Transcripts For CSPAN2 Joint Chiefs Of Staff Vice Chair Discusses Global Security Challenges 20240713

Is really hard to imagine all the things that happen when you are vice chairman but theres an interesting dynamic that happens because on 18 november i changed command that u. S. Strategic command and when i changed command at u. S. Strategic command i was in command of 150,000 americans. They went to work every day to do the ab150,000 americans is an interesting element in command structure. Then on 21 november i swore in as vice chairman of joint chiefs of staff and went to a staff of five. Because im actually not in command of anything anymore. I have no command responsibilities, and will command anything. [laughter] when we drove out to omaha on the way over here and we were in a little bit of a hurry because the chairman had been out of vice chairman a little while he wanted me there quick. We were moving pretty fast across the country and my wife looked over at me somewhere in kentucky and said, this feels quite different, doesnt it . I said, what do you mean . She said, its like a huge burden is lifted off your shoulders. Even when you swear in as vice chairman that burden is not can be there because as a Commander Strategic command have the direct responsibility for not just 150,000 soldiers, sailors, marines and the command that the Nuclear Weapons of the United States of america. Each and every day. The movement of every one of those weapons and the readiness of every one of those weapons and when i started there was a Space Capabilities Cyber Capabilities and all the pieces that came across and all of a sudden there i am in the middle of the kentucky and its all gone. Then i swear in as vice chairman and now im an advisor. Thats what my job is, im an advisor. The second highest ranking person that was introduced thats true but im just an advisor and im not in the chain of command. The chain of command goes for the president , secretary defense to the combat commanders. Im not in the chain of command anymore but i very critical position where my advice is very important. My advice on as a member of the joint chiefs of staff and statutory responsibility there i take very seriously my advice on the fourth design of the future capabilities of the United States, my advice on our partnerships with our allies and how to reach allies and im about to take our first trip overseas to europe in a couple weeks, actually i went to romania very briefly last week probably uso got called back because some things were going on in the world and the chairman said leave and i got on a plane and came back right away. Im involved in almost everything. But its a very different role. I meet with the joint chief of staff, i meet with the secretary of defense, i meet with the president of the United States frequently but its a different function. When i think about my priorities, when i thought long and hard about the priorities i need to have their very different than the priorities of a commander. My priorities i have three priorities, its a good way to start the discussion. My three priorities are pretty straightforward, number one as a member of the joint chief of staff and vice chairman most important word in that duty title is vice my job is to make sure that i do my job as a member of the joint chief of staff that i support the chairman and being successful in his responsibilities, i support the secretary of defense and give honest best military device to the presence of the United States when i am asked. Thus the number one priority. That takes up most of my time. Its seven or eight weeks in the job it taken up most of my time because its been a very busy world since 21 november. The second priority, that kind of gets into things i can control a little bit. Things i can control a little bit is that one of my responsibilities as im the head of the joint requirements oversight council. The council such requirements for the future force capabilities of United States of america. Im also on a number of Different Councils and committees in the pentagon that look at budget i look at acquisition i look at force design and force development, all of those structures and i work those issues very seriously and the one thing i noticed about all those processes when i look at even the j rock is that the one element that is not in those processes is speed. It is not a rapid process anywhere in the department of defense. I will talk about some of our competitors here shortly but when you look at our competitors large and small, one of the things you find that they have in common is they are moving very fast. Very very fast. We are not. My second priority is to do everything i can to insert speed into the processes inside the pentagon. Thats going to be a difficult challenge because we have built processes over the years but by design are not built for speed. By design they are built to remove risk. And if you have a process designed to remove all risk it becomes very deliberate. Very structured, very bureaucratic, step overture step after step and you basically relate authorities from the field and move them into the pentagon so you can make sure that we dont take risk. And that means you go slow. If you have an adversary, competitor thats going fast and you are going slow, that doesnt matter how far ahead you are, at some point that adversary will catch and pass you. Thats the nature of any competition. If we are in competition in the United States and i dont shy away from competition i like competition but the goal of the competition is to win. Not to finish second and in our business finishing second is bad, there is no such thing as second place in our business, which means we have to put speed back in the process we have to understand how to take risk how to properly manage risk how to delegate risk down to the people that can actually move fast and move on from there. Thats gonna be a significant challenge and while in vice chairman and going to work hard at every element of the pentagon im involved in to try to put speed back into that. We will come back to that in a second. A third party, third priority is to basically make sure we dont forget that we are nothing without our people and their families. When i look at the structure of the joint staff, and i testified in front of Congress Many times a look at the structure when i look at all the people and family programs we have in a look at the way we actually testify in front of congress the way we tell our stories realize that basically whoever is going to testify the staff is working that particular problem whatever