 So our next session is about how Congress should think about the military of the future It's going to be moderated by Heather Herbert who is a director in the political reform program at New America She's a contributed in New York magazine. She has senior positions at the State State Department of White House dream bill Clinton's presidency And we're going to turn it over now to Heather Thank you, Peter. Thank you all so much for sticking around for the part of our day where we dispense with the panels and we go one-on-one It's a great pleasure for me to be up here with representative Moulton who as many of you may know Holds multiple degrees from Harvard served multiple tours in Iraq is a multiply Decorated Marine has served three tours in the United States Congress and you may have heard from last week He has another little project. He's gotten started So first I'm going to ask that we put up our poll question We have one or two more poll questions today and for those of you who have been here all day You know the drill you text to the number on your screen and you can pick a B or C And congressman just as fair warning We are going to come back and talk about this question as the the audience ponders it But but while everyone is voting on this question I'm going to ask you the question that I've been asked repeatedly as I was getting ready for this conversation So you're not the only service member running for president We've also got two members of the Senate Armed Services Committee running for president one individual who put in decades on Senate form relations Yet you say you're going to build a presidential campaign around national security the issues that all of us live and die on so How's that going to work? First of all, thank you very much for having me here Heather It's great to be here and in honor to have a discussion with all of you. I'm looking forward to the questions and answers So don't be afraid to ask me tough questions. I will get very tough questions as the weeks go on here To answer your question Despite the fact that we have 20 candidates out there now. I think I was number 19 I'm the only one who is actually talking about national security and really taking on President Trump on National security issues, and I think this is critical not just because of where we are in the world Not just because I believe he's a reckless commander-in-chief, but frankly because I think it's where he is weakest I don't think Donald Trump is going to be so easy to beat as many Democrats like to believe So I think we have to confront him on these issues on what it means to make the country safe and strong on what a National security vision is for Democrats and fundamentally what it means to be an American patriot For a long time Republicans have kind of taken ownership over these issues and Democrats have been unwilling to challenge them And yet we have truly the most reckless commander-in-chief in American history in the presidency right now And we have to show how we would lead on these issues. My background is also different I am the only candidate who has led troops in combat has had the challenge of bringing an extraordinarily diverse group of Americans people from all over the country with different religious beliefs different political beliefs in Getting them united behind a common mission in extraordinarily difficult circumstances in the middle of a war that Probably about half of us Disagreed with and I think that that kind of leadership is exactly what we need from the next president in this incredibly divisive time in American history so This is a fascinating result. This is not necessarily what I would have predicted So the audience isn't given us a clear hint here So I'm gonna ask you two questions number one What should the US defense budget in 2030 look like compared to the defense budget now? just after the end of President Moulton's second term and then more concretely you've you've said that Spending 16 times more money on aircraft carriers than cyber defense makes more sense makes no sense Been a long day So tell me specifically what should happen to the defense budget and what should we be spending more on and what should we be spending? Less on specifically. What do we spend less on well? I would like to see the defense budget go down because we're making much smarter investments That means a lot less ways fraud and abuse like everyone every politician likes to say but much more importantly It means investing in the next generation technologies rather than the legacy systems that consume so much of the budget today So what do I mean by that? Well? I think that ironically China and Russia actually have a bit of a leg up over us An inherent advantage in that their defense budgets are constrained because they are not trying to compete with us in today's world in other words, they're not going to try to build 13 or 14 aircraft carriers to match our air number of aircraft carriers. They're just going to build the missiles to defeat them 1238 is a number I like to use That is the best estimate we have for the number of anti carrier missiles that China can purchase For the cost of one US aircraft carrier Now I'm not saying that we need to get rid of all aircraft carriers But we at least need to have a serious debate about their efficacy in the modern world the reality is that a lot of these next generation technologies investing in autonomous airplanes and Autonomous underwater vehicles investing in artificial intelligence These are investments that we have to make just to maintain our economic competitiveness with the rest of the world But they also tend to be cheaper weapons systems So you mentioned the high-tech Systems in particular and we had a very interesting panel earlier today on what the shape of cyber defense should should look like What is what is a democratic platform on cyber security? Look like what what's the current administration doing right? And what's it doing wrong? Well, first of all the current administration is investing in all the wrong things and their priorities are completely backwards President Trump has designated more money for the southern border wall Which is? Somewhere around a fifth century