the technological advances in the department. >> good, what a great crowd. i want to thank you all for being here. my name is alex brody, director of meetings at the association of the united states army and thank you for being here. i can't think of a better way to kick off the 2020ausa breakfast series than to do so in this very special location with the chief of staff, general james mcconville. appreciate everyone being here and wish you a happy new year. to get started, i'm going to introduce ms. tammy call, the director here at the museum. she'd like to say a few things about this wonderful museum we're all in today. my name is alex brody, director of meetings at the association of the united states army and thank you for being here. i can't think of a better way to kick off the 2020ausa breakfast series than to do so in this very special location with the chief of staff, general james mcconville. appreciate everyone being here and wish you a happy new year. to get started, i'm going to introduce ms. tammy call, the director here at the museum. she'd like to say a few things about this wonderful museum we're all in today. please help me welcome mrs. tammy call. [applause] >> good morning, everyone. thank you for being here. general mcconville, general ham, all of our guests, welcome to the national museum of the united states army. we look forward with great excitement of opening the doors to the public on june 4, 2020. four and a half months away but nobody's counting. [laughter] you're getting a glimpse of what a phenomenal museum this is going to be and we encourage all of you to help us spread the word as we prepare to become the front door to america's army. so with that, welcome to the museum where we will honor and welcome hundreds of thousands of visitors every single year. so welcome, enjoy your day. [applause] >> thanks, tammy. thank you very very much for this wonderful facility. how many of you are here visiting the museum for the first time, for the very first time? ost everybody. how many of you are here for the last time? nobody, not a single hand. this is truly impressive and even in just this large open area, you get but a glimpse of the tremendous history of our army. so we are very, very proud to artner with the national historical foundation and welcome you to this breakfast. we can't do ausa events without ponsors to include ones like this at this great museum and this morning's sponsor, general dynamics, represented this morning by mr. chris marzelli. chris, for you and the general dynamics team who have been a great partner with the army for many, many years, thank you very much for this morning. [applause] i could spend about the next 40 minutes introducing the people, the luminaries who have gathered here this morning but chief has told me not to do that so i'm not going to do that but with a ouple of exceptions. i am going to single out a couple of very special guests, very special guests, joining us this morning. the 32nd chief of staff of the united states army, general dennis reimer. [applause] the 33rd chief of staff of the united states army, general eric shinseki. [applause] we're pleased this morning to have the civilian leadership of the united states army represented by dr. casey wadinski and dr. alex buehler, assistant secretaries of the army. [applause] two former sergeants major of the army, ken preston and dan daley. [applause] and our civilian aide to the secretary of the army from washington, d.c., mr. woody oldberg. >> that doesn't mean the rest of you aren't special. you're just not quite that special, right. but we're very, very thankful that all of you are here. our allies and partners who have joined us this morning, some of the troops are here, the sergeants major, representative across the total united states army. we really are very, very pleased that you're all joining us this morning. members of the congressional staff who are here, as well, an important friend and partner to keep the army on the straight and narrow so thanks very much for that. before i introduce the chief, a couple of upcoming events to take note of. our february breakfast series ill be on the 18th of february with lieutenant general thomas worlander who will tell us about the budget rollout. the president's budget will be elivered on february 10 so the 18th of february, he'll tell us exactly where all that money's going to go. o pressure whatsoever. we hope that many of you will join us in huntsville. know dr. wadinski will be there, his home, the march for the 2020 global forest symposium n huntsville, alabama. if you need a break from the cold weather, plan on going out to hawaii in may for land pack and in june for the first time we will host an event in partner with army futures command in austin, texas, 23 through 25 june in austin and general mcchristian would counsel me if i didn't remind everyone, 266 days until the annual meeting. we are honored this morning as we are in most januarys to welcome our chief of staff, the chief of staff of the united states army. many of you have had the opportunity to meet and serve with general mcconville in his many and varied assignments throughout his time in the army. we got to see him more publicly last october at the annual meeting where he rolled out his vision for the army, his views for the army, his priorities and i would tell you, chief, the word that i heard more often than any other from people who had not known you before, who had not heard you before, said, that man is genuine. i think one of the things we would recognize in this room that soldiers have lots of attributes and characteristics. one of them is soldiers have pretty refined bullshit detectors. and i think when the chief spoke, everybody recognized that he was speaking from the heart. he is a soldier's soldier, exactly the right leader that the army needs at this time. please welcome the 40th chief of staff of the united states army, eneral jim mcconville. [applause] >> good morning and thank you, general ham, for the kind introduction. it's great to have the 33rd chief of staff here, the 34th chief of staff. that's all right -- chiefs do that, we got these numbers. i'm the 40th, you kind of work that around. i checked. it was on the information highway so we're ok with the numbers. but also, general allen, general campbell, general wagner, general hartsog, assistant secretaries, majors of the army, daley and preston. you have left us a proud legacy that we strive to live up to every single day and it's always a great day in the united states army because we serve with the world's greatest soldiers and if you saw their performance over the last couple of weeks, it was absolutely amazing. so how about a hand for our soldiers. [applause] >> today's a great day because we get a sneak preview of our new army national museum and as was said, the grand opening's in june and i've had a chance to walk around. this is going to be a world-class facility. it's going to be a fitting tribute to the heroism and heritage of our soldiers in our army so i really encourage everyone to come back. 