Transcripts For CSPAN2 Marine Corps Commandant Discusses Military Priorities 20240713

So welcome to the annual lecture. Featuring our special guest general david berger in the marine corps. He is a true american patriot, he is making very exciting changes to the recorder and he is here to share with you. We are honored to have him here to hear his insights and to see what the future holds for the marine corps. We would like to think the sponsor for this event James Mcginley who makes a series of lectures possible. The annual colonel lecture always features an distinguished speaker talking about the topics of national security. In the past we have welcomed david hansen senator jon kyl and james mattis, a distinguished list and were very happy to have another distinguished speaker here today. The Foundation Also partners with the Marine Corps University foundation to host this event. And Lieutenant General Richard Mills who is the president and ceo of the Marine Corps University foundation. General mills enjoyed a 40 year career at the marine corps and led marines all around the globe bosnia, somalia, iraq and afghanistan. He was also the priest enter marine corps to beat nato forces in combat. So to get this started we would like to ask all of you to join me in welcome General Mills to the heritage foundation. [applause] thank you good morning. Indeed im the chief executive officer of the ring core foundation. On behalf of the foundation is my privilege to welcome everyone to the shoes lecture. The foundation motto is educating 21st century leaders and war fighters in the mission is to enhance and enrich military education and Leadership Development to activeduty marines both officers and enlisted at the University Campus on board and throughout the marine corps. In addition to lectures such as the mckinley lecture we have ten chairs at the university and we have other seminars and special events to enhance leadership of our students on campus and off. It is our privilege to be able to part of the heritage foundation. Over the years it is brought forth numerous and Critical Issues our country and also is involved in a very engaging and interesting discussion following the speech. I have the unique pleasure to introducing not only our host to the event but the individual who is responsible for bringing us together. For whom this event is named. Colonel James Mckinley has spent his entire life protecting american interests here, at home and abroad. He is a 30 year rate officer who served his country in war and peace in numerous positions with trickle responsibly. I first ran into him in iraq in 2008 where he was serving in baghdad, he was a Deputy Commander at the chief of staff for an iraqi assistance group. We served again later in Central Command where he was a Deputy Commander for strike group five in the water of the gulf and afghanistan. Now that i think about it, every time i serve with him they will be shooting alice. [laughter] we have to be careful as we sit through this. Still as a marine aviator he plays heavy lift helicopters dispatched only by his legal skills during his legal career he deckard out individuals from fraud him practice in the medical field and was featured in Time Magazine or his compliments. However, he has not outdone his accomplishments by his wife this morning. Mary Beth Mcginley is a force to be reckoned with in or entertain world and artistic talent in her business skills. Ladies and gentlemen is my pleasure to introduce the namesake sponsor of todays lecture, james the mcginley United States ring core retired. [applause] thank you very much for that very kind introduction, i appreciate that very much and mentioning strike group five i look at my partner over here admiral harris who wa and were d to have him hereto. [applause] because this is a big week for marines i like to take one privilege and mention the general joe dunford is concluding 42 years of service and i would think our 38th would agree with me that the 36, not probably was one of the most general officers in my generation. And we complement him on his lifetime of service and what he has done for a country. I think also distinguishes himself as the first marine Corps Officer to have served and four star. An amazing, schmidt and amazing firing an example to all. With that we are in for a really exciting lecture today in the marine corps is constantly productively some critical and we look at our mission and how we are constructed and i think our new, nongeneral david berger will be a key catalyst for change at the right time as america reset coming off of iraqi freedom. Thjust to give you background, i think the partner jumped out of me in service for comment on is the fact that he had the combat team and had a very difficult time and did an extraordinary job, his Planning Guidance which has recently introduced over the summer, i think it does have a slice in which really looks at the selfanalysis and a real detailed look at force design, one course that jumps out at me, seek the affordable and plentiful as the expense of the exquisite, if you think about how we might only do that in the small marine corps but what that might mean for the rest of the public defense, i look forward to them on the issue and the implications it might have. Today i expect well hear about the marine corps orientation into the indo pacific and also the need for commanders ability to meet rapidly evolving future threats, i expect that will be a significant part of the challenges that all the services as we go forward in a more dynamic world. With that please join me in welcoming general david berger. [applause] sitting next to General Mills, we are infantry guys, so we look at the guy who introduced me and figured out in pensacola what aircraft we will fly he will not fit into a jet cockpit so he might fly helicopters. General mills is one of my mentors for life so intimidating to be appear and if i follow your footsteps and do half as good as you i would be really be happy. Its good to be here. Doctor holmes thank you for allowing me too be here as well. Its a privilege to be in that kind introduction and thank you for keeping it short. I have to think how you got that call sign bullet. Theres probably a story behind there. Real quickly, more help to me over the years then you all will understand. But he is a lot like me and he is a critical thinker and thats how i was trained to think, every path you go down questioning that and for continuing to do that please do not let obama at all. I thought this morning i would offer two parts to this. First i owe you some perspecti perspective, we publish the summer. I want to say i had the benefit of several months of knowing where i was going and when you have several months he can sit down and think and write. I contrast that with my battle buddy who has two weeks, that is not much time to think your way through so i was hugely beneficial of several months of time to think. The second part is to listen and to learn. I say that and i mean that genuinely. Your thoughts, your questions, your criticism and your poking out ideas is a very healthy thing and i welcome that in advance. Im thinking you and advance. And i think we start off talking about where ics. And the fact that were