Discussing Current Operations and modern efforts. This is close to an hour. Welcome, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. New at my virtual fireside, and improved, we are graced with the presence of Ryan Mccarthy and 40th chief of staff. Thank you both so much for being with us today. First i want to throw it over to the secretary and the chief for opening remarks. This is the closest i will get to switzerland. A great opportunity to be here. As we discussed in the green room, these are wonderful opportunities for us to talk about how we will transform the army. Effort, notssive only in how we train and modernize, helping our people reach their maximum potential. The third year of a massive , creating an organization to modernize the. Orce readiness, modernization and reform as a tool to help us evolve. Look over three years ago, two brigades. Very proud of that, but one of the things that we recognize with all the changes that we face in the world, is something that you will see particular interest in. They did a remarkable job getting us to focus. Now, how do you take these units and project them quickly, worldwide. We did that on new years eve. Team. Ed a brigade combat people out of parties. Moving heavy formations within days to get them on ground with partners in europe. We are getting boots on the ground quickly. Effortsive restructuring , reducing the decisionmaking. Forging better relationships between the Requirements Community and Acquisition Task sustainment. Prototypes because we moved 80 of the funding. That was about two years ago. Efforts, we have gone through our second evolution. Against these priorities. New capabilities. A huge change within our enterprise. If these prototypes are them into, bringing the formation to start to scale. Big challenges ahead of us. Helps us evolve as an institution. It helps us do a better job of managing every dollar. 4 billion a year back to the treasury. Continue to get better there. It is amazing how it works. It means that we have to get out more and communicate. We saw that on the we saw that on new years eve. The last hundred years or so we have had major transformations. In 1980, a lot of us came into the army and had a major transformation. We are talking about transformational change. We are not looking for incremental improvement. Just one aside. We are not talking about new equipment. We are excited about what is going on in the army and we look forward to your questions. Why we start these conversations . Says has ar birthday party. Turned two. It feels like the strategy is in the terrible twos. So, i want to start off by asking both of you, how is the army doing when it comes to being measured up . I will try not to grade to liberally. The proof is in the pudding. We would put our money where our mouth is. Those Weapon Systems have to get through. We put a very Aggressive Program in place where we can do these in europe and east asia. We will do one in east asia. Funding towards exercises. We are looking at his position in a capable basis. Headquarters. Ced they will operate in europe. Think we are a solid be at this point. B at we are going to fight as a joint force. , oure joint level contribution to that is made operations. Believe it will be contested in cyber, in space, and we recognize that. We recognize that there will be a lot of cross domain contributions. Probably one of the best examples is longrange decisions. Potential access or denial capabilities that will enable maritime or air force maneuver. I want to come back to that concept, but first want to dig a little deeper on the principal priorities with the competition between russia and china. How has the armys view evolved . About what theg armys role would look like . Last century we have always been in asia. How many people do we have assigned . 91,000 people. You see much more emphasis over the last years. Just in a hawaii come going through the plans. We made the adjustment and to invest in the capabilities. We have the defender exercise that we will put in place. We have doubled down on that, going forward. No greater deterrent. We are looking at the duration. Great competition does not necessarily mean great conflict. Strongonflict relationships with partners and allies. , on the capabilities side what does that mean in asia . Some have set up systems. To make it more difficult. It to be able to force and whatir that allows us to do a defined that capability. Is talking about the competition. I want to ask if we could dive a little deeper. Same thing in europe. Standing together with our allies and partners, showing. Trength it is an exercise that allows us to rehearse and bring forces into europe. The chief will watch an airborne drop and i will go watch him unload Armored Vehicles. You will be able to see us driving through cities. To be a great opportunity. Conducting various exercises. The secretary said, we saw that in iraq and the second airborne division. Multiple forces biplanes, automobiles and ships. That is what we tend to do. Clearly a lot of progress. The where does the work still need to be done when it comes to implementation . Modernization. We are blessed with budget increases right now. The chief and i have maintained a role in our jobs. We have such a massive investment. We can reduce your risk. We do very well. If there is a place where i do not worry as much, modernization is going to be tough. We are moving along. We have very proud of our modernization priorities. Success is in units. We are in the process. It means success when all these priorities are in the hands of soldiers. That is good an excellent segway. Before we get into the specific moreams, i want to ask broadly, what does modernization mean to the army aside from equipment. I talked a little bit about some of the old folks in the room remember the 1980s. It was the new way that we were going to fight. Our combat training centers, the way we would fight in the 1980s. It was a lot more than just the big five. We are moving to the main operations. We will have five of those. We are taking a hard look at information warfare. Now we are going to train in virtual reality. Can do those operation things that we need to do. Thing is power management. A lot of ways, Industrial Age is mitek systems. We are putting systems in place to do that. Young people today do not want to be interchanged with part. From there, lets move through priorities and talk about them. We talked about it a little already. How has your thinking about this development changed . . Ow does it contribute what does it look like in motion. We moved ahead. We are excited about this. From north,stance, hit with precision. Able to double tactical artillery that weekly. They have twice the volume. We are extending the range of these systems. It will give us greater ability to maneuver against potential in the future. The entire department against this effort. They are sharing the information. We are doing this jointly. The first to be feel this capability. 