Welcome our honored guest the 19 chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and my friend, general joe dunford. General dunford has been chair of the joint chiefs of staff since 2015 and prior to that, served as our commandant of the marine corps. Generalnded all forces in afghanistan before that. Dunford and i have known each other for many years since we , were captains, in fact. And i can say with complete certainty and sincerity that he is one of the finest marines to have been minted in the modern era of the marine corps. In 1996, Lieutenant Colonel dunford would take command of the second battalion sixth marines from me at camp lejeune in north carolina. And years later in kabul we would repeat that ceremony as he took command of the war effort in afghanistan. His storied career spans more than four decades of Brilliant Service to our country and to the world, in peace and in crisis and in war. And as the u. S. Navigates multiple crises as we sit here this morning, i can think of no one, no one better suited to the burdens of this moment than joe dunford. General, let me say that you are the very definition and embodiment of an american leader. And were so grateful and so honored that youd be with us this morning here at brookings. Shortly, general dunford will take the stage for a conversation on many of the issues we face as a nation. Hell be joined by brookings senior fellow and director of research for our Foreign Policy program, michael hanlon. Were joined today by a large number of the worlds media. As i always do, ladies and gentlemen of the press, you are most welcome at the brookings institution. Thus, we are also on the record. [laughter] so with that, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the 19th chairman of the joint chiefs of staff general joe dunford and michael hanlon. [applause] general dunford that was probably less than an unbiassed introduction. Thank you. And im not sure if you picked up on the subtlety of his comment that i followed him into battalion command. So any success i had at either of those two assignments i can attribute to my predecessor. The secret is out. Well, its great to have you here, general. I just want to say how much its been a privilege for me to interact with you over the years at brookings and to learn from you. Youve been not only a great military leader but a role model , on a personal level to a lot of us. Apart from your support for the patriots, pretty much and unpunished set of ethics and leadership skills. So thank you very much, and again for the chance to speak today. I wanted, if i could, to begin by taking stock of the four years that youve been chairman and just asking you to reflect a little bit on how the world has changed, because when you came into the position in 2015, we had had a pretty rough 2014. And a lot of the troubles that youve been coping with manifested themselves acutely that year or thereabouts everything from russian area sion and crime russian aggression in crimea and the ukraine chinas ongoing , militarization of the South China Sea even as president xi promised it would not happen, but it did. You and secretary carter changed the way we thought about defense priorities. You came up with the four plus one framework for four threats, russia, china, north korea and iran, and transnational terror. You and secretary mattis created the National Defense strategy focused on great power competition. I guess i want to ask, do you see progress because of all those changes . And do you feel that the world, while still dangerous, clearly, is stabilizing a little bit in 2019 relative to 2015 . Or do you feel were in just as tense of a moment as ever . General dunford one of the quotes that i use a lot as i was coming in this assignment i tripped over something that Henry Kissinger had written. He said this was the most complex and volatile period of history since world war ii. To answer your question, if i think about the problems that youve mentioned, since 2015 the russians went into syria, since 2015, their presence has been more overt. Since 2015, the gru conducted an operation inside of the united kingdom. Since 2015, they attempted to interfere with our elections. Since theyve been quite open 2015, about modernizing nuclear enterprise. You mentioned china and the South China Sea and the friction we are experiencing today. North korea probably is the one area of those three that i would say was probably worse in 2015 to 2016, 2016 unprecedented numbers of tests, two nuclear tests. People can be skeptical of the current diplomatic track but obviously its not what i was in 2016. Much remains to be seen in the wake of the summit in vietnam. With regard to iran, i probably dont need to speak much about that right now. Im sure a question will come up about that later, but certainly the tension with iran is greater. Violent extremism with general allen sitting here, certainly the situation in 2015 was much worse. Isis has been cleared from the ground they held in iraq and syria. Iraqi Security Forces are by and large providing security in their own country. The partners we have on the ground in syria with a relatively small u. S. Foot present are securing that area that has been cleared from isis. But i would say we describe violent extremism is a generational conflict and i , wouldnt take issue with that characterization. So while we have made great progress against isis, that fight remains. And you brought up the four plus one becoming a two plus three. I would argue that we probably have put a better framework to deal with these challenges out there since 2015. But i wouldnt argue that the situation in the world is more stable or that kissingers words dont ring more true to me today than