Cavoli, the Deputy Director at the Atlantic Councils center for strategy and security. And Lieutenant General commander of land command. And our panel will be led and moderated by patrick tucker, defense ones Technology Editor. Thank you all. [ applause ] thank you all so much for joining us today. Im Technology Editor at defense one. Im pleased to have this Exceptional Panel here to discuss the future of the United States army in the european theater and ive been covering different aspects of Army Activity in europe for quite some time and its a question, and ill go to you, and i wonder if you can talk to me a little bit about the current status and your feelings about the militarytomilitary relationship with turkey. How is that right now and how quickly is that changing . I maintain strong relations with my counterparts in turkey on within the parameters of u. S. Policy at any given time. We spend time going back and forth and visiting each other. We exchange United States. We had the turkish first command brigade send a company to train with us in germany and reciprocated with the company. This is not uncommon. I have a turkish liaisons. Of course all such relations are driven by policy in the end. At a militarytomilitary level between the european command and turkey, we continue to have very solid relations on that level. Washington post a couple days ago reported on change in the intelligence that the u. S. Military was providing to turkey. Its around the operation that theyre conducting in northern syria. Has there been any significant changes beyond whats been reported in the way youre dealing with your military counterparts in turkey. I wouldnt feel comfortable talking about that, yeah. Okay. Anytime we include intelligence, thats a tip. Any changes over the last week beyond intelligence sharing . Also tricky. Ill go to you j. T. The secretary has made some comments recently trying to walk that delicate line as of course only nato secretary can do. How when you talk your nato come patriots about whats going on right now, what are you hearing . What are they talking about . Natoallied land command, theyre based in turkey. Having this headquarters in turkey is very, very important to them. A large majority of my staff is turkish. The thing that we need to remember from a nato perspective is the contributions that turkey makes to nato. Secondlargest army contributing into operations in afghanistan, kosovo, bosnia and our day to day operations, theres been no change in our relations. Were focused on our operation. Thats building and sustaining readiness for nato. Wion the turkish side, over e past week, anything that you can say in terms of how much more difficult it is to navigate that relationship with all of the stuff going on around it. We focus on nato activities. No change. Were both aware of whats going on. We both watched the media. But hes a new chief of staff. Hes focused on his job. Im going right back to the area and getting into an exercise. I get to train a new chief of staff in our bunker. All right. Let me broaden that out a little bit to lauren. Because weve heard folks on a professional level, we have to maintain these relationships, and thats going to remain the case, but this is an incredibly difficult time right now between these two countries. How do you think thats going to impact the future of nato Going Forward from your perspective at the Atlanta Council . Sure. This is something weve been spending a lot of time thinking about because beyond the milltomill relationship there is all of this tension and the Current Operations in syria are obviously inflaming that further and i think a lot of what you hear in the context of the nato conversation is this question about core values that weve seen turkey begin to stray from, the issues of democracy and freedom and rule of law, human rights, those kinds of things that are fundamental to the alliance and i think that when you see those, that opens the door for things like russian influence and the deal when were talking about turkey, i do think that the introduce of the s400 is going to be a below to inoperability. But that doesnt change the fact that it is in our interest to continue working through these issues and at the end of the day its about the reliability of an ally that is seen as a key part of the alliance and weve seen everything on the hill. There has been outrage on both the u. S. And european side. We saw norway, germany, france, others, help their arms exports. Theres been talks about sanctions and other things on turkey. But i think at the end of the day it comes down to how do we work towards maintaining avenues of dialogue and continue this as a constructive relationship despite the tensions at the political level. Both of you gentlemen, you say there hadnsnt been a chang in the openness of the dialogue. Is that a fair characterization . We continue to talk and exchange views. Do you have any sense of specifically sort of a european theater question, do you have any sense of what the end of this operation looks like for them . Is that something that you have a window on right now regardless of whether or not you can talk about it. Thats something you would have to ask somebody else. All right. In terms of things that we can ask, i would like to ask all of you to start thinking about your questions too. Were going to go to the audience during this and i want to hear from all of you because these are your commanders and also perhaps people that are buying things that youre making or they are leading the United States army so please think of questions. Im going to start going out to you and well have a microphone. Please say where youre from and your affiliation and well get your question in there. Let me turn now to some of the exercises that sthave been announced that youre doing. Defender europe, big exercise. I wonder if you can say whats the latest there and what are you how are you preparing for that and what is the point of that exercise . The point of the exercise