And I'm honored to be here with General George Flynn, the commander of Marine Corps Combat Development Command, graduate of the Naval Academy, commanded at all kinds of different units, including multiple assignments in training and education for the Marine Corps, at Special Operations Command, the deputy commanding general in Iraq, and I think Lao largely responsible for the thinkers and innovators as well as the fighters and a little bit of penny pinching and whatever the other one was as well down at McSiddic. To his right is Dakota Wood, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, retired Marine Lieutenant Colonel, also a big thinker who has worked in opposite net assessment among other places, and a sort of outside of the box thinker on a lot of Marine Corps issues. And to my left is Creighton Green, a 20-year professional staff member on the Senate Armed Services Committee, responsible for aviation accounts, for Navy shipbuilding accounts, intelligence accounts, and I think the rest of the defense budget as well. Just about everything. He's the lone representative of the Army as an Army Reservist, an entire Army Reservist. So we've got the ground forces represented up here and prior to that, spent some time at the opposite management budget as well. So again, a great deal of expertise and we're looking forward to your reflections on what theater access might mean. Some of the, I believe you got a number of questions kicked to you by our Secretary of Work, so maybe you can take the rest of our time talking about those. And the other two can give us a little, so we'll start with you and. Oh, first of all, I was the individual that Secretary of Work was referring to throughout his talk as the one that answers your questions. So I will be one of the leaders of the force structure review group. I am responsible for developing the ground combat tactical vehicle strategy. And I think there's a couple other things that I'm supposed to be doing. But as I prepared for this panel today and I read the letter of invitation and said, I took away my understanding is that the basic question was being asked is why a Marine Corps? And I think that's what we were circling around trying to answer today. I think that can be found in a number of places. We talked about Iraq and Afghanistan, just what the Marine Corps has been doing since 2001. But that should never be what defines the Marine Corps. That is just one aspect of what we bring to the table. How many of you realize in the room that this past month over, we've had over about 20,000 Marines in Afghanistan that we had 10,000 Marines at sea? I mean, how many people realize that we never gave away the sea-based mission when we've been talking about being this second land-based army? It's part of doing windows. It's part of being adaptable and flexible and that is what we do. So what have we been doing since 2001? Well, you know we've been in Iraq and Afghanistan. You know we've been fighting the counter-insurgency fight. But we've also been engaged in numerous places around the world. We've been doing Africa partnership stations. We've been out there engaged in the Pacific doing numerous operations with our friends and allies. We've been in Latin America doing the same things. We've responded to crisis. We evacuated 14,000 American citizens from Lebanon from operating from the sea. We also did an evacuation in Liberia. That was also with the same force that, again, was from time to time being deployed to Iran, to Iraq and Afghanistan. Other issues, humanitarian assistance, the disaster relief. We played a significant role in the response recently to Haiti. But what force was that done with? Well, it was done with an expeditionary unit that had just returned from combat and was on its post-deployment leave and was re-aggregated and sent to Haiti. That was augmented by the expeditionary unit that was on its way to combat. And it was augmented by another ship that was going to do an Africa partnership station. So here you have a multi-purpose force that has really proven its utility. And we also did power projection. Task Force 58 was talked about. That was doing power projection from a sea base 400 miles inland. People used to say during a Gulf War that we would never go 400 miles inland from a sea base. Guess what? We did. And we did it well. The majority of these, again, are being done from a sea base and they're being done with that same multi-purpose force that clearly is multi-capable. If you want to know why I'm Marine Corps, I guess Mr. Work brought it up. You need to read the book first to fight because we truly are those people that he talks about. We are, in fact, the thinkers. You may not think we are. We are the innovators. You may not think we innovate. We are the improvisers. We are penny pinches. And Mr. Work, we never steal anything from the Army. It's borrowed. So we'll give that back. And we truly are the fighters. But this is more than the Marine Mystique, all right? And you'll never understand the Marine Mystique unless you are a Marine. But this is what we are. So the thinkers, are we thinking now? I'd like to think that we