in an era of Great Power Competition and some might debate that for some period of time, i dont think thats open for discussion any longer. The National Defense strategy which you all are very familiar it acknowledges that and demands in no Uncertain Terms of the Services Change to meet the challenges of the new world. The guidance is very clear. I can tell you there marine corps embraces the components of the National Defense strategy and i think there will be domain Going Forward and everything that we do has to be aligned with that. The world obviously is changing rapidly. I would like to think those who had a hand over the spring and summer time shaping the deep thinking and before you publish this document that we had a chance to do. In your thoughts, criticism improve in places like this are petri dishes for that thinking and they are very valuable and i am asking you to keep challenging us. I think the realities will cause us to think differently going into that. I believe the realities of the world causes to draw old assumptions and start fresh. We cannot assume that todays equipment and the way we organize and how we train and select leaders, all the war fighting concepts, we cannot assume they will remain relevant in the future. My assumption promises, they will not. This requires unshackle yourselves from previous notions of war what it looks like in reimagining how marines will train, operate and how we will fight and it requires very honest assessment of our strength and wha weaknesses. Based on my observations and those of other folks, including a bunch in the room who have known for some years, i would like to tell you that our current force, your current marine corps to include a large part of the Program Marine corps is not optimized for great competition. It is not optimized to support enable campaign. It is not optimized to support permission like see denial and not optimized to deter abasing threat. So, that is a diagnosis and im asking you to ride along, you can have your own opinion but thats where i am so will go forward from there. Anyone who had a chance to read the guidance that we publish the summer, you will know and recognize that force these nine is my top priority, i think that is my principal vehicle for redesigning and realigning the marine corps as part of enable Expedition Force which is part of a joint force and all requirements that are layout in the strategy. So, with the summer in the last 30 or 45 days we have whether marine corps will need to go into the future. Heres where this is a little different, then previous attempts, not attempts but effort to do this. The task was truly do force design, look beyond the fiveyear defense plan, look beyond the manpower management cycles deeper, ten years into the future and imagine what force we will need based on assumptions about the pacing threat and mask that forced backwards to todays, not forward and there is good reasons for doing that. I dont think this is Ground Breaking necessarily but clearly threat based force design. To help those rationale the logic behind this, about three or four years ago while i was in hawaii during a congressional visit by some members that were traveling to asia over top of the math three time frames that i thought were relevant. I was talking about poor posture in the composition of the force. In arguably 50 51 until 1981, in 1990 when a very clear picture of who are pure threat was, it was a bipolar world in both conventional and Strategic Deterrence and play but they do who the opponent was. But all that changed in 1990 but 1990 until 2012 to 2015 mark 2016 we shifted deliberately into the capability of, we did not have a threat, we had advantages and resourcing. We went after capabilities, because we had no. Adversary, no. Threat. Along comes. Threats again into some in this room it is not back to the future but it is in a way and approach that some are familiar with with the 70s and 80s. That is where we are right now. We have a threat perhaps for conventional deterrence and Strategic Nuclear deterrence are in play and both are moving and advancing and in terms of a pacing threat which if you want to talk about later i took is a fascinating topic both return to gain an edge over each other looking for vulnerability on the other side sort of like a slinky. One aspect, if you have thoughts i would very much appreciate it, the sense if you set the pace of your runner or a nation you are breaking trail and working harder and spend more money. So your choices are, if both are moving in your inner. To. Scenario, do you want to set the pace, if so can you afford to do so because you will set the pace the whole time and if you dont youre in a rehab mode. And someone else is setting the pace. In my opinion in the last several years, to some degree we have let an adversary set the pace. I think all that requires tough choices, i am have to lewdly confident that we will get to a new design by making large changes, not small ones. I do not believe the annual pace of force development, that grind will not achieve what we have to do. There will be an ever widening debt if we have to do so. We have to do it for design and change your posture around the world. In other words i am not content and we should not be content to try to keep up. We should set the pace. There are some things we can introduce today in the near term, in terms of media effect and there are others that will take some years that will happen. We will make these adjustments. It will not be an overnight process. We are trying to visualize the force that we have a plan backwards, we will have to be flexible because adversaries making decisions in the world changes in those ten years. To adjust along the way. But a threat based design allows you to do that. It enables you to do that because the competition is not standing still. The next budget request for fy 21 which we are in the latter stages of finalizing was submitted to ost the summer and you will probably see some changes along the lines of what i refer to today because where we are in the budget cycle i think itll be the following year where youll see the bulk of them. Today i know it would be great and i would anticipate it be great if i can be very specific for force design. Id love to take a moment this morning to do that. It is the reason why. We have 8085 picture of what the marine corps will need in a decade. But this last step is so important because when we run that force against the threat ten years out over and over and over again to develop the analytical base that is the foundation in my opinion we need to justify that force. So i believe in experimentation in the Analytics Foundation were at that stage where were testing the force where we think we will need and that will conclude in a month or two and perhaps in the future it would be a great discussion to have. Were in the latter stage right now. Let me talk about the future in broader terms, three parts are relevant. First is an integrated naval force. To be competitive i believe in the Indo Pacific Region in the mediterranean and elsewhere around the world requires an integrated naval force, this is not a personality based relationship. I think both the navy and marine corps drive us towards an overlap