 Good morning everyone, so I'm going to start very quickly. I got to tell one General Milley story and there are many General Milley and I My first in-depth interview with General Milley was in the middle of where else but Afghanistan in a place We may never all get back to called FOB shank and if you know it it's in back in the day It was a Sometimes very difficult place for troops to be based. We'd arranged our interview We had our camera was a nice sheltered little location on the FOB General Milley walks up Looks around sees a hill in the distance up against the security perimeter and says well Let's go climb up there and do the interview up there What you learn with General Milley is when he starts climbing a hill Mountain in my view, but it was a hill and it's up against the security perimeter The best thing to do is start climbing and keep up with him and even today in the Pentagon. I would tell you We have a really good opportunity this morning General Milley Clinically impossible for him to spin we know a lot of generals in the building General Milley can't spin He just tells you what he thinks and so that's what I'm really looking forward to this morning We're going to talk very quickly We're gonna he and I are going to run through a few items to sort of set the table And then we want to move very quickly to your questions and get everybody involved And I hope you have a lot of questions because if you don't General Milley is likely to call on you himself and find out What you're thinking around the crowd targeting So General Milley, you know we're talking about the future of war and I think most of us are familiar with your thinking That if you're going to look at the future of war it starts with where you are today and how you view The threats out there in the world that gets us to the question eventually of how much army is enough How much army is too much what kind of army, but let's step back and start with the threats and Kind of have you walk around the world for a minute in what you see? Can we start? Simply with Russia How do you view the threat the United States national security interests and the US Army? Faces from Putin's Russia Well first Barbara, let me first say thanks to you and Peter Berger and Amarima classmate and Just for the record she was in the top half of the class and I was in the half of the class I'm in the top half possible so That's the difference between state and defense like this right so But thanks for having me here You know I where I was in the back room there and then Getting miked up and I was watching the little poll everybody took and I I saw the the threats in the countries that We're out there is kind of an interesting set of results The way I look at you know the world and the guidance I've gotten from Secretary and others is for us to size structure Train our forces Essentially what I would I would say four plus one so four specific threats that are related to countries Russia China North Korea and Iran and Then a fifth threat called counterterrorism today's Specific organization might be ISIS, but it might be something else Down the road so that that's the general category. There's functional threats like cyber and others out there as well With respect to Russia You know I've tried to over the years study Russia had the benefits and great education and Princeton from a lot of great professors and I just carry that through the years and in the military Russia's faced with a series of internal challenges They've got demographic economic Political challenges that they're facing. It's a country that has been subject to land invasions many many times in their history You know the Mongol invasion Napoleon Hitler and so on so forth So they've got a set of internal challenges in all countries operating their own interests and fear is a very real Sort of sense inside the body politic of the Russian people and that's stirred hard by the Russian Political leadership I think as well So I think fear is a player in how they behave in the international environment And then I think pride is a big factor as well So, you know, they were of course a great power under the czars and and then later under the Soviet Union and and the wall came crumbling down So they've got they want to re-establish pride. Where's that all leading them? Well, so so what so you got fear and pride operating and they got there's a lot of money at stake There's a lot of interest so all of that put that cake mix together I think my read not the US government's read or anybody else's read My read is that They've put all those data points together and they said we got to make comeback and so about 2003 ish Forish five ish in that range in that time frame Russia launched on a significant military modernization program. They changed their doctrine and most importantly their behavior in the international realm changed from a Certain benign behavior relative to the United States interests from say 1990 to about 2003 or four or five And then it became aggressive. So Russian behavior today By the definition of international politics is aggressive. They are invading Sovereign countries with military forces or sorry get military forces Which in the realm of international laws now right and Europe hasn't seen that behavior since World War two in 70 years So that's a major strategic shift Behavior