 Major General Pied is the Deputy Commanding General of U.S. Army Europe. He previously served as the commander of the Joint Multinational Training Center. Is that Multinational Readiness Center? Joint Multinational Training Command. Training Command. In Graf van Veer, Germany. And enlisted initially as an infantryman and later was commissioned. He's a Pennsylvania native. He's deployed all over the world, spent a lot of his career out in the Pacific, but managed to bounce around to Suriname and other places I recently learned. And so again, he's going to talk to us a little bit about what's going on with U.S. Army Europe, what's going on with combined and multinational training there. And hopefully give us some perspective on how things have changed in the last six months, which I imagine the outlook's a little different than it was a year ago. So, sir, over to you. Well, I think, you know, we took these steps well over a year ago when I went to, when I got an assignment to the Joint Multinational Training Command in Graf van Veer, General Udi Erno told me I'm sending you over there. And I took over in June of 2013. But he said very clearly, and this was several months before, you know, your mission is to get the U.S. Army back integrated into NATO. Part of our plan, you know, we have been training forces and providing forces to an operational demand in Afghanistan and Iraq. And we needed to transition to operational preparedness. So this was a plan put into action by the United States Army and U.S. Army Europe well before the current security crisis in Eastern Europe. We did that with the restructuring of our forces in Europe, to better integrate ourselves with NATO. We knew that we didn't know what would be next, operational preparedness, you know, what would be the next contingency. But we knew we wouldn't do it alone. And then if we were going to have to respond together, we needed to train, work, live together, and to understand, you know, and build that interoperability. So the first exercise we did to get after that was called Combined Resolve One. We were going to use the NATO Response Force that was dedicated by the United States Army that would come from the continental United States twice a year to exercise our contribution to the NATO Response Force brigade-sized element. Well, this was in the fall and due to sequestration, we weren't able to afford to bring the brigade over. But we didn't want to let the exercise, you know, die on the vine. So we used assigned forces in Europe. We used the 173rd Airborne Brigade as the brigade headquarters. We had a mechanized battalion from the Czech Republic. We had a mountain battalion from Slovenia. We had several batons and companies from nine different nations. We had a U.S. airborne battalion. We had Czech Republic artillery. And so we created a multinational brigade and we gave them a full exercise against the full spectrum of military conflict and possibilities that they would have to encounter. And that was really our proof of principle of getting after, you know, operational preparedness. And we learned a lot of valuable lessons. We learned that interoperability was kind of a buzzword. Nobody really had really defined it. Some people think it's left up to technology. Some people think that it's just, you know, putting two people together and you've got interoperability. We thought that we saw firsthand that interoperability is more dependent on the intellectual capacity of military professionals coming together in one formation and facing a common problem and trying to develop solutions against that common problem. And that's what the alliance was, I think, was very strong at. We have a strong experience force throughout our allies in Eastern Europe and in Europe that when we come together, we're better than we are separately. So that was one big lesson we learned. We learned that we have a common doctrinal framework that is provided by NATO and that the U.S. Army needed to open that book again and learn what that framework was in that doctrine that we, our NATO skills and understanding of NATO doctrine had was neglected somewhat. But we did. We had common framework. We had well-experienced formations and that provided a great exercise before us. And that has since evolved that we did combine, since we've done combined resolve two with the regionally aligned force and the NATO response force, 1st Brigade, 1st Cavdivision, Fort Hood, Texas, came, this time we had, I think, 14 different nations over 4,000 soldiers. And again, did a tremendous exercise. And now we're conducting, as I speak, combined resolve three, which will have 16 different nations over 6,000 soldiers. And in between, we've done other exercises as well. We've done Saber Junction, which was the brigade headquarters wasn't a U.S. brigade. It was a Lithuanian brigade. It was the brigade headquarters with U.S. airborne battalion underneath it. Again, mechanized force from Czech Republic, Slovenian battalion, companies and platoons from Albania, Serbia, and other nations. We had many different nations, well over 6,000 soldiers. And we did, at this time, what was different? We just didn't train in Germany or in Grafavir and Hohenfels, which we normally do. We expanded it out to the Baltics. We did an out-of-sector mission and airborne airfield seizure and simultaneously in Latvia and Lithuania with the 173rd Airborne Brigade. And we landed NATO C-17 planes and we were able to drive striker vehicles out of the C-17s. So we seized an airfield several countries away while training, conducting a large-scale exercise there. So we're building on that NATO interoperability. We're building on that partnered capacity. And we're doing this well before the crisis started, but it certainly has increased since. And I'm really here to report that my mission to get over there and get the U.S. Army, Europe, better integrated in NATO, I think is successful. We have a strong alliance that can respond to the security concerns today. And we're responding as a member of a very, very strong alliance. Can you talk a little bit about how NATO operations in Afghanistan and lessons learned from that? Both, I don't know if this is true, but I'm inferring perhaps incorrectly from your comments that there are some positive lessons from that and also potentially some negative ones that operational exit disease there have created some things where we wouldn't necessarily do it the same way in the future. I don't know if that's true again, but so can you talk about how you're attempting to leverage lessons learned from ISAF in how you're thinking about your training going forward? Well, I think both are true. I think first, the number one lesson from my perspective is the strong relationships we built while facing, while in combat with our allies. We have trained and we have deployed together side by side, many contributing nations to the conflict in Afghanistan has really forged a special trust and deep respect and it's created this bond and this strong relationships that is very powerful and every nation that has deployed there has now has a really experienced force and that experience, I think we have in Europe and NATO now, probably the