BC technology at least as he has envisioned it He's been visit. He's invested more or designated more allocated more money for that wall Then for all cyber security across the United States Department of Defense It makes no sense at all We are getting attacked every single day through the internet By Russia and China We are not getting attacked by our great adversaries through the southern border Now there are all sorts of other reasons why the southern border wall is a political ploy Not a smart investment not helpful to immigration the immigration crisis etc. Etc But if you just think about it in terms of protecting our national security and where this administration is putting its priorities I think it shows you just how backwards the investments really are So there are a lot of investments that we need to make in protecting American businesses American military installations from cyber attacks and the fact that these continued to happen on a daily basis Is more than enough evidence that we're that we're neither investing in this proper security? Nor I think responding appropriately to the threat I'm gonna try to tempt you to wait a little more deeply into the bureaucracy on this question But how would you reorganize the way we're doing cyber in the government right now? And if so, how I think we we probably should now I'm not gonna sit here and say that we I have all the answers because I think we frankly failed as a Congress to Investigate this seriously enough. We have not really held serious hearings on how we might want to reorganize things But while I disagree with the president in his advocacy for a space force for example I do think there is an argument a much better argument for a separate cyber force So let me just go into that for a second The Air Force has a mission that essentially now includes space a lot of Air Force Hardware goes into space and comes back down in theory and so I'm not quite sure where you kind of draw the dividing line between The Space Force and the Air Force and I think that that probably it's a mission just better handled by one entity The Air Force already handles it today. It's clearly the Air Force is opinion on all this as well But cyber on the other hand Cyber is distinct enough I think from the missions of the existing missions of the other services that it would probably make sense to have it a bit more centralized So that we can respond more clearly to attacks and so that we have a much clearer chain of command I Used to work before I got to Congress. I used to work at a high-speed Rail project in Texas and my office Was on the 42nd floor of a building in downtown Dallas and I could look straight out At the top floor of the AT&T world headquarters Now I had an AT&T cell phone at the time and I used to drop about two or three calls a day I noted that AT&T didn't have any cell towers on the top of its building Which made me wonder about the science they say about how to sell towers are totally safe But in any event because I was dropping calls, but in any event, you know There are times when I was so frustrated with AT&T that I wished I had some of that paraphernalia that I had in my Infantry platoon to take out their executive floor But think about it seriously if if a Chinese squad came and had the same frustrations as me and decided to attack The AT&T world headquarters with a few rockets We know exactly how we would respond But if the Chinese attack the AT&T world headquarters through the internet and Properly perhaps do even more significant damage or take More information. I don't think we know as a country How we would even respond to that in terms of who's in charge? I mean, is that an NSA responsibility? Is the DOD responsibility? Is it a is this CIA is an FBI responsibility? Does it engender a military response? Or is it something under the Department of Homeland Security? We haven't even figured this out as a country and by the way the responsibility for that is Is with us in Congress specifically folks on the Armed Services Committee? But I think that illustrates just how far we have to go in developing not just our cyber capabilities but our whole our Whole cyber structure our whole strata cyber strategy in theory of the case and I think this is Perhaps an argument for why it would make sense as General Petraeus has proposed an old mentor of mine To investigating having a separate cyber force Well that logically leads us to think a little bit about the relationship between the public and private sectors when it comes to Cyber I mean whether or not we are whatever. We're thinking about the AT&T building, but the the year example does highlight the ways that Defenses increasingly were were sort of entangled public and private sectors in the high-tech spaces how In your current role and in the role you aspire to what do you have to say about the way the private sector Needs to contribute to national defense well You're not supposed to sit and take tough questions and make them tougher, but I think I should hear really You know really the elephant in the room here is is what do we do about like these Google's and Google employees who have refused to work with doD? and there are other companies as well and I think that is a Very difficult question that by the way we should be discussing in the midst of this presidential campaign Because this comes fundamentally back to our competitiveness as a country to our national security and To how we think about our moral leadership in the world These Google employees just to single them out for a second have taken what they believe is a very firm moral stand They said we do not want to contribute to the Department of Defense We don't agree with everything that the Department of Defense is doing But I think this is very dangerous for our country Because obviously tech employees in China are not taking that view now. They don't have the option I get that but the fact of the matter is that China has Very successfully married it's tech. It's high-tech. It's economic piece with its military piece And they give that gives us a significant that gives them a significant advantage so how do you get Google employees and The doD to work together Well, I think