in our unique roles and omissions. We have not focused on that aspect for 20 years. We have to get creative and when i say creative i mean what can the marine corps do, what can marines just to help the commander fight his flea, how does that contribute towards a joint fight. That could mean marines ashore with longerrange antimissiles, and you can visualize them as an extension of the fleets magazine basically. In other words air and ship based fires, you want to add options for fleet commander to get after the geometry challenges that we will have. It also means stopping Weapon Systems to the decks of ships and use all that happened a month, six weeks ago in the middle east passing through where counter you a system that we developed strapped on the deck of the ship very successful and will need to do a lot more of that. Its entirely possible that you can see marines doing rearming and refueling for the joint force for the naval force. That is certainly not a comprehensive list but different rolls in different mission sets for the marine corps Going Forward. Second for me is the concept of a stand in force. I think the question the advancements in technology and resourcing that china has put in to the Missile System tells you every word that we will operate and in a mere time environment you should plan on it being contested. So theres no way that we will travel around and complete control of all those domains and we will need to persist and remain inside the surveillance range and inside the weapon range of an adversary. And inside the envelope, heres why in my opinion, being inside if youre a stand in force allows you to maintain awareness and critical for the naval and joint force. Its very difficult to sense from the outside in. It is much more clear picture to sense from the inside so collection and understanding is very important. And you can also deter much more effectively from the inside than from the outside. Longrange deterrence loses its defects. There is a physical geographical aspect. Lastly in my experience in nato and indo pay, deterring is one half and reassuring your allies and partners being the other half. Being on the inside of a standin force does achieve the reassurance to allies and partners that is so critical its a huge advantage to the United States task. I think we will have to fight in a distributed manner, i am absolutely distributed maritime as a concept. We must distribute the force, for two reasons. One is because in a. To. Fight what you do not want to do is drive into the heart of Weapon Systems, you want to distribute your force so you propose a dilemma in multiple domains. The byproduct of disturbing as you become more survivable and difficult to detect. High think you will see naval formations much more to sherwood and i think thats right down in the marine corps in terms of empowering to make decisions on their own. I think it drives into the heart of expeditionary spaces which we are very good at but have not done operationally in a wild but those advances give you the agility and sustainability we will need. As quoted earlier i am absolutely a believer in the plentiful over the exquisite and expensive. We spent a lot of money on highend ships and planes and assistance for the last 20 years. Now once again mass will have an equality all on its own. We have to go after the plentiful and families and systems and families of ships and just one caveat to that when i say that lowcost is not cheap. We have to operable systems and dependable systems and they have to be legal. But they also have to be affordable where we can have them in the numbers that we need. And into that my learning over time, we need to drive Unmanned Systems from the top down. A system is built to resist that and its built from a Program Perspective to defend man programs and manned platforms, we have to mandate very aggressive pace and fueling Unmanned Systems and altogether the game plan is all about the opposing cost is all about the ability to impose cost and bring in a threat to the point where the decision is not today. That is the game count. And some of the characteristics, there are many more but i think i will probably stop there because really i mentioned the most important aspect of this morning is listening to your questions and we will pause their if thats okay with you. [applause] i dont i told that its not okay. Thank you so much brin. I am under lighted and highlighted too many things to go into details in such a short period of time but i step back and looked at the subcomponents, so its exciting to have a conversation and not a wooden dialogue and as we had mentioned you came here to participate in some ways and maximize q as to keep this a little brief but just to expand on the points that you made, skepticism runs rampant in d. C. , you know and some of our colleagues no the battlefield does not advise peter argosy or complacency so theres realworld consequences to taking halfhearted or half step approach so often times we see services make giant promises in the world that they will deliver in it never works. In your Planning Guidance he made very bold statements, the recorder has been talking about distribute operations for two decades. The first document, 1992, how does this effort presumably differ from all the other stuff that weve heard . I think the way you characterize it is accurate. Some of those ideas are the early 90s, they were not the wrong ideas but to take an idea into execution that was not in place, my senses they are right now, in other words there was no. Existential truck in the 90s timeframe, there was no pressing need to change, and they would not buy anything to get there. In the second part, there was no pacing threat so we were just developing capability, it was an idea timeframe. Now there is a clearly a sense of urgency, if we do not make a change right now then the balance is not going to work in our favor. So half steps, when you have a adversary going. Senior going half, that is not going to work out in the long run. It does leave the opening question of resourcing and that i can answer, to know what will be required to make it happen and that means we will have to kill legacy and systems that we are very comfortable with and go into other things and will congress set us up to do that. That is reality and what i talk about, great rhetoric, we say the right things in the services and all that but you do not see that manifested in the programs in effect counterparts in the army went through a very detailed process and some of the legacy stuff is not relevant we want to cancel it or reprogram funds and try to get the army going in the direction it needs to be in congress has come back and said we want to consult in these gray great ideas you haver fy 2020 we need to go back and revisit. So the system has antibodies bolton and you almost have to be a bulldozer in a relentless thing to drive that but your sense of receptive and the hill in the ring core and the established communities and equities. I would say a bulldozer approach will not work. Over the past year you have to have the war fighting concepts behind it or will not fly. The second part you have to have analytics to support it, if youre gonna sit down and ask them to cancel this