most experienced force we've ever had and I know in the United States we say that a lot about our services that we are the most experienced in the history and I believe that to be true but the same is true with our allies and to share that experience now costs our nations nothing. So I think that lesson is one that can carry over to whatever the next conflict can be. The some of the challenges though that we face is that because you're falling into a mature theater, a mature construct that some of the challenges of interoperability, classification sharing, foreign disclosure, all those rules are set for a mature theater in Afghanistan so when you do exercises or you do named operations as we're also doing in Europe now that you have to work through those ahead of time and you have to understand, you have to respect the sovereign rights of the nations as part of that alliance and it's not just one set of rules. So in Afghanistan it's established, you have procedures that are established so you can rotate forces in there very quickly but each time we build up a new exercise you have to go through and take those steps. You know, as I found out, as I tried to bring over the Czech Mech Battalion to an exercise they wanted to come, they're ready to come, they're ready to pay their way, do all the right things and I didn't think it was a big deal to bring over a battalion of T-72 tanks across the border into Germany and I realized that I don't own the border in Germany. So there were some procedures that I had to learn as a command to say, you know, Germany probably has something to say about this so there's just procedures you have to go through. All of them are in place. We have agreements established with some nations, some we have to get in and work those out as we go through. We're seeing that in the Baltics right now. So in April, in response to the crisis in Ukraine, US Army, Europe deployed the 173rd Airborne Brigade to the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and also to Poland and our mission there was to reassure those governments that when you join NATO, it meant something. It meant something to the Alliance and it meant something to the United States and this brigade, you know, even prior to that time and certainly since has been the most deployed brigade in the United States Army. I mean, the 173rd Airborne Brigade is literally in many, many different countries but they stayed there. The biggest effect we got, we didn't go there to deter or we didn't go there to defend. We went there to reassure those nations and to build up multinational partner capacity with our allies in those nations and we trained constantly. That was our mission is to go and train with our allies in those countries and we did. And we just recently handed over that mission on the 13th of October to elements of the first brigade, first cab division from Fort Hood, Texas. So now instead of just paratroopers in those nations, we have M1 tanks, Bradley's and striker vehicles from our second cab regiment that have assumed the mission of Operation Atlantic Resolve is what the named operation is called. So as they came over for Combined Resolve 3, they put one battalion task force up in Operation Atlantic Resolve and they put the other battalion, Combined Arms Battalion, down into Graphenvere to do gunnery and then they'll go to Hohenfels to a force on force exercise and then complete gunnery or complete li-fire exercise at Graphenvere post that. Can you talk a little bit about how the changing security environment in Europe is affecting U.S. Army Europe's thinking about future requirements. Obviously, we'd been on a trajectory to reduce our structure and presence and consolidate for, maybe we've been on that path for 15 years or more, but more explicitly in more recent strategy documents. And again, as I think you've alluded to, our partners are asking us for slightly different and or additional kinds of things. So given the budget environment, given the downsizing of the Army and all those other, and the existing plans, how's U.S. Army Europe dealing with what arguably is a growing divergence in capacity and clearly regional line forces can help to address some of that, but how would you characterize the command's thinking about this? I'll say, simply put, I would say it reinforces our plan. I think the plan was right, I really do. I think if we look at it from a unilateral perspective only, we fail to see what our purpose in Europe is and that's to be a member and a contributing member of an alliance to provide a collective smart defense for Europe. So we start with to get us reintegrated into NATO with some recognizing what the U.S. role was going to be during the Cold War when we had 300,000 U.S. forces there, it was a very different environment. But because of that commitment, because of the commitment of the alliance, we now have a larger NATO member nations. We have peace and stability and growing economies in many different countries. So the plan and the reduction of result of our success. Not, we just had a plan to cut, we're gonna cut forces and now we got a crisis and we gotta increase. I think it reinforces it. I think the crisis shows that our strategy to shape the size, to consolidate the infrastructure, saving millions of dollars, the U.S. taxpayer dollars of consolidating those bases, getting to force the right size to be a contributing member of NATO was the right approach. And if you do the math and you look at the total force structure that NATO can put out to any security challenge, it's quite intimidating. So we're not at a, we may be lower, but the alliance is greater. So and we're stronger and we're trained, ready, equipped to respond. So I think what we took our guidance from really was what former secretary general said his vision was to build a smart defense for Europe through connected forces initiative. And connected forces initiative was a lot like interoperability. Nobody really knew what that meant. It meant different things to different people. But Army Europe really took, started to dissect that and said, what does it mean to us? How can we help build that vision? Conceptually, it made sense. But what was the real plan? How did you really build those formations to come together to really present a lethal agile force that can be deployed for crisis anywhere? So we developed our connected training initiative that would support it. We knew it would be wrong if every nation came out of Afghanistan or out of conflict and just went back into their own borders and fought their own budget constraints and cuts on their own. They probably weren't gonna win that. Neither would we. But if we shared the experience we had from many years being deployed and we shared our training areas and facilities we already had purchased, paid for, funded, which are very good, we can now build a greater training capacity that's much better than just as you would stand unilaterally or alone. This really helped and it opened up the possibilities of doing bigger exercises, more frequent exercises and a lot less expense. So I think this has helped and it reinforced that the strategy of regionally aligned forces for the US Army and rotational