it fundamentally comes back to a vision for national service Where you inspire? Americans to understand that their work on behalf of our country on behalf of our Defense on behalf of our national security is an opportunity for them to contribute not just at a technical level But at a moral level as well. I didn't join the Marines Because I thought it was a perfect organization and I certainly Did not go back to Iraq three times after my first deployment for the invasion because I thought it was a perfect war I Went back because I thought I could make it a little bit better Yes, because I didn't want anyone going in my place But because I felt that my presence on the ground in Iraq Would have more influence on how the war was fought than sitting back here and complaining about it And I think we need to inspire these young people at places like Google and Microsoft and Apple and other countries Companies to have that same sense of commitment to our country Not believing that it's perfect Not believing that doD is doing all the right things But by being part of the team They can make us better and stronger and fundamentally more moral in pursuing our missions around the globe Well speaking of Thinking of ourselves as more moral in presuming our missions around the globe You've also talked a bit about the future of NATO and how how we think about the future of NATO and how we talk about it And you've been maybe Maybe a little more willing to push the crockery around than some and you said that there's a need to rethink NATO's strategic role and purpose and maybe re-examine our troop commitments in Germany and Japan So what is NATO strategic role and purpose? Well NATO of course has been extraordinarily successful at not only maintaining military security in Western Europe but really economic security as well and it's been a core alliance probably the core alliance for the United States of America For the last 70 years Many people in the national security space myself included have been quite dismayed by President Trump's approach to NATO Disparaging it disparaging our allies threatening to pull out Really undermining the shared commitment that we all have as member nations And if you'd asked me about this a year and a half ago As I was in a speech I gave on national security about that time I would have said that the first priority of the next president has to be simply putting everything back together the way it was To restore the same commitments that we had before President Trump came to office Now I'm afraid that things have gotten Too bad. They've gone too far But we have to take this opportunity To actually Strengthen the foundations that NATO was built upon and fundamentally make them more relevant to today The fact the matter is that the 1949 framework for NATO is outdated not in the ways the president says in terms of folks not meeting their commitments because we already had a plan Fashioned under the Obama administration to restore those commitments but because NATO simply didn't anticipate the fact that here in 2019 Russia would be attacking our Eastern European allies not by running tanks through the fold of gap but through the Internet By undermining their democratic institutions By sending the quote-unquote little green men into these countries to undermine local politicians by attacking these countries Through a technique called hybrid warfare that was never envisioned in 1949 and the problem for NATO Is that we don't know how to respond to that? Does do those types of attacks trigger the mutual security guarantee or do they not I? Think the fear that many of us have is that that Putin and his allies are sitting in Russia Saying look we're attacking these guys every day, and they're not doing anything They're not doing anything to respond so clearly this mutual security guarantee on in under NATO is by the by It's not relevant anymore and Worse, maybe it's not even serious So I think the opportunity and also the obligation that we have is to restore NATO But to also do so in a way that makes it relevant for today So we're coming to the audience soon. So you start to think about your questions What does that imply that the US presence in Japan and Germany looks like in 2030? Well, I think again two terms of the successful molten administration I think that it probably can be reduced because the presence there Was really anticipating some sort of you know ground warfare type attack What we need to do is have folks that are in in Europe not conducting tank drills Like this great unit that I visited in Poland and by the way the Polish were thrilled to have the Americans there Conducting tank drills when the Americans arrived with their tanks they were lining the roads with American flags saying we've been waiting 60 years for you to show up and And then they were really absolutely thrilled But the fact the matter is that when you talk to the tank company commander said, you know, we're conducting tank drills While rush is just attacking us through the Internet. We're not we're not responding effectively at all and so so what I would rather see is An American or an Allied Western troop presence in Europe. That's more adapted to the threat So it probably means fewer people. What does that imply for the Asian theater? If you are both Getting rid of character carriers as the anachronistic platform They are and shrinking troop presence in Japan. How do you how do you help? What's your what's your strategy for China? Well, I don't think 30 seconds or less. I don't think we should get rid of carriers entirely That's not what I'm saying, but I do think there's a real question as to their operability in the South China Sea I mean I think actually where aircraft carriers could be much more useful vis-a-vis China is where China is expanding on the periphery, you know, the fact that China now has a presence not technically a military presence But for all intents and intents and purposes of military presence in the Panama Canal Think about that think about their military presence all over Africa This is where China is actually expanding the idea that we are going to go to war in the South China Sea with China With a massive invasion force. I think