 Thanks to you, sir, for joining us for our lovely weather. It's too bad you didn't import some of what you're more accustomed to. So it's a real honor to have General Brooks here with us today. He, by my count, I think served in five different divisions in the Army. In one corps, two command, two Army component commands, and a partridge in a paratrooper, I was thinking to myself, I was going through this. And also, sort of, became nationally known enterprise. So we'll probably come up with some others, because we always make more. But also, the first four-star commander now of US Army Pacific. We were talking earlier about the elevation of that position from a three to four star two years ago, I think. Summer of 2013. And so, hopefully, he will say a few things about what that has meant practically for him as the most recent commanding general of USIRPAC. He has been leading some massive change, I would say, as the Army's point man for executing their portion of the rebalance. He's launched the Pacific Pathways Initiative, which I think you're going to talk a little bit about. He's been traveling around the region, including recently to China, Vietnam, and Korea, I believe. And so, lots to talk about today. He'll make a few remarks, then we'll open it up to audience Q&A. When we get to that point, if people could identify themselves, wait for the mic, identify themselves clearly, and be concise in your questions, it would be much appreciated. And if people could turn their cell phones to silent, it would also be appreciated. So with that, sir, thanks for coming. And we look forward to the conversation. Well, thank you very much, Dr. Leed. I really appreciate the opportunity to come to the Center for Strategic and International Studies and to share some thoughts on how our engagement activities and how our work in the critical Indo-Asia Pacific region, how it looks, from my eyes, a perspective of what we're hearing from our friends in the region, our partners in the region, maybe dispel some rumors and myths about what it is that the United States Army does as part of a joint team that's continuously engaged in this region. And then really want to be able to address the questions that we have out here. So thanks so much for the opportunity to be able to do this. I would tell you that the strategic rebalance in the United States is real. We are asked that question frequently, is it real? And we think that we can point to a number of things, certainly from our military contributions to that strategic rebalance. In the Army alone, we've risen from about 80,000 soldiers who are assigned under the command of US Pacific Command, up to 106,000 at the present time. Since I took command in the summer of 2013, this is a global force management decision that was done largely by increasing the number of units that are assigned in Washington State especially, assigning them as Pacific forces underneath the command authority of Admiral Sam Locklear, my boss. And so as we find the opportunity to engage the region, we have additional forces, and perhaps said more importantly, additional professionals to commit out there because our professionalism, the professionalism of our forces in very high demand. Our friends in the region are asking to meet with us as professionals where there's mutual respect and exchange of knowledge, exchange of skill sets. And we recognize we have lots to learn when we're out there in the region. We can learn from our friends and their experiences. We find that humanitarian assistance and disaster response is one of the most common areas of engagement out there in the region. We can talk about that some more if you'd like to. Because of the nature of the Indo-Asia Pacific region, and the fact that more than 80% of the natural disasters that happen globally resulting in the loss of human life occur in this region. We're often asked the question about, well, what does an army do? Because isn't it about the ocean? Or the oceans, Indian Ocean, Pacific Ocean? And certainly that is part of the consideration of where our interests and international interests reside. But in that 17% of the world's land mass, there's more than half of the world's population. I already mentioned the impact of natural disasters on that human terrain, if you will, that we interact with. Many of the countries in the region are significantly influenced by the roles of their armies within their militaries. Most of them are army centric. Some of them have heads of government or army, ministers of defense, key ministers in key positions, foreign affairs state that are army. And so there's a natural opportunity for engagement and dialogue. And that becomes our primary focus is engaging the region, person to person, professional to professional, country to country. I would tell you that the region is very dynamic right now. The relationships within it, while we certainly have seen the fruits of really seven decades of relative security and considerable prosperity and growth that hasn't been the benefit for everyone yet. That's still occurring. There are countries that are just arriving on the scene for this framework of interactions among nations that makes it possible for prosperity to emerge on the foundation of good security, reasonable security. But these relationships are changing. So five of our seven treaty allies, for example, are in this region. Five of the United States treaty allies internationally, five of those seven are in the Indo-Asia Pacific region. How we respond to these treaty allies and the importance of preserving these alliances is certainly part of where our interests lie. But in every case, those are in dynamic change. So we find that we have to be thoughtful about the needs of each country with whom we engage and the capabilities that we can bring to bear that will be beneficial. In some countries we've been asked for help in building a more professional military. In some cases it would be help me build a professional chaplain's core on the model of the United States Army. Help us think through increasing the roles of women as you have done in the United States military and the United States Army. And others, it's help us think through how we can achieve a greater degree of maritime domain awareness. Help us think through our modernization efforts as we view a new set of strategies nationally. This is different for every single country. And the good news is we have sufficient flexibility and capacity in our military forces, our joint forces and U.S. Army forces for which I'm responsible. People do that. You did mention the elevation to four-star and I'll comment on that and then I'll stop. This has made a difference. There was a previous era where the U.S. Army had four-star generals in the Pacific beginning with that headquarters in Hawaii. That stopped in 1974. So it's been a number of years since the U.S. Army had its service component that headquarters that administers the Army and commits it to military missions at the four-star level. So that resumed in the summer of 2013. We work very closely with the leadership of the other components of PAKOB, the Pacific Fleet, Pacific Air Forces, Marine Forces Pacific, Special Operations Command Pacific as partners and what we do within the joint team every day. We've also been designated as the lead for a land component command that coordinates the activities of Army, Marines and Special Operations in our engagements and activities around the region. And so all these things have been opportunities that came from the shift to a four-star level headquarters, not to mention we believe that many doors have opened that we previously would not have had access to. All of my predecessors at the three-star general rank did remarkable work, I mean really remarkable work and they set a foundation for us to build upon that was a strong foundation of relationships and good influence around the region. But more doors have opened as a result of this, especially at the ministerial level and chief of defense level. Our ability to, if you will, convene the huddle among military chiefs in the region is different. And we're finding that that is a useful role and we're asked to play that role, a leadership role, consistent with our national security strategy, a strategy that talks about global leadership and regional leadership as well. So that's really where we are, that's what we're doing. We've got lots of things going on like Pacific Pathways if you wanna talk about that more if there's questions on it. Thanks again for the opportunity. Thanks. There are lots of different ways. Let me start with Pacific Pathways. First, if you could briefly describe the concept, because I don't think it's necessarily all that well understood. And then how it fits into the activities that you conduct with your assigned forces in a broader theater security cooperation strategy. Well, the Pacific Pathways is so- I mean, I'm sorry, not just your forward station. Okay. I mean, assigned. Well, some of them are, these are assigned forces we're using principally so far, but not exclusively. So it's not, and I think that's a very important point, it's not exclusively the assigned forces that are under combatant command authority of Admiral Locklear. We also use other regionally aligned forces of the United States Army and other components of the United States Army to build into tailored organizations that we commit into the region. So the broad idea of Pacific Pathways is an innovation. It's a new way to do things we have been doing before, which is going to key exercises throughout the region. Multinational exercises, bi-national exercises, joint exercises. These are things that we already had. The approach that we took here to four was to choose a unit that would go to an exercise, prepare them for that exercise. In some cases, they