of a major or great power in Europe. So that's a big deal so behaviors there You can't necessarily, you know, do Nostradamus and predict intent. You have to get into mind reading for that But you can judge intent based on behavior So their behavior from 2008 and invasion of Georgia and the Crimea and Ukraine and a whole wide variety of other things Where they've used all kinds of tools and national power to intimidate neighbors That is an indicator anyway of intent and then capability their capabilities conventional capabilities are significantly better than what they were In the 90s and of course, they always have their nuclear capabilities. So put all that together to me That's a very significant strategic challenge How much of a threat? I think it's a big threat. I've said publicly in testimony I think Russia is the number one strategic threat to the United States of America And I say that for two reasons one Is they have the capability they are the only country on earth that has the capability As an existential threat to the United States They are the only country on earth with the capability to destroy the United States of America Other countries have lots of capabilities only Russia has that capability So that's significant in and of itself But capability without intent is just capability You have to match it to intent and when you get into the world of intent you're dealing in probabilities and You're dealing in predictive analysis It's very difficult to figure out the intent of a foreign leader or foreign power so you look at behavior as an indicator of intent and Recent behavior since 2008 is aggressive by the Russians. So I have to ask and we'll move on to other subjects But now you've got me fascinated. So based on what you look at when you look at their military leadership your counterpart right the General Dunford's counterpart the chief of staff when you look at the top leadership in the Russian military Are these people actually in charge? Are they decision-makers or are they simply taking orders from Vladimir Putin? Well, I mean in charge of what I mean. They're in charge of the military, but There's no doubt in my mind that there's civilian control of the military in Russia and Putin is the civilian who's in control. So There's anybody the Russian military. I don't believe the Russian military Is a rogue military anything that are operating on their own? I mean they're operating within the construct of Russian internal politics with civilian control. I guess I'm that you should be for I should rephrase the question. Do they ever say to him? Hmm. Maybe that's not such a good idea here All the you know like the Joint Chiefs do you offer options you offer ideas you offer suggestions or is the Russian military at this point now a Yes, man organization to Putin. No, I think I mean, I don't know. I'm not in the meetings. I'm not in the rooms and and I Would assume I mean Russian military is a professional military and I'm assuming that these guys would Tea up the cost and benefits. I I take it as a given that the Russian leadership is a rational actor That's the all the players are more or less rational actors. So I think they would I can't imagine them not Saying you know course of action one course of action, too Here's the advantages as the disadvantage and our recommendation is or something like that. Yeah, I mean I give them credit for being professionals So then let's move to North Korea sure your view You said Russia was the only country that had the capability to destroy the United States What's your sense of North Korea at the moment in terms of their intent on their weapons program and their capability and The threat they pose. Yeah, I think I mean what we've been in a state of armacism since 1953 So we were on the risk in a certain way of groundhog day where tomorrow is going to look like Yesterday in the last 70 years where war doesn't break out on the Korean Peninsula. I don't know if that's such a great Sort of mental attitude to be and we take it for granted That the armistice will continue to hold and that war won't break out if you look at Kim Jong-un and his and his regime I Think there's a lot of things that have popped in the news and that indicate there's a variety of challenges going on inside that regime right now There's a lot of external behavior that causes great concern. Yeah, you know, you had the incident back in August You had if you go back in time to 2010 2011 you had the Chonan sinking you had the Waipido Island incident flash forward the last August you had the border incident January had a detonation of a very large explosion I'm not exactly sure what type but a very large explosion the launching of missiles that were putting things in the space, but They could be dual use missiles who knows So there's you know, of course all the rhetoric that that happens now Some of this is routine in that it happens every year and sort of get lulled into complacency on it But there there is a there are enough differences that North Korea bears very close watching the risks are very high It's not an existential threat to the United States but War in the Korean Peninsula from a human perspective would be catastrophic souls a City of 25 million people there 25 miles from the DMZ. There's a million soldiers on either side You're looking at hundreds of thousands of