are. We just published our Marine Corps operating concepts. We just worked with the Navy and published the naval operating concepts. And tell me that's not thinking about the future if you've taken the time to read that. Innovation in terms of equipment. You know, we're thinking and we're getting real close now to deploying a cargo UAS. On the lower end, we like dogs. We're being innovative in the deployment of dogs. Our IED detector dogs are some of the best sensors out there to find IEDs. You know, that was an innovative program that started in our war fighting lab and is now adding capability to our forces. The MV-22, people said it wouldn't make a difference. It's making a tremendous difference on the battlefield. Enhanced MAGTF operations, which has their origins in enhanced company operations. Where we have young platoon commanders now that operate 40 to 50 miles away from their company headquarters. All right, that is innovative. And what does that mean? We're doing company level intel and company level operations. But what does that mean to the expeditionary forces as a whole? Working with the Navy, the maritime preposition force that has just been changed by the addition of the TAKE and the MLP. Who would have thought that this past January, we could do at sea transfer 300 miles off the coast of Tampa, Tampa multiple times at M1 tank from a large ship to a smaller ship that we could land via connector to the base. That is the spirit of innovation and conceptualizing. We're also thinking about the future. And we are thinking, part of that is you need to know what the future is gonna look like. And we do understand that the future that we face is gonna be complex and it's gonna be uncertain. General Scales once said that we're never gonna get the future 100% right. We just can't afford to be 100% wrong and we are looking around the corner. We're trying to figure out what is gonna be the surprise and we're trying to prevent that. So we know that we're gonna have to be improvising because the enemy we face is gonna be empowered by the democratization of technology. It's gonna be complicated by state and non-state actors that are gonna require at the low end of conflict the same capabilities that we would require at the high end of capability to protect our interests around the globe wherever they may be threatened. And again, I would tell you that we also have to do this and this is where the penny pension comes in. We're gonna have to do this in a fiscally challenged environment or a fiscally informed environment and I'm not a programmer at heart so please don't ask me any budget questions. All right, I'm the fighter, okay? So based on all the above where did the fighters come in and all of this? Well for the Marine Corps to be relevant we must bring to the joint warfighting joint warfighter to get the following. We must have the ability to engage, to conduct combat operations, to do security and to do relief and reconstruction. All right, where did I get that from? That comes from the capstone concept for joint operations. It tells, that's just the guidance that I've been given as the force developer to create a force that can do all of that and can transition easily to it. The good news is your Marines are doing it right now. We are fighting the three block war and we are living in the neighborhood. All right, at the same time. We have young Marines out there who are engaged in combat. They're training their replacements, the local security forces and they're enabling the government to take place. Okay, accordingly then I see that the two key roles of the Marine Corps in the future is to be a sea-based crisis response force, if you will, the nation's 9-1-1 force. That is what we traditionally have been called upon to do since the end of World War II. That should be how we're trying to define the Marine Corps and it should be as a sea-based force. We in the Marine Corps working with the Navy, you know, use the sea as maneuver space. The sea gives us maneuver capability. It gives us the ability to go where people do not expect us to come from. The sea is also our operating base. We would like to keep as many of our war fighting functions at sea to minimize our force protection requirements, as sure. So we are very comfortable with thinking about the future and thinking what we're gonna have to do. And we're gonna be able to do that by being that the nation's 9-1-1 force, we're gonna be the force that enables joint access. And I think Mr. Work covered that pretty well, is that's what we do is we're an enabling force for joint action. And when you think about the Marine Corps, think that we're unique among all the services only because we don't own a single domain, all right? We operate across multiple domains, but we're not the domain dominors. We don't dominate a specific domain, but we're specifically tasked organized to be that engagement, that response force, and that force that assists and prevailing to be a contributor to each of those domains. But what we do in our crisis response role and in our engagement role is that we enable the other leaders of the domains to take hold. So I'd