they did in 2015. Michael let me go a little bit one by one on each of those big threats, if i could, and start with russia. And youve had an ongoing dialogue with another general, and that has been the highestlevel ongoing u. S. Russia consultation. I know its been professional and quiet and discreet. Has that helped to create any kind of sense of stability . As i hear you survey the world, the one thing i would give you more of a pat on the back then on the back than you gave yourself would be in regard to russia, where it seems to me that despite all the disinformation campaigns and other serious concerns at that level that the risk of military confrontation to my eyes looks less, because youve built up the european deterrence initiative, because nato is more focused on the task of deterring in the east. And i think because of your dialogue with the general, is there any way in which, even though Vladimir Putin remains a wildcard and unpredictable that we do have, as you say, a pretty strong framework now in place for deterring at least overt aggression against our allies in europe . I thinkdunford when about militarytomilitary relationships, i think about it in terms of mitigating the risk of miscalculation and managing the crisis. In the wake of ukraine, we went no about two years with militarytomilitary dialogue with russia. In december of 2015, about two months after i came into the assignment, we reached out for the first time. And i think weve since met three or four times face to face and routinely had conversations. , it was in the beginning largely just a focus on managing the conflict in syria and establishing what has been a very effective deconfliction mechanism in syria. That was the initial nature of the dialogue. Since then, weve had a conversation on virtually all of the issues that affect the security of our two countries. But as you have spoken about, the one thing we agreed to, and he has as a professional maintained confidence in this regard,, the last thing we can afford to do is politicize our relationship. If we want to mitigate the risk of miscalculation and want to be in a position to be in an open dialogue to manage a crisis we , can agree to disagree on a whole number of issues, particularly policy issues, but weve got to make sure as military professionals that we dont politicize our relationship. Each and every conversation weve had weve finished with an agreement on the Public Affairs guidance. And with apologies to those in the back of the room, weve agreed not to share the details of our conversation in public so as to protect the relationship. So as a result, four years now into my tenure, we still have on open dialogue, and i have the opportunity to work through some difficult issues that confront our two countries in a professional way. But you said Something Else thats, i think, important. I talk about nato because you talk about russia. I would argue, in 2015 if you think about it, the discussion in nato really revolved around assuring allies and partners in the enhanced forward presence initiative, to give confidence to certain members of nato that the alliance really would be there for them. We made a fundamental shift about 18 months after that to truly enhance deterrence as well as assurance. And i would argue the investments we have made as a nation in europe over the last few years, its been 4 billion, 6 billion, 8 billion on what was the European Reassurance Initiative and has become the European Defense and is should have the European Defense initiative, has in fact improved our posture in europe from what it was four years ago, has in fact improved deterrence. I think the cohesion, the alliance, for all of the noise we hear, if you look at the results of the summits over the last three years and then you look at the actions that have taken place in following up to those summits that point to the most recent commitment by europe to have 30 battalions, 30 ships, 30 squadrons available in 30 days and in an unprecedented way , to expose those units to validation of their level of readiness by the supreme allied commander of europe, something that was never done in the past. Weve made a fundamental organizational change in the United States, where we stood back up the second fleet, and the second fleet was stood back up in large part to make sure that the transatlantic link would be secure in event of a conflict. We also supported the reorganization of logistics in nato and worked with the European Union to work through mobility issues in europe. Much work remains to be done, but we are on the right path. We just completed, and the chiefs of defense approved it last week for submission to the minister of defense, the first nato military strategy in decades has been written. And it clearly articulates the challenges that confront nato and provides the framework for the various plans that will be in place in the event that deterrence fails. So i would argue that, as an alliance, nato is stronger than it was four years ago and i could walk through many other initiatives taken to enhance real capability. Do we have more work to do . We certainly do, but when i look back at the four years, one of the things that stands out to meet is the meaningful changes made in nato to enhance its capability. Four years ago, i had my confirmation hearing in july of 2015. And that asked confirmation hearing what are , the most significant challenges facing our country . And i said if i had to point out , someone that could pose a threat, i would have to point to russia. And i went on to talk about their nuclear capability, their cyber capability, georgia and crimea and ukraine. That was newsworthy in 2015 in a way that is not newsworthy today. And we are still