were organic units. In others, they were ad hoc units. Send them to the exercise and they return them back to home station, which times some of that engagement experience might dissipate very, very quickly. The innovation, what we're doing new is to choose a unit in high readiness after they've been through crucible experiences of our combat training centers, home station training, to hone their edge for a wide array of military commitments. And then using that ready unit as the nucleus around which we build a tailored task force. So these are brigade combat teams. And our brigades are about 4,400 to 4,500 troops of various types. And we have three different types within the Asia-Pacific region that are assigned to us. Striker brigade combat teams that have the Striker wheeled vehicle as their primary means. Infantry brigade combat teams that are still lightly equipped, highly mobile, able to go in a variety of places, tactically mobile at least. And then one airborne brigade combat team and infantry brigade combat team with airborne capability to do joint forcible entry to project power regionally or globally if we need to. They're based in the Arctic. So we choose one of these units, tailor it down to about 500 to 700 troops and capabilities, change its organization. For example, we might add aviation in our first Pacific Pathways operations which we did in 2014. We took a brigade out of joint base Lewis McCord in Washington state, projected it through Hawaii, assembled it with some additional capabilities including an aviation element that was part from Hawaii and part from Colorado, a regionally aligned force, built an aviation task force that had different capabilities in it, smaller than our aviation brigade, smaller than our maneuver brigade. And then we committed it. Indonesia was its first stop. Malaysia's second stop, Japan was its third stop. This is the other innovation. And that is that we don't project the force into the region and then immediately take it out. We projected west of the international dateline for these exercises. Then we move it sequentially to another country for a different exercise. To another country for a different exercise. All told about four months of time committed abroad. It's a deployment. It's an operation. What it was doing for us is really several things. We're getting quite a bit more out of this and even we anticipated. We knew we would achieve some reasonable efficiencies in terms of costs for transport, lift and in preparation training. We anticipated we would get a lot of good experience in what we call mission command. Who is it that commands and controls such complex operations that we would touch several echelons of command from the lower tactical levels, the brigade. All the way up to the theater command and to the joint command. We're getting more out of that than we thought. We're getting joint practice on complex problems. We're having to work with our whole of government partners, especially our embassies around the region as we have a different set of rules in each country we go to. Because we're talking about US troops being permitted to conduct exercises in sovereign territory of one of our friends. And that's how these things should be viewed. They're not just exercises. They're US troops being permitted to enter into the sovereign territory of one of our friends to do an exercise in these engagements. So it's creating broad effects in terms of the value that we're getting as an army, the value to the joint team. And I'd submit to you based on the feedback I'm getting the value to our friends in the region who are sensing this is something they want to be a part of. And they'd like for us to be considered their countries as part of the pathway stops. We did three different country stops. That's one operation in 2014. That was our maiden voyage. It worked. It was beneficial. We're doing three such operations this year, which means it will have that kind of a presence almost the entire year. Sometimes you do this with joint partners, like the ongoing operation. The first stop was exercise Cobra Gold in Thailand. US Army, US Marines aboard the same vessel, a US Navy ship, moving toward Thailand to conduct the operations. We had a serious mechanical problem. That was the ship that was caught on the reef just outside of Okinawa while we were in route. Army and Marines on board, Navy ship, joint action that's ongoing. Extraordinary joint teamwork to solve that problem when it was all said and done. A different ship came. Some of the troops were disembarked, still went on to Thailand to conduct a very important exercise with the regional partner and an ally, our oldest treaty ally. And the equipment then, who was offloaded onto a new ship, has since moved or is moving to the Republic of Korea where we'll do the next exercise. So the troops will now move to meet their equipment. This sequencing, this working through complexity, gives us extraordinary experience that we would not otherwise be able to get. And so we're finding it all to the good thus far. So that's a long answer to Pacific Pathways, but that's really what we're doing. Okay, let me open it up to all of you. I'm sure you've got lots of questions. We'll start here. Wait for the mic if you would. Hi, general. Welcome to Visit DC. My name is Nadia Chow, Washington Correspondent for Liberty Times. We know that US tried to reach an agreement with China regarding to the ships and the air fighters engagement rules. I wonder from the Army's point of view, what's the most important component for the military exchange with China? And another story is that the Taiwan media report for the first time, Taiwan sent a special force from the Army to do joint training with the US official here for search and rescue in high mountains areas. Can we confirm that with you? And does that mean anything, you know, new cooperation in the search and rescue area? Thank you. Well, thank you very much for the question. A few things that I would respond to first on that. We have been seeking and say we have increasing success in increasing the land force dialogue, People's Liberation Army to US Army, in our case, US Army Pacific. Our view is that that is a channel of communication that's really important to have, especially as we have frictions that will occur and have occurred in the air and maritime environments, which is really where the agreements are being sorted out, protocols for interaction, so that there is first professional engagement that occurs consistent with international norms where military forces encounter each other in common areas. So the real effort is to work those in the air and maritime environment. The Army is not a direct party to that then by design. What we seek is an additional channel of communication, which we think is very important to have. We don't see a collision between PLA and the US Army at the present time, so we should be building our relationship while we can to prevent miscalculation, to prevent misunderstanding at the great privilege of following a disaster management exchange that you alluded to. There was search and rescue was a part of it, but the broad focus was humanitarian assistance and disaster response. And we've had interaction with the PLA since 1998 on that subject. In the last two years, it's taken a much broader application that includes a practical field exercise, which is soldiers side by side, solving complex problems on the ground. First one was done in Hawaii in the fall of 2013. The second one was done this year in Hainan. The Guangzhou Military Region was the organization with whom we worked. That was a very important event. And while search and rescue was a part of that, sharing techniques on how to inter-collapse buildings, how to remove debris in an area that's had a significant storm track that came through, which Hainan has firsthand experience on. In fact, the area we did it still has debris from the storm that went through, the super typhoon that went through. The lessons we can learn from PLA and their experiences and their national responders and the team that we bring, which consisted of National Guard that have expertise in this, US Marines as part of this, Army Civil Affairs, Army Engineers, Army Combat Forces, operating together as a team. When it was all said and done, we had I guess 120 or so US soldiers that went on this mission, as well as some senior headquarters. And we were hosted by 300 or so People's Liberation Army soldiers from the Guangzhou Military Region. Very important engagement. I was privileged to go there during that time. And after spending a few days in Beijing with some senior-level engagements and communicating at the National Defense University, a really high privilege of being able to talk to their major generals who are emerging leaders in the People's Liberation Army. We then moved down to Hainan and observed the exercise in progress. They'd already been going for several days of academics, staff exercises so that the senior leaders could learn how each side plans, what kinds of things we can bring to bear, what capabilities we have. And then finally, the practical field exchange which was on the ground work. We went out as a group, my counterpart from the Guangzhou Military Region, a PLA four-star general, his deputy commander, Hainan Military District Commander, all went along with one of my subordinate commanders from our theater sustainment command. We observed our troops doing work side by side. Remarkable, absolutely remarkable. First, there's a common language among soldiers, anywhere in the world. Even if you're linguistically not connected, you find a way to work through it and you've got things in common and they were sorting it out. And what happens after that is the foundational trust relationships, the people-to-people engagements that are so important in public diplomacy, international diplomacy. Militaries play a part of that and we find that this is helpful in building a sense of understanding, of getting a perspective of where each side is coming from. What are our concerns? What are our abilities? And what happens if we meet each other in a disaster response for a mutual friend? Are we able to work together as an international response force? Even if we're cooperated, we don't have to be under the same authority, but can we cooperate in such a way that we save lives and provide relief? This is what these exercises are all about. So a very important exercise happened this year. There's one more that you alluded to and this was a trilateral exercise that was done between Australia, China, and the United States militaries at the invitation of Australia. The U.S. was the third party having joined what was already an exercise between Australia and China. The exercise is called Kowari and it's held in the western outback of Australia and it's a survival exercise. Two-week survival exercise, very small number of people, it's only 30 military professionals. 