Invite our to distant risk an moderator to take a seat. While they assembled, the tenant general christopher the commanding general of the u. S. Army europe. The Deputy Director for the Transatlantic Security Initiative at the atlantic ,ouncil center for strategic strategy and security and Lieutenant General thompson landnder of nato allied command. Our panel will be moderated by defense ones technology editor. Thank you all. [applause] all right. All so much for joining us today and im pact talker. To discuss the future of the United States army an incredible important european theater and i have been covering Different Army activity in europe for some time. And there is one question that it is usually sort of a perfunctory question, rarely is there an opportunity for news in it. This year that is not the case. I will go to you, j. P. As well as you, chris. I wonder if you can talk a little bit about the current status and your feelings about the military to military relationship with turkey. How is that right now, and how quickly is that changing . I maintain strong relations with my counterparts in turkey on, within the parameters of u. S. Policy at any given time. Time going back and forth and visiting each other. We exchange units. We recently had the turkish first commando brigades and accompanied to train with us in germany and reciprocated with the company of paratroopers going to an exercise in turkey. Not uncommon. I have a turkish liaison. Relations areall driven by policy in the end, but a military to military level between the european command and turkey, we continue to have very solid relations on that level. The Washington Post reported on a change in the intelligence that u. S. Military was providing turkey around the operation they are conducting in northern syria. Has there been any significant changes beyond what has been reported and the way you are dealing with u. S. Military counterparts in turkey . I wouldnt feel comfortable talking about that yet. Anytime we include intelligence in a sentence. Thats a tip. Any changes over the last week beyond intelligence sharing . Tricky. Ill go to, j. P. Turkey is a member of nato. The secretary has made some comments recently, trying to walk that delicate line as, of course, only a nato secretary can do. How, when you talk to your compatriots about whats going on right now, particularly turkey, what are you hearing . Well, you know, nato allied land command, we are based in turkey. They are our host nation. Having this headquarters in turkey is a very, important to them. A large majority of my staff is turkish. Dayrk with turkish officers in and day out and the thing we need to remember from a nato perspective and the contributions turkey makes, the secondlargest arming contributed to operations in afghanistan and kosovo, bosnia, and our day to day operations that my chief of staff, turkish we talk on aral, daily basis and there has been no noticeable change in our relations. Were focused on our mission. That is Building Sustained readiness for nato. What youre asking about are not nato operations and i stay inside the nato right, right. You have talked to on the turkish side. Over the past week, anything you can say in terms of how much more difficult it is to navigate that relationship with all of th is stuff going on around it . We focus on nato activities, so no change. We both watch the media. Ew chief of staff being very focused on his job, and im leaving here tomorrow andgetting on a plane going to a nature and i get to train a new chief of staff in a bunker, working in the italian corps. Let me broad net out a little bit to lauren. We have heard folks just now, they say on a professional level, we have maintained relationships, doing it for a very long time and that will remain the case. But this is an incredibly difficult time between two countries. How do think that is going to impact the future of nato from your perspective at the Atlantic Council . Sure, this is something we have been spending a lot of time thinking about because beyond the military to military relationship there is at the political level and the Current Operations are an flaming that further. And i think a lot of what you hear in the context of the nato conversation is this question about core values that we have seen. From the issues of democracy and freedom and role of law, human rights, those kinds of things that are fundamental to the alliance. And i think that when you see those, that opens the door for things like russian influence and weve seen in [indiscernible] were talking about turkey, i think the introduction of the f35nd the exit from the program will be a blow to operate ability. It is in our interest to continue working to these issues day it is end of the about the ri reliability of an ally part of the alliance. European side,ppearance we have seen exports to turkey over the latest developments. And other things on turkey. But i think at the end of the day at comes down to how did we work towards maintaining avenues of dialogue and continue constructive relationships despite thae tensions at the political level . Both of you gentlemen, you said there has not been any major change in the way, at least the openness of that dialogue, from your perspective right now. Is that a fair characterization . We continue to talk and we continue to exchange views. Do you have any sense of, the european theater, do you have any sense of what the end of this operation looks like for them . Is that something you have a window on right now, or if you can talk about it . I think that is something you have to ask somebody else. All right. We in terms of things that can ask, i would like to ask some of you to start thinking about your questions, too. Were going to go to the audience during this and i want to hear from you, because these are your commanders. And also, perhaps, people that are you are making and they are leading the United States army in an important part of the world. At some point im going to start going out to you and we will have a microphone. Please annunciate and also please say where you are from in your affiliation we will get your question in there. Let me turn now to some of the exercises that have been announced that you are doing. Lets see, defender europe. Big exercise. I wonder if you can say what is the latest there, and how are you preparing for that and what is that point of that exercise . He exercise isf t to practice the reinforcement of u. S. Forces in europe for the purposes of collective defense of the allies. That is something that requires practice because you are moving large forces, big distances through complicated infrastructure and across a variety of Different National lines. Its the sort of thing that really has to be done in order to improve that. So, that is what we are doing. The army has led the way. With practicing this reinforcement strategy in europe first, but well also do so in the pacific and well alternate years as we go forward. What is the biggest challenge and practicing this reinforcement thing across europe . Well, i think the entire thing is a complex of small challenges that add up to a big one. Strategic readiness. So, i would not say there is any one thing you could put your finger on. Its a significant small things that have to go right in order to do this well. Significant concatenation of small thing sounds like ordering food in a french restaurant. On this, because i talked to your predecessor a while ago, greatdges, who has admiration for and one of the concerns that he brings up as areas nato as well, is an of europe called the corridor. Who here is familiar with this corridor . We have got a few. For those of you on cspan, dont know what the corridor is, a 40 mile stretch along the lithuanian border. On the one side is an ally of russia and on the other side is a russian, a big militarized ratherto europe of conspicuously. A n that a lot concern of your military watchers have had going back a long time is that if you would be able to seize that area, that 40 mile strip on the polishlithuanian border, in theory you could cut off reinforcements to lithuania and estonia and latvia. It is something that ben hodges has written about. So, id like to ask how are you looking at that challenge and how is nato looking at that challenge . To you. Chris, i guess i will start with you, j. P. , and lauren as well. On the european continent there is a lot of strategic terrain and the one you outlined is very strategic, we call it teetering. Nato does look at it. We do exercises there. I think all of the countries involved around that area are very focused on it, and the 40 miles, 63 kilometers, it is a corridor. Some people calle it a gap. Look at it as we own that terrain right there right now and we got to be able to defend it. We look at at the same way, it is a piece of key terrain in europe. There are plenty of other places. It is necessary to remain postured and are ready in agile posture so that you can respond to any of the contingencies. It is one of the things that defender europe is going to look at, getting those reinforcements. The main purpose of defending europe is to practice getting a force onto the atlantic, the other side of the atlantic so it can be employed in any one of a friday locations. Locations. Ety of sure, i would say the major take away is that it is not impossible to overcome a challenge in that area. The Biggest Issue is a frank conversation we have to have within the alliance is that its outng require pi cking targets and russia proper. So essentially that is a difficult conversation to have with your allies but it is something that would have to be discussed. Is it something that will be discuss . Is that something that any exercise would look at . Sure. Obviously would not talk about that in a form like this. Right, right. Ive got a a few more questions but first, any questions from you all, as we get started . Sometimes as these things progress, people have a little bit more wine. They feel a little bit more courageous. This man has already had wine. Ok. Quick question. Your name and where you are from. Im jason, i am a Government Contractor and my question is you said the defend his be alternating yearbyyear. Are they inclined to make sure that aars get quickly enacted upon . If you say i need more x or more y. Toyou can spend those aars, get those results quickly over that 24 month period. I dont think you would be surprised to see that there is an army Wide Enterprise approach to aars. There will be a single aar. Different one function by function, topic