forces is a solid concept for us. Now, we don't think we got everything right. There's some challenges that are faced with that and I think the budget is impacting that. So it's a very good point. So it's not all going well. Last year we brought in an equipment availability set. I have a armor brigade headquarters, tanks in Bradley's to outfit at least one battalion with small enablers, artillery, battery. But it wasn't enough, it wasn't enough set. We think we needed more. And General Odierno has recognized that and he's working on plans to get more equipment to Europe, leave it there, and as rotational forces come in, we won't have to pay the expense twice a year of shipping that equipment. It'll be there, we'll be able to maintain it and it'll be used for training and also if required for an operational deployment as we see an operational panic resolve now. So I know that sounds very optimistic but I think it was served, that plan served as a forcing function too and then with the crisis came, it became a greater forcing function for nations to look at it. Across the board as we travel through Eastern Europe, a nation's commitment to NATO, that their 2% contribution from their nation is really, they wear like a badge of honor. So some nations are making that 2%, some nations aren't, I mean they almost call each other out on it. And that's good, I mean it's good because a lot of folks, at least from where the United States Army uniform or United States military, sometimes we think in our own government back here, sometimes we think we're the only contributing member of NATO and what I see is that's not the case. We see nations who understand the security threat better than we do because they're living it, it's right there, it's an immediate impact so they understand their contribution is required but they also wanna see that their contribution is building a collective defense so it's not just being wasted on, without building that, without cooperating with the Alliance and strengthening the Alliance. So I think that has an impact. So we're seeing that, we want to do more when talking about the budget crisis where it will affect us most, it would be like it will affect the United States Army. If sea frustration continues, manning levels could be forced down, readiness will not be funded, General Odeon spoke on this this week at AUSA and that's what keeps him up. So we have to do three things, we have to man the force, we gotta train the force and we gotta modernize the force and they all cost money and if we don't invest in those and you lose money, it's gotta come out from one or the other and he knows he cannot take the force any lower so he's gonna lose readiness. And as he described this week, his fear is that we could have a repeat of what we had in the beginning of the Korean War, a task force myth, which oddly enough, General Sullivan, when he was the Chief of Staff, always forced us that that would never happen again, not on our watch, we're never gonna send untrained unprepared forces into conflict because the price will be the blood of our servicemen and women. And so that is the real impact looming out there if sequestration continues, what will that the impact be on our readiness? One last question then we'll open it up to the audience about the National Guard Partnership Program and which I think has been widely acknowledged as an extremely successful, meaningful effort, particularly in Europe. How do you see the Partnership Program? Is it going to expand? Is it gonna, I mean, I don't think anybody's necessarily suggesting it needs to change at all, but how do you envision it fitting into US Army Europe's future strategy? Well, I think it's a great question. It is vital to the strategy of the Partnership Program. And because of the resizing of the force, again, that's made put more focus on this plan. And I think we're better able to synchronize that and what effect we're trying to achieve in each one of these nations. I mean, I just recently talked to my former high school basketball coach, has a longstanding relationship in Lithuania because of the Pennsylvania National Guard Relationship of that country. I mean, good friends that he calls and he helped me, he's been retired, he retired as a Brigadier General for many years now. But when I told him when I was coming over or when I was doing, he put me in contact with people he knew in Lithuania. So it's, again, we get great benefits when they come over once a year, we get things done, we get things built, we get to train and ready to force. But the greatest effect we have with that is these long-term standing relationships we have with our allies that you can't, you can't accomplish that just in training. You've got, those relationships are fostered over time. And there, I think they're the very, fiber to make up this fabric of the Alliance, very strong. So we have a, I think better, more well-coordinated effort of the State Partnership Program. Every nation that they're partnered with wants more, not less, so our vision is more, not less. But they've been crucial to everything we do. And even on part of the, it helps contribute to the funding of some of the exercises that we do. So instead of being a separate entity where just that guard unit will come to that country for a specified time, we're now able to synchronize it with maybe a larger exercise so that nation gets a greater benefit and we get increased readiness in the active and guard so the total force benefits. Absolutely critical part of our strategy. Okay. If people could raise their hands, if they have questions, and then we'll come around with mics, if you could briefly identify yourself and be concise if you would, it would be appreciated. Thanks. So we'll start in the back and move forward. No, there's one behind you actually, you can't see that, but yeah. I have to hopefully be able to get to people. Stanley Kober. I'm looking at an article from Reuters from earlier this month. It's on German defense capabilities. It says, quote, the military says only 70 of 180 box or armored fighting vehicles, seven of 43 Navy helicopters, 42 of 109 Eurofighters, and 38 of 89 tornadoes are operational, unquote. That's a huge shortfall and operational capability. Given what's going on in Europe now with regard to the economies of Germany in particular, where will the money come from to make these forces operational? Well, I don't track the operational readiness rates of the German army or the Bundeswehr totally, but we do track our own. So I know that's a challenge is on every given day. You have a current slant where you may have three of 29 tanks. At one point, last couple of months ago, three tanks were operational, 29 we had. Three days later, 29 tanks were operational. So it's a snapshot in a period of time, but it is a concern readiness. But I will say that currently the Germans have the Baltic Air Police mission up in Estonia. They're there, they're ready, they're capable, all their aircraft are flying, they're able to respond to violations at airspace, which are happening quite frequently. And so they've provided a trained and ready force for that. They've also have been a great supporter and provide