problem it happens to be comes running to you and says heres your talking point, say this, you go to the hell you say this and move on and go back to the rest of your job. If you look at all the issues we have across our People Programs and family programs, i think you will see that in many cases we are not succeeding. In many cases, things are getting worse. If you look at our housing problems, the housing problem is not an overnight sensation. Somehow the Privatized Housing issue has come to the forefront after the last few months, last year but that issue has been around for a long time. Ive lived in Privatized Housing i work with Privatized Housing contractors i see good contracts and by bad contracts that i see the problems there somehow we just kept going down that path and things kept getting worse and worse and it became a crisis. He looked at the numbers for Suicide Prevention you look at the numbers suicides in the military they are not getting better. Some people like to say, thats a societal problem the numbers are no different than society, from my perspective thats hogwash and acceptable. When the mothers and fathers of our nation give their most prio item in the world, their sons and daughters come into the United States military, they expect a better environment and better world and they expect us the leaders of the military to take them. Which means, and ive had to deal with it multiple times, suicides in the military i walk up and look at the mother and we failed, we absolutely will be a single suicide thats acceptable. We will probably never get to zero but it has to be the goal for look at the numbers, theyre not going the right direction. Which means that everything weve been doing, everything weve been doing is not working. We have to take a fresh look at that. You look at our healthcare in the military healthcare is actually quite good. Unless you have a very unique capabilities, a lot of those revolve around what we call accepting family members. Usually kids with very special needs. It is very difficult to figure out how to get the special needs kids into the right treatment to our very bureaucratic healthcare system. It got to figure out how to do better because a family that comes in a has a special needs child has to be taken care of it has to be work because we want the member to know their family is being taken care of. You look at Sexual Assault the numbers there are going the wrong way as well. We have to make sure we take a look across the board and weve had many programs in that area to look after it is not getting better. I so im going to hire a special assistant to the people in our families shes going to start work next tuesday and report directly to me report required and will get after all these people and family programs to make sure we are taking part of our most precious resource. Those are my three priorities. Make sure i support the chairman, support the president , act as a member of the joint chief insert speed into everything we do and take care of our people and families three priorities. Pretty straightforward but very hard to do given the challenge we have. Willing to spend a little time now talking about our competitors and relating it into the priorities to the issues but i want you to take a step back and think about a couple of things that have been going on in the world over the last few decades in last few years. Im going to use china and north korea as examples of what consisted strategies mean and what the ability to go fast means. Lets look at china. Take a look at china, im looking around i see different ages of people and different audiences some of you are under 40 some over 40, some of you are way over 40. [laughter] edited point fingers anywhere. A little over 40 years ago, 1979, china came up with a new strategy the strategy of allowing Foreign Investment the strategy of free market. That was 1979. When they did that, their country, if you look at the numbers, 88 percent of the chinese population lived in poverty in 1979. 88 percent. Today, six percent of the nation lives in poverty. Thats in 40 years. Thats an unbelievable transformation. It shows you the power of free market the power of it shows you the power of integrating into the world economy. At the same time, they realized they needed a different Security Strategy and started going down a different path. Its interesting to me when we look at china and many of the readings you do, china was our friend until just a few years ago. China was our friend until a few years ago. Their strategy, their military strategies dates back to the mid1990s, and their military strategy in the mid1990s you can go read it because its in public documentation was focused on countering the United States of america and our allies. It started in 1990s. The interesting thing about their economic power and structure that came from that decision in 1979, is tied very tightly to the military because everything that happens in china, every technology in china is available for military use. There is not the separation like you see in the west, the separation you see in the United States, its very tied together all the economic power can be brought to bear for military use at the same time. When that happens, if you end up with this competition going on. This is not an overnight thing. When i look at what china has done in space they now froze those initiatives back in the 1990s. I read them in the 1990s. But it wasnt until a few years ago people started looking and saying, this is new no its not, they have an Economic Strategy that dates back to the 1989. They been on a consistent approach to dealing with those pieces and if we dont wake up the world is good to be different and in many cases, thats not good. Some cases it is good but in many cases its not and we have to deal that. That consistent strategy is hugely powerful in terms of achieving the objectives they stated as long as 41 years ago. China is a powerful economy. Lets look at another powerful economy. I put that in big quotes. North korea, north korea is 115th most powerful economy in the world. 