artillery or rocket Fire that would land in a in a city that has a population density four times New York City The world is not seeing that sort of human tragedy that sort of violence Probably since the the real huge battles of World War two so a war on the Korean Peninsula would be terrible in human terms strategically You can only imagine what it would do to the Northeast Asian economy With Japan and China and of course South Korea So there's all kinds of second and third order effects. So although it's not an existential threat It's a it's a very very significant threat to vital US national interest. Are you how concerned are you? That the US is in fact a little too complacent as you the word you used about the North Korean threat right now I don't think that we in the military and the net and department found I think we're complacent. I think that we have Maintained a very high levels of readiness Forces forward forces that can respond. So I'm 100% confident that Whatever forces are going to be needed by General Skaperati and the Korean Peninsula in the event of an outbreak of hostilities That they would be provided and they'd be provided on time. So I don't think we're complacent necessarily I'm just saying that the expectation that You know, there's gonna be peace tomorrow the next day or two weeks from now or two months from now or two years from now that can be Something that lulls you into tomorrow is gonna look like today that man that that's one place on earth that May not be the case. You never know with that situation and that the forces that the North has arrayed Those forces are always in a state of readiness That could launch some sort of conflict or incident that could escalate to a conflict very very quickly Much quicker than people You know truly realize So the North Koreans could at any point begin have the capability to begin hostilities No doubt could they begin faster? Then we would see it then we would know No, we would know you might not know but we would know Well now I know what reporting I'll be doing we will tell you Think I have a few questions to ask around the Pentagon later today We could talk about Iran we could talk about the threat but watching the clock So I want to kind of jump ahead you've laid out some of the threats We've in Iran we've in the counter-terrorism threat But as you look at all of this you have to deal with all of this as it exists today as It may exist ten years from now and it gets to the fundamental question How much army what kind of army your future how much army's enough how much army is too much Yeah, so I mean and you have Iran you have China Of course the the current fight the fight were actually engaged in Physically on a day-to-day basis counter-terrorism fight against ISIS So the challenge for us challenge for the army in the military writ large is we have got to Sustain and maintain counter-insurgency and counter-terrorist capabilities We can't lose that which we've gained and learned over the last 15 years. We have to keep that going and my estimate is that we will be engaged in Fighting terrorists or insurgents or building partner capacity of countries and friends and partners that are going to be fighting terrorists I think we're going to be doing that for quite some time I think general Dempsey when he was chairman publicly said something like 10 to 20 years my predecessor general Odinero Said 10 to 20 years something like that. There's been other people who have said, you know a long time I think secretary Carter testified to it. I don't know. I don't know that anyone knows I just think it's going to be a long time. So we're going to have to retain those capabilities So that's as I look at how to size and structure a force those capabilities are absolutely essential because that fight's going to continue Even if ISIS is destroyed presidents charges with destroy ISIS I think we will destroy us but even if we destroy them Radical terrorism doesn't magically go away. The conditions are still out there and until and unless those conditions go away Radical terrorism is not going to go away. So that's going to go on for a while And then you've got those four other situations each of which is unique in and of itself and requires certain capabilities For each one of them. So as I look at those the capabilities required to either deter or defeat a Russian aggression in Europe or to fight against the North Koreans Now you're talking higher-end type warfare So you're talking some forces and capabilities that are going to be able to do combined arms maneuver You've got to be able to operate in very very lethal fluid dynamic environments You've got to be able to operate with air and other joint forces So those are necessarily different type forces and you might fight against earth So you said how much how big and so on and so forth As I look at the guidance given to us. It's all relative to risk So there's no absolutes in any of the stuff It's a matter of how much risk The national leadership is willing to take And all I can do is offer my best military advice and say this size force You're buying this much risk and the risk I measure the risk in terms of The size force the troops sort of thing the tasks that we've been asked to do And are those troops adequate to the task the time it takes to do the tasks and then the cost relative to Not