debating in nato how to deal with russia. And i think it is now fair to say, general consensus, that russia poses a threat to the Nato Alliance and therefore we need to take steps to first deter, and then if deterrence fails, defend the alliance. Michael thank you. on this quick tour of the world, and again were grateful , for your willingness to expand to these topics so quickly, but i want to shift to asia. I want to ask about your assessment of Alliance Readiness. Because there is concern that in President Trump stigmatic efforts to try to break the ice with kim jongun and establish more positive momentum, i have been supportive of what he is trying to do even though the style is a little different from the norm historically, but he has spoken critically of the big u. S. Rok military exercise. He has suspended many if not and most of the larger ones. And there has been some concern from some military officers that Alliance Readiness has suffered as a result. Can you help us analyze how much Alliance Readiness may have degraded by the suspension of these exercises . Or have we been able to do enough smaller exercises that we of preserved the combat readiness despite canceling the signature event . Host general dunford im glad you asked that question. We have historically spoke about the need to be able to fight with the u. S. Alliance on the peninsula. I can tell you up front that remains a capability that we have. And you talk about some military officers talking about impact to readiness as a result to the changes in exercises. I can also tell you, those military officers dont include me, they dont include admiral davidson and they dont include another general the three , officers that have responsibility for the readiness on the peninsula. We have historically done exercises on the peninsula for two reasons. One was deterrence. In that regard, the exercises soin that regard, the exercises were highprofile from a Public Affairs perspective. So we had a large footprint of forces on going with command post exercises designed to deter. Inside of those exercises were a number of activities designed to enhance readiness. We have adjusted the former in support of the diplomatic track. So we have reduced the profile of exercises on the peninsula. We have reduced the Public Affairs profile of the exercises. We have in many cases reduced periods of time where there is a large footprint of u. S. Forces reinforcing the peninsula, and we have gone to what i would describe as a Mission Essential task based on assessment of readiness. So we have looked at the Mission Essential task for every development on the peninsula and have developed a plan to make sure those units are ready. The other thing i could tell you is at the squadron and battalion level there has been no change to training on the peninsula. And of course, that is the fundamental Building Block of the ability to integrate combined arms and fight on the peninsula. There has been no change in that regard. The big change is to the higher profile headquarters exercises. And we have found reasons to do that twice a year. One is we have high turnover in the summer with u. S. Personnel and the republic of korea has , high turnover in the wintertime. So the exercise program is designed to ensure continuity in the ability to execute the campaign and we still have that. , and general abrams knows, he is our commander on the peninsula right now. He knows that at the moment he becomes uncomfortable with the framework we have in place for readiness, that he needs to come back to us and we will make an adjustment. But i would tell you, im very confident today that we have not compromised the readiness of the alliance to go to war, should that be required. Michael thank you. Let me ask now about china, the sea in particular and our freedom of navigation , exercises. The overall chinese effort to build up capability in the South China Sea. A lot of that happened in the 2013 and the 2015 times. But the recent d. O. D. White paper on china, the annual report said that process appears plateauing if i remember , correctly the wording that was used. I know youre still concerned about the South China Sea youre , still doing exercises. Are things still getting worse, is there a temporary lull . How worried are you about that theater . General dunford mike, you mentioned the fall of 2016, president xi jinping promised president obama that they would not militarize the islands. What we seen our 10,000 foot runways, munitions storage facilities, Missile Defense capabilities and so forth. Have walked away from that commitment. The extent they have not been the extent they have not been increased in recent months, i two assume that is because the islands have been developed to a point where they provide the military capability the chinese required them to have. Would read too i much into no change in the last few months. Stabilized in terms of activity, perhaps achieved Operational Capability from a chinese perspective. But you and i spoke just before i cannot hear, and it is probably worth repeating how i view the South China Sea. The South China Sea is, in my judgment, not a pile of rocks as we have talked about before. And what is at stake in the South China Sea and elsewhere where there are territorial claims is the rule of Law International laws and norms and , standards. And in my judgment, that is when we ignore actions that are not in compliance with the national with the international rules, norms, and standards, we just set a new standard. And as you and i have spoken about before, the new standard is lower than it was the day before. It really is necessary im not suggesting at all it is a military response. But what needs to happen in my view to have a