Transcripts For CSPAN Deputy Defense Sec. Delivers Remarks O

>> good morning, everyone. the d.c. office of the ronald reagan presidential institute. it is so nice to see so many people in the building, friends, colleagues, we welcome those watching online as well. now in every generation, every administration the washington crowd watches with great interest to see who is appointed to fill the positions of a new administration, it is like our version of the nfl draft. sometimes you hear about an appointment and say to yourself, ok, that is an interesting choice. that is not entirely a compliment. other times it feels like the person has the background and expertise so well matched for the position it is like an obvious choice. that is a reaction i had when i heard dr. kathleen hicks would be docked -- would be deputy secretary of defense. she is a leader for whom the role made perfect sense. i have had the pleasure of knowing the deputy eric -- the deputy secretary for many years and i learned from her, i had the good fortune to start with her on the national defense strategy commission in 2018. and i have to say, i was appointed by the republican side and dr. hicks was not. i did not know what the dynamics would be like, and i think my primary take away beyond being impressed with her knowledge, intelligence, and kindness and decency was kath listened, which is a quality that many in washington do not have. they like to talk. and i learned a lot that she was even willing to listen to someone like me, and that is probably why we had a commission report with concession -- consensus across all commissioners. and over the years, she has been a regular at the reagan national defense forum where the voice man's respect on both sides on the aisle. we would be calling her abrupt -- calling her up around this time of year actually. kath, we need you on a panel again, yes again. and really always willing not only to participate, but give me and the reagan institute advice in terms of who should be there and what issues we should talk about as we bring together the national defense community, which we are so very grateful for. her pedigree is impeccable, phd from m.i.t., senior vice president as the henry kissinger chair and strategic -- she was secretary defense for policy in the obama administration. she led many leading that -- strategic reviews in 2012 and 2010, a general defense review but certainly made a big impact and crafted guidance for capabilities and military posture. kath is clearly no stranger to saturday -- to strategy and planning. in her current role she has asked with overseeing internal management at the pentagon as all deputy secretaries do. but her background is so stellar and her responsibilities are broader than that. that is why we are so honored to have her here today to talk about the administration's vision for the strategy we need to meet the global threats that we face and how we can properly resource the strategy. given how much the world has transformed in just the past few months, the national defense strategy is of course highly anticipated and this is the unclassified version of those who have seen the classified one since march, they know what will come, although they cannot speak about it. i think we all know that it will highly be consequential. how does the shifting security environment in europe change things? of course the war in ukraine, russian aggression, and even as the strategic conflict rages on, we have to focus on the indo pacific, specific to china and how to respond to their advanced technologies and redefining the future of competition and conflict. and how much do we need to spend for all of these priorities? we will have a wide ranging conversation from threats, strategy, to budget and more and i want to thank everyone for joining us and to please welcome one of the sharpest minds in government, the 35th deputy secretary of defense kathleen hicks. [applause] kathleen: hopefully this microphone is on. you would think after running think tank events he would think -- you would think i would know better than to wear a dress and i'm going to speak. also they have elevated me to the highest tight ever. thank you to the full team here for hosting. i have had the great pleasure of working with roger for years in the past, and attending the events out west. and you all do really important work and i will say, i think it is a testament, to our ability to continue to bridge across really challenging political divides. to have a conversation on serious topics and keep that going on across the political spectrum. thank you for hosting me. i am here to talk about the national defense strategy and the present fiscal year defense budget request. as secretary austin noted when he was addressing the reagan internet -- reagan international defense forum said that ronald reagan had an implacable opposition to a talker see and just walking through the halls relief reinforced -- really reinforces that from the many court -- quotes and artifacts in the building. president biden shares those convictions about the importance of protecting our democracy which faces a myriad of challenges. the people in ukraine remain foremost in our minds. russia poses an acute threat to the international system as illustrated by its ongoing war of choice and brutal tactics. our national defense strategy accounts for russian threats in europe and beyond. even as we confront russia's aggression, the strategy is clear that china is our military most consequential strategic competitor and challenge. our strategy also acknowledges that we face additional, persistent regional threats including those emanating from iran, north korea and violent extremists organizations as well as boundary challenges like climate change that affect our missions and operations. in an address to the american people in 1983, president reagan spoke about his defense budget request in this way. "the budget