10 from the PLA, 10 from the Australian Defense Forces, five Marines, five soldiers. And having to rely on each other for survival creates a different set of relationships also. So what we're finding is the more we're able to engage human to human, senior levels and lower tactical levels, the better the dialogue the less likely the miscalculation. We see the world differently, there's no doubt about that and as we have conversations with one another we realize that we don't see the world the same way. And my view is that we, and I shared this at the National Defense University, we're probably going to see things incorrectly as we look at one another at the beginning. Invariably we're gonna see it wrong. We have to take a step closer and seek dialogue and hear from one another and at that point we're still gonna have it wrong. It'll be better but we still won't completely understand. You have to take a step beyond that one step further which then makes it possible to have sufficiently sustained dialogue that leads to trust and reduces miscalculation. This has to be part of the foundation of our national level engagements and our military to military engagements even while we have protocols being developed in the air and maritime space. That's how I thought I'd respond to that. It's very broad and it's very positive and it's trajectory right now. We're encouraged by it. Taiwan, I mean our policy on Taiwan is very clear. So I did not visit Taiwan. We do have missions that we do to support their ability to defend themselves but that's where that is. That policy has not changed, okay? We do training in Hawaii with Taiwan. On some subjects we are allowed to send people to Taiwan in mid grades of the military to be able to do work and we do have a program of cooperation that's associated with that. But our policy has not changed in that regard in terms of how the U.S. views the U.S.-China relationship, the Taiwan-China relationship, the U.S.-Taiwan relationship. That has not changed at all and remains stable. Okay, I'll go here and then we'll go in the back. Sorry, hi. George Nicholson, our consultant for SOCOM. Several days ago there was a briefing here with commander of the 173rd and I know that what the Marines have done right now and in both African command under General Rodriguez now under SENTCOM under General Austin and now in SOCOM is gonna have a quick response task force with MV-22s with a response company and with tankers. The colonel indicated that it didn't send some. There's standing up a quick response company and that's the guidance of the Army to have that in all the theaters. They're on an 18-hour string. What do you have or what are you doing in your command to have a quick response capability for the Army? Well, thanks for the question. We already maintain regional response forces and global response forces. We kind of view this as a new normal. The ability to respond from forward deployed locations is always preferred. From assigned forces under combatant command is also the next preferred within that. We have that ability already. I'd submit to you, by the way, that the 173rd already has soldiers that have been committed in a very important way inside of Central Europe. So it's maybe establishing another company beyond the one that was already committed. This is the case in every one of the regions. So all of the Army service component commands are responsible for generating these capabilities. In our case, we keep a striker brigade that's on a short response string that can move a command echelon and initial response forces. With all it takes is a couple of aircraft to be able to do that within our region, within a short period of time. This is, depending on the availability of lift, short notice, 18 to 24 hours, they can be gone. Additional echelons can come after that if we want to reinforce that with a larger element. We do the same thing with humanitarian assistance assessment teams, several of those that exist to give the pay com commander options when we have a humanitarian assistance need or a crisis that occurs, a disaster that occurs. We have an airborne brigade combat team that I mentioned that's in Alaska that can respond within a matter of hours, I mean short hours, four, five, six hours anywhere into the Arctic Circle, which is critically important to us. Or within 12 to 18 hours of flight anywhere inside the Pacific Command AOR, in parts of the European Command AOR, in parts of the Central Command AOR from Alaska. Very well positioned, we've exercised that. We keep them on a short response string as well. So 18 hour sequence is what we tend to use for that. They can move faster with response elements that are below the full unit, assessment teams, command elements. So our ability to echelon like this is not something new. This is something we've been doing for a very long time and we have that inside of the Pacific. I maintain them in Washington State, in Alaska, and in Hawaii. These are response forces in each location. All three are co-located with important power projection platforms. This is where we have airports, military airports, seaports, that can move any part of our capability at any point in time. All three locations are like that and we exercise them routinely. So we'll take a response element, a battalion size, 700 to 1,000 troops within a brigade, give them no notice, alert them one day, have them draw key equipment, organize themselves for a plan they don't know, move to one of our departure airfields, load on a set of aircraft and fly to one of these different areas. So from Hawaii we'll fly into Alaska or into Yakima Training Center in Washington State. From Washington State we'll go to Alaska or to Hawaii. We may even fly periodically into Korea for an exercise. This ability to move within the Pacific is really important to us, not to mention, the Pacific Pathways capability, which is a force in high readiness, already west of the international date line, is able to respond as an option available to the combatant commander if they happen to be in the right geography and something that occurs. This is very important. This is not to displace anyone. This is to add options. Because trust me, there are not sufficient options to respond to the scope and scale of what this region demands from us. Last year, while the Pacific Pathways operation was ongoing, we had earthquakes, volcanoes erupting in two different places. We had super typhoons in two different locations simultaneously and we might have been asked to respond to any one of those. That takes a lot of force capability, it takes a lot of agility, but the key is to be in the right place at the right time. So four deployed forces, we always turn to, as we saw with the first Marine, I'm sorry, third Marine Expeditionary Force coming out of Okinawa into the Philippines using their own ability to transport themselves, but quickly reinforcing that effort jointly with Army capabilities that made it possible to enhance their ability to succeed in support of the Philippine government. This is how we move. We have response forces distributed around the region. Some are forward deployed, some are at US installations like those I described, who can be projected on short notice and are exercised to do so. Can I ask a quick follow on to that about whether you think as our relationships mature and sort of broaden across the region, a key element of that response capability is also prepositioned equipment and that vastly helps with the lift challenge. It does. Do you see the preposition lay down changing over any time frame? I mean, do you think it's adequate for what we need right now, or can you see it evolving? No, the answer is yes, absolutely. At first it makes a difference. Yes, it makes a difference in terms of where it's positioned, especially in reducing the amount of strategic lift that's required to respond. Secondly, where it's positioned can make a difference for regional partners. Yes, it's going to change. Remember our primary footprint of basis right now for the Army of the Pacific is part of the legacy of our operations over the last 117 years because we've been continuously engaged in the Indo-Asia Pacific region for 117 years without ceasing. And our history very clearly has moved us in different places in that region at a given point in time. Largely, our footprint is post-World War II, influenced by post-Korean war and post-Vietnam war. That's where our presence is. So Hawaii, Alaska, Washington State, Korea, Japan, Okinawa, Guam. That's our footprint, where we have bases, permanent bases. But our regional response might have to be in other places. So we find that it is useful to think through where would