115 out 192, one of the poorest countries in the world. Somehow over the last few years north korea has developed a Ballistic Missile program that can threaten its neighbors and threaten the United States and Nuclear Program that can threaten its neighbors and the United States and theyve done that and change the entire structure of the world with 115th most powerful economy in the world. Whats been different about north korea . They learn how to go fast. If you look back at kim jongun, look at his father and his grandfather, it there are some significant differences. When his father and grandfather abhis grandfather launched i think nine, his father launched i think 22 during their entire tenure. Kim jongun has lost 67. Hes lost over a dozen in 2016, 2017, 2019, didnt want anything in 2018. His father and grandfather, when they were failures in the Missile Program, lets just say the engineers and scientists that failed were not treated well. Kim jongun realized that was not the way to go fast. The way to go fast in the Missile Program and ive been around rockets and missiles my entire life, my dad worked on a saturn five is been about around rockets and missiles my entire life, i know how they work, i know how they test. Ive been working in the business since the beginning of time, if you want to go fast in the missile business, you need to test fast, fly fast, learn fast. Look at spacex in this country. There are some pretty spectacular failures. Did they stop . No. They had instrumented the heck out of their capabilities, they learn from failures, launched rapidly again and change systems and changed subsystems, they go in a completely different direction, thats what north korea has been doing and north korea has been building new missiles new capabilities new weapons as fast as anybody on the planet with 115th most powerful economy in the world. Speed itself is efficiency. Speed builds capability and savings into your programs. But you have to be able to accept failure. If the dictator of north korea has learned how to accept failure, why cant the United States learn how to accept failure . We need to understand what failure is and learn from those failures, learn from the mistakes we make. Move quickly from these mistakes. I look back at hypersonics, we are in a significant competition with a number of competitors around the world, we were ahead in hypersonics a decade ago. We had two programs, two flights, they didnt quite work. What did we do after they failed . We instituted multiyear studies into the failure process and then canceled the programs. Thats not how you go fast. Every time we have a failure in a large business, i been in there and its not a good thing. We stopped for years at a time to recover. If theres human life involved thats essential like if you have the tragedy of the challenge or columbia you have to because you cant risk human life but if you dont have human life involved, you have to figure out how to go fast. Thats why we need speed back in our processes. We have to learn how to take risks. When you look at our nation today and he looked at our stature in the world in terms of a competitive environment, there are so many places where our country is the leading Technology Engine of the world. In the Information Technology area, in the Information Application area, we are the leading . Why is that . Because we go faster than everybody. We turn faster than others can get started. The Defense Sector thats not the case. But it has to be the case. Which means we have to do something. Back in the 1980s when i started in the Space Business, and thats kind of my background, the Space Business was really a government only business. There was really no commercial sector to leverage. We decided we would leverage everything into the commercial side and everything would be good and it didnt happen. He said we have to do everything ourselves and we went and put everything back ourselves and went back to these long structured risk adverse programs and while that was going on marshall sector did develop in the commercial sector now is starting to lead the world in many areas. We are starting to embrace that but we havent fully embraced yet. Weve got to embrace the elements of this country that are going fast but know how to do things. Have you watched how the United States america build software . Its amazing. When you go to the commercial sector and watch how we build software is so fast. Look at google or facebook or Amazon Web Services or any of the small startups in cambridge and Silicon Valley and seattle and here in washington its amazing. ab the United States doesnt know how to build software . We are the leading Software Nation in the world. We just havent translated that to the department of defense. And by the way, there is a j rock requirements process that has to be changed in order to allow that kind of thing and there is statutory requirements that drive the j rock but the j rock is an Industrial Age model. Not an Information Age model. We have to change the structure we have to change how we are going to do business across those lines. That will translate into the acquisition business. That will translate and the biggest thing with doing the acquisition business is real simple, we have to allow people to take risks and delegate responsibilities to people that are executing programs. We dont train people how to bind things anymore we train people how to get programs to the pentagon and the congress. What we are really doing is buying stuff, buying stuff for many people in this room, but we dont know how to buy stuff anymore. We have to reengineer how we buy stuff and secretary lord and doctor griffin and department of defense are starting to do that, we push things down back at the services and its good now we have to line the rest of the department to those initiatives and make sure we take advantage. I could go on and on about that structure but i just think back for a second on where china has been in the last 40 years and the constancy purpose and ability to move fast anything about north korea and what theyve done in the last few years anything about the potential of the United States of america we should be able to defend ourselves against anything, we should be able to deter any adversary from taking action against us with a 700 billion Defense Budget we should be able to create the environment of peace in the world across the board. In order to do that we are going to have to look at the world, compete in the world and that means we have to go fast again. Im going to stop there and open it for questions but i thank you for your attention i think you for your time and i look forward to questions and answers as we go forward. [applause] thank you general hyten as i said in the green room i knew in advance the major themes you would touch on, this is music to my ears. I will talk a bit about, a few questions on the first and third point really focusing on the speed piece which is one i really want to dig into. Lets talk about the advice piece, just with the most recent example of iran, there is this discussion out in the public