but put your money over here, they want to see how that fits in to a war fighting construct even though they are not military. If you cannot paint that clearly then its not going to help. Even after walking them through this is how the naval force will fight which weve spent a lot of time over the past 12 months doing, you still have to have the analytics to back it up, the dog will not hunt either. And in plain speed most of the stuff that comes into d. C. Is incomprehensible, its in a Foreign Language moving slides that are awash in arrows. I like the plain spoken us of this document and i presume that the video that was released yesterday is trying to make this a common language. I think there are people that we have to convincing congress, you cannot talk over the heads we could talk and plain language, no acronyms or complications, straight forward. The second bucket is dependencies. So the marine corps can have great ideas about distributed whatever and putting missiles on the total in the indo pacific but how you get there and sustain and support that, the ring core is dependent on the navy and its programs then you have the big bogies with a columbia class, all the agencies in town from crs have talked about the skeptical view of the programs and substance to chan change, just all the stuff. How do you deal with these dependencies we do not a master of your own future . I think those are the exact lines of looked at the for 35 years. How much do we need the navy and how much do they need us, the different, arguably turn that around we did not actually need them for the last 20 years. Unemotionally objectively we did not actually need each other for the past 20 years. We were in the middle east and the navy was doing another thing, we did not need, now im looking at it through a different lens, what is the nation need from the military what does the joint force lee from the naval force, thats where theres a convergence of our roles and missions to achieve what we have to do against. Adversary. A long way of saying, the answer depends on the navy and marine corps and im not even thinking about that anymore. What does the joint force need from the naval force and how do we produce that. This is not about me and admiral, this is about the naval capability. In the joint embarrassment, has great things and encumbrance and some voice and it seems i was a huge fan of battle when it first cannot and then the joint monster grabbed onto it and it was going to be everything to everyones circumstance and its so watereddown its irrelevant. Thats my view and so we save us from the marine corps thinkings to the indo pacific and we had some years ago and everybody wants to jump on the current train so all the services have to be relevant and equal players so its imperative presumably that everything has to be joint with equal measure and to me it just has to make sense, yoga Pacific Theater which is geography to see things and you do have free weights of the size of the force, are you getting good feedback from the fellow Service Chiefs . In the joint community of this customer. Yes. I think there was, not a struggle up the wrong way to characterize that but the theme of what were doing relevant was absolutely part of the conversation, if you are not relevant then youre not going to get resources. Thats where it ends up. Every year end every exercise everybody wants to play to be relevant. If youre not relevant you will not get resources. Ive seen less about now becausy has to play equally because no service has all the capabilities needed against a threat. In other words you need all elements of the force, not an equal measure. I agree with your view and the joint force and is applied in the pacific and the indo area would look very much different in the joint force. And there has been a change in capacity. So the first is two thirds, sometimes less in the cold war and they had 780,000 soldiers in 1989 through 480,000 now. And then they went 36 to 52. It seems theres 20 of work for everyone to do and have everyone thinking they have to be involved in equal measure makes sense but part of the argument. The third bucket is winners and losers, its a shifting priority in weighting of effort, so you articulate and focus on the indo pacific so the marine corps focus is latin america or Northern Europe or other parts of the world, operations run africa et cetera, looking at the type of equipment, various communities and when you shift the weight, you are putting more emphasis on platforms for dynamics or regions or partners in the has to come from someplace, there is a winner or loser dynamic to play in assuming you and your advisors have taken that into account and understand things that generate, if you could talk about that. Perhaps from different angles, first if you accept that this is rate power competition then to that it is global. Not regional. In other words any booming conflict in one part of the world and all the global powers will have global consequences but you cannot in any sense try to isolate and geographically it conflict in a small area and hope it will stay there. So the approach is not what is the goebel consequences. The second part is training the description that we have is how do you define that in terms of risk. Risk being where you are not. In the footprint platforms you will not invest in, what does that risk give not in terms of quantifying but relative risk because thats what Senior Leaders get paid for, understanding Strategic Risk and investments where they need to and with a clear understanding on accepting risk and it could change. That discussion is happening. Hopefully its an additional question to the audience. The last bucket and i want to move to giving all the entities involved in the has to do with shocks to service culture. The design for priority and when you look at the documents, it does take up a significant number of page count if you look at how much time you focus on almost twice as many pages of material spent on people related sorts of things. How we manage the workforce, how you management, how you assess, but youve set up a progressive approach in doing things like paternal and maternal leave and why does nobody always have to be in a truck for 20 years or interest change in the demand power system need to shift, you also say if youre not competing youre outta here. So there is a difference between inhouse residents cool and not. School evaluations, is a component in the Education System is all the things you wrote about have to do with people . And he said of dynamics which there will be those who progress on and those who are asked to think for your service and going different traction. The Human Element of dealing with marines and marine families, if you could just talk about the people part. That ratio is intentional not by accident. And perhaps unique is their own word, they have never been in equipment centric force, were people centric force that provides equipment and to the human being. But we dont buy the equipment and then worry about the person behind it. So that part is not new. But how do we train, select, retain, we are stuck in an Industrial Age mode in many ways how we educate and how we train right now. We have to adjust that. The human