only money but cost and casualties and and all of that put that mix in and I come up with a risk assessment And I give that risk assessment to the secretary of defense and the chairman so based on the threats you see and The risk assessment, and I'm not going to tell you my risk assessment What I've said what I've said in testimony what I said in testimony last week Was I think given the the size of the United States Army? The Cape it's really not size I mean the numbers of forces is only one factor readiness is actually the more important of the factors The the the skills of the force the leadership of the force are those units that you have Fully manned are they fully trained and so on so but so size is only one piece Then you want to make sure they've got the right technology and equipment You could have huge armies that have poor equipment and are under man They're gonna get smoked by a smaller trained force So size is only one piece and a lot of people hang their hat on a single Factor size, but what I've said is given the size capability readiness Of our force In my view I've said I said high military risk. So and that was in testimony I'm sorry, so Yeah, are you willing to take our but that's not new news. I mean if you watched the testimony you would have picked that up We just want to get you to explain a little further well, I did so I rate You know what what are the peace? That's what we call the follow-up? What are the peace parts of risk? It's What's the risk today troops? What's the risk today? What's your risk assessment relative to what? We can we can't we have the capabilities relative to Isis. We have the capabilities to adequately fight against Isis Without any problem at all the issues with Isis are not the capabilities in the size of the force That that's not what the issue is with Isis for us The risk to the nation of Isis I think is what you're asking my my view Isis is I think they are probably the most capable and vicious terrorist organization in world history I think they're really Very very very bad and they're very capable So when the president 18 months ago said to destroy Isis I absolutely sign up to that they need to be destroyed And they are a direct threat to us violent interest not only in the region, but they have reach so they can reach Europe as they've demonstrated And they clearly have aspirations and capability to reach the homeland here in the United States So Isis is bad in and of itself But relative to our interests and our own protection They have capability They have intent they have aspiration And they need to be destroyed just like the president told us to do while they have inspired attacks clearly in the united states your assessment on their ability to Plot plan and carry out themselves directly an attack in this country Well, they definitely can plot and plan Whether or not they can execute. I mean I have I have a lot of confidence. Hopefully it's not misplaced. I have a lot of confidence in Other agencies cAA FBI Customs border patrol, etc And we are very fortunate every Americans very fortunate at the great work That those folks are doing In an unnamed way every single day day in and day out to protect American people So I think our defenses are pretty good But no defense Is a hundred percent And These guys Isis Like I said, they have capability and they have intent And they're gonna continue to bang away until They get in here until we destroy them. So we need to destroy them. We need to get on with it and Get them gone When you look ahead and we start thinking of your questions We're going to start in just a few minutes on questions But when you look ahead now to the future Everything you've laid out talk to us for a minute about technology Um One could make a case very briefly that the military There have been some technical changes, but essentially is fighting with the same kit that it had To a large extent wooden desert storm Look ahead. What do you see in army land warfare in terms of new technologies? Cyber robotics, whatever. So I break the the future into a couple chunks of time For My analysis and and the guidance I've given the army staff so But first of all, you got to start with The nature of war and character war, which sometimes Those are synonyms a lot of people use the nature of war is basically immutable. It's probably Not going to change. It's all about war is all about politics always has been So it's about imposing your political will through the use of violence and some opponent It's all about friction chance And all the things that guys like clausowitz and sun see always talked about right so That's those truisms if you will they're going to stay the same. That's the nature of war What changes all the time is the character of war and that's based on organizations and training and Your national political construct and technology technology is usually one of the big drivers of the change of character war So as I look forward I see a chunk of time For ground warfare not air or maritime Or space or cyber in those domains, but for ground warfare I see Between now and about five to ten years from now, which is essentially the budget cycles of the us government to fight it I think that we in ground warfare have a set of legacy systems That realistically are going to be improved at the margins Uh, and you're not going to see