sphere about how the military is doing in terms of generating clear options for the president being forthright about sharing risks and i want to get your, as the main advisor the deputy, the advice to the chairman, can you help us understand the quality of the advice you think the military is getting today and the thoroughness of the process using to do it. I guess thats about a two hour answer. You can do it much shorter. If you think about that structure, the first thing you need to know is, i can tell you one of the differences of being the vice chairman, even over commander schreck, is the level of intelligence i get every morning. At schreck, got pretty good intelligence. Now i see all the intelligence. The intelligence is remarkable. Its amazing. But its also in many cases, fragile. Thats why we dont talk about intelligence in public. Thats why military people dont talk about the intelligence because the sources that we use save lives, the sources that we use are critical to our defense and talking about intelligence, i see exquisite intelligence, its just amazing. With that intelligence we put together very very good courses of action to brief the secretary of defense and its the job of the secretary of defense and chairman to bring those options to the president of the United States. Thats the way the process works. It goes from the secretary of defense and chairman to the president of the United States. As a member of the joint chiefs i get to give my independent military advice when asked and i do that and we had very interesting observations in the pentagon and very interesting conversations in the oval office. But i can tell you from my experience with the president of the United States, he gets the detailed options. We have those arguments they are arguments and discussions, as you would hope i expect them to be because these are very difficult decisions the most important decisions we make as a nation and our security. The discussions are open, thorough, and well supported by the information we have. Once we are done we get to those pieces and the president of the United States makes a decision as commanderinchief we execute where the president wants to go. And it works. Ive been very impressed in my less than two months on the job about how well the interaction with the president of the United States is. And its frequent, more frequent than i thought it would be, i didnt understand how much time i would spend in those discussions when the chairman is out of town my schedule changes a little bit. Thats okay, the president very much wants to hear from his advisors. By the constitution, we are asked to give independent military advice and we do and its listened to and sometimes its counter to the mainstream and we have those discussions back and forth and we end up, and since ive been here i feel like we made very good decisions. Lets talk a little bit about the people piece, there are two questions that come to mind, the first is, this is of course what all leaders rightfully say as a priority as people and you pointed out that you are setting up a special assistant in the organization inside your office to help you think through that. How can we manifest that more fully beyond just im sure your thoughts are broader than just this assistant who is going to help you think through an agenda. What you think its going to come out on top of that agenda that gets beyond the rhetoric of people first. Ive been asked that question a lot in the last year. Multiple times as a strict calm commander as i was going through preparation to be vice chairman i kept getting the question, we keep hearing people first and then i look at the numbers and we are not doing anything. And ive been involved in the military in all these programs, all of these programs we put in place and ive noticed interesting things about those programs. Some of those programs have been really good, some of those programs have been not so good. But whether theyre good or not so good, they have a shelf life of about 12 months maybe 24, before they all become no good. What that means is, all those programs are bandaids to a problem. And a bandaid stops the bleeding but if you have something seriously wrong, it doesnt fix the problem. I think that we have to get in to the structure right from the beginning of entry into military service. I think we have to start from the beginning i know all the services are starting to move that into basic training to move that back for it to understand the culture and the care. We have to start going down from the beginning and not try to add bandaids after 10 or 15 years of service because that is a work. The other interesting thing is how we look at Mental Health. There is a number of things that have been in the news recently that attentive examples of that and we have tried to make the point, we the leaders of the military have tried to make the point about Mental Health and issues like that is that its actually no different than any other illness. If youre sick you go see a doctor, but still not quite the way we treat it. We make it so people dont know youre going to see Mental Health. If reporting people in a place to go see Mental Health veto on people to know we set up society and give them that means clearly Mental Health is not like physical health. Its different. There is a stigma. There is a stigma out there and as long as that stigma is there we wont treat it effectively. We have to somehow remove the stigma. We are going to get after that issue to try to do that where people should be able to come if they are injured, dont see abgo see a doctor. That could be physical Health Provider or Mental Health divider but dont go see a doctor. As long as the stigma is out there and people stay away, thats when bad things start happening. Starting early and making sure we treat people and provide the right kind of care from the beginning without the stigma is going to be important and thats difficult. Shes going to look at us with a set of eyes thats completely different then all of us who have lived that in the department of defense for years and decades. Are you open to conversations about where Sexual Assault should be reported whether in the chain of command or outside of it if its something that comes forward to the process . Im open to everything in that discussion right now that structure but one thing i know having been in the military for almost 4 years that no problem has ever been solved in the military unless the chain of commands as part of the solution. The chain of command has to be part of the solution. What that role is, im willing to