part in terms of what we bring into the service, how we evaluate and assess them also has to change. In other words, we are very power down if youre that young you need to train them to her level and right now we do not give the reps that they need to build up experience to put them in a situation where the first one is not the first one. I for countless Senior Leaders talk about mistakes they made at the junior level and somehow they said get back into the fight and they say today that just doesnt happen and for risk intolerance he get a single black mark on your record and are done and what you talk about is empowering but not killing them for making understandable mistakes. Im not naive, who could make an argument for an element within the military. I cannot tell you that that does not exist. But i would tell you the bigger driver has been the pace at which we run the military and did not allow you to do things too, three, four types. So he went on deployment for six months, if you work a night attack and revolution did not go well, there was no time to do anything tomorrow night. So there is a risk in which we must guard against but we have to build time where they have enough. It did not allow you to do it again and again, he critique yourself into it again. If the force is 100 employ employed, where is the slack, you indicate youre not intending to grow the force. So if the force is shrinking to provide resources that use in other areas to make changes, the workload does not change. The workload has to change. [crowd boos] how do you do that . We do Theater Security cooperation. How many events a year are you doing to a very approach preyed where we do things matters. If it doesnt contribute why are we doing it . All right we have a good 30 minutes or so and iso hands should operate away. And state who you are if you have affiliation and no fiveminute speeches or question in seven parts. If you have a quick comment, fine, but get to question because want to be used but will to everybody else. You mentioned the progression pace for the Unmanned Systems and i wonder if you can elaborate specifically on what unmanned and a. I. Systems you want to develop and how those differ from what your product we have some years in all the services have experienced per we have a head start there. In terms of unmanned surface vessels and sub surface vessels the navy has a few years of experience there but there was not an accelerator or driver and now there is. The initial driver was to put a human being in there if we could put a machine, lower the risk to the human but now the additive part is how can you make your force look bigger, operate bigger, how can my wingman take down the unmanned. And how does that enable me too accomplish a mission in a better way . I think it was in places like explosives where you can put a robot to dismantle both, why put a body there, but now authentically how can i move from ship to shore in a way that i can look at multiple sites, go deeper and have longer endurance with Unmanned Systems. And being brutally honest my warning over time, unless you artificially demand array of investment of investment it wont happen. Its not that we dont like them, everything is built to man. And resourcing is built to resourcing and man platforms. Unless you say five years from now 50 unmanned, now youre driving. You may not achieve that but you need a driver. Overly artificial intelligence, you can talk for hours on that and i would just say we view it as a way of getting through multiple options in every rapid manner, sifting through an enormity of data center in a more rapid fashion into the options that make sense. Going to try to balance left and right. Dave cooper ceo of amoco tech. I want to get a little bit more of your vision on quan in the islands. The agreement the latest 2012 and an update to the agreement for the japan and u. S. Will invest in building things on guam. As i was forgetting that . The whole buildup in the joint Training Area and shifting rings anreigns into warm. Have you been to guam lately . So you know the status and the buildings that are under construction. I think both u. S. And japan are watching each others investments and the environmental challenges are slowing things down and driving cost that youre very well aware of. But the movement along the program as its lead out has not slowed down. There is an agreement between the two countries to move the forces out of japan in the first half of 2020. In the back. Matt with defense daily, you mentioned about having to make those choices from legacy systems to modernization. The army has instituted a process, do you see the marine corps formalizing a similar process questioning. No, here is why, for different purposes. Theyre Going Program by program by program. From last summer until the summer with the navy, work hard on a war fighting construct for the future, we are there now and then from that what more do you need to execute that. As opposed every night coming defender program. Step one is center the war fighting aspect, figure out what resourcing to do that and what you will not need. In the future will we use that methodology to scrutinize the program, probably so but in a different way. Rather than a a to z. Michael gordon wall street journal. Following on your answer, you mention that you were not ready at this point of force design because youre still doing experimentation can you explain in more detail how those experiments will inform those for and how those experiments relate and when might you be prepared to have a force design and just lastly, i think were entering an era, a trillion dollar deficit where its clear there will not be real increase in defense spending. Its just reality. Is everything that you are projecting to be accomplished with the Defense Budget . All attack the last one first. Heres some gentamicin is flat or declining. In a nutshell. Not rising. If that happens, great but its all built on flat or declining. I would carve into three categories, wargaming, extreme mentation and modeling and simulation, there were some exercises accommodation of the two but all are in play, for the wargaming part, we looked at things like navy and marine corps local series exercises where you bring real current commanders to fight the scenarios with future programs to see how that would play out, that is one aspect and experimentation is more platform by platform concept of how that will work which is always ongoing, the last part is the focus right now, the first two are enduring what they will never stop in the last part is once you have a construct, and organizational construct and put into a computer model, play it against what the joint force is using in terms of a future scenario and change a few variables over and over again until you get confident in the structure that you have. So all three for me are part of the solution. You talked about going to the wargaming center. Rock creek in the last part of that, i know we want to move on, and most of you are aware part of the challenge in the last couple of years is that the wargames in the modeling simulation have to go to a much higher classification level which that was not always the norm for. Now its more the norm. Good morning general. We have a concern working for Security Policy that chinese have now got the opportunity to be our investment in a retirement fund, the tsp which is going into effect on 2020 and we will be funding the rope that will hang us. About 5. 