10 billion across the set up. We have put a lot of funding towards it. They have stepped up to the plate. When we take a look at how we deployed it, that is what it comes down to. An organization and we do not know what looks like, but we know what it will be able to do. It will be built around an organization. Intelligence, information and electronicer warfare. To doo had the capability longrange precision firing. Next is the combat vehicle. I want to talk about how it stumbled out of the gate, but what have you learned from that experience. Heres my point. This is for a lot of the industry that we are working closely with. We will do things differently in the army. Developcesses, where we documents over five to seven over to ourss them acquisition professionals. We developed a system and in 15 to 20 years, we come out the other in. Process. Anging our. Coming out. A list it means so much to those business. We are coming out with a list of characteristics. Well be asking the industry to come in with a design, probably other capabilities. Last them to come in with technology that would fit this design. We will incentivize that. We will go to a detailed design. Actually build it. Without spending a lot of money for requirements that we did not think were needed. I think it is interesting, particularly what you just described is a process that has a lot more ability to iterate , in order to solve the armys problems. You are applying those lessons across the board. We have industry and many of these people will have to change the way they do business. They are very comfortable with the process. I am more interested in the outcome the process. Is in our portfolio. Makes the industry goggles. That visual reality. Projectthat commercial and the interface, you can control the implications. We can put maps in there. Picture. N operating ambition. E what is interesting is what we learned in the process. Us. As granted to the speed of business. We go through the problems together. They historically help us with email and now they are helping us with night vision. Is thent he is making speed of business. It gets them excited about it and puts them in a position where their cash flows are better. That is the thing about transformational change by incremental improvements. We are doing the same thing with night vision goggles. Goggles anduy these got a little better. We came in from the side and now it is not just a night flight but a whole new way of doing business. That is what we are looking for in innovation. You can be in a vehicle from behind, under armour and looked through the walls. That is the way that combat soldiers do business. We are trying not to exactly what we want thats why we want to throw it out there. That is exactly what happened here. We didnt know microsoft was in the business when this thing happened. Didnt even know. The first time we went through it and convinced secretary mattis, we set up this house in the courtyard of the pentagon because we couldnt get him to go. We went and looked at it a couple months early and were looking at the synthetic training scenario and it was like dragons and spaceship and i remember looking and saying oh, god, we are going to get fired. [laughter] we did this in front of mattis. Like, whatopped, have we done . You realize the speed of that industry within like three or four months, they show up and its a near peer and you think you are in a city. It was within a matter of months how fast he could move the software. That has honestly worked out for us. But at the time, you think you but it is slow, remarkable the engineering talent of some of these companies. Yeah. Business is pretty smart. They built the mountainside out of camp and elton in the simulation. He got a chance to go through that with a near. Peer. The upgrade from the dragons. The fantasy game was not going to impress the gentleman. Certainly not. I want to look a little better about the network which is eggss of the wee priorities. They are forced, it was a big talking point for them. This idea of connecting and he censored, any sugar across the joint force. Army outpost of, how do the investments fit together . Because it is essentially adjourned thing that has to have. First of all, all the joint cheese support commandandcontrol this joint it is a different perspective, because we are on the ground with hundreds of thousands of users on the edge that need access. I think the secret is i have learned a lot more than anyone about it, and it is all about data. About how we transport the data. How we store the data. How we secure the data. We all talk about Machine Learning and artificial intelligence, but until you deal with the data problem, you really dont have a system. So what we are doing is criminally have an integrated command system which is tying our sensors to the shooters. We have an integrated Tactical Network that is bringing their communications that our soldiers need to the edge. The secretary has been all over the cloud and in data standardization. So we are bringing all of that together and working very closely with the air force, and we hope to have an agreement around the april time frame that brings this whole thing together so that we can communicate in reality and not on powerpoint slides with lightning bolts. Thats what we have to work out. [laughter] okay. Lets talk a little bit about air and Missile Defense. Seems like theres never enough eight to go around, right. Its one of those chronically highdemand, lowdensity assets. Also another one of the big six modernization priorities. I wonder if