you position humanitarian assistance and disaster response sets in a way that can make a difference in the ASEAN area? For example, how can you use those equipment sets? And you'll hear these referred to as activity sets because we intend not to keep them in storage but rather to use them and then store them and then use them and then store them, activity sets. Can we position the right types of equipment for a disaster response? Engineering equipment, medical equipment, communications equipment, command and control equipment? And the answer is probably yes. We have to have a dialogue with countries in that region because it's gonna be up to them on whether or not we can position equipment that is the property of the United States of America for regional response. No, by the way, it may be possible in those discussions to share that equipment for training. This can be very important for countries that are trying to increase their own capacity to respond to regional crises or to participate in things like international peacekeeping operations. And so we're engaged in those dialogues. It won't go into the countries with whom we're having that, but certainly that means there will be a change if we're successful in doing that. The best change is that response will be even greater when it's all said and done. That's split. All right. Way in the back and then we'll come over here and work our way this way. Thank you, General. My name is Donghui Yu with China Review News Agency of Hong Kong. And I have a follow-up question on U.S.-China military exchange. It was reported by the U.S. media that the Pentagon has paused the new exchange program with PLA until the two sides reached a new agreement on the expected air encounter. But of course, the Pentagon has denied that reports. So what kind of exchange program do you have with PLA Army for this year? Can we expect a more substantial exercise besides the HADR exercise? Thank you. Thank you for the question. There are several things that govern our engagement. One of them is the National Defense Authorization Act of 2000, which limits the scope of our engagements at the present time. We know that there is a desire to increase that, but that limits us on certain subject areas. HADR is the primary one within that. So we find that to be beneficial, not limiting in any way. A very important set of engagements for us with real practical consequences in terms of responding to the crises that do come every year, every year without fail. And it's just a matter of how many and how disastrous will it be in a given year. But there will be lives lost every single year throughout this region because of the disasters that occur. And so first, we intend to keep that in HADR response. I will tell you, I have not been given any instructions to reduce my engagements. So I'm not going to comment on whether that's a true statement or policy, but I can tell you, I was not given any instruction to reduce engagements. And we're looking for every opportunity within our authority to do that. Some subject areas are not permitted yet as a matter of policy. And I would ask you to consult with other parts of our government on that, but we stay within policy guidelines on what we can do. And I would tell you that at the present time, there is sufficient latitude for us within those permitted subject areas to do quite a bit. And so we're going to continue to do that. We will continue to receive PLA visitors to Pacific Command headquarters and to US Army Pacific at several levels. We continue to agree to activities for exchanges. We'll have coordinating meetings that coordinate the exercises and events that we're going to do together. We will continue to follow up on relationships that have been started, because that's very important. We don't want to have transactional engagements with one another. We only come together when we need something. We need to have a more substantial set of relationships that can be built over time. We've had discussions about having mid-career level exchanges, and we're talking about people who are in the 10 to 15 or 20 years of experience in exchanges. These are topics that we're having discussion about, and we're keen to do that. I would add one last point on the types of engagements. One of the very important events that we have is to periodically create a forum for dialogue with multiple countries. Every two years we have a Pacific Army's Chiefs Conference where Chiefs of Army come together and have dialogue on some subject area. Each year we have a Pacific Army's Management Seminar where we have a slightly lower level at the three-star to four-star level, but not the chief level to do similar things. In fact, this year we had a very successful, highly successful event in Bangladesh where they were the hosts. This coming summer we will go to Bali, Indonesia, where they'll be the hosts of the Chiefs Conference. When we have this, we always invite the PLA, and in the last two years of these exercises and fora, we've seen much better participation. We welcome that participation. It's a very important part of these events, so we look forward to more of those types of opportunities for dialogue and discourse as well. It's important to the region, and I've heard this from many of our partners. It is important to the region to know that there is a relationship between the United States and China, including a military-to-military relationship. They want to make sure that their equities are also measured. They want to be careful about the relationship, but they find it to be very important and necessary. So we'll keep that going. Hello, General. Thank you for doing this, Alex Wortman with NHK. I had a quick question about the finances. I was wondering if you could talk a little more about the specifics and how much money was saved from Pacific Pathways by doing multiple drills in one deployment. And then I also had a question about what kind of effect this had on defense spending for allies in the region. Do you see them increasing their spending to be able to do more of these drills or to increase their capabilities in these drills? Thank you. Well, thank you for the question. Of course, total fiscal calculus still takes a little while to get the cash register completely settled down in terms of what did it really cause, but we can see that we have saved a number of various comments on those. I don't want to give you numbers because as we finally reconcile the tally sheet, I don't want to be stuck to that number. But I can tell you for sure, we eliminated three excursions of movement of force capability. Procuring one vessel using it for each movement is different than procuring three vessels for each exercise. We know we knocked that right off the top. What to be clear about terminology, too. You don't mean you procured one. You mean you obtained one presumably through transcom. It's done through, exactly. We do it through US transportation command, but there's a cost. So yes, we contracted it through US transportation command, and that cost comes to us as the user. You're not buying a ship. You're buying the use of the ship. Buying the use of the ship. Thank you for the clarification on that. So we contracted the use of a vessel through military seal of command. Part of the United States transportation command, a joint headquarters that provides lift for all forces, especially the United States Army here. We know we made some cost savings in that regard. We know that we have a cost avoidance, I would say, is probably the way to describe this one. In normal practice, if you were to exercise a core headquarters in complex operations, you would create an exercise specifically for that purpose, call them warfighter exercises, joint readiness exercises, things like this. They're high-level exercises that are instrumented with quite a bit of support. And we create scenarios that will stress those command headquarters and staffs to think through complex problems. That's our traditional approach to exercises. We have never created a four-month exercise to shake out a core headquarters. What would that have cost? To have the kinds of scenarios and circumstances we had to work through. One set of rules for entry into ports in Indonesia. A different set of rules for entry into ports in Malaysia. Happening within a week of each other, operating in two different countries simultaneously. Thinking about airspace, frequency management, and bandwidth issues that are sovereign country concerns in each case. Coordinating visas for soldiers. That's not what you think about when you're conducting invasion. You don't think about visas. You have one. It's your force. That's the visa. But when you're talking about working with sovereign countries as a partner, you need to think about their sovereign entry requirements. So those 500 troops, all those things, it became scenario for that core headquarters. How much would that have cost? It's hard to say. We're trying to do some calculus on that. The number will be shocking. What about the level beneath that, the division headquarters, the 25th division? In this case, headquartered in Hawaii. The headquarters are principally used to control small units that are conducting operations outside of the Korean Peninsula. So everything else in the region. What about them? As they took two of their brigadier generals and part of their staff and split it in three pieces, pushed one part of it, small expeditionary element, into Indonesia, pushed a different element into Malaysia to control the operation so that brigade wouldn't have to worry about it. How much would it have cost to create a warfighter that did that? Those are costly events. Didn't need those. What about the readiness that we gained? And there's real readiness that we can point to. It could be something that sounds simple