7 military veterans acted to be personnel do not necessarily realize that many of the funds are going to be with these Investment Companies from china. So the Weapon System that could kill us, the chinese island, this communist party essentially is going to get money on the backs of retirees. He. In your guidance you make emphasis on shifting from standard to a lot of different ships, including the black bottom which are commercial ships. How are you going to make these commercial ships not built to take combat and their crew by civilian mariners who are not supposed to go into combat and are not trained for combat operations . How are you going to make that work . As family and indepth. I understand the nature of your question. What i know will not work is a few dozen outclassed shipped by themselves. They will be targets. We need them but we need much more than just that. I think we have to be much more creative in how we use come to example, eclass ships which for while frankly we were standoffish from because we felt perhaps they would threaten the amphibious shipbuilding plant. Dont talk about them because then we wont get enough amphib ships. Im in another place now where we need all of that and we need to really think creatively about how we embark forces and systems on platforms that are not necessarily an lpd17. If they are floating we need to figure out how to use it. A time, civilian mariner aspect of it absolutely is in play. I dont know whether that will fundamentally change. We should not push it off the table just because its manned by civilian mariners. And youre not suggesting that we do. [inaudible] it is a different era, yes. With some folks by the podium. Thank you for being here. Mallory with inside the fence. You talked about the execution of ideas and you said you are likely to see the implementation, 22 and 23 but working backwards from 2030. Can you talk about what that implementation will look like in the near term and what were likely to see coming down the pipe in the next few years . I cant get sideways with my boss in terms where of where te budget cycle is, of course. Because, you know the rest of the process. I would say a couple things. A couple of things we dont need to make changes in the palm, but we have the authority to do right now. How we train, how we move resources right now within our authorities we can do without asking congresses permission to do so. We have to make those changes. How we evaluate people. Even the structure of our headquarters is not a match for the future. We have a 3star Lieutenant General as the head of our manpower. We have a 3star Lieutenant General in charge of force development and equipment that we buy. And with a two star general in charge of training. If the service is responsible is your man, train, and equip, is that the right set up . So some things i think we can change, we need to change sooner, not later. The larger divestment of things will take time, because we do not have the luxury and you are not portraying it this way, the u. S. Doesnt have the luxury to pull its team off the playing field, make it into a new team and then two years later go back out onto the field. We have to make things, with to make changes in stride. Some of the platforms we will need in the next five, six, seven years they are not ready for production yet. There has to be a sundown sort of program from one and a buildup of another. But to your point, the build up of the other may not be a replacement for the one, the program where terminating. It may be completely different, and a think it in many cases will be. Thank you for taking my question. Im from radio free asia. I the question of north korean threat. [inaudible] can you tell me how you assist capable of north korea . Last case about you are saying marine exercise do you have a scheduled to implement u. S. Rok exercise . What was the last part . The exercise between u. S. Rock marine exercise. You have scheduled to implement the exercise. Was yes. Those have continued. The exercises, the series of exercises between the marines largely from japan and the south Korean Marines have continued. They have not a path for a while about a year ago and then restarted and add continuous, they have remained continuous exercises since then. I dont see any slacking off of that at all. Its good for both of our marine course to be training alongside each other. Was there another aspect to your question, your earlier aspect . [inaudible] right. Whats your question about it . [inaudible] i think thats a fair question but not for me to be for me to do the assessment on. Good morning. Thank you, general. You spoke about the need to get ahead of the pace that our adversaries are currently leading. One of the things is that, do we actually know the rules of engagement we need to be entertaining in order to do that . 20 years ago the guy who wrote unrestricted warfare had some really interesting ideas, and example this lady gave could be one of them. I know its not just the marine course responsibility, but are there people who are really looking at those kinds of rules of victory thats called . Yes. But a think you highlight a really relevant topic. Our rules of engagement, are Standing Joint rules of engagement every day, are not built for what some people call gray zone competition. They are built for a highend conflict, where its minor blackandwhite much easier sort of a choice. What the competition, the world we live in now, every single day and multiple domains that are standing rules of engagement, a child to as you highlight. Yes, we are sorting our way through that. Its magnified i would say also by the fact that the answer is not a democracy. So their extension beyond not just accepted norms of behavior, but even into offensive activities in areas like cyber really preface, really they are not constrained in the same ways that we are, ill say. I think your topic, the issue you bring up his spot on. And yes, we are discussing it. It needs to be changed. Third row. Good morning general. Thank you. One suggestion and ask a question. My suggestion is at Marine Corps University there be a dakota woodhall next to alis hall, and i make the comparison advisedly. When editors ago i lived in stafford so thats great. There you go. The question is about seat control and relationship with both the navy general but also with the cno. 100 years ago earl ellis was thinking through the marine corps contribution, and pivotal role in c control. What kind of conversations are you having with the cno about that in the face of this headline from the Washington Times reporting on parade from this point Washington Times reporting on the Chinese Military parade that chinas military display forces of the pentagon to confront the end of american dominance. The implication is that control is being challenged c control is been challenged and may no longer be in our hands. What is the role of the marine corps in that regard, not just as a user and a purveyor but provider of it . I think rational