you can bring us up to date on where you are in that piece of the puzzle in terms of both capacity and improved capability. First, we are very, very proud of our air defenders. Theyre all over the world right now. Just went out to visit them. Theyre in the middle east, theyre in europe, theyre in korea and theyre doing an incredible job. So we are really proud of them. The future for air Missile Defense, though, is the way we see it is, is really sent to the shooters. Its not just one sensor for one missile system. Its having multiple sensors that are integrated and then you can pick them. The arrow, so to speak, from the quiver you want to use. We are developing high energy lasers, were doing things with microwaves, electronic warfare, we are doing things with missiles, we are doing things with guns, so what you dont want to do is take a look at some of the problem sets we see in the future that range from Unmanned Aerial Systems or swarms, you dont want to be shooting patriot missiles at small uass. You have to come up with sets to that t and then on the far side you have hypersonic missiles you have to deal with. What it really comes down to is a layered type defense that picks the right Weapon System at the right range and protects the forces. Thats where were going with that. Critical to successful Missile Defense portfolio will be lower satellite orbit architecture over the top. Without it, we are not going to have the ability to cue with speed and be relevant in the future. Of poking at risk a sensitive topic is that capability going to move to space force . Are we still making a determination . Well, with every merger theres divestiture, so i think that were in the process of helping stand that organization up. Well clearly have a role. We still have watercraft and we still have helicopters. Even though we have a navy and air force after the army was stood up first, obviously. I think over time the assets will divest and go to the space force, but weve worked very hard to help them with that. We have relationships with the nro and nga. Theyre working with our intelligence folks as well as helping us look at how do we cue satellites and test satellites at lower echelons. Were going to be doing that as early as this spring in the defender series exercise. As the chief talks about we get to this multidomain organization, a lot of it is the behaviors, bringing that down to an echelon like the brigade combat team, having leaders look at how they task an asset is something we havent done before. But the partnerships have been wonderful with the intelligence community, but things will change over the next couple of years as s matures. As space force matures. Susanna i want to talk a little bit about how the army is thinking about autonomy and ill paraphrase my old boss, bob work, who says, you know, if in the future the first soldier through the door is a human, weve done something is wrong. So i want to dig a little bit about, how are you thinking about autonomy and Autonomous Systems as you develop new operational concepts particularly in this multidomain environment . I like the idea of a personal loop, so to speak, but i agree with bob work, that i dont think that any place is a dirty or dangerous job that we can put a robot or autonomous we should do that. We should not be clearing mine fields with soldiers. We should be doing that with robots. We should not be going through breaches with soldiers. Going into an integrated air defense network, we probably should do that with unmannedtype systems. The interesting thing, i still think theres a need for soldiers or a person in the loop , because, you cant fail through if theyre completely autonomous, you really dont get a sense of what is going on. The second thing is, even those involved with remote operations, probably the best civilian example is if were doing this by video teleconferences or vtc, this would be a very different kind of session here. You cant feel the people. You cant look around, the person way back there is sleeping i am just kidding. [laughter] you look around in the room you get a sense of how youre coming across. Its still a situation where we want to have that capability and we look at some systems like even like with ivas, the fact that you can see and project yourself into a vehicle you can be in the lead vehicle but not physically be there. You take a look at an apache helicopter, we kind of do that right now. If youre in the back seat flying through a heads up display unit, but the system is actually in front of you flying the aircraft, so why cant you move that to the lead vehicle and you can sit behind or the lead helicopter, those type of things. So there is a lot of things we can do as you get this convergence of different types of technology. That is what we are looking for, start thinking about, how do you do those types of things differently . You can be the third vehicle, but for all intents and purposes, because youre looking through a heads up display, you think youre in the lead vehicle and you can help it out. Susanna the same could be true in the future vertical lift and the Helicopter Program . Absolutely. I see that same thing. Susanna theres potential for operationally manned platforms in that space . I look at operationally manned and mentally manned. Some of the things, ive been thinking, we got 35 rangers getting ready to go into this, you know, this attack and you put them in there, it would be tough if they look in the front of the helicopter and theres no one there. You know . [laughter] heres the deal. You know, were competing for pilots so maybe you dont have three or four crew members up there. Theres just one, and maybe that crew member is more there if something goes wrong or something changes. They have the capability. Thats just a different way of thinking about it. Susanna we might get used to it in the future as well if driverless busses become a thing. But then you have options , too. The aircraft youre flying youre going to do a very Difficult Mission where you have to get in the place and take something out or put cargo into that and you dont want to risk pilots. If they shoot it down, you just lose the cargo, with you dont lose the crew. When we talk about this, we talk about the characteristics we want in these systems, we