is much more than a long list of numbers, for behind all the numbers lies america's ability to prevent the greatest of human tragedies and preserve our free way of life in a sometimes dangerous world." similarly, this administration built our budget request in direct response to the directives of our national defense strategy. our strategy has four priority objectives. first, defending the homeland and face the multi-domain threat that china faces. second, deterring strategic attacks. third, deterring aggression while being prepared to prevail in conflict. prioritizing the p.r.c. challenge and then the russia challenge in europe. finally, building a resilient joint force defense ecosystem. the president's fiscal year 23 request of $773 billion, roughly 8.1% increase over the 2022 request and 4% above the fy 2022 omnibus it makes the investments we need to implement the strategy by pursuing three approaches, which connect our means to our enda -- ends. our first approach is integrative deterrence. we seek to have efforts across the domain and a spectrum of conflict to ensure that the u.s. military in close cooperation with the rest of the u.s. government, allies and partners makes the cost of aggression very clear. the combat credibility of the u.s. military to fight and win is the cornerstone of integrated deterrence. that is why our topline request includes $276 billion for procurement, and for research development tests and evaluations, and that is across land, air, sea, cyber and space, domains that must be netted together for deterrence. of note across that spectrum of conflict, we are also investing $34.4 billion in recapitalizing the nuclear triad. campaigning is our second approach, and it is related. campaigning strengthens deterrence and enables us to gain advantage against coercive actions. the united states will operate forces, synchronize department efforts, and aligned to department activities with other instruments of power to undermine acute forms of competitor coercion. complicate advocate -- adversaries' military preparations and coordinate with allies and partners. readying us with the threats of today is central to campaigning which is why we invest 135 billion dollars in military readiness. and while we maintain the ability to respond across the globe, are campaigning efforts will be focused on the indo pacific and europe. through the specific deterrence we make investments that support a comparative military advantage, and bolster logistics in the end the pacific region. regarding europe, our request supports the european deterrence is in it -- initiative, u.s. european command and the ironclad commitment to nato. america's ongoing support to the people of ukraine exemplifies these priorities in europe as president biden has stated in the perennial struggle in democracy and freedom, ukraine and its people are on the frontline. thanks to the responsiveness of this administration and the united states congress we have delivered over $4 billion in security assistance to ukraine since the start of the administration, and over $3 billion since the invasion on february 24 which is remarkable. to ensure that ukrainians continue to get the capabilities they need to defend themselves, the president made a request for 33 billion dollars in assistance, 16 billion for the department of defense. earlier this week, i was in troy, alabama visiting the lockheed martin facility where our javelin missiles are produced. we were there to thank the women and men who work at that facility for their tireless efforts in supplying the department of defense and our allies and partners. the work that they do in troy and across our entire defense industrial base is central to the execution of our national defense strategy. that is the third approach for connecting the ends to the means and building an enduring advantage. this requires us to invest in people. like providing us the largest pay range -- raise to personnel investing and childcare and ensuring food and housing security. this also means focusing intensely on innovation and modernization. and that is why we invest roughly $130 billion. in our largest request ever. finally to combat the effects of climate change on our military, we invest $3 billion to deploy new technologies, create efficiencies and prepare infrastructure. as i outlined our budget request makes the investments we need to secure our nation but are security depends on more than dollars. we must outperform and out innovate would be threats. this means making sure that at the department we knock down barriers that stymie innovated thinking and then we face external barriers like delays and annual appropriations. moving forward both inside and outside the five sides of the pentagon we must find solutions to problems such as these to realize the concepts and capabilities that the century demands. i'm going to conclude just by thanking you for inviting me to speak this morning. the department of defense today is ready to play a vital role in advancing president biden's security objective as articulated in the national defense strategy, and connecting the ends ways and means we have proceeded with the objectivity and rigor that our national security demands. as secretary alston has said, in doing so we seek a 21st century that is far more secure and far less bloody than the 20th. i look forward to the questions. [applause] roger: thank you for those comments and for being here today. we will have about 25 minutes or so of discussion and then we will open up to the audience here for the questions again. we appreciate you doing this. running a defense strategy, coordinating with the white house, you want to make sure that follows a national security strategy and you probably think let the world cooperate so the strategy does not change. how is that going for you? kathleen: it is going well. [laughter] which part of it would you like to tackle first? let us take