thinkers except right now that any presumption of universal dominance across all sea spaces, subsurface and surface, all the time 24 7, is not a rational thought right now. It is a competition. So to your point, whats the marine corps is role in sea control . How does it become an extension of the fleet . Here, i draw on thoughts like captain hughes book on fleet tactics. I draw on admiral richardson belief that they need to elevate the level of war fighting to actually level and that means for the marine formations, integration into the composite warfare construct and an understanding of what roles, what functions can marine elements do to make that naval force more lethal, more powerful. That drives us down into methods like Expeditionary Advanced basis, small units distributed mobile that can rearm, refuel, do all those things and then move. All with a low signature. I like to amplify the point about captain wayne hughes, navy retired, the third edition i believe, it should be required reading for anybody interested, naval power. I would agree. Front row. Thank you, general, thank you for coming here and for the opportunity. Im going to ask you idaho hopes the questions i dont have to give them all time, but as one of the earlier introducers mentioned, Madison Dunford are now gone and the army is in control. How do you figure you are going to coexist in the tank when the army as simplified by general milley, how are you going to be able to get the marine corps to survive . Because when Madison Dunford were there we controlled the role of the world. Now it is you and Frank Mckenzie and awful general mr. O figure some way to place frank because he wants that job. And secondly, would you support changing the name from the department of the navy to the department of the navy and the marine corps . And final on behalf of your Senate Liaison office, they dont have any swag in the Senate Liaison office. [laughing] this is a frank discussion. This is a frank discussion. The department the middle one first, the department of the nn the marine corps. Thats got to be up there with likely going to change the tattoo policy . Its way up there, sir. Thats a political decision. My personal opinion really doesnt matter. I understand all the rational behind it. I dont have a view. Its only a personal view and its really not relevant. As far as the first part, on monday, i think todays thursday. On monday evening the joint chiefs met, general milley of the joint chiefs met because he had taken over that morning. Good discussion, good, frank discussion. And i think there are more than a handful of leaders who were in the same way, worried about the big green machine coming in and steamrolling over everything else. I am not one of them. Heres why. A, i know mark milley, have worked as his counterpart when i was in the g3 of the marine corps, shop working for general dunford. General milley was in the joint staff j3. He was my counterpart everyday for two years. I know him very well. He has the intellectual capacity to do the job. He also understands that this is not his job as chairman is not a parochial service role. I think there will still be some angst about that. Im telling you im not worried about it at all. There are enough checks and balances in our system where, even the chairman or he could be very service centric would go very far. I dont know the secretary of defense all that well except just the last three or four months. He seems to be very much focus on strategic issues, not on the issues. Im not naive. Just telling you based on my personal experience of knowing an operating alongside mark millie, i am not concern that is going to become an army centric joint force. If theres evidence to bet im confident there are enough checks and balances in the system but im not spending a minute thinking about it. [inaudible] he does. [inaudible] hes moving. I would like to shift around to the ambassador. Thank you, general, for a very interesting conversation. You have emphasize repeatedly you would like to change the way you recruit, train, select the people. Would you elaborate a little bit . What kind of new people are you looking for . First of all i think the way that we recruit right now is very successful, very good. We dont need to fundamentally change that. The best i i could do to descre it for you is, if this room were all eight of us marine generals, theres about 80, and you ask him if i ask how many of you all been on recruiting duty . A third of them would stand up. A third. Me included. If you want quality and you really care about recruiting, you put your best talent out there, and we do. That said though, i think there are tools we didnt have ten years ago to better screen, to better understand an applicant in high school, and just taking a written test and the physical test. We have more ways now to understand whats up here and whats the potential to actually make it through recruitment, training, at all to their whole first enlistment. We didnt have those tools some years ago, now we do when you do learn how to use them. Not as a screening tool is way to better understand the population we are bringing in. Retention, the Gunnery Sergeant seated behind me, retired. Every four years in her fourth year she would apply to reenlist, right . And that application would go all the way to the headquarters marine corps would alternately decide yes or no, and they apparently did. Multiple times, right next our approach about is why are we still doing it that way . What if in her third year, her second year we determine shes what we need . She wants to stay. Why cant we reenlist or early . Why cant her commander reenlist or . Why does it have to go all the way to the headquarters to do that . So in retention we have to be more agile. We dont have to wait until last year, last six months. And it doesnt have to go all the way to washington, d. C. , no. If shes got the qualities that we need, she wants to stay, why cant her commander reenlist or . Then. So i think we have to become more agile and how we retain. There was a third part though. [inaudible] actually, not very much. That part does not change. I think the level of were looking for a person coming out of high school or college that wants a challenge, physically, mentally, and all specs a challenge, once to be part of a bigger team. In other words, can put something about themselves. They want to make a difference. They want to see the world. They want to see how hard they can push themselves and lastly i would you say the to want to bt of something special, something elite. Elite in a positive sense, not an elitist sense but in terms of a very small, very competitive, they want to be part of that team. That has not changed, not since she came in, not since i came in. Thats the first thing were looking for. My body geometry is oriented this way. Ive been ignoring this part of the room, so in the back, the two jim demint. Good morning general, captain richards, currently a student at university. For Research Paper im writing focus on your guidance come looking for the need for the corps to change the weight trains come retains up his greatest resources, people, as you said. What are your thoughts about moving away from an up or out Promotion System