summarize this by saying the nation's force that will engage all the time, right? To be forward presence from a sea base. And by engagement, you prevent conflict. And I'll tell you, it's a lot cheaper if you prevent conflict than having to fight conflict. So think of the Marine Corps as your engagement force from the sea base. Globally deployed, making friends, creating those relationships that will enable access in a time of crisis, will be the response force. When American interests need to be defended or citizens defended will be forward deployed and forward positioned to provide that. And when we need to prevail in conflict, will be the force that projects power that enables the joint force to have the access they need to accomplish the mission. And all of this will be based on one core fact that the strength of the Marine Corps will remain the strength of the individual Marine and the capability that it brings to the fight. And that's it. Thanks to Dr. Hamry, I believe he's here for giving this thing started in the series and for you, Dr. Weep, allowing me to participate. Also, thanks to my fellow panelists for allowing me to join their number and I look forward to their insights and the conversation we'll have. I'd just like to tee up a short list of issues for a consideration that I think will impact the Marine Corps in fairly profound ways in the next several years. To start with, and Mr. Work has already addressed several of these, the growing weight of Marine Corps units. In my view, the very limited number of amphibious ships available with which to conduct operations, spiraling cost of major acquisition programs, the escalating cost of manpower, especially considering the cost of the all volunteer force and what that implies in future years. An out of control federal deficit, which I'm sure Mr. Green will be able to talk to more authoritatively. A flat national economy with a strong potential for continued perturbations and difficulties in the years ahead. A lean future defense budgets that can't help but emerge from the preceding two issues and the impact of a decade of continuous combat operations on both personnel and equipment. I have little doubt that many, if not all of these will come up under question and answer session. I'll be interested to hear your comments and observations as well as those of my fellow panelists. With regard to warfare, the current Corps, the Marine Corps is the most combat-experienced Marine Corps since Vietnam. With regard to lean budgets, however, the current Corps is the least experienced Marine Corps since probably the Carter years. And there's a huge disconnect between those two that the Marine Corps is currently grappling with. I find it interesting to note also that the vast majority of Marines now serving have known nothing but ample resources and sustained operations ashore. And only the most senior and experienced Marines such as General Flynn next to me have known otherwise. And it really falls to these very senior individuals who've known other times to assess the implications for the service and to guide its efforts to reconcile that. The great challenge then for the Marine Corps today is to reconcile these conflicting issues so the service is prepared institutionally, operationally, conceptually, organizationally, and especially financially for the next decade or two to come. I think that currently there's a substantial gulf between the Corps envisioned in the service as conceptual documents, which I think are very good. Vince Goulding and Doug King working for General Flynn have done some phenomenal work with enhancement of warfare, enhanced company operations, bank top operations, et cetera. But there's a disconnect between the Corps envisioned in those documents, the Corps that the service is pursuing programmatically, and the Corps that it's likely feasible in the future year defense program. A great risk of being overly dramatic, but I just couldn't help it. It came to mind that Dickens classic opening line at a table of two cities, it was the best of times, it was the worst of times. But in that opening line, it goes on to say it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the spring of hope, and it was the winter of despair. And I'm afraid that in many areas these days across the services, and the Defense Department were seeing too much of the latter in these couplets and not enough of the former. For the Corps, it truly is the best of times and the worst of times. It's arguably, as Mr. Work has already said, that it's very best in tactical excellence and combat experience and in operational maturity. But it's also encumbered by a program that I believe is fiscally untenable. It has a sister service whose priorities seem to lie everywhere, but in amphibious warfare. And there's the very real possibility that the service will see a retrenchment in in-strength to pre-911 numbers, if not very much lower. I think that the incoming comment on General Amos certainly has worked cut out for him, but I think it's also been a very long time since the Corps has had such a capable team at the most senior levels as it currently has, and they