want to keep operations open for the commanders and start giving industry an idea, can you do this. If they show we can do it and you start wiring it and creating the system so its just a matter of hey, we can do this with software, thats what we want. Susanna secretary mccarthy, i want to come back to you as i wrap up here, we discussed dollar signs flashing in the background and i want to hit a point you made at the top a little more directly because its not intuitive for those of us who have not spent a lot of time with program. Army has done a commendable job of moving resources to invest in these prototypes but at some point, the prototypes have to enter production in order to get to the soldier in the field and thats where the big dollars happen. So can you talk a little bit about what that evolution is going to look like, when its going to happen, and how you are going to handle it . Hitsen the perfect storm and everybody performs in the out years, to highlight the challenges, its going to be ruthless prioritization and ultimately the chief will get the senior commanders in there and we will have to make some very hard choices of the Weapon Systems we need to scale, and it may require even tiered nature with the units that would receive them. It is something that we have deep discussion about right now to prepare the institution for this, which will really hit within the next 24 months. To your point, challenger will start scaling across the 82nd, 101st, it will beexpensive and very challenging with the fiscal environment, but that is where the divestiture legacy systems, there will be nowhere else to go. When youre 60 of combat and commanders requirements worldwide, 180,000 people deployed, under this current demand, over half of our Balance Sheet is to finance weight going to finance what is going on in the world. We cannot fullback, because the world needs americas leadership , they need the u. S. Army forward. So we recognize that thats in front of us and well make those hard choices if these prototypes perform. Susanna well, on that cheerful note, we will turn it over to the audience for questions. If i could ask if you could wait for the microphone to get to you, then let us know who you are and where youre from. Up here in the second row i am with the Atlantic Council and several other institutions. Thank you for a really interesting briefing. My question is, if you were in beijing is or moscow and leaders of your army, how would you be looking at what america is doing and testing the weaknesses, how you would respond to what you both just described in very interesting terms . Yeah. I think the way i would hope they would respond is the idea that Great Power Competition is not great power conflict. We compete for the security of various regions in a nonkinetic type way. What i like to do from what i see is take off the table that the idea that we are going to have a conflict. I think we are going to have what they call endless or infinite competition, its just going to happen by the nature of great powers. Youre going to have people competing for resources, thats going to happen, and what i think is really important is we take that off the table. Theyre going to take a look at systems were developing. You know, if you look at what some have done, the strategy has been an antiaccess aerial denialtype capability. Some of the systems that were developing will allow us to certainly deal with that and certainly give us some options in dilemmas theyre not going to have. Theyre going to have to respond in some way to what were doing to overcome. We look at them as options. They probably look at them as dilemmas. The fact that were operating in all five domains, they will have to do the same. But if you read the paper, he has some strong ideas about what russia is doing. Then you go back to 1999 and the pla and [ inaudible ] unrestricted warfare, if you read the secretary of the navys cyber study a year ago, basically it argues that all of our systems have been corrupted, all of them. So i think that russia and china would be far more aggressive. The question is how are you making sure youre one step ahead of them . What we have done is, i dont want to get too far into it experimentation, thats why were shifting to multidomain operations and modernization priorities. Because when we simulate an experiment within, that is how we get the inside we need to wel the insights that need to deal with some of these problems sets we have. Thats why we have to transform and be transformational right now. Russia plays their very well considering how weak their Industrial Base and supply chain is. That the challenges they face every time we conduct defender series exercises expand tremendous resources and energy while they are trying to do their exercises in parallel. They play their hand very well. They have made some investments with the antiaccess denial capabilities you mentioned. We are making investments to strengthen our networks to try and be on the defensive nature. But cyberspace is almost a dynamic environment. It is as much above the authorities we are granted and how we compete in that space as opposed to just playing defense and taking punches. Ill leave it at that. But from the chinese standpoint, one belt, one road is really designed to commoditize the quality of life vest the quality of life for over a billion people. Without it, they are going to be hardpress. They are having a hard enough time responding to the flu virus. Youre learning a lot about that governments inability to respond right now as well. A lot of it will come down to the economics of china. And as you know, the chinese are undergoing a fairly serious transformation. They are basically an industrialsized army. You have seen how they have operated over the last 20 or 30 years, and we will see how they continue to operate in the future. Susanna thank you. Thank you. John harper with National Defense magazine, can you give us an update on your thinking and plans for an abrams replacement . What kind of capabilities you are looking for, when we might see a lot of dollars going into that and when you hope to field that system to troops in the field. The abrams is still the heavyweight champ in its class. Were focusing right now on the Armored Vehicle fleet