free and open indo pacific, which is the aspiration of the United States and the expressed aspiration for a free and open indo pacific there needs to be coherent and , collective action to those who violate International Norms and they need to be held accountable so that future violations are deterred. Michael thank you. I want to ask a couple questions now about the state of the u. S. Military and then look forward , to the broader conservation. When you became chair in 2015, you had been commandant of the marine corps before that you , succeeded john allen, and you had been assistant commandant, four fourstar jobs. We have been coping with a difficult decade in terms of military readiness as the chiefs have been saying for a long time first brought upon by the and iraq andyments afghanistan, exacerbated by the budget problems in washington everything from the budget , control act to sequestrations. In the last two or three years, i think there has been headway dod i read the documentation correctly, and your testimony and so forth. How would you assess the state of readiness of the u. S. Military today as it tries to get on the comeback trail from a pretty rough first 20 years of this century. General dunford let me reinforce your point about how did we get there. In 2010, the collective leadership, and i was part of it, so im not having an out of body experience and blaming somebody else here. We made two assumptions. We said our operational commitments would reduce and the fiscal environment and stabilize. So those are two assumptions. And the decisions we made in 2010, 2011 were informed by those two assumptions. As you remember, we had significant commitments, if so what we said was look, our major priority has to be making sure our men and women in harms way have the wherewithal to do the job, and we are going to make sure we do that. Then we will address some of the underlying readiness issues and modernization issues. And by the way, at some point they become a distinction without a difference between the , readiness and modernization. But in it was clear to all of us 2015 that the operational environment was not going to change and our commitments would not be reduced. In fact, they may actually increase, and the fiscal situation was not going to stabilize. So at that we started to achieve point a better balance. And i articulated this as what i viewed as one of my most significant challenges when i came into the job, getting the balance between today and tomorrow right. So i think by 2015 it became clear to all of us that we were not as balanced and we needed to , be as attentive as we had been today, tomorrow, about the requirements. And then fortunately starting in 2017, i would argue that we begin to see adequate levels of funding and to be able to address those issues. And to put readiness into context, it was ammunition shortfalls lack of spare parts, and lack of vehicles on flight line or motor pool. That is why i say it is a distinction without a difference. At some point, if you have only thatirplanes in a squadron needs it doesnt matter how 12, ready those six airplanes are, you are still at 50 of capability. In 2017, 2018, we were able to address the munition shortfalls, balance our training for those units, because the bill payer had been not the units that were deployed, it was the units at the home station. So we began to invest in our aviation enterprise, ground vehicles, to address the shortfalls. So now what i hope to be four , years into stable levels of funding, assuming we get fiscal year 20 at or about what president s budget reflects, and that has made a quantifiable impact on the level of readiness that we have. What i would say is this, though, we have, we describe it as fill the holes. So we have addressed unit readiness. And i think unit readiness compared to 2015 is significantly better. The second piece of it is our advantage totitive project power and maintain superiority in our campaign, whether that be sea, air, land, and cyberspace. Regard, our competitive advantage from 2015 until today has eroded over time. So as i look forward and i think about readiness, i think about ensuring that we make the investments necessary to have a competitive advantage in 2024, 2025, as well as today. I feel very confident today saying we can protect the meet our we can alliance commitments, and we have an advantage over every potential adversary. I feel equally confident saying saying that the path we have been on has to continue for several years for us to address that competitive advantage issue, which is separate and distinct from units level readiness. Question, andast i want to pursue this issue of resources because even though the request ended up being at the higher end of what people expected, and if you get that, you will be fairly happy with your resourcing. If we look at the fiveyear plan, the buildup stops, because the projection for the dod budget are basically 1 growth in future years, which would be less than the rate of inflation. The reason i noticed that is not because i think 750 billion is too little for defense, but there still is, i wonder people have called the Budget Proposal a masterpiece i wonder if there is a flaw in the masterpiece or an unanswered question, which is, the air force and navy still have ambitious plans for structure growth. And we heard general goldfein and secretary wilson unveil a plan for the air force to grow by 25 . The navy still wants to go its fleet by 25 and at the same , time were trying to improve quality and innovation, those two Services Want to improve or augment size. Wonder if there is a qualityquantity dilemma that , were prioritizing both and we dont really have the longterm resource trajectory to afford