by topic, across the board both in terms of the structure of what were doing on the substance of what we are working on and i would add that his guys have a Significant Program to collect a lines wide lessons alliance wide lessons as well. I dont know how fast it will be. On yourruminating questions and as i keep talking, feel free to shoot up hands. The things i wanted to ask you, also, is that europe has been ground zero for what is one called gray zone warfare. That area of conflict that falls scale Armed Conflict and falls in the category of strategic mischief. Ill, taking all the emails from a political candidate and dumping them is an is apple of greystone warfare. Potentially poisoning people that with your military in a foreign country, the case for example is a number of gray zone warfare. As is basically all disinformation. In thee New York Times a few weeks has published a really interesting report on a gou unit thats played a big role in a lot of the gray zone mist of events of the past across europe over the last couple of years. Poisoning and what is happening in moldova. Gray zone warfare is a really big part of the future of the way warfare would be conducted. So, i wonder how we are dealing with that as a concept. What is the future of that in europe . So, the u. S. Army has developed the concept of of a Domain Operations and a fundamental aspect of multiDomain Operations is active competition short a bomb of Armed Conflict. Penetrate,ompete, compete, exploit, recompete. I see the army as the competition as an ongoing state of affairs and it is necessary to do so. Obvious leave their a questions of debate on which domain or which modality youre talking about, questions about authorities, etc. There are things that we do everyday, some of them could be as simple as where we move our forces, how publicly we do so. They can be as simple as combating misinformation that we see emerge in the public domain. Nato has an entire new stratcom outreach thing that is very active in helping to thisify and fight information but in a democracy within a coach horsham consortium democracy it is trickier than when you have a commandandcontrol structure that does not have a strong synergy for honesty anyway. Tell me how naots beginning to natos beginning to tackle gray zone warfare but also that misinformation aspect of it because they seem linked, yet at the same time they are separate. Everybody is very alive to it it. Zone,all it gray hybrid activities. You do have to deal with individual nations. They all see it a little bit differently. Not the same. Some people do not like the term competition short of conflict because when you translated it means we are about to go to war. We have to be alive to that as well but i am excited about is everybody focusing on a conference not too long ago and a young officer stood up. He said something very contemplative. From our ground for slant perspective, kind of an openended question was below the threshold of war, but above the threshold to act. What does that mean . I really like that. Did he get a promotion . Next question goes, what is the threshold of war . Her some that say that we are at war now. Their others that say there is a threshold of war. Sometimes we simplify it in nato, because we say article v. Thats a whole different thing. Nations take it on differently but you hear the sec gen, secretary stoltenberg, at that level. Do you feel like youre at a good readiness position in terms of gray zone warfare . Or would you say we have a lot of work to do to be where we need to be in terms of having, being a credible deterrent force, that sort of behavior . Ive never in my 34 years of my army said i have ready. N i was a the tenant i when i was lieutenant, i said we are ready. He said when you can go it nighttime with all of your biological quit manon, you are ready. This is a new field. Especially when you talk about land forces. But what is exciting is that we are the right trajectory. Across the alliance. Let me ask you about this because this is an issue that really challenges tha traditionalt line between, nato, gotes , youve communicators and policy folks and gray zone warfare really, the advantage is it mold over all these key distinctions that guide the way professional folks and Democratic Institutions operate. Forcesyou feel like nato and Democratic Forces in the west are prepared for the next phase of it in europe . Yeah. So, this is something we have been also spending a lot of time on. Goodheres been a conversation going on within the lines about how we tackle these things at the National Level but also how do we played to the advantage of the alliance and take advantage of the multinational nature and solidarity to do things to support our allies when they are attacked regardless of the threshold. And i think you all probably know about the european helsinkig hybrid in which has been doing a great deal of work to develop a playbook of countermeasures on potential options and policy options we might have at our disposal in the facebook hybrid attacks at different levels. I think it is important to build on that and start socializing those options so that policymakers understand what options are actually on the table. So that were not taken by surprise when shoe drops and things happen