trained and ready forces to the mission in Afghanistan. I, in my previous position at JMTC, I was partnered very closely with the 12th Panzer Brigade, which had the mission, they had a part of their brigade deployed to Northern Afghanistan and Mazda Sharif, while the rest of the brigade was back at home in various different states, so much like the U.S. We're deploying, we're gutting units to send them to an operation and leaving some at home. And sometimes that readiness level, when you look at it, like I can speak from the U.S. perspective, when you look at it, when we send a brigade one place and we keep battalions in other places, it looks like we're not ready. It drives general odierno nuts. We are ready, we're meeting the requirements. So we're deployed, we're out there, we're doing exactly what we've been trained and ready to do and we're well equipped for the mission, although it's a tailored mission, so it's therefore something, you don't bring all your equipment at certain times. And we're fortunate enough that as the 12th Panzer Brigade came back from Afghanistan, the commander, Markus Laventhal, Brigadier General Markus Laventhal, became the chief of staff of U.S. Army Europe. So now we have a chief of staff at German General, who's the chief of staff U.S. Army Europe. And he has really opened the doors, even greater to increase our partnership and readiness levels between our two nations, which is quite good. I can speak to a couple of brigades, I know I've been on the ranges with them, I've seen their equipment, it's first rate, it's well capable and they're ready to meet their requirements. I know every nation's got a challenge though with their defense spending. I'm not gonna, I won't discount that. I mean, I can't, so I can't speak to that readiness, but I will say the formations that I have been able to train with have been ready, I mean trained and equipped and ready to deploy. Last life fire we did at, for combined resolve too, we completed with a life fire. We had a U.S. armor battalion, a Romanian tank battalion, a Georgian infantry company dismounted infantry, and we did a combined arms life fire with it, but first we did it in a virtual world so the brigade commander could fight large formations over large areas, so virtually he was fighting from Nuremberg all the way to the Czech Republic border, and he had an enemy coming at him from all different angles, he had to put in virtual aircraft, but as he came to Grafenevere and went into the live realm, the first round fire down range came from German aircraft, called in by a hungry soldier from Hungary who was the JTAC that called in the munition, then led the Georgian light infantry, seized key terrain followed by a Romanian tank battalion and then the U.S. armor battalion attacked from a different flank. So what I'm seeing is increased interoperability and increased readiness due to our multinational partnerships we've created and we've trained towards, so I can't really, I'm sorry, I can't talk specifically to those readiness rates, but what I can tell you is the forces that I'm training with, and we're training with are ready and well equipped. Sorry, we had the gentleman, I don't know if he still has a question. Yeah, yeah. Thank you. Peter Pennington, Brit. My question is linked in some way to the previous one, slightly broader. Two threats, CNO two days ago said here that if he had a real nightmare, it was isolationism as a policy here in the United States, and I'd like your comment on that. And then the second threat follows on, austerity. Every country in Europe is being lent on, heavily to reduce their debt. Almost to the state where any price will go and Spain 27.7% unemployed dreadful figure. Do you see that as your threat? Well, I think the threat to isolationism is one that, I mean, I'm proud to report, I think US Army Europe and all the land forces in Europe, and really their total services have worked very hard to prevent that from happening. Our mission was to get integrated and create this interoperability in this multinational partner capacity. And I think by building that capacity and in showing the leadership of nations that are contributing these forces, we have shown them that isolating is not a good strategy. So I'm confident from the military perspective we have shown that we're stronger together than we are alone. And I'm also confident that we have shown our leadership that the stability in Europe is certainly still within vital interest of the United States. I'm not an economist. I know there's many challenges in the European Union. But I do know that we have seen growth due to the previous commitment, security commitments from the Alliance in Europe. And, but I know that's not without challenge. But I do believe that part of our mission there is to provide that security environment so that the economies can flourish and that they can try to solve these challenges and try to get to the right agreements that are gonna allow these nations to prosper. So, and I think that we are and will continue to do that. Because I do believe that the complex environment, the complex threat that we're seeing is a threat to Europe, is a threat to their economy and that this collective security environment is definitely needed. So, I said, not an economist. And I know that the European Union has challenges. But I do believe that the security we can provide together will help affect and at least allow or set conditions for good economic decisions to be made in the future. If I could follow up on that. To what extent are you concerned about American isolation, growing American isolation? And how, if at all, do you perceive that? Does it affect you in your job? Well, I think that, well, it's a great question. I mean, I think that one of our fears when General Odierno had sent General Campbell over to Europe to take over US Army Europe and sent me over to be GMTC commander was, we know we can't come back and that would be wrong. That globally we would put our nation at more risk if we did not have forces forwardly deployed to build the collective security cooperation that we need in various nations. There's a requirement for us to be there. But I also learned when I got to Europe that we weren't explaining that to our national leadership enough that why it's important to have US Army forces in Europe. And I don't think we were explaining it to the leadership in Germany either. And it's a fair question and it's an active question and we need to address it. We are required. We're not going to respond alone. It's a global economy. It's a global threat. Therefore, we have to have global security cooperation. It's absolutely vital. Now we don't need 300,000 US soldiers in Europe anymore. 