Good morning everybody. Welcome. I am president here at csis, and the reason we are kind of rushing is because we only have an hour. We have a wonderful opportunity to listen to these three secretaries. I will be very short. We always start with a safety announcement. I am responsible for your safety today. They have some guys backstage with guns that will take care of that. If we hear anything, followed by instructions, we will take the exits right behind us, go down to the street Near National geographic, and i will take everyone to see the great new show on the evolution of jane goodall. We have never had anything happen, but i want you to be ready. You all know who these people are, so i do not need to introduce them, but you know the absolutely Critical Role that they play. They are running giant organizations and they have to manage today, tomorrow, and 20 years in the future. It is constantly in their calculus about how they posture in shape these remarkable institutions not jus
The 40th chief of the army general james mccarthonville. The secretary and chief and i will have a chat about the defense strategy, the armys modernization priorities, the president s budget request that just came out, as well as the emerging joint war fighting concept and well save about 15 minutes at the end to take questions from the audience here. First i want to throw it over to the secretary and the chief to give a couple opening remarks. Thank you, susan. Its the closest i will get to davos, switzerland. Great opportunity to be here. Thank you. As we discussed in the green room, these are wonderful opportunities for us to try to talk about how were trying to transform the army. Were in year three of a very aggressive effort of transforming the army in not only how we train the force, how we modernize and ultimately help our people reach their maximum potential. As i emphasized the third year of a massive restructuring like weve not seen in over 40 years in the army with creating
Challenges that australia is facing with the wildfires that are impacting australia in such a dramatic and negative way. And they are in our thoughts and in our prayers. As well, we also are focused on the passenger list of the aircraft that was lost in iran two days ago. All of those souls are in our thoughts and in our prayers today. Im john allen. Im the president of the brookings institution. And were very honored to have you with us. Happy new year. Were very pleased this morning to welcome the secretary of the army, ryan mccarthy, who is our distinguished guest and our great ally in helping to study the future of the United States army, the defense department, and the challenges that we face in the security environment. Secretary mccarthy was confirmed last year by the u. S. Senate, and after having served in that capacity as an acting secretary for a number of months, he has now assumed the full responsibilities on all the matters relating to our great United States army, to inc
Yv States Government is a cash flow budget. And the recapitalization of the Nuclear Triade is a capital investment. We are talking 40 and 50year assets. One of the problems we are facing in our budget is it all comes out, it looks like its in the Defense Budget. I call it the pigon. There is this bulk of nuclear phodendization that should be considered capital investment. I think thats important for people to realize when you look at the Defense Budget there is a piece of it that is really something that probably should have been done over the past 30 years that we are trying to do in a hurry. Is that your reading . General cotton it is, sir. The way like to describe it is am responsible for maintaining and the components under me are responsible for maintainin on behalf of the president of the United States. Senator king general whiting you talked about we have the best Space Capabilities and have for many, many years. Thats the good news. The bad news is, the dependency that we have
Russia and china pose in these areas. This is just over two hours good morning. The Committee Meets today to receive testimony from general anthony cotton, commander of u. S. Strategic command or stratcom. And whiting, commander of u. S. Spacecom or spacecom. Gentlemen, thank you for your service to the nation and extend our thanks to the men and women who serve with you. As in the past we have asked the commanders the stratcom and until 2019. Spacecom was a part of Strategic Command. Mr. Reed as spacecom continues as an independent command, its important to identify any gaps or seams that emerged during the transition. On the global stage,si reckless. Recent press reports state that russia is considering violating rnnal space treaties and endangering the global use of space for Vital Communications and sensing. Further, putin has stab the strategy stability and arms control policies both our nations have respected for decades. Over the past year,has suspended its participation in the