is to practice the reinforcement of u. S. Forces in europe for the purposes of collective defense of the alliance. Thats something that requires practice because youre moving large forces over big distances through complicated infrastructure and across a variety of lines. Its the sort of thing that has to be done in order to improve that. And so thats what were doing. The army has led the way with practicing this reinforcement strategy in europe first but will do so in the pacific and will alternate years as we go forward. Whats the biggest challenge there in practicing this reinforcement thing across europe . I think the entire thing is a complex of small challenges that add up to a big one. We call this strategic readiness. I wouldnt say theres any one thing you can put your finger on. Its a Significant Group of small things that have to go right in order to do this well. That sounds like ordering food in a french restaurant. On this, i talked to your predecessor a little while ago, ben hodges, and one of the things he brings up is an area of europe called the sawaki corridor. For those of you, if youre on cspan who dont know what the sawaki is, its along the polish lithuania border. On one side is belarus, and a big militarized land island that sticks out into europe rather conspicuously, and one big concern that a lot of europe military watchers have had going back for a long time is that if you were to be able to seize that area, that strip on the polish lithuania border, then you could cut off reinforcement. There was a report on it that came out last year. And i would like to ask, how are you looking at that challenge and how is nato looking at that challenge . To you, sorry. Chris, ill start with you. I guess ill start with you j. T. And chris and then lauren as well. Sure. In the european continent, theres a lot of strategic terrain and the one you outlined is key terrain. Nato looks at it. We do exercises there. I think all the countries involved around that area are very focused on it and the 40 miles, 63 kilometers, it is a corridor, some people call it a gap, look at it as we own that terrain right there now, and you got to be able to defend it and plan accordingly. Were looking at the same way, its a piece of key terrain in europe. Its necessary to remain postured in a ready and agile posture so you can respond to any of the possible contingencies. Is this one of the things that youre going to look at defender europe is going to look at a whole bunch of thing. The main purpose is to practice getting a force onto the other side of the atlantic from here so it can be employed in any one of the variety of locations. Okay. What are your thoughts on this corridor . I would say the major take away is its not impossible to overcome a challenge in that area. I would say the Biggest Issue a frank conversation that we have to have within the alliance is its going to require taking out targets in russia proper. That is a difficult conversation to have with our allies, but its something that would have to be discussed. Is that something that would be discussed . Is that something that you would look at . We wouldnt talk about that in a forum like this. Right. I have a few more questions, but first, any questions from you all as we get started . Sometimes as these things progress, people have a little bit more wine and they feel a little bit more courageous. This man has had wine. My quick question is, sir, you said that the defenders will be alternating year by year. Is there a plan that they get quickly enacted on. If you say, i need more of x or y, i need more of that, to get those results quickly, over that 24month period. I dont think you would be surprised to discover that there will be an army Wide Enterprise approach. There will be a ton of different ones, function by function, topic by topic, across the board both in terms of the structure of what were doing and the substance of what were working on and i would add that j. T. s guys have a Significant Program to collect alliancewide lessons as well. I dont know how fast it will be. Keep thinking, ruminating on your question. Feel free to start shooting up hands. One of the things i wanted to ask you also, europe has been ground zero for what has been called gray zone warfare. That area of conflict that falls just below armed scale conflict and falls into the category of strategic mischief, taking all the emails from a political candidate and dumping them on wikileaks is an example of gray zone warfare, as is poisoning people in your country as is basic all misinformation and disinformation. New york times a little while ago has published a really interesting report on a gru unit thats played a big role in a lot of the gray zone mischief events that have happened across europe over the last couple of years including the poisoning and whats held in other areas. Gray zone warfare is a big part of the future of the way warfare would be conducted. So i wonder how youre dealing with that as a concept. What is the future of that in europe . The u. S. Army has developed a concept of multiple Domain Operations and a fundamental aspect of multiDomain Operations is active competition short of armed conflict. Phases are of multiDomain Operations are compete, penetrate, exploit and recompete. I think the army sees competition as a natural and ongoing state of affairs and its necessary to do so. Obviously there are questions of depending on which donation or modality youre talking about, authorities, et cetera, there are things we do every day. Some of them can be as simple as where we move our forces, as simple as combatting misinformation that we see emerge in the public domain. Nato has an entire new stratcom helping to fight disinformation. In a democracy its trickier than when you have a top down control structure that doesnt have a strong affinity for honesty anyway. Tell me how nato is tackling this issue, also that disinformation and misinformation aspect of it because they seem linked and at the same time