look at everything. Speed, which i may appreciate you brought into this discussion. Lets talk about jay rock first. The muchmaligned jrod. Are you in a point where you are thinking we need new statute on the jay rock we should disband it . We should completely blow it up . Or are you more in a revise and reform and refocus mindset. And actually in neither position at the moment. Where i am right now is in a data gathering because when i come if you look back to when i was to start, some of the people in this room were working with me when i was Space Acquisition in the pentagon, i have a dumb acquisition in 20 years basically when i came back and was put into that. Since i have a demo for 20 years i decided i would go read so i pulled three documents up. A fine nightmare reading. [laughter] that was so enjoyable. Only to be beat by the federal acquisition regulations which i pulled out and then the chairmans instruction that described and the interesting thing i found when i went to all those documents is that actually if you want to go fast, all the authorities are right there. They are written down and allowed. All you have to do is get the bosses to say, yes, go do that. Sometimes you have to go to congress but everything is right there for you to do. However, in setting up the structure over the years on the acquisition side or requirement side, we have set up this very bureaucratic and riskaverse structure to do that and theres a right way to go to the process to achieve success without failing at the end. When you do that if you go to the Defense Acquisition University thats how we train people to get through. There is a best answer but in almost every case the answers are very slow. And those answers are built to remove risk. What i didnt want to do is just jump in and say blow up the jay rock. Because its actually very flexible. Document with lots of flexibility in there. I think most of it is our own not congresss fault, our own fault. When it comes to 21stcentury capabilities, all heavily dependent on software, the jrod process in the current process we have for Billing Software is horrible. Secretary lord is trying to do the same thing on the acquisition side but she need help, requirement side. I dont know what to call yet. It says i want that bill to deliberate in 10 years i want perfectly cybersecurity perfectly everything, deliberate in 10 years. Thats the way the process is. If you do that you say, heres the threat at the beginning, deliver me the capability 10 years from now, that capability is to defeat the threat of 10 years ago. In sieber, the threat as soon as you hit day one tomorrow you are already out of date. Tomorrow, not five years from now. How do i move fast enough structure . I think you have to basically go back to a threatbased view of the world and say heres the threat, the world will update that threat, you have to monitor that threat and theres gotta be a process that you build in order to deliver the process that allows you to get into that. Thats the kind of structure we need as we go forward thats can be difficult to figure out how to do but thats the kind of structure we have to figure out. What role do joint concepts play in that process . Whats the big thing we need at the top of it is a joint war fighting concept. When you look at fort design and force development there has to be edged joint warfare concept that describes the broadbased capabilities and attributes we need in the future we need to do that. But thats not systems, those are capabilities and attributes what we try to do in the past with our joint concepts is take the system and build it into a joint concept. That will always fail so we are trying to do now in the joint staff as we as a concept we are working with the office of secretary of defense to basically build a singular joint war fighting concept with a number of different elements underneath it that will have to support it and the elements underneath it are Service Concepts and capabilities but also these joint concepts like command and control joint logistics, things that have been orphaned in the process because they dont neatly fall under a single service. We have to figure out how we are going to build those capabilities as well but our job in the joint staff is not to define the system that the services job, our job is to find the capabilities and attributes we need without getting into the System Design. In many cases when you read the joint requirements expense System Design specific to allow service to build something, i understand why but thats not the job of the joint staff. We have to make sure we focus on our job. With that incentives for experimentation for taking risk, can you talk in any specific way about some of the approaches youre thinking of using to get to that more agile speedier experimentation and risk accepting. Congress has actually been pretty helpful blocks couple years on encouraging through law, which is always interesting encouragement, to move stuff out of the pentagon and back into the services and the services have been moving stuff from the Services Back to the field. Ive told my leadership, ive told members of congress, is actually a pretty easy metric to evaluate if you want to understand if youre being successful or not. All you have to do is go to any Program Manager of a major Acquisition Program and take their calendar for the last three months add up the number of days they been in washington dc or in the pentagon and out of the numbers they been in the contractor plant in the number of days they been in the contractor plant exceeds the number of days in washington dc, you will have changed the risk equation. Because risk has to be pushed down to that level if youre going to go fast. That means that captain, that navy captain, the army colonel has to have the authority to make those decisions and move quickly. I go back to when i was a young engineer because i started as an engineer in the military and i was in los angeles as a young space engineer and the person i wanted to grow up and be was the colonel who was the Program Manager. I didnt want to be the general come of it was like nightmare. I wanted to be the colonel, why did i want to be the colonel . Because thats where all the authority and responsibility, remember the failure of the Major Program in los angeles in the late 80s and the firing of the person in charge and it was ugly. I also remember that there is like 10 colonel windup to say, i can do it, give me authority, put me in coach, im ready to go. Thats just not today. The authority and responsibility is down there if you want to see a