as all of our unmanned aerial vehicle system operators and units were certified to the highest level of proficiency in the span of that four-month operation because of the number of flights that they conducted, which would have taken a year or more to do in a normal training cycle. How much did we save by not having to do that over a year? How much readiness did we build by doing that that we would never have gotten to under the pressures of the Budget Control Act and even with the bipartisan budget agreement, which helped us quite a bit in the Pacific. We were the biggest beneficiaries of that with $144 million of benefit. So we're converting readiness at lower cost by leveraging a different approach. What about the very presence of going out there? Their exercise dollars are already committed. We use those exercises as the point of origin and destination. We go to the exercise and it moved from one exercise to the next because they're already funded activities. As a result, we didn't levy a new requirement. There were some marginal adjustments because the composition of the force had to be negotiated. Was it the same as the previous exercise designed because we weren't doing it that way? What about the value that then comes to our regional friends? You asked about that first in terms of defense spending, their defense spending. And while I can't point to any changes in defense budgets in the region as a result of this directly, I can absolutely point to the effect of having seen our force composition and our approach to moving on maritime services and linking up with air movement of troops. That has absolutely influenced several of our friends in thinking about their designs. How do they respond differently? How do they organize? What is the composition of their brigades? How do they move laterally? Within their own country in sovereign space. And some of these countries are huge latorals. All these things have had an impact and even the composition of their force. So we included aviation with us. That aviation was very important as we went to Indonesia. Indonesia has purchased similar systems. Was that because of Pacific Pathways? I don't think so. That would be taking too much credit. But did they see a utilization of that equipment that they purchased or were interested in purchasing? Absolutely, as a result of that. So there are impacts that are out there in other countries' decisions as well. It would be unfair to claim credit for that. That's just not going to be an accurate statement. But that we impacted the considerations, I think we could say that. Sir, good afternoon. My name is Paul Tennant. I'm a British Army exchange officer on the Army staff. I'd like to talk about China and Russia together if I may, two authoritarian regimes with a shared three and a half thousand kilometer border, both of whom, if only in perceptional terms, are arguably feeling somewhat enveloped by the liberal world order. They represent, again, arguably the most immediate and the largest threats respectively to that liberal world order. How do you and your regional component commander and General Hodges and his equivalent ensure that what you do in your region doesn't unwittingly encourage those two nations' interests to converge against that liberal world order? Well, I'm going to separate the two because I don't think it's fair to join China and Russia together in the same set of thoughts because our approaches are very different. Our dialogue is entirely different at the present time and I think our trajectory is also different at the present moment. So we've already talked to our approach to China and certainly China has its own concerns about its own borders and the relationships that it has along each one of those borders, a very complex border. We ought to have some conversation about that. How do you secure a border like that? What are the consequences of continuously contested areas that haven't been resolved under international law? And how do you get to a solution where it doesn't change the regional order of stability that helps to advance prosperity? That's really where we are with China. And yes, the approach will be different. China certainly values and appreciates a bilateral approach to solving such problems. So do we. We have a slightly different view in terms of the framework within which that bilateral discussion occurs and we can work to clarity on what that means. That's not interventionism on the part of the United States. It's really kind of make sure that the ring is set properly for those who have conflicting issues to be able to sort it out in a fair way, in an equitable way. So I'll stop with that in terms of China. Russia, you asked about, it's unfortunate that the trajectory on is a challenged one at the very least if not a bad one. For me, as the commander of US Army Pacific, I've lost the ability to have a conversation with any counterpart. Russia is a Pacific and an Arctic nation. So are we. We have lots of things to talk about. I can't talk to them right now. It's unfortunate. Some choices have been made by Russia and then choices made by the United States and our partners that make that difficult right now. It's not where we are. So we're heading in a poor direction. We don't have the opportunity to build a framework for dialogue and trust. We can't build skill sets together right now. It's unfortunate. That's where we're headed. Now, how do we address the fact that Russia is not only a Pacific and an Arctic nation. They're also European nation, et cetera. Asian nation in many ways as well. How do we coordinate that? Well, the good news is that General Hodges who you alluded to was my roommate four times. So we maintain a dialogue about many other things other than Russia, trust me. But our view of how we use the Army forces that have been put under our charge in support of our two different combatant commanders and the different sets of priorities in very different operating environments. He does his work within a NATO context. There isn't no such equivalent in my region. We do things bilaterally and we seek to have multilateral cooperation, but we don't have a framework like the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and its military structures that descend from it. So being thoughtful about the things that we have upcoming, where are we able to engage? Can we send mutual reps to dialogue at think tanks when those kinds of things emerge again? There's still a trickle charge of dialogue that happens out there. It won't be mill to mill per se. It might be in an academic institution. Can we have participants from each of the commands inside of there? If we have an Arctic summit and we're having a conversation, by the way, the chair is about to move. The United States is about to be the chair that Arctic group will participate in that. And I sent my commanding general from up in Alaska who commands our US Army Alaska forces and those critical capabilities, Striker and Airborne, that can be projected from Alaska into the Arctic Circle as we did just two weeks ago to have a dialogue in the context of Arctic interest. So there are trickles that can happen out there. We ought to share our awareness. What are we hearing? I can share that with Ben Hodges, certainly. And this is a good mechanism. There's an undergirding set of relationships I think are very important to understand and how our military works right now. And that's not just roommates from West Point and other places. This is how the joint team also has interacted over the years. So when we talk to our fellow component commanders in each one of the regions, we share quite a bit of information. We try to leverage each other's engagements and visits. My colleague, Admiral Harry Harris, who currently commands Pacific Fleet and has been confirmed to be my boss here very shortly, just recently was in India. Well, next week, I'll be hosting a senior Indian delegation in Washington State to coordinate our upcoming year's activities. It's very important to me to know what Harry just went through and what the dialogue was and whether he was able to open some doors for me and how I can help to open doors for him. So this set of relationships within the joint force in the US military context, which can be broadened to our regional partners like your country and others like Bangladesh. This can be possible. And this is how we're actually engaging right now. So I think that's the best way to coordinate our activities. There'll be policy directions also, obviously that synchronize us as a nation in our engagements. But that lower level of frequent contact and engagement I think can be done informally by just having good relationships among our friends. I said that, it was general hot, it was really messy. I'm gonna hold that out. I can't have that on record. He knows the answer to that question. And the answer is yes. I wanted to know if General Hodges was really messy. He's matured. Okay. I did all the cooking. Right here. Thank you. Sebastian Sprenger with Inside Defense. I wanted to ask you a little bit about sort of the kinetic part of the equation in your theater. Secretary Hagel, former Secretary Hagel opened the door to at AUSA convention last year to what he said are new roles for missiles, artillery, tailored to the Pacific theater. I don't know, presumably to hold at risk, dispute at waters. He didn't go into detail. There's some dormant work being done by the Army on that. To what extent is that of interest to you? How do you see that going forward? And is it necessary to have such capabilities? Thank you. Okay. Thanks for the question. First, I would tell you that our primary objective is to never have to engage in a fight. It's very important to understand that. Having said that, as our recently released Army operating concept highlights, the