theyre separate. Across nato everybody is very alive to it now. You call it some call it gray zone, competition short of conflict. You have to deal with individual nations. They all see it a little bit differently, not the same. Some people dont like the term competition short of conflict because when you translate it, it means were about to go to war. What im excited about is everybody, i was at a conference not too long ago and he said something that was very con text message playtive. From a ground force perspective, below the threshold of war but above the threshold to act. I really like that. Did he get a proexplosiomoti i asked him, what is the threshold of war . Sometimes we simplify too much because we say article five. Nations take it on differently, but you hear the secretary talk about it. Do you feel like youre at a good readiness position now in terms of gray zone warfare. Would you say we have a lot of work to do to be where we need to be in terms of being a credible force on that behavior . Ive never in my years in the army said im ready. Somebody told me a long time, he says when you can do that operation at nighttime with all of your chemical equipment on, then youre ready. So this is somewhat of a new field, especially when youre talking about land forces. Whats exciting, were on the right trajectory across the alliance. Lauren, let me ask you about this. Its an issue that really challenges that traditional line between youve got your military forces, youve got also communicators, its advantages it molds over all of those key distinctions that really guide the way different folks, professional folks, and Democratic Institutions operate. Theres these clear delineations. Do you feel like nato forces and Democratic Forces in the west are prepared for the next phase of it in europe . Yeah, this is something weve been spending a lot of time on and theres been a good conversation going on within the alliance about how do we tackle these things at the National Level but also how do we play to the advantage of the alliance and take advantage of the multinational nature to do things to support our allies when they are attacked regardless of the threshold. And i think you all probably know about the European Center of excellence for countering threats which has been doing work to create a playbook of responses we might have in the face of attacks at different levels. Its important to build on that so that policymakers understand what options are actually on the table and were not taken by surprise when the shoe drops and things happen that these arent controversial, but theyre more socialized. I will say, the coe, its not operational. I do think that we need nato needs to put more emphasize on how do we take this a step further. Again, the trouble is, theres so much that needs to be done at the National Level, but how do we coordinate that and you can do a surprising amount under the law of Counter Measures and do things with your allies and i think thats definitely an area that nato needs to prioritize because i would say just bear with me for a second everything weve seen was at a level one of hybrid or whatever you want to call it. And lets say that level three is something that would trigger article five or an armed attack. Thats where nato is more comfortable responding. Theres a level two that were starting to think about. We started to see some of this with the drones in saudi arabia, but the idea that you could shut down five or six grids across different countries, thats a significant kind of attack where you would want to have a significant response. What might the responses look like . Thats the conversation that were having and i think i think the important point is it doesnt have to be exactly the same kind of response, the operations are very broad, it can include things like in the Information Space n the cyber space and other kinds of domains. Yeah, this gets into that whole article five question which is of course the big question that all of nato and a lot of people have this misperception of it as a button you push and all of a sudden thats it, article five is happened and people put on their superhero suits and then rush off into this whole thing. But really its a button you push and theres a conference call. Tell me how this discussion about article five has changed as nato has begun to accept the fact that at some point Something Like a massive cyber event could trigger an article five response. Its not going to be the same article five response that we associate with the natos response to the 9 11 attack. What is the future of article five if you can tell us . Article five which celebrated its 70th anniversary on april 4th, Everybody Knows what article five s theres an article three thats very important as well. I personally as the commander of nato allied land command do not get into article five discussions. But something to keep in mind is 29 nations going to 30. We have to get consensus from every nation. It takes a little longer to do that, youre right, its not a button. The thing to keep in mind is countries acting unilaterally, bilateral, multilaterally toe speed things up before article five comes in and theres transitions involved in that, especially when youre talking ground forces. It gets a little bit complicated. Yeah. The good thing on article five is secretary general just recently came out. Nato recognizes these other domains now. Yes. Cyber is now a domain i think the secretary general gave a speech, cyber attack could trigger article five. A year ago, people were asking that question. Now a statement has come out from a nato perspective about that. If i may, i think that cyber conversation relates back to this issue of military mobility because in order to have all of these troops move across europe, its critical to make sure all of the Infrastructure Associated with that movement is resilient too. Im sure that defender 2020 will get it. Let me take that to you, chris, thats a good point. When covering the issue