military person go fast, all you have to do is give them authority and responsibility. Then when they fail, you have to fire them and find somebody else. But isnt that the way America Works . Why is that sound so strange . I remember senator mccain, god rest his soul, i really do miss senator mccain. And by the way, if you go back and watch some interactions on senator mccain, he beat this not out of me multiple times. Can i share that . And i remember him screaming at me one time about a major Acquisition Program that was not doing well and he screamed who are you Holding Accountable . Who are you going to fire . I said, the senator, the problem is that the committee and the pentagon and you dont hold committees accountable for anything. So im knocking to fire the colonel because its not his or her fault. That would be wrong. If that person had the authority and responsibility and they failed they got fired. But you cant do that unless they have the authority and response ability. The good news is, because of congressional law, things are being pushed down because of the actions in osd and ans they are pushing things down but now we have to transition to start training our people to go by things. We been training our people not to buy things, not to enter into good contracts come out to understand what a good contract is. This is an important subject. I remember as a young engineer negotiating a big contract for what was then the f15 Satellite Program and i was a Software Engineer i remember sitting outside the door waiting to go and negotiate with contractor on a particular issue for days and when i finally got to go in i knew my issues backwards and forwards better than anybody that was there and all the other engineers outside knew those issues and we would negotiate down to get to good contract and hold the contractor responsible. Then i watch how we negotiate contracts today and its not that way. The visionaries we have need tomuch about the system as the contractors do and its not that way because weve trained them on process to get programs done, not on how to buy things. We cant just say you have the authority and responsibility but we havent trained you how to buy things. We havent trained you how to one of the greatest things thats happened to me as one of the officers my boss made me go out with contractor plant and learn how to buy satellites and build rockets and build missiledefense systems. That was one of the first engineers on sti back in the day. I didnt know what i was doing i was going to get out of the air force it didnt matter but when i look back i realize i walk into a contractor plant now i can look at something and tell the good and the bad just by looking at it. When operating the system i know the good and bad because i understand how it works. Thats hugely beneficial to operator. We have got to get after this structure. We are going to collect your cards, please if you havent passed them in, do so. I want to ask that you broach us toward the next topic wishes space force, you have as a member of the joint chiefs of staff expanded the expanded membership, you have a new member to join, can you give us a little insight inside the building into the efforts underway. Congress gave quite a few study requirements for the department to think through aspects of space force and integration within the department. Give us a peek at some Big Questions you all are thinking through now. Its pretty interesting time to be a space guy. Its kind of weird, never been a space guy joint chiefs of staff now theres two. What the heck is that . The hardest thing i have to do is realize im not the space guy. In the vice chairman. The space guy is raymond. When those issues come up and wanting to jump in because i have opinions, by the way, i will state those opinions, but raymond gets first dibs because he is the chief of space operations. He is the guy at the top of the space force. Pretty interesting thing happened because the law didnt make us put general raymond on the joint chiefs of staff right away. It actually said he could take up to a year to put them on joint chiefs of staff. Secretary and chairman and i certainly got a vote and that made a decision right up front on day one general raymond is now a member of joint chiefs of staff. As a general raymond was excited about that until he saw the calendar for the joint chiefs of staff and realize he is also the commander Us Space Command and there is no sleep on his calendar anymore. He is going 100 miles an hour. Theres a lot of decisions that have to be made up front. A lot of things that have to happen. The first thing weve gone ahead and move 16,000 people in, theres a lot of. Is that all your force . All our forks. That goes into the answer about one of the things we have to look out early is look at the army, navy and guard because you actually cant do Space Business without the National Guard. The National Guard is a perfect partner for the space amuch more perfect than any other missions we have the guard do its perfect because in many cases the stateside Mission Homeland mission is done in one place and you can build very good expertise in that one area and have a guard unit focused on a singular mission. Its perfect. We have to figure out the guard we have to figure out the army and the navy and when i look at the army and navy there is two elements that will be in the army and navy and we only have about a year to figure it out. Maybe a little less because congress is going to make a decision next year about how the army and navy is to be treated and we need to try to be ahead of that. The questions are pretty straightforward because each service whether the air force, army, navy, marine corps, has two elements that are space or historically space. Air force being the biggest but they all have it, that is a space capability that brings space into your Army Maneuver unit, navy, fleet, marine corps, whatever it is you have an element that knows how to integrate space in your force thats actually a Service Function that should stay in the service. Then you have capabilities like flying satellites, building satellites come up delivering satellites, thats a space force function. As we move into the future we have to figure out which element goes in the space force which element stays in the service and Different Services are structure different ways in order to do that but they all need that capability. One of the first things we have to worry about is figuring out how to do that and we would like to make sure that we have a voice in that decision which means we have to do it pretty quick