fundamental Change in the character of ground warfare fundamental changes and what I mean by that I mean To go from the smoothbore musket to the rifled musket was a fundamental change to go from The horse calvary to the tank or mechanized forces Change the introduction of radio communications fundamental changes. So I don't see fundamental change In nature or the or the character of ground warfare in say the next five years ten years that range But when you get beyond ten years I do see that I see fundamental change. So if you look at technologies that are out there in the area of Mobility is a great one because you know robotics is making great advances in the commercial world There's military application. We're already using robotics. That's what drones and UAVs are robots of of a sort some of remote control But you could I can envision a force a ground force Sometime 10 15 years from now Where a lot of your convoys you resupply your logistics all that stuff where we expose soldiers to IEDs, etc That those are done by robots those those vehicles are autonomous vehicles You load them up with ammunition and chow and so on and you plug in the grids and boom off they go Now the domain of ground combat is fundamentally different than air or maritime It's not as clean you got the you got the earth and surface of the earth So it's a little bit more complex. So the application of robots to ground combat We still got to work through all the problems, but it's clear to me that 10 to 15 years from now Robots are going to be a very significant component. Then you've got Also other things in the area of mobility. You got fuels. You got materials We're right on the cusp of some really significant material breakthroughs In terms of lightening up armor. You've got areas of protection Like active protective systems that are out there several countries actually have and we're developing In information technology, I mean that that thing has been spiraling for a long time So we've got a lot of areas of information technology. In fact, it's a great vulnerability is our reliance on Space systems and GPS and so on so forth for our navigation our precision weapons systems So you've got a lot of areas of You know lethality and shooting there's a lot of things being done in the world of kinetics right now You know, we've been using gunpowder for I guess three or four or five hundred years now So there's things being done in the world of gunpowder Where you can take this much gunpowder required to project an artillery shell and maybe you only need that much gunpowder And you can automatically see That the implications for logistics for cost for the size of your forces, etc Are going to be different if that were true Uh, and we'll see that that's stuff that's all being tested There's stuff in lasers the railguns that the navy and air force are doing that may have the application to the ground So there's a lot of technologies out there today That we see that are emerging That in my view are going to have clear application to ground warfare And I think I'm not a hundred percent sure but I am pretty sure That though the some of those technologies are going to change the fundamental character of ground warfare a decade or so from now And we've got to lay the lay the lay the You know the structure down today for the research and development and the acquisition of those systems I don't know if that answers your question. It does. All right. Let's get to some questions from the audience I'm having a little trouble with the lights. So I think we have microphones out here Which we need to get to people can um And if we don't we'll just have people Stand up and man from harvard Okay, we'll start right here in the front. He went to the number two school We'll I'll have to be careful not to be too loud the microphone And why doesn't everybody say their name and uh, so the general note who's who he's talking to sure cindy freedberg breaking defense And yes, arvard, uh long time ago To follow up on a thread about the research development acquisition Which you have to start now to get things in 10 15 years 20 years Uh even given now so the system is You've submitted a report to congress In response to their statutory requirement saying these are changes I am making in the army acquisition system with the new authorities given to me by law Uh, these aren't things I would like to see And as I read it as people characterize it It kind of looks like the army is saying we'd like to be able to opt out of a lot of oversight You call it delayering bureaucracy, but it's opting out of a lot of oversight By the office of secretary of defense, uh, do tne testing oversight Cape cost assessment over oversight And some analysis and alternatives oversight as well um A am I portraying this fairly B why do you need to get out from under this bureaucracy and c given the army's Kind of terrible track record at major acquisition programs getting cancelled Why do you guys deserve this chance? Um, thank you, Harvard Yeah, yeah, no, I'm really glad I picked on you so I actually You would use the phrase opt out of oversight. I wouldn't use that phrase because secretary of defense And the chains of command always have oversight Just like I always have oversight whether or not the rule says x y or z you have oversight If you're the superior headquarters The way the