of theater enablement across europe and a lot of people brought up, theres a lot of railroads across europe and some of them are germany and french and its a big problem that it doesnt need to be. And that was something that the general used to highlight a lot. Where are we right now on that aspect of theater enablement. Making sure that simple Rail Infrastructure across europe enables the reinforcement that would be required in the event of a major hostility. The question has to be divided into a couple of parts. The first part is procedural and the second part is infrastructural. Procedurely, we made a great deal of process across the alliance. Some countries have relaxed some of their restrictions, shortened the notification times required, we, as an alliance, have gotten much more practice at scheduling and moving and loading rail and were able to move very, very quickly across great distances. Just last year we had a very large force from across the alliance go all the way from eastern romania almost flawlessly without problems. So we made a lot of progress procedurally. Infrastructurely, there remained a couple of challenges. As you know, when you skip into the baltics, you switch rail gauge. Lithuania has committed to buying dual gauge railcars. There have been some challenges with the strength of rail heads, can it take app modern tank driving off the train there and the eu has stepped in using prioritized shopping lists, prioritized by nato, and has been investigating throughout the alliance in mobility and infrastructure and i have to commend many of our allies through their host nation support agreements have begun to improve a great deal. So i think the exercise program exposed some challenges, but its also prompted the alliance, country by country, to get after those challenges. I think were in a good place right now. If you have to give it a grade, what grade would you give it . A better grade than previously. We dont have a lot of time, but a question right there in the center. Thank you. General thompson, a question for you. Do you believe that nato is still a reliable ally and given the events of this week, how confident are you when a partner, ally comes to you ask does the United States have its back, whether its in ukraine or the baltics. Thank you. Thanks, eric. The easy answer is, yes, me personally 100 . Ive been a part of nato, i spent my first seven years there and i have complete confidence in the alliance and i see it day in and day out. Over the events of the last few days, i think you can even back it up, theres been questions, is the u. S. Committed to nato, yes, absolutely. Chris has put more capability, were going through an adaptation right now, so nato, strongest, most successful alliance but we have a clear recognition that what has worked for the last 70, wont get us to the next 70. During a cold war, we had 25,000 personnel nato command structure. We optimized during the peace dividend. We cut people. Were adding 1,200 back in. Whos adding the majority of that 1,200 . The United States. [ inaudible ] i do, absolutely. I work with turkish allies day in and day out. Were training the corps in turkey right now and that Corps Commander is switched on and theyre committed to turkey picking that up in 2021. I really dont have too much to add to what j. T. Said. Theres no doubt in my mind, the alliances commitment, collectively, nor is there any doubt in my mind about our commitment to the alliance. The u. S. Has been demonstrating its commitment with resources, the European Deterrence Initiative has greatly enhanced our ability to promote and deprompt investment across the alliance by our allies. The european deterrence has been fundamental to our ability to conduct the exercise programs i was describing a minute ago and therefore get the benefits that i was just describing a minute ago. I believe the u. S. Is putting resources where its commitment is and is demonstrating that commitment daily. I think we have time for one more or so. All right. This lady back here, had her hand up for a long time. Thank you. Thank you all for being here. I just wanted to ask all of you if you would care to comment the media directs attention to ukraine, and so on, how do you assess the situation in the balkans now. But, what keeps you up at night, if anything, thank you. Thats a very good question. I wish i asked that question. Go ahead. Yes, please, chris. And it remains complicated. It remains something we have to keep our eye on as a country. Europe has to as a continent, as a union, and nato has to as an alliance. We maintain forces as you know in kosovo right now from my perspective, those forces are essential to the stability in the area. There are internal tensions that have existed there and have not been resolved despite the fact that 20 years have gone by since open warfare in the balkans and there are external influences that are at work there that dont help. They exacerbate the natural frictions in the area. I dont think the balkans is a place that we can stop paying attention too yet. I spent quite a bit of time there. I think ill be there in a couple of weeks, in fact. We have some great bright spots, i believe greece displayed great, great encourage in overcoming the naming dispute and North Macedonia is doing everything it can to be the nato member it desires to be. There are some bright spots, but it remains a complicated area. Please join in thanking the panel. [ applause ] thank you so much for being here this afternoon. All of you and and our distinguished guests, i want to thank our underwriter once more and i invite you to stick around, mingle, network, the bar remains open for a little while. We did videotape this event and it will be available on our website, defenseone. Com and we look forward to hosting you again at another cocktails and conversation. Thank you. Were live on capitol hill for a house subcommittee hearing on how Companies Use consumer personal data. 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