because come this summer probably a soon as abcongress will be asking that question. Dues have a sense of a timeline for determining permanent home for Space Command . I think it will be sometimes in the next few years. I cant tell you exactly when, interesting thing about being vice chairman is that im actually not involved in that decision. [laughter] i actually dont have insight into that. Because its done inside the air force and the air force set up a really good process. It took the services out about how you do a basic decision and its kept very close hold and goes through a very structured process because it become so political that you want to make sure you have all your ducks in the road to do that. Secretary braun im sure knows exactly where it is right now and i dont. But i do know that we need a decision i think this year sometime. I think as long as we have it this year sometime we will be okay but thats why i said roughly a year. I hope to have it sooner but we need it in a year. One of the questions from the audience related to space questions which is you raised Hypersonic Missiles, my colleague hates it when you call abwhen we call it hypersonic. Sorry tom. What can you tell us about the importance of a space center layer as a foundation for that capability . Its important to realize that it doesnt matter what the threat is, if you cant see it, you cant defend against it. If you cant see it, you cant deter it either. The second piece is actually maybe the most important thing. If you can see it, then you can enable your entire defense. You can enable your deterrent capability. You actually dont have to build hypersonics to be able to deter hypersonic. Use have to have the capability that can respond if youre attacked by hypersonic. It is the correct term but nonetheless, i will probably slip again because nobody else does. When you look at that capability, if you cant see it, you cant defend it. If you want to do that, the first thing you do is build centers in order to see it. Whats the best center to see hypersonic . Its actually probably a groundbased radar. Whats the problem with groundbased radar . The earth is a big place. There is not enough islands in the pacific, theres not enough room on the east coast to build all and imagine the cost it would take to build that it you just cant get there from here. That means you have to go to space in order to see those capabilities. So you look at our capabilities and to see missiles is in geosynchronous orbit. We have very exquisite capabilities and there are some capabilities in geosynchronous orbit but if you want to see them target and Hypersonic Missile is a dim target you have to get closer which means you have to come down to a different orbit you have to come down to medium orbit or a orbit in order to see it and you have to Start Building thats with the space central is. From my perspective i would like to see resource and development into lower orbit to figure out what the right mix of capabilities are in order to see that, thats the only way to get global capability thats affordable to actually deter that threat and a lot of people think the only reason you build it is to build a Missile Defense capability. We should have some Missile Defense capabilities report defenses we have to do that with hypersonics just like we do with Ballistic Missiles. The first reason we built all the Early Warning radars we have around the world we built those before we had any Missile Defenses. We built it to provide Early Warning. We need the same for Hypersonic Missile threat. It is a priority. Its one of those things where im a little frustrated at our abilities to go fast. I wont beat up the space center layer in the department this time. I will go back to historic issue on missile warning. We are going from the spacebased infrared system to whatever the next is going to come. We started the transition in roughly 2006o007, i guess it was 2007 we started that then every summer between 2007 and 2014, i was involved in the summer study that will look at the replacement for the next a aseven summers in a row i did a summer study and thats what we are doing on space center layer. We need to say, i know the two basics, theres only two orbits that make sense. What kind of sensors can i put, theres all kinds of sensors out there but put the sensors on some satellites, fly them cheat, fly them fast, see what they can do and then figure out what you need to go build. If you do that you will go infinitely faster and save enormous amounts of time, enormous amounts of money and get the capability faster. Thats not the way we do it we try to study the heck out of it to get to the perfect answer before we start something. I think thats crazy. 80 is good enough . In this case 50 is good enough on that you dont have to get to 80 you get to 50 because you know the basics, the basics are known issues. In a couple years literally will be a couple years you will have the information that will inform the 80 . And other related issue on Missile Defense more specifically, do you think current Missile Defense systems are capable of protecting the United States from north koreans new missiles . They are. Im 100 confidence, i dont say 100 very often. I a 100 confidence in those capabilities against north korea but you have to understand, thats what they are billed for. They are built for north korea, theyre not built for anything else. They will work against north korea, god forbid if we ever have to. Its not the perfect answer, i think when you look at our deterrent the rest of the world looks at deterrence as the integration of offense and defense. Thats the way the rest of the world looks at deterrence. They look at our offense and defense at the coop that is deterrence. We need to think about offense and defense as integrated deterrence as well. We need to start thinking about what the next generation of defense is going to be and what we will walk into that and we dont. If you want to know how you know we dont look at it together last time we had the opportunity to look at it together was in the last administration. And a strategy review separate. And a strategy review. Its all singular strategy. As a nation we understand that Missile Defenses are critical to our future. The critical to our defense, they are critical to the reps, they are critical to north korea but we havent made a decision about what the role is of Missile Defense broader in our overall we have to make that decision, thats a national decision. Youre doing a great job of segueing perfectly from question to question without even knowing it. One of