towards a system that is more focused on mature, welltrained, technically capable force that can protect perhaps specialized at a particular rank or grade to produce more lethality with complex capabilities . I think we, as i wrote come with a look into that. I dont know where that takes us. And part of the value in writing Planning Guidance is its Planning Guidance. Its not heres all the answers. Its these things we had to figure out. The upper out system we have right now, its intentionally put in there in the Planning Guidance as the topic. We have to revisit because were pushing some talent out that wraps we ought to keep it at the same time we cant stagnate theres not a constant infusion of people come into the service and some of can stay here for 20 years and clog the pipes, r . There has to be a way for you to become a major. And if all majors stayed at the same spot, parked there forever, theres no way for you to go. But but i think were losing tat right now in a literal up and out since that we have to open our aperture and find room to try to keep more than we are keeping right now. But we cant do it in a way that constitutes the whole system or else you will be a captain for as long how long were you a captain for . Too long. [laughing] actually five, six years. A long time. How long do you think you will be a captain . [inaudible] could be five, six, seven, right . Your paper seem your paper once youre done writing get. Good morning general. Im also at the university currently a student. My question pertains to distribute operations. So looking at distributed operations, particular looking at [inaudible] is a marine corps look at integrations with the army or any other joint forces in addition to the navy . What is the marine corps doing to leverage Partner Forces across allies and regions . In terms of the joint force, yes, but not as mr. Would actually portrait this is not everybody gets four people in the team approach. That is not what were after at all. But in my view, if you are a captain and youre running an Expeditionary Advanced base, they can serve multiple functions for anybody, right . You dont care. Its not a service center, im sorry, we only refueled navy here. No. If your in an Expeditionary Advanced base your service is in the force, shooting, killing, we are become whatever your role is. In terms of whats at that site, like you were brought up in saying the same as me, task organize, right . If that requires some expertise that we dont have, should there be army or air force or whoever has that expertise . Absolutely, yes. But youre going to want to keep your Expeditionary Advanced base somewhat small because you have to pick up and moving every 40 hours, right . This is not everybody gets 25 on the team. Sort of the same way, if you dont see your plan personal mission, everybody has to earn it see, that approach. No extra seats. Earn your way on. The last question. Congressional research service. This integrated naval force has a certain point in a fixed wing tacked arid u on some of it and admiral owns some of it. The piece of it that you own imposes costs that are not just acquisition and Operations Support but leadership, retention, leadership structure. Its upwards of 75 years since Frank Fletcher took his carriers and went away. On the table is it conceivable that you could think about that as something you would divest of for the purposes of repurchasing those resources . The topic hasnt come up. What has come up is whats the right mix of f35 b or c which is definitely related to tax their integration and how much of an investment the marine corps makes vincenzo support and care their wings. As far as what could i envision could that be a topic that came up . I hope you got the picture, everything needs to be on the table. Is there a red flag on it right now . No, but everything we do has to be scrutinized. But again i circle back to integrated in terms of the capability, the naval capability is what were after. If that means we need more flight of the carriers we ought to do a link to do that. If it is less we should be fine with that. Its all about what is the capability and capacity of the naval force that we need . Not what is the service centric view. Thats a different way of looking at it. So the commandant has no other event at 11. It will be about a 30 minute drive and your 32 minutes to get there. What id like to do is just if you admit or two of closing comments and then we will hasten your departure. I hope, i told you my call was twofold come in here. One, do not educate but two, inform, to explain and the second was to listen. Weve got notetakers in your that took good notes. Im very grateful first for the chance to do both. I would if its possible asked to circle back on some things that you all the vast. If you can help make it to those people because i want to follow up on their questions because, not just intrigued me but but they cost us to think through things. So grateful for the opportunity and the only ask is the chance to follow up on a couple that ii would like to dig into deeper. Its been live stream and also the archives, we will go back and review that. Protocol here is first name dot last name at heritage. Org. Senator toomey and i will sure it gets to the commandants team. If you could join me and thank [applause] is get everybody [inaudible] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] kurt volker president trumps woman u. S. Special representative for ukraine is being question on capitol hill today in a closed meeting. This is a video from earlier this morning. He is the First Official to be interviewed by house numbers were investigating president ret trumps july 25 all call with ukrainian president zelensky. He resigned from his post last week after a whistleblowers complaint was released. Sunday on q a the smithsonian recitations on the history of terrorist and managing the u. S. Peconic. The Supreme Court eventually rolled a tomato is a vegetable and not a fruit because of a tariff seems an odd story for any botanist will tell you a tomato is the fruit. But, in fact, that tariff was put on vegetables and not fruit so an importer of vegetables, it was pointed out the tomato brought in from the caribbean were fruit and he didnt have to pay a tenor. The battle went on for quite some time and eventually the Supreme Court ruled that tomatoes were actually vegetables. Its an interesting ruling that had repercussions beyond just tomatoes themselves. Sunday night at eight eastern on cspans q a. Up next to look at the lives the former president george h. W. Bush and his wife barbara bush taking part of the discussion was George Prescott bush, the grandson. This event took place last week at the Texas Tribune festival in austin. Thank you. Welcome and i feel like i probably dont need to introduce my fellow panelists here, because anybody knows who they are. But on my left we have texas land commissioner George P Bush who is your speaking on behalf of the bush brand. [applause] susan page is Washington Bureau chief for usa today and author of the recent and currently i guess to bestselling biography of barbara bush called the matriarch that you will be signing copies of it after this. [applause] and michael beschloss, one of