russia, russia has not been shy about its intentions. we have seen from chechnya, georgia, ukraine, syria, and even last spring with the exercises that the russians were undertaking on their border with ukraine. a very clear set of aggressive activities. that signaled well to us that it was an acute threat. you can bind that with the election interference and other nonmilitary approaches that the russians have undertaken, cyber activities and etc.. it is a pretty clear pattern. the fact that this time they actually went across, we had been signaling well before the invasion -- the most recent invasion they were going to do was not a surprise in our strategy development. in the united states has invested very well since 2014 in particular in the european deterrence initiative -- initiative with over 100,000 u.s. military forces today in and around the european theater. we are in a good position. that piece, i think fit very well with how we are thinking about challenges of the future. nato allies, the biggest surprise is around ukraine and the fact that the nato allies have really embraced the moment, partners have as well, both in the region and beyond and of course the ukrainian people have demonstrated that the will to fight for your country and to protect democracy is probably the most powerful tool that any of us have in protecting the international order and our freedoms within it. roger: we will get to the white house and the coordinating in the white house to follow the national security strategy has yet to come out. it pretty creative way that you guys handled it, unclassified to the congress and you tried to nested within resources, but certainly it has not been the rollout you have anticipated. kathleen: i will get to that now. national security strategy, you pick a time when it has followed an easy course or pathway across any administration i think it is appropriate to take your time on that strategy and get it right. strategy is something that you live and execute and it should be constantly reviewed and up dated, that is true of the national security strategy and you will see that in the coming months. the statutes from the united states congress is required to be delivered -- delivered in classified form. we have done that with an unclassified summary. we do like to be above and beyond the rule of law, and in the spirit of how we try to operate in the department provide that fuller description, but it is appropriate to wait and see how the nsf is built out, so we make sure it is best nested. roger: let us stick to that thread for a minute. back when bush 42 came into office they rolled out their strategy and of course the president george w. bush ran on a campaign of not doing humanitarian intervention. 9/11 happened, freedom agenda comes in and it was a major market shift in strategy because -- is that a construct -- controversial thing to say? but they changed. is this moment a similar moment? you said that the nts's continuity and that you anticipated that russia might do something like this, one could interpret that the national security strategy not coming out or reporting is just meaning more than personnel changes or shifts in the strategy suggests that what is happening in europe and in russia is that there is a shift in orientation from the white house as a result of the war in ukraine. what is your take? kathleen: my take is that first of all focus the time and energy on ukraine as i pointed out since february 24. we have been doing at light speed. that is to support cross diplomatic -- economic sanctions in his suit -- in history and the diplomatic effort is immense. it takes a lot of time and energy. i do think you will see the themes where it will end up, i think it will be consistent with where it was headed. it is not a finalized document, it was in process. i think that process picks up and the president and his public remarks has been very clear as i have repeated today about how much this really continues, this latest crisis in ukraine, continues to cast the united states and its approach to democracy in market contrast to autocrats in the world. i think that is a continued statement you will see play out. roger: i want to go back to the response to my initial question, and i agree with your response that the strategy not just for this administration and the previous information where the congress went with the european defense initiative, we were concerned that russia might do this again. it was not the first time that putin invaded a country in europe. georgia, obviously was the first. during putin's reign. at the same time it is reasonable to say that the terms did not work, meaning that we anticipated this and followed the problem and tried to put the tools of deterrence into place whether you want to call it some other deterrence, we need to agree that we did not deter him from what we sought out to a him from doing. kathleen: this is a war of russia's choice and can stop at any point if the russians used to and they choose to continue and by all accounts vladimir putin chose to go forward into ukraine, and that is a fact. are focused on integrated deterrence is fundamentally around combat cut ability of the u.s. forces and we are confident where we are in that sphere that that will be the cornerstone of integrated deterrence. ukraine is not a place where the united states had the security commitment it has around nato or it has even with regard to taiwan. in which regards to the military assistance. what we focus on in the department of defense is bringing that combat credibility forward. you note that the russians have not attacked nato territory. and we continue to stand by that that -- that deterrent as effective. roger: very smart answer. but -- [laughter] if it was, you did very well. but just to really understand, you are right, from the view of the department of defense, we want to make sure that we have a combat presence and no one