28,000 when we get there is going to be enough because the alliance is bigger. It's more competent, it's trained and it's ready and we're going to make sure we have it. So it's absolutely the wrong approach if we think that pulling back will somehow will be more secure. We will be less secure. But I think it's a duty and a responsibility of the United States service at members in the military to explain that to our national leaders. Because it is a fair question. I think we have to answer to the people that pay our salary and pay their tax dollars that are investing in this security what they're getting for their money. And it's also, it's tough and we're in an area that we're not in a congressional district. But we have to explain it to our national leadership. And so it's a fair question and one I think that we've done so. And I think we've, through the last recess, we had a series of staff delegations visit. We had a congressional delegations visit and we show them what they're getting. And I think they come out with a better understanding that we've got greater cooperation, greater really strong collective defense but we also have strategic access to for future conflicts that could arise. And we're reacting right now in Liberia to the Ebola crisis because we were there. US Army, Africa from Italy could get there. We have forces there. We have the established relationships and cooperation and access. We don't want to have to go in. I think it was best said when I did an exercise with some NATO partners and we were evaluating the purpose of it. And we're, you know, one of our doctrines calls for forcible entry operations. In case of a crisis, we might have to forcibly enter a country and seize an airfield or seize a pier or something. What we get now with this cooperation is we get early entry operations. We're there. The presence is there. The security is established. The cooperation is established. And the key task of that is presence and relationships. And we are preventing more conflicts than we can possibly measure. So I'm afraid of that rearing its ugly head again but I think that we have explained it and we will continue to explain it when asked. And we welcome any and all visitors to come and see it first hand. So take me up on it. Okay, I think let's come up here. Where's the mic? Here it goes straight over on the aisle and then up here and then up here and then we'll go back and over to the other side. Right there, yeah. Indexed Bestonian Embassy. First I want to say how much we appreciate the fact that U.S. troops in Estonia. We hope that they will be there for a long time. I have two questions. First, a part of U.S. force potion rebalancing was reduction of forces from Europe. Do you see any chance that given the current crisis in Ukraine, the decision will be revised and some of the forces will be put back again to Europe? And second question is what is your take on the very high readiness task force which NATO decided to launch at the summit? Thanks. Your first question is would more U.S. forces come back to Europe? Do you see any chance that there will be a decision to put some forces back to Europe which way we've thrown because of the rebalancing? Okay, now one, thanks for the question. We were in Estonia when President Obama visited and then he gave his speech and that meant a lot to reassure the allies. I know it was a great day to be in Estonia when my president came to visit, it was great to be there. But his statement I think did a lot to reassure. But the U.S. response is I think there is a much more than adequate force now as NATO expanded and we really do have from a military perspective, from a land forces perspective, we have a lot of forces in Europe. We just can't look at it from the U.S. Army Europe perspective but I constantly counsel soldiers in my army of that. That our army is NATO, it is the alliance. It's not just the U.S., it's the alliance and together we're very strong. The rotational forces that we're using, the regionally aligned forces in that concept will provide the right amount of force to guarantee the readiness levels that would be needed in case of crisis or conventional forces required in Europe. And then if there are more forces needed, more forces will come. But I don't envision that we're gonna increase permanent U.S. forces structure. We don't need it, we've got the basis about right. I don't think this is a result too of everybody's commitment during the Cold War. Again, this is a result of our success. So will we continue to send forces over? Yes, we will. Will there be enough to build on the readiness for the collective defense? Yes, yes they will. If needed for more, yes they will, but that gets again to the concern of sequestration as the chief said. If we need a large force to respond to a large crisis somewhere, his fear is that we won't be ready and he's gonna be forced to send forces that aren't ready into a conflict and that price we paid with blood. So the second part of your question, I want to make sure I remember it, I'm sorry. The- Are you ready to talk? Yes, I'm sorry. So as the NATO summit ended, I was in Latvia watching the airborne insertion under, you know, be executed and we had the NATO ambassadors there. We had Joint Force Brunson was there. NATO took command of that part of that exercise. I think this will take time to develop. I'm excited about it. The US is more than willing. We know we're gonna have a role into this. I think it's needed. I think it's perhaps a bit overdue, but I do believe that our training and exercises that we've been conducting over the last year or plus are showing us that we can build a multinational brigade rather quickly, but through constant training and we can provide the force structure needed. I think what we need to, what we need more work on is the readiness levels and the development and the training of the NATO core level headquarters that have transformed and are now coming online. We need to do more of that so they can do that type of large scale mission command of those type of forces. If they ask us right now to put a multinational brigade together to rapidly respond, we can do it within NATO. We are training that much together and we can put that force package together really quickly. So I'm excited about this becoming more permanent structure of contributing nations providing to that ready force which I think is gonna be needed. And I do believe I think one of the, I think as long too as we give SACUR and General Breedlove the ability to at least exercise that without having to get back to the alliance for everyone to agree on. I think it would be absolutely critical. We don't wanna stand up a ready force and not allow the commander who's responsible to not test it. Now I know committing it, that's another step that would require agreement from the allies, but training it, deploying it, building its readiness, I think that's one of the key decisions that came out of that. So very much looking forward to that. And we're very much looking forward to help training and exercising with that force. Thank you. Come up, I think we had one here, one here, one there and we'll go to this side. Thank you, Owen McDougall from LMI. You were talking about some of the intellectual challenges of interoperability. I was wondering if you could also mention some of the logistical and technical challenges and are there some things U.S. military or U.S. defense industry should be doing to sort of better enhance interoperability? Yeah, thanks. It's a great question. Like I said, the first step on interoperability is to, one, try to find a common understanding of what you think the word means. People