will be able to support the comment out in dealing with these challenges. So I wish him the very best of luck and have the highest hopes for his success. Again, thanks for this opportunity, and I look forward to listening to General Flynn answer all the questions that will come his way. I think you just laid a few more on the table for him too. Craig, if you wanna talk about the congressional perspective on some of these issues, that'd be great. Well, first of all, I have to issue a disclaimer. I don't speak for the committee. I don't speak for any of the senators, and I barely speak for myself on most occasions. So let me qualify this as just my own personal views on things. I think one of the things that the Congress provides, and I'm not the first to use this metaphor, but Congress is sort of the board of directors, and they've watched relative changes in emphasis within the department, within different administrations. I think you're all well familiar with the current emphasis on cyber warfare, changes of the executive branch to accommodate soft power, the term not uncommon to all of you, I'm sure. Focus on irregular warfare and focusing on anti-access capabilities of potential foes. We run the risk sometimes of veering from side to side in the road in search of the latest term of art relative to emphasis within the national security establishment. I recall with some pain the late 70s when the department and the administration were focused on NATO. We ended up with a preposition brigade in Norway that some of you are familiar with. Now, while I'm sure that scared the hell out of the Warsaw Pact, a brigade in NATO, it's not clear that it had a lot of, and it certainly provided support and comfort to our allies in NATO. I'm not sure that it would have had a sort of a definitive impact on the LAN campaign in the full of the gap. I also remember during those times worrying about torturing every piece of analysis to show how every dollar within the Navy, Army, Air Force budget contributed to NATO. Those times were not particularly pleasant, and I hope that we don't once again lose our focus on what are the sort of the continuing precepts upon which we buy a department of the Navy or a Marine Corps. Frankly, I think the general view among the board of directors as I've been able to observe it is that if we didn't have a Marine Corps, we'd have to invent one. So if you're talking about sort of the longer term view on things, sort of the existential threat to a Marine Corps, frankly, I don't see it being there. What probably is lost on many people but is not lost on members. Members typically, we have some new members on the committee, we have new members in the Senate and House all the time, but a lot of the members have been around a long time and they take a different, slightly different perspective. Some of our senior members on the committee have actually been around since those days of the sort of the predominant preoccupation with whether a defense dollar contributed to NATO or not. Senator Levin, who's chairman of the committee, came to the Senate during the late 70s, for instance. But I think the fact that many of them have been around for a while gives them the opportunity to develop a longer perspective. They don't have to worry about being commandant or CNO or Chief of Staff of the Army to make a difference in their four or six year tenure as the case may be. So while they are influenced by a political environment and the financial environment which we find ourselves in, they remember, or they remember enough of history to remember that we started out worrying about pirates. We're still worrying about pirates. Some things continue. We started out worrying about turmoil in Latin America. We still are worried about turmoil in Latin America. We started out worrying about trade security. Remember, we had some of our ships stopped under a little unpleasantness in 1812, led up to 1812. We still have concerns about trade security, trade access. So I think you need to think of Congress's look, typically, while there may be individual battles over EFV or V-22, for those of you who don't remember, Congress kept that program alive when the administration wanted to kill it. You probably don't remember that, do you? No? Okay. Tough audience, sorry. Well, let me tell you, just as a former Army officer, we did not appreciate the scrounging. Okay, that's all right. But the members are typically going to take a longer term view of this, of any particular situation. They saw in the early 90s that the Marine Corps needed to modernize its medium lift fleet. They didn't see a particularly attractive alternative otherwise, despite a co-eA that said it's only marginally better, they didn't take that view. For those of you who remember what co-eAs are, the cost and operational effectiveness analysis, the AOAs of their days. So the Congress is typically, I think, going to take a longer term view. I think the issue de jure is whether or not, as it was raised by a question, about EFV. What are we going to do about EFV? Well, Congress hasn't been asked to take any position on EFV other than support the restructure