will challenge up in the next layer, challenge our line within nato. when she would agree that part of what we are thinking -- seeking to achieve with the strategy and this administration was to deter the russians from going into ukraine, and that was part of it, i think we all sought with the onyx -- occupation and annexation of crimea. kathleen: there is no doubt that the united states has been clear that violating the sovereignty of another country is against the principles that we stand for and that we would bring all of our thoughts to bear on how to do that. the economic sanctions that we put into place around this particular invasion alongside importantly not just nato but other countries of the world, we have not seen the full effects and russia has not seen the full effects. i think those are tremendously powerful. they were clearly not convincing to russia in advance, not clear that anything would be clear to russia in advance. i am not trying to get into the head of vladimir putin. what i can tell you is that they would be devastated, all of the diplomatic movements and the companies that have self-selected out of russia, international companies, the talent drain, tens of thousands of high end talent leaving russia that i hope are coming to the united states into the west to help us to advanced technology in-line in line with appropriate democratic values, and i think that is the cost that he will bear. the fact that you have leaders who cannot understand rational deterrence frameworks is something that we have always lived with. we have always had those who will violate international norms and challenge us to deter them, which is why we must have the credibility to stand behind the commitments we have made and we have that. roger: let us stick with ukraine miller and then move on to china and it will be noted that we focus -- we have not focused on the budget in the first five minutes of our conversation. we obviously want as a government in the department of defense to make sure that the sovereignty of a free nation is not violated in the ways that we are seeing with every passing day which is true for other countries in europe and obviously true for taiwan as well. that has to be important migrating from the european theater and into the indo pacific to deal with china. in part -- and part of the strategy and what you're doing every day as a department, what more do we need to do to restore the terms to even make sure it is not a nato ally or another country that we have an alliance with, it is kind of more complicated as you know very well. what else do we need to do to restore deterrence, whether it is to putin or xi that they do not come away from what is happening and say i can get away with it? kathleen: so we are facing what i'm calling conflict attacked dynamics. they span the spectrum of conflict from day-to-day activities through what is often called hybrid activity and all the way up to advancing their nuclear capability. the united states traditionally has been agile across that spectrum of conflict and that holding together. all of the elements of the domains of conflict. we have talked about this obviously as you were referencing in integrated deterrence and comprehensive approaches that can lock the term used. there is a strong thread of continuity in that. and we chose integrated because we think it helps to communicate this idea that to deal with these complex attacks vectors and to have this fact, you have to be equally agile. we need to overcome a lot of cultural barriers internally to how we work across that spectrum first inside the military, and then -- from our perspective first inside the military -- and then how we work with allies and others. i think that is the core and executing that through our approach in a day-to-day way, exemplifying that we can gain advantage in a day-to-day way through campaigning as we build that enduring advantage over the long term, three approaches are our answer to your question about how we ensure deterrence. roger: we actually dealt with is a bit during the national commission work in the last administration with the national strategy and how you deal with the competition. it was not what we were witnessing in ukraine, but all of the things that we were happening from little green men to the cyber and space realm. i wonder if we were not necessarily successful of that but putin decided to take a form of aggression that was so conventional, tanks, missiles, aircraft. is our eye off the ball from that conventional attack, are we missing something in that framework? the traditional side, which maybe is having these lat forms that we had in the last entry today, and do you worry about that when it comes to taiwan? maybe people talk about the approach that relies heavily on conventional capabilities. in conflict with integrated deterrents but it makes it primary and how you might deter a china vis-a-vis chat -- vis-a-vis taiwan. kathleen: where i would differ is that you should always think about an adversary as being pretty smart. if they are not smart, that is great. they are looking for weaknesses, and the answer is to minimize your attack surface area and maximize your advantages. in the case of russia they have taken a conventional approach and it has not worked well. we can talk about why it did not work well. i would also say back to what the u.s. has been doing since 2014 we have built substantial dimensional capability alongside allies and partners. but to include the u.s. and in europe and inside the bounds of the territory and that conventional deterrence, and i will add our nuclear deterrent, they seem to be holding very well right now. we will continue to always look to strengthen those. at the same time if you relieve the deterrent elsewhere, smart adversaries can go to those spaces. that is what we have seen the russians trying in different ways, cyber is obviously one and attacking democracy and