use it a lot and people fall, they default to, well, we have to have a technical solution and that's why I said it's not just a technical solution. Obviously it is, even within our own forces. We have to be able to have constant sustaining. We have to have shared information and common situational awareness. That is part of interoperability. But when you bring nations together and you have experienced warriors looking at a problem set together, that really is the power of interoperability. That makes us greater than the individual. The challenges we have are many. Logistics is one, especially in the training arena because we have to look at agreements and who's gonna be able to contribute what and those things up front. The biggest challenge we have really is with communications. We're simply put with just the equipment we have right now. We're unable to talk to our allies. That's a pretty harsh statement. Now we mitigate that because we're able to exchange what we call interoperability cells, small packages that extend. So if I'm a US brigade, I put a small package of my communication suite into a battalion that's subordinate to me and that allows them to see what I'm seeing and talk directly back and forth with me. So we're mitigating it that way, but that can't be the long-term solution. We have to get a system within NATO allies that we can talk to one another. Right now, I think it's about 13 different systems. I mean, the Landcom commander and soon to be US Army Europe commander, General Ben Hodges, has worked on this for the past year. It's his number one problem statement is we can't talk to one another. We have 13 different systems and none of them talk to one another and some of them were built by the same manufacturer. And because of security concerns and encryption, they won't talk. So we've got to get beyond that. If we're going to be allies, we've got to be able to share and use the same network. We don't believe though that any one nation is going to provide the solution and everyone else has got to fall in on that solution. That's probably not the right answer either. We've got to come at this solution as an alliance. So one of the steps we're taking to better define the problem and educate industry and what our capability gaps are is during the next exercise at Graphenvere called Trident Lance. This is for Landcom commander from Ismir Turkey to reach his full operational capacity. This is his last exercise to reach that as a staff, as a Landcom staff. We're going to hold an industry day and we've invited industries from all over the world, not just US. And we're not asking you to come to show us what you make, we're asking you to come so we can show you where our gaps are and we can have a discussion on what maybe the best solutions in the future are because it can't become so sophisticated that every nation can't afford it. That's not a good answer. And it can't become so classified that it's above NATO's secret. It's got to be able to be shared and understood. So that's an initial step. So but in the meantime, we're going to take mitigation measures so we can fight tonight if we need to. The next measure will probably be how do we make unlike systems talk to one another? We've done that before in the world of simulations and things that we know there are some good workarounds until we can get to a common operational system that's agreed upon by the Alliance, is purchased with by the Alliance and is fielded to the Alliance. And I think that's where we're going. And I think that's the number one. There are others, but I would tell you too, every nation is looking at their modernization program with an eye on NATO interoperability. That's very powerful that they're not just being sold something because it's really good. They're asking the question, okay, it's really good, but what is it going to allow me to be interoperable with my NATO allies? Because if it's not, I'm not adding to the Connected Forces Initiative, I'm actually disconnecting the forces. And so it's powerful to see leaders of these land forces within the Alliance asking these questions. That is a very powerful step in the right direction. Brian Beery, Washington correspondent for EuroPolitics newspaper. The EU is about to get a new high representative, Federica Mogherini. She said in her hearing a couple of weeks ago in the European Parliament that she was going to be devising a new security strategy. That would be one of her priorities. Have you any advice for what you should put in? Yes, come see us do a multinational exercise at Hohenfels or Latvia or Lithuania. Come see it. One of the things that has really helped us is we're very transparent in what we're doing. And we realize that as you saw this week in the unveiling of Army operational concept during AUSA is that this is not just a military, this is not a problem that the military is the only solution on. This is a whole of nation, all of the Alliance, all elements of national power to be presented against the problem set. We want to win in a complex world. We've got to put multiple dilemmas on the adversaries we face and we face many adversaries. And it's not just a lethal force on an adversary. It's got to be more. So I think any leader that's coming into a new national role should go and look at their militaries and understand the goodness of this collective defense, the goodness that we get from putting this Alliance together. And I think that will help them see the problem through our lens and then we can see the problem through from their perspective as well. We can make sure that we're not working against political objectives by using military means. And so we have a better common understanding. So my advice would be come watch this train. We've done it with parliamentarians from many different nations. Ambassadors from many different nations have come to see our training and offer good advice. And actually some of them have participated in the training to be a national representative that would give us those national caveats and challenges that sometimes we wish away during an exercise. Like it doesn't really, it's not going to be a constraint. So that's been pretty powerful. So if it's here, tell her to come. All right, I think right here. And then we'll give it, sorry for not giving this side. They're equal do. Thank you very much. Jarosław Sturzek, Embassy of Poland. First of all, let me join in thanking you, my Estonian colleague for your persistent, hopefully permanent presence in my country. But then two questions about one, about initiative and the second about the concept. The first one about European reassurance initiative which was rolled out by your president in Warsaw in June. So the question is about how much you want to participate in let's say, in the portion of those initiative and let's say tangible effects on your side, Army Europe or Armed Forces in Europe. And the second about the concept, Army Operating Concept which was rolled out two days ago by General Odierno and specifically the mentioned threat from some nations, including one European one. So any comments on this one? Thank you. Well I think the, when the president comes to Warsaw and pledges a