focus of the concept is to win in a complex world. So if we have to, we have to have sufficient capacity, skill sets to win. Does it mean the largest force? Doesn't that mean the most technologically advanced even? But it does have to mean win. So there is a kinetic aspect to this that we must maintain in readiness all the time and to make sharper with every day that passes. You talked about a very specific part, which is how Army forces, land forces, can bring to bear lethal effects, other capabilities that are in the kinetic environment in what is heavily maritime. And that's very important. So I go back first to the fact that the nature of our operations is joint. We're part of a joint team all day, every day. And thinking through how the capabilities that we have, and we have an extraordinarily wide set of capabilities in the United States Army, how that can impact the joint team in any operating environment, including when we project capability from land into other environments like the maritime domain, into space, into cyber domain, or how we synchronize and fuse capabilities and resources from others into the land domain and in the human domain. All of these are very important to us. So how do you do that? One can certainly imagine that precision surface to surface engagement is a matter of expertise for the Army. It is. Can we do that in the geography that we're talking about? Or does it require adaptation of existing technologies or the emergence of new technologies? These are the kinds of conversations that we have to have. How do you get the extended range that you need? How do you have precision engagement from surface land to surface water? What are those systems? We maintain dialogue with industry to think about things like that. And we also examine concepts on how we would think about using such capabilities. Not to mention the well-known things. Ground-based air and missile defense, which is an important part of our security calculus, especially against a unpredictable, dangerous, and provocative North Korea. We have to have that capability. And so we have deployed air defense systems. By the way, those are in limited number throughout our force. And so the pressure on the force, especially in air and missile defense is pretty significant. How do you perpetually maintain presence and security with a small force? The forward stationing or in high rotations, one or the other, but to maintain that readiness is costly. Even if they're based forward, for example, their pace of operations is very different than if they were based in Fort Bliss, Texas. And so we have budgetary considerations to go with that. But the bottom line is there are army capabilities like that in ground-based air and missile defense that become very important to a joint operation. Common user logistics that take care of the entirety of the joint force. The army has primary responsibility for that. So no matter where we are, whether we're protecting an air base or moving fuel or providing water, surface movement of sustainment stocks done with army watercraft, we commit those watercraft. Right now, this is back to the question about activity sets and are those in the right place? The majority of my activity sets are in Japan. They need to be there for a reason. We've got to be able to respond very quickly in Northeast Asia because of the volatility of the Korean Peninsula. But they can also be in use if we're thoughtful about using those storage sets as active sets. And we've drawn out two of our watercraft out of Japan every six months and we commit them down in Southeast Asia to help the joint team. So it might be that we're moving munitions for the Air Force to backhaul something that they've been trying to reduce stockage of or taking excess material off the Korean Peninsula delivering it somewhere else. We're helping the joint special operations task force that we've had in the Philippines to reduce its structure and relocate some of its equipment from within the Philippines to a different area. All these things are part of army capabilities that can be brought to bear in this environment. Watercraft, common logistics, air defense, attack systems, unmanned aerial vehicles that can tether with army roger wing aircraft which we have trained to operate over water and to land on decks of various ships, U.S. and other. We had a great exercise, the rim of the Pacific exercise that occurred this last year is the largest maritime exercise in the world. And it's hosted by our colleagues, U.S. Pacific Fleet. This past year, one of its subordinates, Third Fleet, our West Coast Fleet was the host. The exercise occurs in Hawaii where we've got lots of training area and the ability to do things jointly. Well, for the first time we had China as a participant in that maritime exercise. We also had land forces. U.S. Army Pacific and our colleagues were in that exercise and we brought these things to bear. So we had lots of Apaches that were operating out there. Surface to ship, to shore, medical evacuation and mass casualty exercises, activating land-based medical systems, army, medical evacuation, landing on decks of ships where mass casualty occurred. Good exercises, joint exercises. So the whole approach to new joint concepts for access and maneuver in the global commons, this concept has the Army as part of it. We wanna make sure we're practicing the techniques. How do you think through that? What do we need capabilities-wise? How do we build the techniques that let us do that? That's a long answer to the question, but thanks for asking. Okay, here. Whitey Park, Regional Director for Southeast Asia for Boeing. Sir, it's good to see you since our days in Academy and tours in Korea. I wanna start with just a comment. I've spent over 15 of my 30 years in the U.S. Army in Asia Pacific. I think the decision to bring you as the first four-star in Hawaii, we suspect command is one of the best decisions I can think of. And proofs of that decision, we see that clearly, you mentioned it in Southeast Asia, particularly in Indonesia. The exercise that we do, that you, you know, how to put a shield, for example, where Apache did magnificently, and we are getting indications that Indonesia may be now interested in Chinooks, which would be perfect platform for HADR kinda events. So thank you for all the things you've done in Southeast Asia. My question is, I heard you just came back from Vietnam. I know we have recently lefted the partial sanction in Vietnam. What is your take and your visit in Vietnam? What is possible in terms of engagement and future engagements with Vietnam? Thank you. Thanks for the question. It's good to see you. I mentioned that relationships are changing in the region and we are finding that doors that have been, maybe unlocked but not wide open are increasingly open and we need to seek each other out on both sides of the door to have a handshake and get some things done. The visit to Vietnam was very encouraging for me. It was my first visit. I had had some encounters with senior Vietnamese officials at some of these multilateral fora that I talked about, but had not had the opportunity to host Vietnamese generals or to visit until very recently. And we did it right on the tail end of the visit to China and preceding a trip to Korea. As Marin said, first was great appreciation for 20 years of normalized relations. That was important. I'm glad they shared that that was important to them. Secondly, it was very clear that Vietnam has taken real and constructive steps to demonstrate what reconciliation can look like. Not only because of the 20 years of normalized relations with the United States, which is of interest to other countries in the region and this is something they shared with us. Other countries are asking them, how do you achieve this? I won't name those countries for the sake of Vietnam's desire to not speak to that unless they want to speak to it themselves. But other countries are seeking them out on how do you build normal relations with someone with whom you had a war? How do you do that? There are several areas where we already have opportunities for cooperation. Search and Rescue is one of those. Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Response is a door that we would like to pursue even further. International peacekeeping operations, especially if we can help Vietnam develop niche capabilities that they would like to be counted upon by the United Nations as a contributor. And we have the capacity to help them with those things. Are there other areas where they would desire to move further and that will happen as our relationship continues to mature? This is very important. They've asked also for us to continue to be an important player in the region. Our presence is valued. Our interactions with ASEAN countries is important. To Vietnam, as it was expressed to us, and we've heard this from other ASEAN nations as well. And so we're just gonna stay engaged at the pace. And I say this with really every country with whom we engage. We have capacity to move at a very high pace in very high density. And if we try to set that pace or the density, we will probably overwhelm our partner. We need to move at the pace that our partner wants to move and we're able to do that. And we will. So wherever we can say yes within the parameters of policy and affordability, then we'll do what the country asks of us. I think it's really important. We get great benefit from that anyway. It doesn't really matter what the subject is, we have professionals who can help deliver. And to demonstrate that professionalism is good. That's a good thing. But also to build the professionalism of our friends who are asking for more from us then, that's a good thing also. So this is where we're gonna go, with Vietnam and with other countries. I think, sorry, he's