information warfare is another. the corruption, if you will is another in support of assad in syria is another. it just requires the united states to be very thoughtful about how we ensure that we can deter, that is my russia answer. roger: let us go to the budget. so, the national defense strategy fact sheet and in your march 28 gaggle of reporters, the release of the budget and defense strategy. you talk about continuity and the planning construct of the strategy which prevailing and turn the second. that is what the trump administration, that is what that defense strategy had and based on years -- on your strategy, that is what the biden administration will do as well. to me, where there should be continuity in recognition that we should not become so regionally focused that we take the book -- our eye off of the ball. of course, to do that, you need a budget that can support that reach. a budget that is trying to build a force that is global in nature. many people are concerned about that look a budget and say you are not resourcing the strategy seriously enough that can sustain that kind of construct and that type of strategy, in that case we have to realize that we will do less with less and make hard choices, what is your answer to that? kathleen: we have more than a quarter of a trillion dollars as i said in my remarks, eight percent above what we asked last year and we matched it to the strategy, so i promise if anyone has opened the books i have done my homework and i have -- and we have matched those. let us talk about inflation as a separate answer because i want to come back to it. we have put together a program that i am very comfortable can executes that force planning construct and i want to add the nuclear deterrent and also the homeland piece which is a little more aggressive on homeland, or a little more focused than in 2018. so that i am very comfortable with. we have dealt out the capabilities that we need to do that. i think we get very focused because it is simple on sort of adjust the dollars. the dollars matter. we have to have the dollars. but we are very focused on numbers, number of this type of system versus somebody else, this missile gap kind of theory. we need to look at what the unities -- the u.s. needs to execute the campaign, which makes sense for us, max amassed -- maximizing asymmetry and focusing what we can comment upon, and i think we have done that with this program that we have put together the budget. you are kind of anticipating that critique to divest to invest, and the budget has 24 ships, you have aircraft carriers that do not have enough aircraft to utilize and the whole purpose of that platform, we just kind of came out of a conversation and i am arguing with you right now, that conventional capabilities is something that is essential. you have a construct that says we need to do this in two theaters, at least near simultaneous, i have not seen the classified piece but i am assuming it is simultaneous and then the strategy talks about the middle east and other challenges and threats not necessarily focus. i just kind of come out of this moment where it seems that those platforms and numbers matter more. you say it is simple, but simplicity has an elegance of its own because it is right. so we just are a smaller force and it does not seem to be a mission set and a strategy that is asking us to do less. give a little more about why we do not have to worry about the numbers and capabilities. kathleen: we have to worry about capability including either your ability to die -- to disperse and the quantity of what you can deliver which matters. i am not saying there is not an issue around overall capacity. but we do have to elevate -- we have to elevate this conversation. capacity might mean what is my firepower, not how many platforms does that firepower move from, what is my ability to shoot and scoot with folks more familiar with the l tillery battles but the maneuverability of our force versus as the russians are seeing lines of tanks, so quantity is not going to be the way to think about the capabilities that we need for the future. while it is an input to overall capability. so, let us learn from the russians and what there are -- what their experiences that we are seeing. losing the lead cruiser because it does not have adequate air defense, how does that approach take into account the survivability and capability of our forces. if we lose that out of the conversation we are not using taxpayer dollars wisely. i think you have to go to the specifics of how we have a combat credible force and show that one year into this administration. how have we built effectively on what we inherited to develop capacity and capabilities for the future. where is the industrial base, something that you all care about appropriately here. one of the biggest challenges that we face, you cannot magic capability overnight. we need to work for it, we need to have manufacturing capability. we need clear investment strategy that demonstrates where the market is going, so companies can plan, and we need to bring in small business, which we lost 40% of our small business base out of the dissent -- out of the defense sector which is where the innovation comes from. we cannot say we will build all of these new ships and etc., you have to look at the industrial capacity. roger: i want to get to that in a second and then inflation. one more on this, this is a lot of fun for me. thank you for being here. so, your response to my pressing you unconventional capability, i think it means more at this moment and our program should reflect that and your responses that we have to be smart and look at how russia is failing, they did not succeed even kyiv and we will see what happens in terms of ukraine, one of the things that we saw and we were on the commission together and i am curious what your experience is since returning to the department of defense. the strategy