'm certainly going to come back. people first, winning matters. it's more than just a slogan. people first is a hilosophy. i believe that the united states army is the best army in the world because we have the best people in the world. our soldiers, our civilians, our amilies and our soldiers for life are retirees and volunteers, the greatest strength of our army and i believe if we take care of people, we get them at the right jobs at the right time, right place, they will deliver on our army priorities of readiness, modernization and reform. and winning matters is an attitude. it's an attitude that we say in the united states army somewhere e're not going to participate, we're not going to try hard, we're going to win. and there's no second place or honorable mention in combat. and that attitude was evident in the 82nd airborne division when we alerted them and they deployed on no notice -- and i mean no notice -- absolutely no notice, on new year's eve day to iraq and they did it in incredible fashion. it's that attitude that's in all our troops serving in harm's way round the globe. we are blessed to have secretary ccarthy. he and i report trying to fight the last fight better. we're focused on winning the next fight. in order to do that, we recognize the need for transformational change and we can't do that without ncremental improvements. i brought my lunch here. it's not my lunch. some of you may recognize his. for those who are over the age of 30, this is what a phone used o look like, ok. and when i was a kid, this phone was on the wall, you know. many older people in the front rows, this phone was on the wall, right. and if you made a phone call, you went up the wall, you dialed this little thing and that's what you did, ok. but then people said, you know, we want to be able to walk around the house with the phone, right. so we put a cord on the back of it. it was a long cord and we were able to walk around the house with the cord. and that was what i would call incremental improvement. not transformational, informational. then people found that the cord was caught on furniture so the phone company said let's get rid of the cord, right? so then people said, well, we can walk around the house with a cordless phone. his would be great if we could go outside and drive around and talk on our phone, right? and what happened was that ruined meals and dinners and anniversaries and birthdays forever because we'd all be on ur phone while we were out eating dinner. but anyway, what happened along he way was someone said that what if we could take a picture with a phone. and i like to imagine this in an army context. i can see a lieutenant coming to a general like me and he or she saying sir, i got a great idea. we should be taking pictures with phones and i'm sitting there, guy like me saying, ok, how do you take a picture with his phone? really? selfie? wait a minute, i think we could use this phone to navigate. ow do you do that? we got these great things. they're paper, they're called maps. that's how we navigate. or we can watch tv on the phone and i can see us going, hey, lieutenant, that will be all. and when he or she walks away, these wide generals. liney something along the -- that is why he or she is just a lieutenant. but you are innovators and there were some transformational change agents that gave us this, the mobile device. they transformed our understanding as to what a phone could be. still takes phone calls but does hundreds of other functions we would never have imagined 40 years ago. as we go forth, the army needs help from our soldiers, our noncommissioned officers. from our civilians. inneed help from our allies achieving transformational change. but more ofof this this. and, we need transformational change not incremental improvements. that is what an incremental improvement looks like. transformational change is how we get dominance in the future. .t is how we compete it's how we deter great power competitors and if required, it's how we win on the future battlefield and as we pursue the kind of transformational change i'm describing, it's important that we can't be constrained by our experiences. experience is important. it's great. but sometimes new and different perspectives are necessary for innovation. and though that innovation may come from a colonel, may come from a general, it might also come from a lieutenant, a sergeant, or someone from industry or academia or a combination of many. so we have to encourage innovation, look for it in unexpected places and we must embrace it when we find it. that's how we get to transformational change. i would suggest that the last major transformational changes in our army took place as we came out of vietnam in the late 1970's and 1980's and many of the great leaders in front of us led that change. we changed the way we fought with the development of doctrine, new doctrine called air-land battle. out of the ashes of a field rescue attempt. think about this, in iran, we developed new organizations like ranger battalions, special operations aviation regiment, special mission units. and look at the incredible work that they've done over the last couple of decades. we've built our combat training centers under national training center and joint training center where we hone the combat readiness of our forces. we modernized our war fighting systems with the development of the big five -- the abrams tank, the bradley fighting vehicle, the apache helicopter, the black hawk helicopter and the patriot and there were quite a few other ones. and we transformed our people processes -- we take this for granted now -- by instituting the all-volunteer force which gave