billion dollars for reassurance, powerful statement of how he feels of the alliance and then goes to Estonia and gives the speech that he gave there. There should be no doubt by anyone he's committed. We have been asked as a military to look at what would be the initiatives we can do in concert with the nations that we're attempting to reassure. So we want to bolster readiness and training. So one of the things that we're looking for for that initiative. And I believe it's gonna get passed. I believe it's gonna be funded and we're gonna be asked to how we're gonna do it. We want to make sure that we bring over more equipment availability sets that we have the sets that we need that are in Europe that can be used to train with and also be deployed if needed. We want to make sure that they have the strategic access that we have. So we've looked at, and the training capabilities required. So in Poland we've looked at the training areas. There's some upgrades we may be able to make to those training areas. Same way in the Baltic states. We've gone and surveyed all of those. We've surveyed railheads that if we have to move this type of equipment around in Europe for training or for operations that we'll be able to do that. Bolster those up and would give us better access for training but also could be guaranteed strategic access in time if the crisis increased. It's not meant to build something that's gonna require every year to be funded. And that we're not looking at anything like that. We're looking at to try to build the readiness of the alliance through training and readiness initiatives as things that I just mentioned. So I think we're gonna get more equipment. I think we're gonna get better training areas. I think we're gonna get more training exercises and we'll be able to also fund the continuation of Operation Atlantic Resolve which will keep forces rotating through Poland and in Poland and also in the Baltic states and perhaps other Eastern European nations. As far as the threat in Europe, I think it's a very complex threat. We have radicalized foreign fighters transiting throughout Europe causes a threat to every single nation and added but that's also used to help us as a forcing function to share intelligence together with our allies. We know now that it's not one nation is facing this that this could be a lone wolf attack. It could be an attack of just opportunistic person that may already reside in one of these nations there. So it's forced us to better share our intelligence and face that threat. We see an increased threat in Turkey and Turkey has responded that they are meeting that threat and they're protecting their borders but they're a member of the alliance and we have named operations and forces deployed there as well. But also the threat from Russia is very real. I think your military leadership have done a tremendous amount to educate my army and our soldiers on how you see that threat in the same way in the Baltic states. There is a tremendous amount of information influence to try to perhaps mislead or mobilize citizens of those countries in the wrong direction by just giving them misinformation. I think we have to be very cautious of that and we need to be able to inform the people in Russia that these things are not true that you're hearing. So it's very big challenge. So I think that and it's a very real threat that they can destabilize Europe and destabilize the alliance. And I think that we need to make sure that we constantly monitor and we reassure that's why the president is committed that we're gonna continue to rotate forces through operational Atlantic resolve. Okay, take these two up here. I'm Gary Sargent. I'm a retired Army Lieutenant Colonel SF guy, infantry guy who was even a NATO planner when I was at the Pentagon when I was an Iron Major. So my question is, and I think it revolves around a bunch of things, Ebola in Africa, what's going on in the Baltics, what's going on in Ukraine. And in one word, and it also relates directly to regional alignment, both the Kona's force as well as the O-Kona's force. It's foreign internal defense in one form or the other. And SF guys do a real good job, special forces guys do a real good job with the lower unit. You know, foreign internal defense overseas, language skill sets. You know, how do you get the general purpose forces to provide that capability globally? I think Europe and US Army Europe does it better than others. But how do you get the guys that are sitting back here? And you know, the big talk this week at AUSA was regional alignment, you know, national guard problems and you know, where do you do the force structure? And that's very good. I think the, well, the foreign internal defense, I think it expands out. It's almost regional internal defense and you have to build that collective force to do that. And I've seen over these years in Afghanistan and Iraq that our conventional forces have been doing quite well. We've, our mission set has expanded and perhaps some of our special forces have been moving away from that task. They do so well. So we need to all get back into that understanding. But I think that the first step is to understand the environment you're operating in and step two is to build those relationships. And I think they can be done with the regional line force concept because you learn and you focus on an area. Much like how the special forces have always done it since, you know, but then they've been deployed outside of their region of expertise. But by giving a region, you're allowing that study and that knowledge to be built up. And then by participating in multinational exercises, you're building that partner capacity, I think that's required to strengthen that alliance that helps the region build that internal defense from a collective defense standpoint. So we're fortunate in Europe that we have an alliance that drives that mechanism in. But I think in the Pacific, having served there for many years, our continued exercises and relationships that we have and our partners in the Pacific, I think they help build that. And we, you know, by knowing each other and training with one another, you're not meeting each other for the first time in time of crisis. And I think that this strategy and this way that our army is going is the absolute right approach that will help do that. Thank you very much, General Savin Popescu, Romanian Embassy in Washington, DC. Thank you very much for our very strengthened and tight cooperation with your forces. Just short questions and a request for you to, if you could comment a bit, the new developments in Crimea, have you in mind the increasing of some military measures adopted by Mr. Putin and how these measures would influence the measures of counteracting by the metaphorses in that area? Having in mind some intentions of deploying nuclear forces and so on, sending the Marine and so on. Yeah, I'm not sure I got the second part. But on the first part, one, I mean, we have trained and we partner with the Ukraine and Ukraine military for quite some time. So we are, I feel very strongly about this because I have many friends in the Ukraine Army. And the United States has stated very clearly that