of the program after the non-McCurdy. Congress supported that restructuring and continues. Congress hasn't been presented with an alternative which may be portended or foretold, perhaps by some of Secretary Gates' comments about EFV and how expensive it is. So I think the members of Congress are gonna make a decision or come to a conclusion based on whatever analysis is put forward that you all can get past the Secretary of Defense. And so I think that's sort of the perspective on which Congress is going to typically view things. The budget situation, Congress has been very forthcoming with resources and will be that way anytime troops are in the field engage in combat. I don't think any member of Congress wants to be seen as shorting what the troops need. In fact, I think if you look at history of recent years, you'd find that Congress has leaned farther forward than the Department of Defense on things like body armor, MRAPs, and other pieces of equipment to get into theater. I think some members were very frustrated by that and insisted that the department move faster than the department was inclined to move. In fact, normally you talk about the acquisition rules that Congress inflicts on the department. Congress was only too happy to waive normal acquisition procedures when it came to fielding the MRAP vehicles, for instance, because they didn't want to see more kids dying because they were in thin-skinned Humvees. Nevertheless, we are faced with a trillion-dollar deficits and at some point, just as in the mid-80s, the deficit hawks will probably prevail over the defense hawks. And there will be restraining, maybe not cuts, but certainly not the kind of growth we've seen over the last 10 years. And so that is an environment in which we will have to operate both from our end of the street as well as from your end of the street. So resources will not be unlimited. And there will be tough choices that will have to be made and I think most of the members look forward to engaging with that. I think there were some, when Secretary Gates made his speech at the Naval League, a number of members were upset about that. But I think another group of more thoughtful members said, well, let's have that discussion about what's important for the Navy and the Marine Corps and the Department for the next 10, 20 years. I mean, it was the Congress that insisted on a QDR that's supposed to look 20 years out. Now, the independent panel, I think rightly points out that there are some limitations in that process. But Congress really wants the Department to focus on the longer term rather than to make sort of short-term budget related decisions that are maybe penny-wise and pound foolish in the long term. And I think that's probably, I filibustered long enough to keep up my end of the stick here and I should probably stop there. Thank you very much. Let me just start by asking one quick question before we open it up to the group. I wanted to ask you, General, about Dakota's proposition about the mismatch between the concepts, the program, and the likely available resources. And then I also wanted to get Creighton's take on, as the Marine Corps and the Department of the Navy and the Department of Defense try to address a proposition that I think is, and my observation is defensible, how likely is Congress's answer to be congruent with the types of solutions that the Department has to come up with? Okay, with regard to the concepts and programs, I think the concepts are being designed to deal with an environment that's gonna be full of uncertainty in the future. But they're also gonna be informed by fiscal reality. And what I tell people lately is that you can have anything you want, you just can't have everything. And we're gonna have to figure out how to make those choices. Now part of that making that choice is just to take a look at the requirements. We already talked about the Lightning, the Marine Air Ground Task Force. You know, one of the initial products of the Ground Combat Vehicle Strategy is we're gonna reduce the number of vehicles by 10,000 in the Marine Corps. We're gonna go from 42,000 vehicles to about 32,000 vehicles. And we're gonna do that over the next three years. The other part of that is, we need to take a look at our requirements. Right now, if you wanna build something is the requirement right, or can you take risk in that requirement, for example, and still have the same requirement, but defer whether you add the capability and leave the room for growth and the vehicle has a means of addressing that. Because we do believe that the fiscal challenges are real and that we're gonna have to be able to do that. But that's not gonna stop our conceptual thinking. What we're gonna be able to do then is, and I think this is the tasking we have from the department is to, there's no objection, I think, to our concept. Now it's how do you make that concept affordable? And we have to come up with the choices to present to the leadership this side, you know, how are we gonna do that? But we're not sitting idly. We are gonna get lighter. We are gonna do that by reducing numbers of vehicles, for example. The