birth to our incredible noncommissioned officer corps which every other country wants to have. our strategic leaders then recognized that we were strategic at an inflection point , engaged in great power competition with the soviet union and witnessing technological advances which were reshaping the character of war. the leaders of that day and some of them are here recognize that incremental change wouldn't deliver the army we needed to compete with the soviet union. so they resourced and built a new army, an army that deterred soviet aggression, an army that won desert storm in 100 hours, an army that has fought so well against terrorism for the last two decades. in fact, the transformational change of the post-vietnam era built the army today that has 187,000 soldiers committed to support 140 countries around the world and accounts for more than 60% of our combatant commanders requirements. think about it. we began building the army of 2020 more than 40 years ago. and since then, we're incremental improved our weapons systems that we failed in the 1970's and 1980's and i would tell people we're starting to run out of letters. that's why we need new systems. when you get to the z model, you need something new. take the m2 bradley, one of our key fighting vehicles. over the last 40 years we've upgraded the bradley to m2, a-1, and improved it to one version after another. we have added improved armor. we made many other improvements. although the bradley is a formidable fighting vehicle, it will be the centerpiece of our mechanized infantry formations. we are reaching the limits of technology and designs in the 1970's. we can only add so much weight, can only make our helicopters fly so fast and so far. conditions have changed. we recognize we will be contested in five domains, land, air, sea, space, and cyber in the future. we realize we will have to penetrate robust anti-access an aerial denial defensive networks. we know that we will face emerging technologies like ai, hypersonics, robotics, and the modern battlefield will look very different from 40 years ago. we submit we are at a similar inflection point to the one our leaders faced coming out of vietnam, and like them, we have to ask ourselves, are we building the army that can compete and win in the next 40 years? i believe transformational change will build our army. that is what we are doing with the development of the multi-domain operations concept. we are changing the way we will fight in the future, where we will be contested in every domain. that's why we are building new organizations, like the security forces systems brigades, the multi-domain taskforces, and information warfare command, which will enable us to compete below the level of armed conflict. that's why we are developing cyber rangers, so we can train cyber in a similar environment to our ctc's. that's why we are developing training environments, by we are laser focused on developing and fielding the six modernization per reduce with 31 signature systems. that is why we must implement a 21st century measurement system, and one initiative, the battalion assessment program, is going on as we speak, and a lot of our majors are excited about that. much of this is happening right now, not in 10 or 20 years. an example of transformational change is the integrated visual augmentation system. you can see it there. that is not just an incremental improvement to night vision goggles. it is like putting on a slightly larger pair of sunglasses. it has both night vision and thermal capability in the heads up display, but much more than an improved night vision device. our soldiers can see a three map -- a three-dimensional map with friendly data, receive video from drones and other sources on the battlefield, can link their weapons' sights for faster aiming, shooting around corners or from behind cover. what i would argue one of the most transformational concepts about the system is you can use it to train. think about it. you are on your way to a real-world mission. you can train with your team or squad on the actual simulated terrain in virtual reality, less time and fewer resources. not only that, and this is why i want to encourage industry, the transformation is how we are developing it. we took an innovative idea from change agents and went from initial development to a real-world system being used by our soldiers right now. soldiers are helping to develop this in less than two years. it has the potential to fundamentally change the way we train and fight, all from the heads up display our soldiers will have. as this gets out, there will be a bunch of things we can do with this. i can envision how we operate under armour. it will fundamentally change the way we do business. in the long-range portfolio, we have early successes at the speed of relevance. we conducted successful tests on a precision strike missile last month. i am confident we will engage targets at ranges of more than 500 kilometers very soon. we project to have this system fielded in the next two to three years. we have the extended range canon , which has demonstrated the ability to engage targets precisely at 70 kilometers, with the potential for significant increases in the future. we project to start building the systems in two to three years. i know there is a lot of interest in hypersonics, especially claims by our competitors. we are aggressively developing these capabilities, and expect to test and field hypersonic weapon systems over the next three years. we are developing mobile air defense systems, because we know we will be contested from the air. we begin fielding them next year. successful tests that are, integrated battle system, which will be transformational and allow us to link multiple centers to multiple shooters on the battlefield and provide a holistic defense against enemy air, missiles, and unmanned aerial systems. we are developing next generation weapons of the rifle and the machine gun. they are said to be fielded next year, and they will significantly increase the range at an lethality of our soldiers. future vertical lift, flying before buying. we are pleased with the innovation we are seeing from industry in this area. we plan on developing and fielding a long-range assault aircraft, and a future attack and reconnaissance aircraft, in the next eight to 10 years. these are aircraft, not helicopters. the