it's just actually totally unrealistic And so the fact that our military is so focused on preparing for that eventuality Rather than thinking about where China is dramatically expanding its influence and frankly has less strength On the outskirts of its empire. I think it's a misallocation of resources. So I've also talked about a Pacific NATO I get the fact the terminology doesn't quite line up But this is the way folks understand it and a Pacific NATO would work to bring together Some often contentious allies But allies nonetheless who can help us contain a rise in China and in North Korea I think we should pursue that framework for the exact same reason that we pursued it in Western Europe And when people say to me it will set how do you get South Korea and Japan to sit down at the same table and be in The same alliance you could very well have said that about France and West Germany as well But we did it it was successful, and I think we should pursue a similar model in the Pacific audience questions I know Okay, so let's start with the gentleman right up here and wait for the mic to come to you, please Hi, you said you're running on national security Why can't I just assume that another larger name candidate even if their focus is on economic or immigration policy won't once they're nominated as the Democratic nominee Just bring on a whole load of really great national security staff And say and bring on a great Secretary of State bring on a great Secretary of Defense, and they've got it there Why do we need a national security candidate? Not just a good candidate all around who's good people on national security end? Well, I think that's a fair question and to be to be clear. I'm not just running on national security I've been very outspoken about health care this week as well as one of the few candidates who's not just subscribed to To Medicare for all for example as the blanket proposal that we force everybody into So don't think that I'm not running a campaign that's more broad than national security but the fact that a matter is that national security is an issue that should be at the forefront of the debate and You have every right to vote for a candidate not knowing what his or her health care policy would be and just say Oh, we're gonna bring on you know important people to figure out health care or not know what their economic policy would be You know, I don't really care if we have a socialist system or a capitalist system I'm just gonna vote for this person and they'll figure it out. Sure. That's fine I don't think that's a responsible way to choose a commander-in-chief There's two parts of this job one is president United States the other is commander-in-chief And I think we have the most reckless command and she's been chief in American history So one we have to be able to conf we have to be willing to confront him on that if we're gonna beat him But two we ought to know what the next commander-in-chief will have for national security policy We had another question right here Little clarity, so sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Do tell us who you are gale Fisher. Thank you so on the one hand you're seeking sort of a reduction in force levels perhaps a reduction in big equipment and It would save defense dollars that I think that's what I heard you say For example and shift to like cyber Capabilities to counter adversaries But then on the other hand I hear and perhaps I misunderstood that we would need Capabilities elsewhere for example to counter our adversaries So maybe the carriers aren't useful in the South China Sea because we're not gonna have a big major conflict there But we may have to deploy them elsewhere. I'm just can you just clarify a little bit? What is it exactly that you globally? How do you see this? Is my question The fundamental answer is is that it's both that I think that we're both fighting today's battlefields on yesterday Sorry today's battles on yesterday's battlefields in a sense and we need to rethink our approach But it also means that we just we need to adapt to the way the world is today And I don't think we've really successfully done that My hope would be that we could do it in an efficient enough way that you can reduce the defense budget overall And I don't think that that's an unreasonable goal if you just look at the high level Some of the big-ticket items that we're talking about here in the high-level approach, but fundamentally Fundamentally, I think it's time to take a totally new generation approach next generation approach to one our arms To our arms control and three our alliances I've talked a bit about our arms And that was embedded in your question I've talked a bit about our alliances and how we need to rethink them for a new world We we also have an opportunity to rethink arms control and Done, right arms control doesn't just make the world safer by reducing weapons on all sides, which it does It also gives us a strategic advantage and it puts us in the driver's seat for determining things like how What rules of the road will we have for autonomous weapons systems? What rules of the road will we have for cyber? You know the recent Paris call about six months ago Gave France the opportunity to really lead on on rules the road for cyber that should be us We should be setting those rules setting those rules. I advocated especially a couple years ago for a worldwide convention on the use of drones and I and I'd Push that especially a couple years ago for two reasons one Because I think it would make the world a safer place if we didn't rely as much on drones for everybody But two because at the time we had such a strategic advantage in drone technology That I think that was the point at which it would be really advantageous for us to say stop Everybody draw the line where we are Well, we're still ahead of the rest of the world And and put that and make that agreement and put that agreement in place. I hope that answers your question Gail Thank you so Being as the president just has supposedly suggested that we would have a new generation of Russia China arms control If you could tell him what should be in those agreements, what would you suggest? Well, I would