the modernization that you talk about, and also the force structure growth. To the extent that you leave that for the future, do you guidance for what is more important, quality or quantity . General dunford we view that as capability and capacity what we , can do and how much of it we can do. I have been very clear in testimony that we need sustained, predictable and adequate levels of funding in the future. I have been very clear that we have done Detailed Analysis of competitive areas we have looked , at ourselves through the lens of 14 competitive areas. It is a classified study, but you can imagine what they are. They are maritime domain, space capabilities, cyber capabilities, we looked at 14 competitive areas. We looked at the trajectory of Capability Development of our peer competitors are on we made , judgments in conjunction in the Intelligence Community about where they will be in the mid 20s. We have looked at where we are today and where we would need to be to maintain an acceptable competitive advantage in 2020. And we have done the math that justified 3 to 5 growth to meet both the capability and capacity requirements. Having said that, if the budget doesnt realize 3 to 5 real growth you have to make real , choices. What i would say incapacity versus capability it could only , be capacity where you have capacity would say in versus capability, it could only be capacity where you have capability. So, i think the lesson that many of us learned in the 1970s and 1980s is you cant have force structure without proper training, property agreement, proper leadership, or proper funding to conduct our exercises and provide maintenance. What i would say to those coming behind me is, make sure that if we grow i dont dispute, in many cases, the requirement to increase our capacity to meet our commitments at an acceptable level of what we call deployment to dwell how much time are our , forces away, how much time are the home . But i would say this. If we going to grow in capacity, you need to do it in a way that is meaningful capability, balanced capability and when you , to make a choice between capacity and capability, i go with capability. I would make sure every unit that we have actually has a level of readiness to meet its requirements. And i would not grow the force in a way that exceeds that we predict is going to be sustainable. That is a tough call. But i have seen us get that wrong twice in my career. And in my mind the quality over , quantity will be the most important thing that i recommend. And in fact, if you look at our budgets in 2017, 2018 and that 2019, is the choices that we made. We invested significantly in space, cyber space, electronic warfare. We have the ammunition stores. Although thanks designed to enhance combat readiness even at the cost of not growing to the degree we wanted to to meet our commitments. Thank you, i think i will bring others into the conversation as well. Identify yourself if you could, please. Thank you. I have two questions for the general. You mentioned in your speech that we need to do something to hold those who broke the rules in the South China Sea accountable. Could you elaborate on that . Second question is about the u. S. China relationship. With a deteriorating u. S. And china relationship, what is it like . Two excellent questions. The first one. I want to emphasize what i said when i answered the question the first time. I wasnt suggesting a military response. There are certain the economic steps that can be taken double people accountable. By the way, i dont view that specifically that is one specific case where i do believe that there are territorial disputes that should be handled in accordance with the law. That is just my position. What i wasnt suggesting is that if it is still in dispute, if that there are not other tools to deal with it. I visited beijing last year. For over a decade, we tried to get a joint staff dialogue ongoing. We had been unsuccessful. About a year and a half ago, we implemented a full process of engagement between the general staff, if you will in china, and the joint staff here in washington, d. C. In a more routine engagement. In addition to a personal visit to visit my counterpart, we had secure teleconferences since then. It can be stabilizing. Both president xi jinping and President Trump have characterized the military to military relationship as an aspect that should be stabilizing. President trump have characterized the military to military relationship as an aspect that should be stabilizing. We have worked hard to implement the president s intent in that regard. I think we have effective lines of communication that could some i could use some improvement and some maturation. I would tell my successor that that is an area where we have made some progress. Gentleman in the right. Thank you. I guess i will ask the iran question. Posed by iranreat to the United States and other forces in the region changed in the last year and how do you expect it to change in the future and if you could be as specific as possible. I think we would all appreciate it. I would be very specific. In the last week of april, i began to see more clearly things that i had been picking up on over a period of months. What was qualitatively different to me about the intelligence and i remember very clearly, it was the third of may, a friday what was different about the threats we had seen was it was multiple threat streams all coming together in time. What is not new are threat streams. What was new is a pattern of threat streams emanating from yemen, the gulf, and iraq. We watched that very carefully on friday evening. We sent a message at that time to iran just to make sure they understood that we would hold them