no nation has the right to invade another nation and simply take land away from them. So, but we know that the way ahead is still extremely complex. We just completed an exercise in Western Ukraine where we're trying to help build the capacity of the military there so that they could respond to their, you know, these security threats to the East and very, very real. So I think the best way to, we're continuing to provide that support. We're continuing to provide training. We're continuing to provide advice. But in response, so we were just, I'm the purpose of how, you know, and I don't know the strategic purpose of the strategy behind Putin and I won't suggest I do. But I do think that I'm not sure that the people in Russia are really getting the full story. And I think that one thing that the international community can do is to reach out in fashion to at least inform the people of Russia that they're not being threatened by the West, that they are actually, their government and their leader is actually the aggressor in this one. And that the innocent people in Ukraine are being harmed and killed. And I think that they need to hear that and be exposed to that information. And I think that's one thing that the international community should and can do. I don't know if just reacting to every new crisis is going to persuade or stop this aggression. But I think the informing the population just might. And that's how it, yeah. Okay. All right. I think we have time for one more question. I'm sorry, we'll do two. Ray, if you could ask your question quickly and then we've got one more he's been trying for a long time. So if you could just, why don't we take them both? Okay, sure. Ray Dubois, CSIS. In 2001, two and three, Secretary Rumsfeld executed a plan to reduce both our permanent force structure in Europe, bringing back Brigade First Armored as well as closing some military installations. Is there any discussion today either at UCOM level or Joint Staff OSD to not reduce force structure but as we do more rotational forces both in concept and execution? Is there any discussion about reducing or consolidating our permanent US military installations in the European theater? Let's take that question and then answer. So we've asked you about more increases. Now we're asking about more cuts. Ivan Mikos from Slovenian Embassy. You, the European Union has common currency and has open border for moving of goods but you describe something very different when you're describing how to move forces. So is there any other future for European defense going forward? That's a good question. I was in Slovenia a little while ago for immediate response exercise. Very beautiful country. I think the constraints that we have are sovereign constraints about moving personnel and equipment back and forth but it's educating us well on agreements that we should probably have pre-established to allow in time of crisis that we can do this but also in time of exercises that we can put the right force posture in the right place while still abiding and respecting every nation's laws. And I think the more we exercise and the more we build on multinational participation the more and more we learn and the more we learn that we need how we need to go about this and our connected training initiative has helped us. So we were also doing places where we don't need to move large formations from one place to the other but we can still tie them in through simulation so that we can still allow the higher headquarters to exercise them. We could do literally, we could do an exercise from Estonia all the way down to Slovenia and have that connected virtually and allow the corps to command it from Bitgosh, Poland and simulate a large scale maneuver exercise in Eastern Europe, we can do that right now. So I think that we're gonna get better at this. There's procedures, there's agreements that have to be in place with shared logistics and all those things, these are laws we just have to get better acquainted with as a military. There's nothing wrong with the laws, we just need to know what they are so we don't execute them incorrectly. On the consolidation of bases, it's a plan that we have been working on for some time. It made absolute sense. As we drew down the size of the force, we had to consolidate the bases to meet the right force structure and after never serving in Germany, never being assigned there and go for my first time, I was thoroughly amazed and impressed of the detail and the execution of this plan. People don't always say that when they see military plans, we get accused of doing a lot of things bad but I would tell you this one, we really got it right and we got it right because we worked with the host nation, we worked with everyone, we understood what we were gonna have and where we needed to put it. So we had to build, consolidating doesn't mean you just reduce and cut bases you have to build up and increase capability in some so that we can reduce others but this saves us millions of dollars every year in operational costs in these bases. So we saved our government a lot of money, we were able to give infrastructure back to our host nation partners that they need, we were able to reduce the US presence there that said it was the price of our success and I think it was the right approach but how we did it and where we put it gives us great operational reach, strategic access and access to training that's gonna be required to meet the future conflicts. So does it need to, now that we have, now that we're planning for more rotational forces and the like, should we, is it time, can you go further? Yeah, well I think we have what we need to have to facilitate the rotational forces. So right now in Estonia, we're staying on Estonian bases. When we're in Poland, we're staying on a Poland basis. So it's there, the infrastructure, because of this connected training initiative because of these long-term established relationships, we have access to what we need and thank you for the host nations and the nations we're in, they're very accommodating to us but we are an expeditionary army and we have equipment that we can go and we can do this rotational type of footprint in places without building new bases and it's very important. So when you hear US forces in the Baltics in Poland, it's not a US base that we built or we're asking taxpayers to build for us. It's provided by the host nation. What we'll do with the reassurance initiative is build those things we need to do to increase training capacity and readiness within our forces and increase interoperability amongst one another. That's very critical. But there are some people to think we're trying to build permanent bases in these places and that's not part of our plan nor part of our vision nor do we see it as required in the future. We have the access we need. We need to improve training facilities. We need to improve rail and port access in those kind of places that will help set the force and build on the interoperability that we're trying to achieve. All right, thanks to all of you for coming. Thanks so much, General Pet, for taking the time to come by. No, thanks. Thanks, General. Thank you. You're welcome.