had his hand up for a long time. Thanks. General David Lynch with Bloomberg. When the Pacific rebalance was first conceived, nobody had ever heard of ISIS. Now we're looking potentially at what could be a multi-year effort in Iraq, Syria, maybe elsewhere to battle the Islamic State. Do you anticipate that sort of commitment complicating or threatening your ability to fulfill your part of the rebalance? Yes, because it is an unforeseen that demands our action as it's being undertaken. So any unforeseen requirement that emerges, especially it's something that's very important to international security. Any unforeseen requirement in a reduced force with reduced resources, means that the option set will also be reduced. And so I have concerns about that. I will tell you, having said that, that we have been largely left untouched with this effort to commit resources back to the Pacific in a larger number, and to not immediately turn to the Pacific as the sourcing solution for the unforeseen problems beyond the Indo-Asia Pacific region. And so that's been a very clear commitment by the United States Army and in support of the combatant commander to preserve our options in that region also, to not create another condition that creates unforeseen requirements. This whole idea of unforeseen requirements is I think the most important point here. How do you balance that, that kind of risk? If you structure forces just based on identified war plan requirements, then you might miss the opportunity to prevent wars from ever emerging. And you certainly will miss the opportunity to respond to the unforeseen without significantly elevating risk in those other areas. So we have to have a sufficient structure, sufficient authorities that make it possible for us to keep options out there for the combatant commanders, for the secretary of defense, for the president, anywhere we go. That's where we're actively engaged right now. It does cause our friends in the region to often ask the question, are you being affected by this? I think it's only reasonable to expect the great benefit of resourcing that we received. I mentioned $144 million of bipartisan budget agreement, delivery that impacted US Army Pacific very directly and resulted in an anticipated four out of eight brigades, brigade combat teams being at the highest state of readiness to what ultimately became seven out of eight being in the highest state of readiness. That happened in 15. The way we're headed is not going to happen in 16 because we won't have the resources if we're not relieved from sequestration. So the combination of what's upcoming fiscally in 16 and the unforeseen requirements is probably going to mean I will have less to work with in coming years. We'll try to be wise about leverage as I talked about, that's why Pacific Pathways is so important to us. I would want to hang on to something like that, even if I lose other opportunities to respond and to be present because of how much leverage we get out of it. But it'll cause me to have to make some really hard choices and offer hard choices to be made to my bosses. Department of the Army, the combatant commander through the chairman of Joint Chiefs of Secretary of Defense and President. So this is where we're headed. Right now I'm not worried about it, but I am attentive to it and looking for always being in an agile enough posture where we have forces positioned and how we're engaging the region that I can respond to the unforeseen in my region without creating a draw on those other very limited resources that are globally responsive, regionally engaged. That's how I see it, okay? Kind of a quick follow on to that about the uncertainty that exists in particular about the fiscal environment and where the Army is headed under any number of different scenarios. Do you see that manifesting itself in ways that concern you in the force? I mean, how's the morale? What's the, how do you talk about that to your soldiers? How concerned are you about the impact of the uncertainty on your force? Well, building morale and leading is something I've spent my adult life doing and I'm still learning how to do it, to be honest with you. But I've learned that you can separate those very hard decisions that have to be made at the national level and at the service level from the things that your soldiers really are interested in. First, they're gonna count on their leaders to deliver for them the things that are most important, their quality of life, their housing, a support for what happens to them after they finish their career of service to the nation, caring for them if they're injured or wounded, caring for their families if they're dead. They're gonna count on their leaders to take care of that from their level above. If we can retain that trust and that expectation and deliver and frankly explain, because we have to explain all the things they would hope for we're not gonna be able to do. We've gotta be honest with our soldiers. That's the first thing that boosts morale, being honest with our soldiers. Second thing then is, make sure that their mission makes a difference. Give them missions. They didn't sign up to watch. They sign up to play. And a smaller force demands that everyone's on the field. So that's a good thing for them. We wanna be thoughtful and creative about how we make them very satisfied and have very high morale. Our element that went through the Pacific Pathways operation in 2014 and the ongoing one that's gone from now Thailand and they're in Korea right now as the time we're speaking, they're moving. Their morale is very high. People want to be part of this kind of an operation. Yeah, they know that it's gonna be a hard training ramp at home station. It's gonna be really squeezing out every resource that we have out of that home station training. It's gonna consume time that they would be at home. It does mean they're gonna go through some really hard scenarios that have extra things thrown in when they get to the combat training centers to really make sure they can respond to anything that happens within their capability. And then they're gonna have added to that a four month deployment. When that's all said and done, I mean, we're costing soldiers eight, 10, nine months something they've been accustomed to. Many of these soldiers have come in since we've reduced our presence in our operations in the Middle East. And to be honest with you, some of them feel like they missed something. And we have something else for them that's equally challenging. It's not the same as fighting in combat. It's not the same. But we have unique challenges that are in some cases even more complex than what happens in combat. So they can be stimulated and satisfied that what they're doing is making a difference for us. It's pointing a light into the future on how we want our army to be. And we're also building in a generation of people who have that experience right now. That's the part where the morale is high. When their mission is clear, their role is committed and they believe and trust that their leaders are gonna do everything they can for them. We have work to do in both areas to make their missions count and to make sure we remain worthy of their trust. That's kind of where we are right now. All right, so I, can you wait? Because I'm sorry, the web can't hear you, even if he can. My name's Peter Rogers. You better turn on my mic. Peter Rogers, Private U.S. Citizen. There was an article in the Times two weeks ago about us relocating our bases in Okinawa in the growing opposition of the Okinawan government to our operations. What are our strategic implications of the Japanese government war to restrict our operations or ask us to remove bases from Okinawa? At some point in the future. As you can imagine, that's a very sensitive area that we have to work through very, very carefully. And thank you for the question, especially from your perspective as a private citizen. First, we have a very close dialogue and a very close relationship with the Japan Self Defense Forces. Many of these decisions really had to be theirs, informed by the consequences. And I won't delve into that because I don't have a dog directly in the hunt on that. I mean, it has implications for the Army component there. We have a senior headquarters, U.S. Army, Japan, and a tactical headquarters, first core forward element led by Major General, that's there to interface with the Japan Ground Self Defense Forces. Only a number of matters, internal defense, our own operations, et cetera. We have a smaller element in Okinawa, a place where the U.S. Army has deep history and a significant commitment and loss of life as did Okinawans, as did Japan. We're in an anniversary year right now, of course, entering anniversary month, just a few weeks. So we want to be very careful about how we answer the question. Okinawa's geographic location is a very important one. That's why we continue to have a presence there that remains important to us and important to the region. The presence of the Third Marine Expeditionary Force and its subordinate commands, the presence of our air forces there and the smaller sustainment elements that the U.S. Army has there, including air defense systems, logistic systems, are important to our ability to respond to crises in the region. We've seen that over and over again, especially in humanitarian assistance, disaster response. Those, I'm sure, will be taken into account in the discussions. And so I'm not going to anticipate that we're going to be restricted, except where is needed for a time. We know that we have to do this. We're in sovereign territory. And so we always can expect that, hey, can you tone it down a little bit? We've seen very important things like the strategic consequences of periodic indiscipline by junior soldiers. It's an