energy initiatives you talked about make you lighter. They save you money. And if we're allowed to reinvest that money, a lot of these programmatic challenges get minimized in some way or they get mitigated. They may not go away, but there is some mitigation involved. So we are thinking hard and we are listening to the guidance that we're getting from our leadership. Creighton, you talked a little bit about how for the most part the Congress has been essentially reacting to proposals that the department's putting forth as the fiscal environment continues to get more constrained, do you see that holding or is there likely to be more initiative on the part of the Congress? And if so, what direction might that take? I'm not sure I have a good answer for that question. Congress typically is a reactive body, but Congress has typically only intervened when they saw a crisis of some sort. Goldwater Nichols was a result of years of members watching unpleasant incongruities between forces' inability of Navy to talk to Marines on radios, the ability of Army to talk to Marines on radios, even though they bought the same or similar radios. I think things will have to gestate for a while before Congress is going to lean farther forward. Now, that depends on what the department proposes. If the department proposes something that's radical, then I think that would probably engender. That'd be a crisis. That'd be a crisis, yeah. Okay, thank you. All right, let's open it up for questions. Anybody have any burning issues they want to raise to the panel? No? One over here, and then we'll go over here. Mr. Secretary, you have any questions? It's Neil Desaios from Marine Corps. Mr. Green, in addition to the point you just mentioned that the independent panel critiqued the QDR for not looking forward enough, they also, in their preliminary testimony, critiqued the fact that all the recommendations were made in a constrained environment, and the legislation for the QDR actually specifies making recommendations in an unconstrained environment, given that everyone has just mentioned that fiscal realities, do you believe, the next QDR, the Congress will amend that legislation and call for recommendations that are in a constrained environment? I don't know. I think, I think, they also, the independent panel also called for abolishing the QDR as we know it now. So I think the Congress, the committee committees are probably gonna have to think about those recommendations and what, if any, action to take on that. At this point, I could not predict what is likely to happen. I think this is the first independent panel that's called for abolishing the QDR, though. That's sort of a revolutionary or a kink in the system that the members will have to deal with. Pat? Pat Tallick, Pat Tallick, Congressional Research Service. Bob's first of his six characteristics was the, we're gonna go back to the naval character, and you mentioned the joint high-speed vessels and the LCS, and that got me into wondering why we continue to focus just on the big gators, the big decks and the LPDs and the LSDs. Is there any thought that you could think about the amphibious fleet, we're gonna have these smaller high-speed, and they're just big trucks, and if you could induce someone to build a force provider to stick inside them, you could presumably haul marines, and it could address some of the more distributed kinds of operations that you're talking about, enhanced companies and the like. Is there, have we been talking about too narrowly bounded a box here? Is there not actually a bigger, broader, amphibious force out there that we're at, in fact, buying, whether we're thinking about it? I agree with you, and that's one of the things over a year ago we started, as the Navy was working through the LCS design construct, was the creation of a module that would help with us being able to do some of the lower end levels of engagement. So once the LCS program settles here in the near future, I think that talk needs to continue, so we are working with that. But the other part is also the MPS ships. Everybody thinks that the MPS ships are floating warehouses. They're a lot more than that. And if you take a look at the usage of the MPS ships over the past 20 years, they've been used in engagement operations around the world. So they're another now sea-based force that doesn't impinge on a nation's sovereignty and those engagement that creates those relationships that enable access. That's why we're in the middle of trying to reconfigure our MPS to make them more relevant across the range of operations, whether it be engagement, mandatory assistance, or a disaster relief. The ability to do selective offload and at sea transfer is a game changer for the MPS. It creates your port at sea. But the other piece of that, it allows you to get those ships involved in the lesser forms of engagement. We're in a fiscally demanding environment. You have to get two furs and three furs at everything you buy. And that's what we're trying to say that you get out of the Marine Corps and out of the Navy Marine Corps team. When I talked about the operations in Haiti, there was