that these are not just controversial but they are more socialized in the minds of our decisionmakers. The coe, the challenge there is it is not operational. So we can only go so far, and i do think that we need nato the support more emphasis on how to we actually take this a step further . The trouble is there are so much that needs to be done at the National Level but how to coordinate in a multinational fashion. You can actually do a surprising amount and do things with your allies. I think that is definitely an area that nato needs to prioritize because i would say i would say everything that we party sing you could argue at a level one of hybrid. Whether it is the attempted assassination of the Prime Minister level three is something that would trigger or armed attack. There is a level two that we are just wanted to think about. Int of, with the drones saudi arabia, but i think the idea that you can shut down potentially five or six grids massively across six different countries. That significant kind of attack were you want to have a significant response and we are just starting to think through that was responses. What might they look like . That is the conversation we are having. I think the important point is that it does not have to be exactly the same kind of response. The options are very broad. They can include something in the cyberspace and other kinds of domains. This gets into the whole article v question which is the big question that undergirds all of nato. A lot of people have this misperception of it as a button that you push, and all of a sudden thats it. People put on their superhero suit. Its a button that you push and then there is a conference call. Tell me a bit about how this discussion about article v has changed as natos begun to accept the fact that at some point Something Like a massive cyber event could trigger an article v response. It will not have the same response that we associate with natos response to the 9 11 attacks. So, what is the feature of article v, if you can tell us . So, article v, and the washington treaty which celebrated its 70th anniversary on april 4. Everybody knows what article v is. There is an article iii that is very important. I personally as the commander of nato allied land commander not get into article v discussions but something to keep in mind is 29 nations going to 30. Youve got to get consensus. Takes longer to do that. It is not a button. To keep in mind is that countries acting unilaterally, bilaterally, multilaterally speed things up in,re article fivv comes especially when youre talking Ground Forces it gets compensated. The good thing on article v is the secretarygeneral recently came out, nato recognizes weather domains now. Cyber is now a domain. The sec gen wrote in one of the nato publication Cyber Attacks could trigger article v. A year ago, people were asking the question. A statement has come out about that. Right. Another point come if i may, i think that cyber conversation back to defend or 2020, because obviously in order to have all of these troops move across europe it is critical to make sure that all the Infrastructure Associated with that movement is resilient to Cyber Attacks. Im sure thats something that defend or 2020 will get at. It also relates back to our ability to fight the conventional fights. Actually, let me take that to you, chris, because that is a good point. When covering the issue of theater enablement across europe traditionally a lot of people thought, well, there are a lot of railroads across europe. Some of them are german and some are french. Reaking bureaucratic problem that does not need to be. That was something he used to highlight a lot. That aspect of theater enablement, making sure the simple Rail Infrastructure across europe enables the sort of reinforcement that would be required in the event of a major hostility. The question has to be divided into a couple of parts. The first part is procedural and the second part is infrastructural. Procedurally we would make a great deal of progress across the alliance. Some countries have relaxed some of their restrictions, shorn to the notification times required. Alliance, have gotten much more practiced at scheduling and moving and loading rails. Quicklyle to move across great distances. Last year we had very large force go all the way to eastern romania and all the way back, almost flawlessly without problems either by road, barge, rail or self driving. So, we made a lot of progress procedurally. Theastructurally, remaining couple of challenges. As you know, when you skip in the baltics from poland you switch rail gauge. Lithuania has committed to buying dual gauge rail for heavy equipment that will help a great deal. In edition across the alliance there have been some challenges with bridge classification with the strength of railhead. Kennett it take a modern tank driving off the train there. Can it take a modern tank driving off the train there . In usinghas stepped prior tries Shopping List prioritize fight nato and has been investing in mobility infrastructure. I have to commend many of our allies through their host nation support agreements have begun to improve a great deal, transportation infrastructure. The exercise program expose some challenges, but it is also prompted the