accountable should something take place in the region. There was not an opportunity for them to do things and then claim it was not attributable to iran. We wanted to reduce the risk of miscalculation. There was a question about the will and the capability of the United States to respond. Throughout the weekend i had dialogue with an old mckenzie. We recommended that the Abraham LincolnCarrier Strike group be ordered to central command. We averaged more than two Carrier Strike groups at a station in 2012 at any given time. We had zero on the weekend of the 3rd, 4th, and 5th of may, we also sent bombers and Patriot Missile systems. Those were designed to address what i saw as a gap in perception. We wanted to make sure that we addressed three things to mitigate the risk of miscalculation. We want to be rainy and still know that if we did anything, it would be a charitable to them. We wanted them to know we had the capability to respond and that was the force elements that we sent in. The last was to make sure those elements were a manifestation of our will to respond. This was designed to enhance deterrence. What was different as we saw something that looks more like a campaign than an individual threat and it was the geographic span and the perception that the ability would be synchronized in time that caused us to look at that threat differently than 30 years of the activity by iranians. Activities were not new, but a more widespread, Campaign Like perspective is what we were dealing with. In any event, people can question the intelligence. I would say is, since that weekend, there have been ships that have been hit with mines, there have been uab strikes, there have been rocket strikes any proximity of the United States embassy in iraq. That has all happened since the weekend of the third, fourth and fifth. I view this three military lens. Elements thatrce we sent in the wake of that weekend, general mckenzie and i continue to have a dialogue about what might be the proper posture in light of the tensions that exist today, and we can all see that there is a difference in tensions that exist. We had a conversation and focused on, what do we need to ensure that we have a proper level of force protection for people in the region . Capabilities, the those were designed to enhance our force protection and they were accompanied by a message that this is not intended to be a provocation. This is designed to protect our people, like the previous force elements were designed to enhance deterrence. Will go to the fourth row. Thank you. Retired special agent u. S. Customs. My question concerns the potential for false flag terrorism. As background in 1962, your a your predecessor prepared operation northwoods. Presented to john kennedy, proposing various false lag attacks on u. S. Persons to be attributed to cuba and used as a pretext for war with cuba. Recently, a doctor of the Army War College and a former defense minister of germany have written credibly about aspects of false flag terrorism in the events of 9 11. Today, or their allies of the u. S. That would like to see a conflict of iran and would perpetrate a false flag event to cause that to happen . Im not going to answer the question directly. I dont know what others want. I will just to you this im very familiar with the consequences of going to war and take the responsibility of providing military advice in that regard very seriously. Warow the consequences of from an economic and human perspective. I can assure you that any military advice that i would provide would be carefully measured by checking the intelligence multiple times, ensuring the veracity of intelligence and making a recommendation for a response that is appropriate, whether it is iran or any other conflict. Are there people who might like to get the United States to do something . Certainly, you can see that even in the open source where that , speculation is out there. I can guarantee you, that is not going to inform the military andce i am going to provide it is not going to inform my perspective when i make a recommendation. Thank you. Go here in the third row, another gentleman in a red tie. Thank you for coming, im a japan native, a u. S. Citizen. Japan is trying to purchase more f35s trying to beef up their , defense and so forth. Can you talk about our alliance with japan a little bit . I can talk about our alliance in japan. A year with times japanese counterpart. Until a week or two ago, it would be hard for me that went by week where i didnt have a conversation. Japaneseu. S. Relationship as highlighted by the president s recent trip is a cornerstone to our strategy in country that d a shares our view of a free and open pacific. For a capability perspective as suggested, the Japanese Selfdefense force is making significant investments to and enhance their defensive capability and their ability to deter in the region, 35, the b22 missiles and so forth. That is in my view, one of the right views in my assignment has been the bilateral relationship with the japanese and by wait, the various arrangements in the pacific that involve both the United States and japan. I want to stay on that for one quick second if i could, general, throw myself back into japanese are the of g this by spending 1 gdp, a long imposed ceiling on themselves. How do we best measure burden aaring, the 2 goal for nato, lot of people before President Trump supported that, it makes sense. The bigger question is how do the money. O you see the Nato Alliance making good decisions about how to spend the increased money, see nato nations making enough effort to build projectable employable force and get the burden sharing to include metrics of employability and an excellent point. Burden menting on