was not operationalized. the concepts of how we wanted to fight were not clear. the new systems that we were going to realize the fight to make real -- to make it less reliance on a tank, the replacement wasn't identified and not in the program and there was a concern about a gap. it sounds like you are confident that we are there or we can get there soon. tell me about transitioning from 21st-century warfare and combat to where you are going, 21st-century smart fight, is there a way they are? kathleen: the way i talk about this is that i am out there proselytizing about a three set up approach and you are hitting on the core challenge that every defense planner faces which is what do i need now? and then out for us is 23 to 27, that is the defense program and the five-year program that we are focused on right now. 20.7 is an -- is a notable year in china with regard to the capabilities that they have publicly put forth with regard to taiwan. so, what you are faced with is what can i do, which is going to be less on new capital investments which takes a long time to come to fruition and other -- and to maximize that capability today. there i would say that there a number of focal areas that i will not do justice but to the extent that it is survivable, cyber and space resilient, those are significant investments. the persistent guide munitions and a continued steady pace on nuclear modernization which we were under investors in -- under invested in that we have to pay the price. let me jump ahead. third set up, force design. the robots, you name it, all of the future stuff that we want to make sure that we can get to. because that is the way to make the concepts and be enlivened and actualized. the challenge everyone faces is here to there, and the trust and confidence of the united states congress that any department of defense has a viable pathway through that. the lack of that trust and confidence is what keeps sliding us back so that first is the reality that we live with forever. that is the task that i think i face right now as the department of defense, more than anything is how do we build out given the great authority that was developed alongside support from congress and middle tier acquisition. in this under the joint war fighting concept. that is really the challenge. how do we show that we have a viable pathway through the middle period to the force design. a number of initiatives and i do not know how much time you want to get into this. a number of initiatives to do that, pathway finders, making sure the digital back -- backbone, the raider initiative which is tying the concept to capabilities that can be fielded. that is where we have to make progress and that would be true in any period of time. roger: that is super interesting and i have two issues i want to hit on, inflation and industrial capacity. it is somewhat a discussion about investments and conventional platforms. first, inflation. i will give you that it is 4% growth from enacted, but the inflator was just so incredibly low, and you acknowledge this in your briefing, 2.2%. you have the chairman of the joint chiefs testifying before the house services committee, it was obviously inaccurate, and the reality is that because of inflate -- inflation you will not have the buying power that you need to realize that his program and share with us, you probably had to wrestle to get that 4%. the world is where it is. the fed increased rates knowing that and it will be anywhere between eight and 10% by the time we get to appropriations then next fiscal year and that should basically be in the department of the defense. feel free to diss -- disagree i am more interested in that and i will highlight and say in the notes, something to the effect of i will work with congress through this summer and zooming about where i am right about inflation. kathleen: the first thing i would say and i said this on the hill. the best is time appropriation. that is 4% more than what we would get if we stay on the cr and i think we know we will be on it. i think we need to put our money where our political malls are. and get the appropriate combination on the regard last. also for 23, we do not know what the inflation number should be. the inflation number that we do every year, that is always just a forecast. where inflation will be in september let alone this time next year we do not know, but we want to work with congress on the 23 budget to make sure that we have the purchasing power for this program. it is -- if at the end of the day this program with an inflation factor that is again going to be a projection by the united states congress that we all feel is closer to accurate, and then we work through supplementals year, anything where we are off, i think that is a good outcome. we want this program, bottom line. this summer my point is we have trouble in 2022, and congress had just passed the omnibus and gave a little bit of support for fuel, that actual inflation issue is a now inflation issue because i do not know what the inflator should be. i can deal with how we are thinking through this. roger: this summer is about 22 with the $25 billion addition and realize as much as you can and then 2023 you think that the 2.2 will hold. kathleen: that is not what i said. as we go into the end game for 23 appropriations as we would do in any year we want to be working with congress on the collected best estimates. it will still be an estimate. it might be an estimate that is too high or low. if it is too low we would need to assume to come back for supplemental, but we will have to make -- we are going to have to make our best gas collectively. it is never going to be quite right with the question is how close to right are we and how much can we absorb that inside of the program. if we do not feel like we can absorb it, rest assured that the secretary of defense will go to the president and seek assistance to get for further