alliance, country by country, to get after those challenges. Were in a fairly good place right now. If you could give it a grade from a to f. Better than it was previously. We dont have a ton of time left that we do have some questions. Eric schmitt from the New York Times in the center. Eric thank you. General thompson, question for you. Do you believe that nato is still a reliable allen . Ally . Given the events of this week, how confident are you when a ks does they as United States have its back whether it is the ukraine or the baltics . Thank you. Thanks, eric. The simple answer is yes, me personally 100 . I have been a part of nato and spent my first seven years there and i have complete confidence in the alliance. I see it day in and day out. Over the events of the last few days, i think you can even back it up. There have been questions, is the u. S. Committed to nato . Yes, absolutely. Chris has put more capability. Nato commandrough structure adaptation right now which is a threeyear process. The, strongest alliance for past 70 years but we have a clear recognition that what has worked for the last 70 will not get us to the next 70. Nato command structure adaptation during the cold war we had 25,000 personnel. We optimize during the peace dividend, we got it below 8000. Were adding 1200 back in . Whos adding the most . The United States. Were putting brigades back in there. I do, absolutely. I work with turkish officers day in and day out. As a matter fact, we are training the nato Rapid Deployable corps in turkey right now to be the Nato Response force. That Corps Commander is switched on and their senior ship is committed to their Senior Leadership is committed to turkey picking up that leadership in 2021. I do not have too much to add. Mind,is no doubt in my the allies is committed collectively. Nor is there any doubt about our commitment to the alliance. I would add one thing, the u. S. Has been demonstrating its commitment with resources. The European Deterrence Initiative has greatly enhanced our ability to promote and to prompt investment across the aligns by the alliance by our allies. It has been fundamental to our ability to conduct the exercise program i was describing a minute ago and therefore get the a benefits i was describing a minute ago. So, i believe the u. S. Is putting resources where its commitment is and is demonstrating that commitment daily. We got time for like one more are so. All right. This lady back here. Had her hand up for a long time. Thank you. George tlips of the marshall center, currently at u. S. Institute of peace. Thank you all for being here. I wanted to ask all of you if you would care to comment. The media directs attention to ukraine, syria, turkeys role and so on but how do you assess the situation in the balkans now . It was mentioned about the gru in moldova. What keeps you up at night or how do you assess the situation in the balkans . Thank you. Yes. Anne, it remains complicated, obviously. It remains something we have to keep our eye on as a. Country a continent and nato has to as an alliance. We main forces maintain forces and kosovo. From my perspective those forces are essential to the stability in the area. There are internal tensions that have existed there and have despite theolved fact that 20 years have gone by since open warfare and the balkans and there are external influences at work there that dont help. They exacerbate the natural functions in the area. So i dont think the balkans is a place that we can stop paying attention to yet. A bit of timeuite there and i will be there on a couple of weeks. We have some great i believe greece and North Macedonia displayed great, great courage in overcoming the naming dispute. In mymacedonia is now mind doing everything it can to be the nato asset it desires to be. There are some bright spots but it remains a very complicated area. Ok. That, ladies and gentlemen, please join me in thanking the generals. [applause] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2019] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] thank you so much for being there t afternoonh. I want to take a moment to thank our underwriter once more and i invite you to stick around, mingle, network. The bar remains open for a little while. Event anddeotape this it will be available on our website defense one. Com. We look forward to hosting you again and another cocktails and conversations. Thank you. [applause] q a, americant on University Distinguished professor of history allen kraut looks back at policies on managing immigration. I would argue that the current wave of antiimmigrant sentiment of xenophobia is not different from what we have seen in the past. And while it seems to us to be peppered with acts of violence and ferocity, there have been other acts of violence, antiimmigrant riots in the period before the civil war. Riots in the 1880s. There have been a lot of moments in American History when the antiimmigrant sentiment has been translated into true ugliness. Watch sunday night at 8 p. M. On cspans q and a. The british house of commons held a special saturday session. Its first and 35 years to debate and vote on the latest brexit agreement. The u. K. Is scheduled to leave the e. U. On october 31. House voted to delay consideration of the prime