sharing, ill be disappointing. To be seriously, i have never issue about that publicly, nor would my counterparts. I have yet to meet a chief of doesnt want a higher top line in defense. Browbeating my counterparts about how much money is being spent in their countries in defense would be itself. Ying in so we dont do that. You bring up a really important point about nato. So i mentioned earlier the nato military strategy. Have a ystem, we strategy and then we have an usessment process that helps inform what investments from capacity apability or perspective are necessary for that strategy. Nato has historically not had that. Now have three things that i hink will be the cardinal direction for us to go in this nato. One is a nato military strategy. Is an accepted concept for nato operations. And the third will be an process that helps us understand where we are relative to where we need to be in nato military strategy. That will never be directive in nature, right. Every country is going to make its own decisions about defense investments. Many, you know, domestic considerations that will always dominate any what you buy or what you dont buy inside of a given country. We can be informed as an lines as to what the best capabilities capacities are. My counterparts can go back informed by that information into the debate that takes place in their own countries. I see that as a positive. The other thing that we have a Smaller Group with other countries where we have robust intel sharing we have leveraged those intel sharing arrangements to have an assessment process as conduct as the a top secret level to help us all ollectively understand where the best investments would be for our countries to achieve campaign outcomes, where we to be fighting as part of a coalition. Thank you. O to the gentleman in the orange shirt in the eighth row. Two up there, thanks. The very back row, blue tie. Thank you, general, tony from defense. I wanted to ask you about something closer to home, about the border. That will be left for your successor. In what ways do you believe it propose for the militarys mission at the u. S. Mexico border to expand, if expand, and then also is it right to be concerned to that ources moving area when it was not identified as an unfounded priority by the pentagon, thank you. Ok, let me start with the framework that i have used to on the border and its very simple. Number one, is the Mission Number two, do our people have the proper training. Number three, do they have the capability and number four, is the direction that were providing to our men and unambiguous. Nd they know exactly what theyre doing. F were meeting those four criteria and we are filling a shortfall ofpacity home security, it is wholly appropriate and consistent with ultiple president s who have asked department of defense to address shortfalls. Hen you separate the politics and emotion from it, my military advice is benchmarked against four factors. Everything that we have done to date is consistent with those factors. Everything were doing today is legal. All of our men and women are equipped rained and and they have clear direction as to what their mission is. With regard to the money, you know, in my view, its the president s budget, right. So this is a dialogue that takes executive en the branch and the legislative branch about how to fund the president s priorities. Im not going to comment on the appropriateness from taking department of defense and moving to the border. Were certainly going to take maintenance money where were tasked to perform a mission to train those forces to g on the mission and sustain those forces in the execution of that mission. Thats what were doing. That, when it comes to the broader funding of so forth, ure and again, i think thats most appropriately a dialogue that takes place between the president and the congress and we go back and we execute the legal orders that we have been given. To follow up on that question because i think important ant, its to separate the emotion of the border issue and the challenges the e border from employment of the u. S. Military in what is fundamentally a legal and appropriate mission. Question that a you touched on but didnt ask directly and that is readiness. Me, well, ople say to were sending forces down to the border. Doesnt that make them less ready. Is, look, if we send tsunami o respond to a in indonesia or conduct operations in afghanistan or conduct operations in iraq, that by definition is not performing all of the tasks that of that e design particular unit, how do we accommodate that . Rotate units e routinely through Different Missions to give them experience capability and the full spectrum of missions that we expect them to perform. I dont view the mission on the to readiness gard as any other mission that we have been assigned, which, again, we look at myings in of a mission you have been assigned and a mission for which a you want was designed. Seldom do you get an assigned ever, i that, seldom if would say, do you get a mission that would allow to develop efficiency in all of the tasks that that unit was designed for. Answers the question. General dunford, i want to go iran. To your remarks on how likely you are in favor of iranian hotline with military just in order to avoid any miss calculation in the region . Yeah, look, at the end of the day, our military relationship fundamentally a policy decision. What i would tell you in general i believe that military to military relationships and dialogue can be a stabilizing relationship, but there has to be a clear framework within which that ilitary to military relationship is ongoing and we have a s you know, direct counterpart in iran and so we would have to work our way through