transformational requirements we have asked from industry are not resident in traditional helicopters. i want to mention the next generation combat vehicle. we made the decision to cancel the solicitation we had for the vehicles. we are fully committed to replacing the bradley fighting vehicle in the future. however, like the future of vertical aircraft, we want to drive them before we buy them. that is the strategy we will take, experiment, prototype, see what we have before we invest a large amount of money in these programs. we found out early in the process, after minimal investments, that our aggressive timeline did not permit industry to meet the requirements. we have taken a pause for solicitation, reset the requirements, acquisition strategy and timeline, then come out and aggressively pursue this critical weapon system we need for the future. i know we have allies and partners represented here this morning. thank you for being here. being united with allies and partners allows us to deter our competitors and negotiate from a position of strength. our allies and partners are critical to what we do, and i don't see that changing. i met with 75 of my counterparts from around the world in the last five to six months. this was very helpful when i talk to them during the last couple of weeks about some of the actions we were taking. all of them want to work closely with united states army. it is important we work closely with allies and partners to innovate and realize transformational change, but ensure that we have maintain stability, security, and interoperability around the world. we need to pursue the high payoff initiatives that build strong relationships with our allies and partners. these initiatives include the international military education and training program. i can't count the number of chiefs of army and senior leaders that have been exposed to our military and country through this program. another, i have found the foreign military sales program was a great opportunity for partners to improve their own capacities and capabilities, while increasing interoperability with us. also a great opportunity to reduce costs and maintain our organic industrial base. finally, the implement of our security force assistance brigades to advise, along with combine exercises with allies and partners, it has increased capacities and capabilities, along with building interoperability. you can't show up and be expected to operate effectively if you've never worked together. coming up in europe this year, we have the largest exercise in 25 years, over 20,000 troops from the u.s. in a version in the pacific, a smaller number this year, but a bigger number next year as well. these exercises will be a tool we use to strengthen relationships and build capability, both ours and our allies, and partners. you are important to us. it includes close and productive ties with all of you, and we want to continue moving forward together. let me close by saying it is an exciting time to be in the army. we have a unique opportunity to set a course that will reserve overmatched in dominance for the next 40 years and ensure we can compete with and deter great power competitions, and if required, to fight and win. we aren't looking for phones or faster horses for our calvary. we are trying to fight the last fight better. we want to win the next fight. it will take transformational change, and it won't happen with incremental improvements. i look forward to your support in this endeavor and the people first, winning matters, we remain army strong. [applause] i think we would take a few questions. i guess we have a few questions out there. allies and partners, remain strong. >> good morning, sir. i am from the australian defense force. you spoke about the technological advancements ensuring the army remains relevant. the initiative to select the right person for the right job through the time -- through the battalion command assessment program is a vital step to achieve this. do you believe that the mid to senior rank levels that there is a deficit in understanding advancements in ai, robotics, and space capabilities? and how do we achieve better education for senior leadership? >> that is a great question. one of the points i was trying to make was, if you don't know about artificial intelligence, robotics, get the right people surrounding you that do, and don't be held hostage by your experiences. as i have learned in this job, i think one of the biggest things we can do that i want to learn about is data. think about it. i want to talk to you about data. if you look at what we are trying to do, a control system, shooter linkage, machine learning, artificial intelligence, it all comes down to data, the ability to standardize data, move data, secure data, and all the transformational advantages we will get involved data, so if you don't understand that, you will not get there. what we can't do is slow down, it may be some of the younger people have experience in that, so i'm throwing things out there. help me figure out how to get data. give some intent and not constrain young, innovative people who want to get after this. that's what i'm saying to the general officers. i have to use analogies because i don't know what i don't know, but i don't want this. i want this. and, you know, we need to get the right people who know about that stuff, so that is what we are trying to do. thanks for the question. jen jensen, defense news. you talked about the man fighting vehicle. it has been highlighted through the acquisition community and modernization community, who have had friction when it comes to decision-making, so i'm wondering what the army is doing to smooth things over with the acquisition community and army features command modernization command in the future so that there aren't any butting heads and they are able to work together, especially since time is of the essence. once again, have to make sure, friction and heat makes you stronger, i will leave it at that. i think it is important that, one of the reasons we went to cross functional teams is we want to bring operators, technologists, and acquisition professionals together. we want to move away from the linear, industrial-age process be used -- we used in the past that would take us three to five years to get a requirement, acquisition process, three to five years, proposals, then