military works is you always have oversight and you can never give up that oversight by the way So you're always responsible accountable for that What i'm asking for good, you know, first of all, what's the problem trying to solve? We're trying to figure out ways to speed up The acquisition system Some of these systems take multiple multiple years some of them decades to develop So the original requirement by the time the thing is developed The commercial sector or the technologies overcome the original requirement to begin with So you've got some issues in terms of flash to bang how fast you deliver to market or deliver to the customer The the system or the capability that was originally required to begin with so the system is slow And I think anyone out there Would argue that the system is slow Why is it slow part of it is the layers upon layers upon layers The famous one that's recent Is uh the pistol, right? So that's a relatively simple technology. It's been around for I guess five centuries or so and We're not exactly redesigning how to go to the moon, right? This is this is a pistol And arguably it's the least Leafy and important weapon system in the department of defense inventory a pistol, right? This thing's been out there for nine years or 10 years Requirements 367 page requirement document. Why well lawyer says this and lawyer says that you have to go through this process and that process You have to have oversight, you know, this is not the other thing look it I think that large bureaucratic organizations Are or large organizations Whether bureaucratic or not I think the best methods of management are to empower and decentralize I think that I should be able to look at someone And say here's your task. Here's why you're doing it. Here's the purpose Here's the end state that I want you to achieve by such and such a time Go forth and have at it if you succeed You're promoted and I give you a medal if you fail you're fired And and and you hold people accountable What you don't do what large organizations do over and over and over again Is they observe things that are screwed up in the environment and they take the problem and they centralize it And they actually make it worse. So I think you empower and you decentralize By using what the army calls mission command or I'll strike tactic was what the Germans called it way back when and mission type tactics It's been called a lot of different things over the years But you're operating off intent Purpose and and you hold people accountable to it that applies in acquisition just as well as applies on the battlefield And that's what I'd like to do. It's not a lack of oversight. I'm not asking to be You know, hey, you know free reign. Let's go party. I'm not saying that at all I'm saying let me and then hold me accountable Let me figure out What type pistol we need and let me go buy it Without having to go through nine years of incredible You know scrutiny and testing the the test I took a brief the other day The testing for this pistol Is two years two years to test technology That we know exists And we're not figuring out, you know, the next lunar landing This is a pistol two years to test at 17 million dollars 17 million I can call cabela's tonight. You give me 17 million on a credit card I'll call cabela's tonight and and I will outfit Every soldier sailor airman and marine with a pistol for 17 million and I'll get a discount on it for a bulk buy I mean come on So there's a certain degree of common sense to some of this stuff And that's what I'm talking about is to empower the service chiefs not just me Empower the service chiefs with the capabilities to go out and do certain things to speed the process up Bring the products to to the point of need Get there first us with the mostest and get there fast sort of thing Let me go to this side of the room You have a microphone over there the gentleman who in the middle there who has his hand up Who I recognize. Yes, sir, you I was trying to use my outside voice So there's been a lot of conversation about goldwater nickels too in the media in the news and we've seen this before over the years And it goes all over the map from how many co-coms how big they should be What the joint staff should be responsible for more or less Where do you think? What do you think objectives for any change to gold water nickels? To should be and what do you think the conversation ought to lead because right now it's all over the map Yeah, no, I I agree. I think there's an awful lot of ideas and proposals out there Um, you know, I've got a group that are uh of folks that are helping me think through all the various Options that are out there and the Department of Defense has some and The house and senate each have a variety of proposals So trying to work through all of it more complicated than People may fully realize. I think that One of the bigger issues out there that people seem to talk about a lot Um is the role of the joint chiefs of staff And the role of the chairman Uh, you know questions like should the chairman be in the chain of command shouldn't the chairman be in the chain of command What's the role of the joint staff? How should they be organized structured? That's out there. I I haven't formed All my you know sort of conclusions yet got some time Remaining before I have to sort of declare myself And