that. Laste woman in the next to row. Washington correspondent for korea. In recent interviews, president said that he anted five Nuclear Sites destroyed to kim jongun, he two. One or thats why the whole talk failed. An you tell me specifically what those five sites represent and at the hanoi press conference President Trump said does not know when kim jongun will be coming to the table. Thats the case, where is the strategy at the moment . Another area is where ill be a bit disappointing in my answer. Ill talk to you from a military dimension. We look at north korea through the lens of the capability they represent, our job is to make sure we have sufficient forces provocation and respond in the event the deterrence fails. Were also supporting a by disrupting k ship to ship transfers of that are products inconsistent with u. N. Security council resolutions. To the framework within which were negotiating a resolution to adeux nuclearized peninsula, thats in the president and secretary of state. I have to be in complete support. I dont have any own view in address that. My job is to support the diplomatic track and thats what doing. [inaudible] i view that as im not evasive, but i view the specificity that you get as a polish. So if the president spoke about i e and kim had said two, view that as a normal dialogue diplomatic ing in a effort to denuclearize the peninsula. On fivegoing to comment or two or whatever it should be should be addressed. For a couple e more. We got the gentleman in the white shirt. Thank you very much. Talked about afghanistan. My question is as you know that are going eace talks afghanistan. He taliban doesnt accept government presence in the talk these talks succeeded, one main demand is the withdrawal of forces from afghanistan. Nd u. S. Forces, u. S. Officials and afghan Officials Say they tolerant with fghanistan 20 terrorism organizations, how do we deal with others in afghanistan . Look, no one has suggested hat the United States is going to leave afghanistan without our beingrterrorism interests addressed. I think were very helpful to the Afghan People and those of have served there are proud of that, our fundamental and counterterrorism interests in south asia in a south asia strategy. Thats not negotiable in our counterterrorism interests. Quickly identified the position of the taliban which is a complete withdrawal of all u. S. Forces. Interests are to make sure that our counterterrorism nterests are addressed as well as some other principals that im sure that the state department will insist upon in the dialogue. In a very important principal that we have insisted on is an afghanowned, afghanled dialogue. Initial work of the ambassador, god bless him, he is doing something that hasnt been in 10 or 15 years. And for all the skepticism that have on this diplomatic track, the fact there is a diplomatic track. We do all we can to reinforce that and we are. A need to understand that key part of the current diplomatic framework is to afghan hat the government and people inclusive fghan people are participants in that process. Last question to marvin in front row, please. General, first of all, thank you very much for being here today. Wo quick questions, the first is, what is your judgment of the what does he really want . Second, among of those who russia, when putin has domestic problems, he seeks ome, what, some way of getting out of that by moving externally. m wondering if there is any evidence to suggest that . I think if you look at the russia, you look at the economics in russia, you at some of the signs of i cant ion in russia, necessarily get inside putins ind and say that those three variables have affected how he reacts externally, i think the evidence is pretty clear. Of behavior is pretty clear. I dont think its unique in to create an y external challenge to accommodate a domestic issue. Unique to russia to do that. There is any nk doubt that domestic politics president putins calculus. I dont think im too far out of my lane as someone in uniform to assertion. With regard to what i think russia wants as well and i think to be the preeminent eurasia have been my judgment. You look at the path of and what Development President putin has said, the taken, you have cant draw any other conclusion than thats what theyre trying to do. If i could ask a favor, olks, to please have a moment for us to leave the stage, me in thank general dunford. [applause] veterans akers, affair secret discusses the mission act. A program to expand private healthcare choices and veterans Suicide Prevention efforts. If we just look at the last tragic act, we are not doing a service to our veterans of the country. I said today at the coalition to prevent veterans homelessness, we need to take a strong look at homelessness, addiction and mental health. 9. 5 a. Budget is million. I envision a whole of golvet approach with a whole Health Approach to tackle veterans suicide. The great tragedy for me is that of the 20 veterans who commit suicide, one or two are on active duty every day. Two or three are in the reserve and another 10, we have never seen before. We have to work closely with the states and localities to find those veterans who we have no contact with. I have seen it work in many cities on the homeless issue, places like new orleans, jacksonville, houston, where the charitys go where the v. A. Cant. It is much larger than veterans. We may be the most visible manifestation of this tragedy but the entire nation needs to have a very deep discussion about life and particularly mental health. Newsmakers today at 10 00 a. M. And 6 00 p. M. Eastern on span. Speaker of the house nancy pelosi is this years recipient of the profiles in courage award. She received the award