getting a program under contract, then five to seven years later they feel that program, and after billions of dollars of expenditure you have something that is no longer relevant. we are trying to bring people together early in the process. some people aren't as comfortable as they should be, but they are getting that way. because that is how we are going to do business. we are trying to show the value of working together early in the process with everybody involved, and i think what you will see, even during this tactical pause, -- i have been with our acquisition professionals and they understand the importance of working together. they are going back in the huddle, calling another play, coming out to the line of scrimmage, getting after it, and scoring a touchdown, so this will happen. thank you. thank you. good to see you again. can you talk about the transformation you are trying to get underway at army cyber, transforming it from the traditional cyber warfare operation? >> as we look to the future, we are standing up different organizations. one of them is the multi-domain task force. a lot of people say what is a multi-domain task force? it has the ability to deliver both long-range precision affects and long-range precision fires. you look around the world, people talk about information, the truth matters, and what we see with our competitors is operating below the level of armed conflict, they want to put dis-information out there. it happens every day. we want to make sure we can get the truth out there. that is part of information operations, tied into cyber, electronic warfare, space, and all these elements come together. we want an organization that will synchronize those. that is with the information warfare command is going to do. we have one more question over here. >> i am from jane's. i want to follow up, the army had warning from industry after proms with the timetable and requirements -- problems with the timetable and requirements. what would they do different to address the shortcomings that have cropped up time and time again? what we learned from going through the process was what industry could do it. we knew it was an aggressive timeline going in, but the feedback we got from industry is they can do it. after a minimal investment timeframe, we are going to say show us you can actually do this. as we come back around with industry, we're going to say, how much time will it take to get to the requirements that we need? so there is some more negotiation that will go on. the way we are prototyping now, is having informed requirements. we don't necessarily have requirements out there like in space. we meet with industry and give them a problem set, and we say we want a vehicle that should have this many people in have these things, come back with a sketch what this looks like. we take a look at what they come back with, and if you can do this, how about a design, a more rigorous design that shows us what this will look like, then we can select from that. how about coming back with a model that shows us, a prototype that we can see and drive before we buy it. that is the process we will take. then we will make a decision on time versus requirements. if you give us six more months or one more year, we can have this capability in this vehicle. we want to transformational vehicle. we don't just want incrementally improve the bradley. we want a transformational vehicle that has open architecture that we can continue to improve over the next 40 years. i don't want a chief of staff trying to figure out the numbers. maybe chief of the staff army number 50 sitting here saying how come mcconville left me with all this old stuff. i want him or her to be in a position where they are looking at equipment 40 years from now that is 40 years old, not 80 years old. i think we need to do that. >> let us give the general a big round of applause. [applause] >> i appreciate that. thanks very much, chief. thanks for getting us off to a great start on this cold january morning as we begin 2020. this army has been busy. i would say to this crowd and you, chief, that this association will do all they can to support you as you move forward on behalf of the nation. thank you for sharing your time with us this morning. for all of you, one of the ways we are able to support the army is through your membership. if you are not a ausa member, i would ask you to consider joining. you can do so this morning, or you can go online. we value your membership. we need your membership to continue to support the army in the way the army deserves. to use and -- to you and general dynamics, a hearty thanks for your sponsorship of this wonderful event this morning. thank you for doing that. tammy, for you and the team at the national museum of the united states army, thanks for hosting us at your home this morning. we look forward to continued progress, and i think each of us looks forward with great anticipation to june 4 and the official opening of this magnificent facility. if you want to learn more about the national museum of the united states army, see any of the folks at the army historical foundation, or go to their website or the website of the national museum or the -- of the united states army and see all the goodness and greatness being built and established here to recognize what is in arguably the most powerful land force, the u.s. army. thank you for joining us. let's have an army strong day. thank you. [applause] [indiscernible voices] >> c-span's "washington journal" live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. , we arep this morning getting your reaction as the impeachment trial resumes with president trump's defense team presenting its case before the senate. join the conversation all morning with your phone calls and tweets. the sure to watch c-span's "washington journal: coming up at 7:00 a.m. this morning. the senate impeachment trial of president trump continues today at 10:00 eastern as president trump's defense team presents its case before the senate. watch live coverage of the senate impeachment trial on c-span2, on demand at c-span.org/impeachment and listen on the free c-span radio presidential candidate joe biden speaking to voters in claremont, new hampshire. several recent pose collected by real clear politics show him trailing bernie sanders by four points ahead of the states february 11 primary.