give my recommendations and my thoughts, but that's one of the bigger issues is that one Another one is the role of co-coms combatant commands. So we've had Combatant commands for quite some time. Is it the right way to organize? The u.s. Military or not. There are issues associated with that There's issues associated any type of boundaries between organizations So that's you know, our combatant commands Are they More a paul mill type headquarters or they're fighting headquarters. Now, what's the role of joint task forces in fighting? So that all gets in there the size of Size of headquarters bureaucratic oversight has has led to the expansion and explosion literally of the sizes of headquarters if you go back to World War two admiral nimitz commander of the central pacific He started off with about 300 and I think he ended up with about 900 Folks on his staff and he fought imperial japan across the central pacific actually won and he did it in 36 months So not a bad record for relatively small nimble staff there for admiral nimitz And other staffs were similar not just his Today we have very large staffs Throughout there's reasons for it a lot of it Was already mentioned in a previous question So that's another big area though is the proliferation the tooth to tail ratio number generals, etc So you're correct the the areas are all over the place, but I think those three in particular Probably loom larger than others of course acquisition reform is another big one The role of the service chiefs is a whole series of issues out there As you look at all of this Do you think there's too much or not enough emphasis on the use of special operations forces today? Well, I think there's A series of myths about warfare That are prevalent and they're particularly seductive To americans or to democracies One of those myths is that special forces can do it all They can't they're not designed to do it all they're not trained to do it all And nor in the in the pros and special forces will be the first ones to tell you they can't do it all Special forces is dependent upon other architectures that are out there that come from not only conventional army, but navy air force marines And so on so special forces as a pallet of sort of the silver bullet Is a pot of gold. It's a it's a false It's a myth in the conduct of warfare So I'm always wary of just that The first question you have to ask I think is Are you at war or not? So special forces can do raids high value targets And they can provide extraordinarily capable And useful actions in the conduct of war But if you're at war Then your task is to impose your political will on your opponent through the use of violence. That's what war is And That is not what special forces is designed to do Imposing your political will controlling territory controlling people imposing your will Through the use of violence on an opponent. That's what war is So if we say you're at war it doesn't the army doesn't do it either. It's not special forces It's not the army. It's not the navy the air force and marines In and of themselves none of them. It's the synergistic effect of all of them Together in time and space. So we're at war by national definition of the political leadership We are at war with isis. We want to defeat the u.s. Wants to defeat and destroy isis Is enough? military power Using tools of violence being applied to isis bluntly Is it going to take ground troops to get isis defeated? I mean we're going to find out I'm not trying to be corey, but Why don't know what that means we modified we modified the Campaign That's being carried out. You're seeing some of the results of that Play out in the news And since we modified it back in the fall There's been a series of actions that have taken place that have clearly had positive outcomes in terms of territory that was taken the amount of Attrition applied to the enemy the pressure on the leadership said it so but that's just that's not winning And it's not over. So We have to see how it plays out in the months ahead and we'll have to reassess Your answer is not known yet. Does it require ground troops or not and ground troops? Then you get into who ground troops which ground troops? Putting in American ground troops is one question putting in You know having say Sunni Arab countries ground troops is a different question. So we'll see which way it goes. I don't want to I know he's trying to get me to say but I'm not going to do it. So We'll see it, but I will say that if you go back to the basic question Are you at war? If that if the answer to that question is yes with isis All right, if you're at war with isis if that answer is yes Then there are certain requirements based on the logic of war That more or less have to be done Sooner or later So we'll see We'll see which way this goes or we'll know soon enough Let's go back to this side of the room. Um, sir right there, uh, if And I'll just caution everybody. Although this is all fascinating. We're about five minutes out from having to wrap up Joel Garrow with asu in new america I was struck by your comment that there was no fundamental Change to war that you expected in the next 10 years um No fundamental change Fundamental yes, I mean that word means something to me and fundamental to ground war not to war but to ground war Okay, yeah, I'm interested in uh biotechnology