say that we should It would be highly advantageous for us if we could reduce Our ICBMs just as we're about to go into recapitalizing them because that could save us a lot of money Right here and now so that's a place where we would get not just I think you know a good agreement for the The future of mankind, but also an agreement that would be highly strategically advantages of advantageous to us not just militarily but economically But the second thing is that I think we have got to start having this conversation about arms control With regards to these other areas and if I were to pick one amongst all the ones that we've discussed It's artificial intelligence. I mean the fact that Fleets of autonomous weapons conducting warfare against another is no longer a matter of science fiction But merely a matter of development timelines and military budgets. I think should concern everybody in the world, frankly I think we had a question. Yes all the way in the back here Thank you very much for this fascinating discussion Cynthia Schneider from Georgetown University I have a question about a conflict that's kind of a combination of new and old and that is in West Africa specifically Mali They have by the way a novel approach to countering cyber threats They just have such bad internet that nobody can use it good or bad. I don't know how practical that is But I've been going there since 2015 and I've watched the security situation get worse and worse and What's happening there doesn't involve Russia, but it involves outside a kind of toxic mix of different terrorist groups Arming people who have had age-old disputes specifically the herders and farmers and Arming them with machine guns so that now whereas if you were angry that someone was using your land Previously you might hit them you might hit them with a stick you might yell at them now they shoot them and This it's getting worse and worse. I wonder What is your approach to the whole West Africa region and Mali in particular? Thank you It's a great question and your comment About their cyber security reminds me of of our security system for our nuclear Command and control system, which is basically that they rely on eight inch floppy disks And so it's very hard to hack the system Which is ironically not only true But but an interesting challenge as we recapitulate Your question is important and I think it actually plays into a much broader question about how we fight terrorism around the globe I am a veteran of the war on terror. I did four tours in the Iraq war starting in 2003 This now is the longest war in American history specifically our presence in Afghanistan and And yet there are four times as many Sunni extremists in the world today as there were on 9-11 If that doesn't represent a clear failure of our war on terror, I don't know what does So we've talked mostly about great power competition about how we meet the rising threats of Russia and China Which must be a focus of the next president? It should be a focus of this president and has to be a priority in the Department of Defense but we also need to fundamentally rethink our war on terror across the globe and I have some ideas on that. I'm not going to try to give a whole You know dissertation on it, but frankly it's another place where we need to hold the hearings in Congress We need to have this transparent debate before the American people Because a lot of the things that we have done as a country and frankly that many other of our allies have copied in the Days since 9-11 have not only be ineffective. I think they've been frank. They've frankly completely counterproductive We can sneak in one more question super fast in the back Yes, just on commander Boiko from a French war college. So if I understand your strategy China is Now contesting international world order they deny freedom of navigation in Taiwan straight for example They're building their third aircraft carriers. They're doing huge Neville show forces in order to get rid of any of the foreign influence And so your answer is to get rid of your aircraft carriers and military presence in the China sea How can you deter China for taking control of Taiwan this way? So you're oversimplifying a bit which is a which is a very complicated Complicated problem again. I'm not advocating for blanket. We just saying okay. We don't need aircraft carriers I am questioning their strategic role in a in a close-in fight in the South China Sea In a frankly in a wartime scenario that we're preparing for that I don't think is likely to really happen There are a lot of other strategic ways that we defend China that we defend Taiwan other than aircraft carriers Our undersea presence for example is something that's very important in that defense plan and without going into anything classified You know, I think there are smart ways that we are prepared and ready to defend Taiwan and we will continue That commitment one of the ways that we strengthen commitments like that is by building alliances In in that part of the world Which is a huge part of my vision for our security strategy for the Pacific Fundamentally what I think we need to do is be more realistic about what actual wartime scenarios there would look like Think about where we can pressure China effectively Develop more range and our weapon systems so that we can attack China without them hitting us Which does not mean having an aircraft carrier close-in in the South China Sea But it does mean investing in drone technologies and autonomous vehicles and things like that So the point is more broadly that I don't think that we're ready to go to work today in a way That's of as effective as we could be To meet the threat of a rising China And so it's important not to sort of simplify that into you know a simple trade-off between aircraft carriers or not It's much broader than that But the point is more brought the point is more generally that we need to really update our thinking to have to bring a new generation of thinking To these potential clients to the conflicts that involve next-generation arms next-generation arms control and a new set of alliances and with that a half an hour has flown by So please join me in thanking congressman