because were looking at how you continue to have the capabilities necessary going forward. But that is further back in the queue and were going to continue to upgrade that and were going to bring in another brigade set here in this fiscal year budget, over a billion dollars invested. So right now, well continue to upgrade the current fleet. Just a little more on that, too, as far as the thought process, as you know were replacing the bradley but were also part of the next generation combat vehicle. Were developing three prototypes for a lightweight, a medium weight, and a heavyweight robotic combat vehicle. Were trying to see as we experiment with them as soldiers , that will give us some insights on what it will look like in the future, and then we will be in a better place to decide where we go with the abrams and how that all plays out. Id like to hear a little more, just a little about the focus on propulsion and diversification of fuels, fuel efficiency, transporting less fuel across the battlefield, fuel diversification relating to being able to reach sources of other types of fuels that can be used, not depending on just one type. Thank you. Do you want to talk about the Engine Program . Go ahead. Start with the Engine Program. Yeah. I mean, one of the things is that we are developing an improved turbine Engine Program, but i would say that it is probably more incremental along the lines because its probably going to burn fuel but it gives us much more capability thats part of the things were doing. There is also, in the research and development network, looking at new ways at propulsion. Again, as we look at some of these vehicles that will be developed, the next generation combat vehicle, we have not prescribed what we will drive that, but the idea of how we reduce logistics is one of the characterists of that and when you look at what we do to maintain the supply lines for our vehicles, you know, there is a 5000 gallon tank just going along the road, those types of things. Anything we can reduce fuel can really help us out. Same thing with parts, if we can make parts forward, were looking to manufacturing and how we can do things differently. Because we do want to reduce the amount of logistics we have to support our systems. Susanna i think we have time for t two more. Fires, aslong range you begin the process of winnowing down until 23 the solutions that are going to be most useful to you, are you talking to partners in asia and are you finding among them a willingness or an eagerness to house potential longrange fires that range to china and how would that influence your decision about what to pursue next, is there enthusiasm for housing that sort of capability . We havent had specific conversations about what capabilities per se we would house in country x or y, the chief and i have been both to the region in the last 45 days,. Energetic a are for us to establish more robust base is, toy increase the size and scale of our exercises more for military sales. We havent had a specific discussion on that to date, but nothing but excitement. I think what makes these conversations very easy to me is over 70 of the jobs in the countries in asia are army chiefs. Again, highlighting just how important the arm is for the part of the world, makes the conversations much easier. So, a tremendous energy, lot of conversations under way but what you see from year to year across these specific pathways exercises, were going from threemonth to sixmonth deployments, more countries with consistency. Thailand brought 60 strykers. They want to buy another 100 now. The trends are all going in the right direction. You know, lots going to happen in the next couple years. Susanna last question right here on the aisle. Barbara hoffman from samsung, you talked about virtuality, cybertrading, security, speeds, infrastructure, where does 5g fit into that infrastructure . Having been in the dod for 34 years, i know the capacity and the limitations to a lot of our infrastructure. How are you going to process that information, the data, and secure it . This is another Biggest Challenges we face right now in the department. The providers that we are going to do business with are the ones that we can trust. So there is a lot of Energy Related to that. We are trying to put some solutions forward, just not in a position to discuss at liberty where were heading at this point. But we are experimenting with 5g right now. Everyone, please join me in thanking the secretary and the chief for being so generous with their time today. [applause] please keep your seats until they depart. We would be grateful for that. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Monday night on the communicators. From the state of the net conference, Justice Department associate attorney general, and the former f. B. I. General counsel, james baker, on Encryption Technology and privacy. Endf facebook endto encrypts its platforms, the company will lose visibility of what is happening on the that forms. We will never even learn about it. Think of all the children being abused as we speak who we will not be a what attract down. My view is that Law Enforcement needs to rethink its approach to encryption in light of the fact that congress will not act, in light of the fact that there are significant cyber threats, and actually embrace iscryption that of trying to find ways to socalled break it. That is not really what Law Enforcement is trying to do. In other words, it needs to embrace encryption is a way to enhance Cyber Security and, therefore, the security of all americans. Thencer watch communicators monday on cspan2 at 8 00 p. M. Eastern. , a forum on the syrian conflict and the International Community judges humanitarian, military and diplomatic response. It is about one hour and a half. [chatter] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2020] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy, visit ncicap. Org] ladies and gentlemen, good morning. Im very sorry for the delay this morning. Other news is keeping our moderator busy, but he will be here in five or ten minutes i. So i thought, in the interest of time, and because we are on air on cspan, we should get moving. I will beginning some opening remarks. I think well get started on some of our opening remarks and