and especially chris per cast nine ability to transform any life form you wish cheaply and uh efficiently If you're a half bright grad student in a reasonably well-equipped Biolab today That seems to offer Astonishing asymmetric power To anybody who cares to harness this from almost any direction. What is your expectation? of Bioengineering especially as regards to transforming humans either offensively or defensively There's research on man machine interfacing on The interaction between man and machine. I think peter singers here. He's written some books on some of this stuff There's a lot of research on it My point about The next 10 years I do not see the research advanced enough To have a practical application To military operations on the ground in the next 10 years I'm not seeing the reality of it The possibilities there there's research out there on all these on that and many many more things Uh, but what i'm talking about in terms of that time frame. I'm not seeing that reality Where we have it in the hands of soldiers and it's in it's real On a battlefield in the next 10 years for ground war. There's certainly peace parts to it But we're already doing thing, you know in the medical world Uh in treatment of casualties is a lot of research has been done We're already applying some of that stuff in in information technology and protection We're taking peace parts of these technologies and applying them right now But fundamental change widespread application Changing the character of ground warfare I I'm not seeing that. I mean it's taken us nine years to figure out how to do a pistol So I don't see why why would I Let me have one last question from this side of the room sir right here in front Yes, sir, uh, we may not I don't know if we need the microphone. We do for everyone to hear I'll give 30 second answers. You can do three questions. All right One doesn't say no general milley. You can time it. Good morning My name is Michael from the us agency for international development office of civilian military cooperation And many today posit that in today's increasingly complex and unpredictable Environmental environment, we need a comprehensive approach in order to solve the challenges to our national security Generally, I'd be interested in your views. What the priority areas are for collaboration with other agencies within our interagency I mean, I couldn't agree more. I think you have to have a whole of government interagency approach And I think it's beyond that I think it involves international partners as well The military is only one tool. USAID is yet another the CIA intel Department of State has a variety of other capabilities. I think you have to bring it all together I don't think what in terms of actual war fighting It's not the army. It's the army the navy the air force the marines It's cyber it's space it's bringing all that together in time in space To win a war takes a nation and it takes the synergy of all of these agencies And and frankly to win a war probably takes an alliance and it takes the synergy of everyone Working together to achieve the political end state. So I absolutely agree with you All right, let's have ma'am right here. I see you stand up. We're running out of time Now you're hard I don't want peter have to give us both to make the acquisition publicly We'll take you find the university of oxford and what role do you see for drones and robots in any hypothetical Conventional high intensity war both within the next five to ten years But also within the next 15 years and what systems and capabilities do you think we should focus on now? this uh, I'm we're already using Drones you say or unmanned aerial vehicles And they come in kind of two varieties one is controlled someone with a control stick another is autonomous So there's already robotics out on the battlefields today. We're using them in explosive ordnance disposal and stuff But the large-scale application Of the use of robots for ground combat One area that I think is very promising is specifically the area of logistics Because we spend any modern army has a relatively robust logistical tail For fuel ammunition food water, etc. And you have to carry that from point a to point b And and when you get it, you know get a closer front line sort of thing or or even if there's no front lines in a particular war like a guerrilla war Uh in afghanistan iraq You're exposing your own forces And then also it takes a lot of protection Uh convoy protection forces, etc. So if we can use robots to deliver that stuff That i'm certainly not exposing ourselves to casualties and it reduces the amount of protection that I need to To to secure those convoys. So logistics is to be one area that i'm taking a hard look at I could envision someday convoys of unmanned vehicles full of ammunition and chow and so on bringing things from some rare area To wherever it is you have soldiers that need to be resupplied All right, I'm going to apologize. We are getting the hook We are out of time Right peter. Well, yes, peter says i'm getting the hook I want to thank general milley. I think I everyone here can agree. This is why This is why when general milley's out speaking in public the pentagon press corps turns up because General milley is always worth listening to and we always learn something sir. Thank you very much for your time