the things the chairman has asked you to pay special attention to his Nuclear Weapons from scrap commander and we have a question on the expiration of new start in 2021. Can you talk a little bit about the merits of extension on new start and the specific query revolves around specs concern about new Nuclear Weapon system under development by russia but moscow said in november that two would be covered by the start treaty the others wont likely be developed in 2026 so the idea is could we get an extension of the start treaty in order to prevent deployment of further russian weapons. And what also is important as strap, commander it gives you a number in what you have to do for the adversary and it tells you what you have to do. It also gives you insight because of the verification regime with the new start treaty those are very important issues. Those are the big things about new start. Thats why i will push for that kind of peace. But thats negative peace going on right now. That Nuclear Weapons are no longer a bilateral problem. At some point we have to sit down with china figuring out how to do that. And start early before we get into a position of potential conflicts. And it is a big problem for strack, in the nation and the world is all the weapons that russia is building under the new start treaty. Its not just all the things not just the Nuclear Weapon with a torpedo on the top. But it is also the thousands they have deployed that are not accountable with the new start treaty. Very specifically it talks about the platforms in that treaty and from the moment russia signed that treaty we have to make sure when we sit down with russia talk about all Nuclear Weapons that are out there. And then to say okay talk about these. But over here all of these Nuclear Weapons dont matter. Let me tell you every Nuclear Weapon matters. When we see the employment that will deployment scares the heck out of me because that will be strategic and responded to in a strategic way in a place you dont want to be in because that means when you sit down with the russians, you need to have everything on the table. Those are the aspects of new start. I wont tell you exactly discussions that are going on. Very helpful. Just a few more from the audience what teens on the changes are to the unified command where will the people come from quex quick. Its pretty simple. Space force is a service. The way the United Military is structured and combat and command forces so we have a space force with the equipped capabilities giving those two Space Command with that unified command structure. And that command planned of our Space Capabilities but the space force does not change. That is what the space force will do and then i asked a question a while ago and oh my gosh if you read the law every 60 days you have to be there explaining at. Doesnt want the bureaucracy to get out of control. So given the nature of bureaucrats because otherwise you cant fix it so we have to figure out how to stay out of our own way. So the space force right now 60000 the marine corps 187,000, ten times bigger than space force. So if we have a staff on top but a small staff like the marine corps its ten times bigger than the force itself. A general for every airman. And im not using that term. Im not going there. Thank you for that. That we will figure out that structure but Congress Wants to make sure. And actually i think that is good. So i hope all have a role and we dont require them but if we have a structure to do that and here are the elements and say okay here we are. To make sure we didnt create this is really important. Because the problem is we have a threat and then to deal with the threat. The other the rest of the overhead should not be that big. Otherwise the overhead you have to create would be enormous. More generally quickly, to be required in a year or two will we see a need to repeat sometime soon quick. And then to have an interim change and then the rest of normal and its good for later this year. And these partnerships that i welcome you to talk more generally how we think of these partnerships. With regimentation and control quick. I guess and its not just Silicon Valley its across the board do we have to be we have to be more aggressive partnering with our allies. But looking at Silicon Valley structure, obviously the space force that is an interesting dynamic. And i live that from the time i was a to store a two star all the way up but what space x had to do to do business with the United States air force was embrace us in public. No secretary likes to be embarrassed in public and then look at us and say i dont like that. Go fix it. I hope it wasnt lost in history but a mutual Beneficial Partnership now we are joint but we still have the uniform and im proud of that but to help teach what it was and what it took to actually build a rocket to work every time. Thats a hard thing to do. And space x taught us you could do that in the two were mutually exclusive. It was difficult for our culture to accept and also for their culture and to create Great Partnership and then to be pushed up into the greater sector and then for us to be effective we have to take those things and transition. So look at history in 2007 and then basically to create a Company Called united watch alliance. We wouldnt have her own access to space. Only to go overseas to have access to space. Talk about the china fortyyear story. It is almost as remarkable. But now industry that leads the world built with an entirely different structure was so many people involved in it is just remarkable. If you figure out how to work with Silicon Valley and how to take advantage to us insert your own assurance because of military capability it has to work when you call on it. But with a commercial company if you build a product that does not work they are not in industry very long either so it is the same motivation and theres something about an American Company that once america to lead the world. Weather military you want america to lead the world so you put those pieces together and then you learn from each other and then you spend a lot of time over the last year at strack come from seattle and Silicon Valley and cambridge looking at the companies to understand how to do business. Its amazing. And the partnership that is right there we just have to figure out how to do it. General, thank you for your time today and your leadership please join me in a round of applause. [applause] [inaudible conversations] lets wait a moment and tell the commissioner to take his place. Translator Vice President you may begin. First of all let me