a three-fer there. You had a combat force. It was organized, trained, and equipped to do all that. And there's not many forces that can do that that easily and go across the spectrum of conflict with that ease. That's a reflection of organizational legality. It's a reflection of having a properly trained force. And it's a reflection of that when we buy equipment, we buy it with the eye that it has to have utility across the range of military operations. I'm Dakota. I wanted to ask you if you, to follow on to that question, whether you see other opportunities for two furs or three furs or whether you think there are areas where the Marine Corps needs to give a serious consideration to cutting back. I think that's one of the great aspects of the Marine Corps is it's a general purpose force. And as Mr. Warwick and the general has talked about, this broad utility where you can put a Marine and his kid in just about any situation. And they're not overly specialized to the point where they can't respond to a certain environment. So the idea of taking smaller Marine detachments and putting them on LCSs or other platforms, I think is a very good one that needs to be pursued. Obviously you have to have a platform actually in the water to experiment and practice and rehearse and see what the art of the possible is. There is always a limiting factor though, that's either a limiter or it's an enabler when you look at the size of the box that you're dealing with. So I could take a platoon of Marines and put them on a frigate. But if they don't have helicopters and the equipment and fire support, they're not really much good other than as a shore patrol when the sailors go into a liberty port. So if you look at LPD 17 or you look at the littoral combat ship or any of these other platforms, you really have to carefully match the capability of the unit embarked with the kind of mission that you expect to do in any given set of circumstances. And again, absent the platform itself, most of these are just thought exercises. I think the folks at Quantico are thinking through that. But the proof is in the pudding, as they say, and the development of modern day amphibious warfare capabilities extended over many years with the colubrious series of experiments, et cetera. And it's going to take a while to figure out what that really means. But I think the approach being taken intellectually right now is the right one. OK. Sorry, we'll go back there first and then come up here. Timothy Walton with Delix Consulting Studies and Analysis. I think all of you have been taking a strong look at rising personnel costs across the services, but especially in the more manpower-intensive ones of the Army and the Marine Corps. Mr. Green, the independent QDR recommended a Gates Commission-style new commission to take a look at manpower costs, tricare in particular. How do you think Congress would go about doing that? And maybe, General, how would you support such efforts? Well, I've been in Congress for a while, but I wasn't here when the original Gates Commission was founded in 1969. So I'm not sure I know I can map out exactly how that would take place. I think the independent panel released its findings less than a week ago. And I think the members are likely to take that under advisement. I know from a number of sources they heard and they realized that manpower costs are a growing component of the budget and are pressing against other investment priorities. At this point, I couldn't lay out a roadmap of, OK, there's going to be a Gates-like commission in the FY12 bill or FY11 amendment on the floor when the Senate considers the DOD bill. I couldn't give you that specificity. But I certainly think they certainly are listening closely to what the independent panel had to say. I think the real challenge has you try to capture the way ahead on manpower costs is you have to realize that the current system is designed to support the all-volunteer force. And that's a key part of this. And it's been a force that's been engaged in combat for seven years, which has contributed to those increased manpower costs. All the services, well, both land forces for sure have grown in strength to be able to support extended combat operations over seven years. So when that situation changes, those costs will come down that way. But the details of what is needed to support an all volunteer force clearly is something that a high-level commission would have to take a look at. OK, let's go over here. Bill Sweetman again, Defense Technology International. Question for Dakota Wood. You talked about your concern that the current program is untenable. What sort of magnitude of changes need to be made to render it tenable? Do you need to take out elements from the force? Or do you need to just scale back certain programs? The Marine Corps' baseline budget has doubled in the last decade since about 1990. I think it went from $12 and a half billion or so to now it's currently $26 billion. And then you add on top of that about $7 billion in supplemental funding. So in 10 years to double your budget, that's a pretty extraordinary thing. The country is faced with $13 trillion in federal deficits, and there's something like $50 trillion in unfunded entitlement programs just across the country. And I just can't imagine that that isn't going to have a ripple effect on expenditures in all areas in the Defense Department will have to suffer some kind of cutback. Secretary Gates has already levied cuts of what was it $100 billion or something like that, reduction in staffs, trying to get the acquisition house in order. And so the Department of the Navy and then the Marine Corps specifically is gonna fuel those waves as they ripple out from that stone cast into the pond. Marine Corps is also dealing with a reset bill, as I heard of it, it's something like $16 billion to repair or replace equipment. And then we've talked about the all volunteer force, and I don't have a specific dollar figure with me at the moment, it's something like 60% of the baseline budget. But with a plus up of 27,000 Marines to bring it to 202K, I just don't see how you can sustain that level of force in this fiscal environment. So I think it will be a combination of factors where a current plan for vehicles is three times the cost of what has been historically the average going back to the 1980s. 202K I think will have to be scaled back to maybe 175 or lower just because of the cost of manpower and salaries and benefits and medical expenditures and building and all the things that come with maintaining this particular individual at a competitive salary. So manpower, getting our house in order in terms of the vehicle strategy, which the general has already talked about. And then there's the extraordinary costs associated with individual platforms like the MV-22 or the F-35 Bravo or the EFE or the Marine Personal Carrier or even the JLTV. The JLTV is a good example of a struggle that both the Army and the Marine Corps are having. The Marine Corps plans to buy somewhere around 5,500 of them and you're going from $150,000 to 200K Humvee to a $500,000 JLTV is some of the last estimates that I've heard. The EFE is $22 million a copy. So it's just gonna be a challenge reconciling how expensive the force will be in this environment. And then if I end up taking cuts in certain increments keeping the force balanced, we'll probably see a reduction in the number of battalions and supporting units. And then the equipment density list, it's already been discussed, we'll have to be scaled back in corresponding measure. Okay, any more questions out there? Is that one over here? General Flanke, George Nicholson, Independent Policy Consultant. Reference to the LCS, two years ago at the Shirtless Navy Association, Congressman Gene Taylor got up and he briefed, as much as we're paying for ships, as much as we're paying for aircraft, we've got to build a growth capability into it. The two LCS variants right now. After he spoke the next day, they had a panel with Admiral Sullivan, the PEO ships, Admiral Hamilton. I asked him about the LCS, I said, you've got one variant that's got a deck that's almost twice the size of the other. Potentially it's got the capability of handling the V-22 or 53 kilos. Not to embark on it, but provide resupply and everything else. And he said that was never in the requirement that's not gonna be in our decision process when we make a down selection. Comments? When the LCS was originally designed, it was designed to be able to do three tasks. Anti-surface warfare, mine countermeasures, and anti-submarine warfare. So when the concept, we weren't a part of that design. We're at the table now, as they worked for the design, saying, okay, what could you do to this ship and how could we work together to get some more utility out of it? So we are working with the Navy, but I know that I need to stay in my lane and that Navy ship construction, I did take a class on naval architecture once and I passed, but it's not my forte. Okay, well, let me commend everybody for your patience and your stamina for sticking with us. Thank you very much, Secretary Work, for your time this morning, this afternoon. I wanted to close with one brief recap of some comments that General Brute-Kulak, the elder made, I think back in 1957 to show that we also, there are some things that don't change this question of why are Marine Corps and General Kulak had three answers to that question of what the nation wants from the Marine Corps. First, they believe that when troubles come to our country, there will be Marines ready to do something useful about it and do it at once. Second, they believe that when Marines go to war, they invariably turn in a performance that's dramatically and decisively successful, not most of the time, but always. And third, that the Marines are masters of a form of unfailing alchemy which converts unoriented youths into proud, self-reliant, and stable citizens. Congratulations, congratulations. Congratulations. Which, so in any case, these questions of why are Marine Corps again not new, but I think we've heard a great discussion today of what the future of the Marine Corps looks like and we appreciate everybody for coming and participating with us. Thank you. Thank you doctor. Thank you.