aberration. It's not the norm. But its consequence is significant and it's strategic. And so in some cases, we might get asked, hey, can you do something about this? And our U.S. military leadership in Japan has done a tremendous job of trying to balance the quality of life for our deployed warriors who are there and yet not putting them in a situation where they're going to become an ignition for a strategic bonfire. They've done tremendously in that regard. And we think that that hopefully is helping the dialogue so we can get really to a discussion about strategic necessity and mission and less about some of the very important, but social things and political things that sometimes hinder those types of dialogues. I would tell you that's where we are. We're trying to just be as thoughtful as we can to not cloud the conversation and to be there to inform it as well as we can. Then Japan makes the decisions that Japan needs to make. Hi, general. This is Pin Liu, China U.S. United States is investing huge in encouraging the reform of Myanmar. And some generals had just visited Myanmar a few, a couple of months ago. And it is reported that the United States has begun Chinese Myanmar army. But there are still some laws that forbid the high level military to military cooperation between the United States and Myanmar. So what are the legacies and the future perspective of United States army's cooperation with Myanmar's military? Thank you. Well, thank you for the question. This is one of those emerging opportunities for us. Partners and friends really want us to have a relationship with Burma and Myanmar. I use the example of having been at the ASEAN Defense Minister Plus Summit that was held in Hawaii last year. And the military commanders were invited to come to a reception. I was with a few of the ASEAN leaders, two ministers of defense, a couple of chiefs of defense that I had already met through my engagements in the region. They physically grabbed my hand and pulled me to the representatives, military representatives there from Myanmar. The region really wants us to have a relationship with Myanmar. And so we'll move at the pace that we're permitted. It's very important that we have a measured pace policy-wise. There are still some unresolved issues that have to be addressed. Human rights being one of those concerns. Reconciliation being other concerns. But clearly an open door through which we need to walk, not run. That's where we are. I have not had the opportunity to visit there yet. I'm seeking that opportunity and as soon as we're able to, we will. But I have had some of my subordinate leaders able to visit. And more importantly, we've received generals from Burma and Myanmar at some of these regional events that bring together leaders. My last contact was actually in Malaysia over the past year. We had a regional event that was hosted by Malaysia with a number of chiefs of army and senior officials from the militaries around the region. Got to have a good conversation. It was an unofficial one. It was a conversation at dinner. But that too can be very important. We have relationships that precede execution of policy. That can be very helpful. So we're looking to follow up on that as time permits. Our training is limited right now. It's very limited. It's not even fair to say we're training together. We are exploring opportunities to train together and are looking for the right subject areas and activities that will benefit both of the countries and also benefit the region when it's all said and done. Thank you so much. Great to see you, general. My name is Atsushi Okudera from Asahi Shimbun Japanese newspaper. As you mentioned a little bit about North Korea, I'd like to ask about the nuclear capability of DPRK. And as you know, North Korea are still trying to develop the military capability, particularly long-range missile and the nuclear weapon warhead. So I'd like to ask about what is your evaluation assessment of their capability, particularly on long-range missile and nuclear warhead? Particularly, their ability to miniaturize the nuclear warhead. And as you know, one more thing about the sense of threat. The 38 North, you know, the Sengtang have some three scenario on developing the nuclear capability of DPRK. The number of the nuclear weapon could be, could increase up to 200, from 20 to 200, ah, 20 to 100. So, but when we think about the negotiation, the COP 20 years, it seems like it has not been a significant threat for the United States, but as you know, North Korea has announced that they are the nuclear state. So my question is, is North Korea a significant threat for the US national security now or in the future? Thank you. Well, thank you for the question. I mentioned North Korea remains unpredictable, provocative. These are not characteristics that are beneficial to anyone's interests, not even theirs. First, we do see increased militarization as you highlighted and it would be difficult to surmise exactly where they are in terms of their ability to weaponize the missile systems that they have demonstrated they have and will use. The increased range, the increased precision are matters of great concern. And so to get to one of your questions on whether this is a national security threat, let's say yes, it has long been a threat to our interests. And as a result, we've committed ourselves for a long period to ensure that armistice holds, but at the same time ensuring that there's not weakness that would be exploited and help the Republic of Korea, especially be able to deal with that pressure of living in artillery range every single day in one of the most urbanized areas of the world. We see these proliferation behaviors also, whether it's trying to acquire capabilities or in some cases trying to export capabilities. It's just not helpful. And so we have concern about that, that's in our interest also, that has global consequences, not just regional consequences. The acquisition of long range capabilities is perhaps the most concerning where it becomes now a physical threat to the United States and its sovereign terrain beyond just a matter of threat to our interests. And that causes us also to take a different posture. So we have to continue to exercise. For example, we don't have an alternative to that. We also have to have dialogue continue. And all too often the phone is not answered when you call from south to north. So this is a difficult time. It's a dangerous time. And the potential for miscalculation is very, very high. So what's my assessment? That we still have a long way to go and a very dangerous period that will remain. Progress takes a long time. I don't rule out the potential to progress. I think it's still there. Just never know when an opening is gonna come. And certainly our diplomatic colleagues would tell you, you always wanna be ready to capitalize on an opportunity to move in the other direction. Away from threats to armistice and away from threats to national security of several countries, not just the United States. Many of our friends have concerns about North Korea. Even some of the countries with whom we have new relationships have concerns about North Korea. So how do we work collectively? And can our military to military relationships that are growing in the ways that I've already described this afternoon, how can that emerging set of relationships create a different set of considerations that can help to denuclearize and disarm North Korea? How do we do that? Well, that's not for me as a soldier to decide. My task is to remain in a high state of readiness, seek multimillion engagement opportunities to build these frameworks, to build these relationships, to help reassure our partners that we're with them, especially those that are in rocket ring range. The same kinds of threats that we face and more than the threats that we face directly. And then to be postured and ready, always ready to fight tonight. We don't want to fight tonight, okay? Remember, this is about trying to prevent war. We've seen the costs and I'm not talking about the fiscal costs. We're talking about the cost of years of postponement on development, generations of lost people, difficulties in ever getting forms of government restarted. We know what that looks like. It's not desirable, but it won't happen through us isolating ourselves or ignoring the fact that there's a different course being pursued by others. So we have to remain engaged. We have to remain prepared. So that if the lethal piece has to be used, that it's as short as possible, and as conclusive as possible. So we don't go back to that status quo. This is what we want to try to avoid if we can. Come to a different set of outcomes through being strong, being postured, but being open to dialogue the whole while. This I would say is where we are with lots of our friends in the region right now. I'm hopeful that that will cause North Korea to take note that they were already in isolated regime. They have very few friends. They have even fewer who are willing to come to their aid when they engage in provocative behaviors like sinking ships in a sovereign country, firing artillery into villages in a neighboring country, launching rockets, demonstrating capability. Yes, I understand they're trying to communicate to us about strength also. This is not helpful. And it's creating a greater potential for miscalculation. Sir, I promise you we'd get you out of here on time. I can't thank you enough for taking the time to come talk with us. I hope you are able to get out of here and back to warmer weather and send us a postcard of what that looks like. We welcome you back at any point. Again, terrific to hear more about what you're doing and we hope to keep hearing about it going forward. Dr. Lee, thanks so much once again for this opportunity. Thank you all very much.