resources. the buying power from this program. what we do not want is added topline filled with new program that we cannot support and afford and that does not cover inflation. that is my number one concern. roger: the deputy secretary gave a message the u.s. congress in terms of what she does not want as congress will likely try to add to the budget in part to deal with inflation with other priorities. this is why want to end. ukraine has revealed many things, and the one thing is limitations of our industrial capacity. and whether you are talking about javelin, you mentioned that you are at the lockheed martin plant. and other types of capabilities. it seems like there is insufficient production capacity. in your press conference at the end of march, you focused on industrial base and the need for development, but i do not disagree with the kinetic capabilities and strategic and critical minerals. would you say that there is a six or seven required. i will give unit -- i will give you an example. even if you agree that we needed more submarines or surface ships or fighter aircraft, like we thought that was the way we needed to fight in the next decade. you could not do it, because there are not production lines that could support it. we all know that that is critical, you could only get two a year. don't you think that should be added to the list as you talk about industrial-based capacity and how did ukraine reinforce that? kathleen: i want to clarify, the five-year issue that you mentioned are specific supply-chain challenges. you are raising a broader industrial set of priorities that are not quite the same thing. on the industrial base we are concerned on shipbuilding. i visited a number of harsh facilities and, as i mentioned, a strong theme coming back is our supply chain issues and workforce training and availability, making sure that we can pay the wages and companies can pay the wages needed to attract workers. all of these are important to getting the workforce that we need. that is also an issue and we put significant investment on the shipbuilding side and other investments on the shipyards because i think that is a particular pain point area. we are behind on the summering side and circus ship -- circus side in production that we already have projected, industry is trying to play catch-up. some of that is covid affects going forward workers who were not able to come to work and a falling out and etc.. we will have a lot of fault -- a lot of work to do there. we cannot have an industrial base without a market signal and we need to continue to have a strong market signal. the ukrainian crisis will boost that market signal that is a subset of capabilities on allies and partners and ukrainians or that the u.s. might need it backfilled. your reference to the man pad is an example. the united states for ourselves are focused on next-generation. there are many desires elsewhere in the world and we are looking ahead to what do we need next, and we need to support the industrial base that can support our highest priority at the same time that can support the arsenal of democracy. that is a content -- a continuing priority. roger: question from the distinguished audience. we are going to go ahead to the former undersecretary for acquisitions. >> thank you so much for being here. i am hoping that you are working with our close partners and allies specifically with respect to implementing august using some of the rather hollow authorities right now. and how we can manage the demand signal to demand with the lumpiness of the demand signal for industry and how release and exportability can help that. kathleen: that continues to be a key leverage points, an area where we can lean in with u.k., canada, and australia. the most recent package in the supplemental we have actually tried to specify areas where we think we want to move to a-based approach to some of the backfilled requirements that we are trying to meet. some folks more broadly refer to this as allied shoring and it helps us think about the capabilities where the australians have capability to bring to bear. we are working through the submarine approach and the series of other critical technology areas and learning from the brits and australians where there might be relative advantages that each can bring to bear without getting into detail where there are areas where the australians in the research and develop men side some really good advances that we in the united states can lean on and i think that it has created a good opportunity to share that and the same with the brits, and potentially beyond other partners. roger: a question over here. >> hello. earlier this week the pentagon sent a one point 5 billion reprogramming request to congress asking to shift funds around so that the pentagon could ramp up singer and javelin production. obviously, there are some issues with both lines, javelins and the funds to expand that. they have obsolescence issues. this money that you guys are asking to shift, what does that cover specifically? does that cover some of those issues or how many singers and javelins does is actually give you coming off of the lines again? kathleen: so the funds that were requested were a result of some of the supplemental funding that we have been provided. and it is at the end of the 30 day notification period for congress which is why it is coming out this week. it has been in the plans and we have had the notification and we are approved for the army to stop working -- to start working on that. now begins the process of getting into exactly what you are asking, which is with those funds working between the army in contracting and the manufacturers trying to understand what is the smartest application of funds to get the best output. there is not a set answer to your question yet. what i can tell you is the approach is how to apply the funds to ramp up the production, so for javelin potentially going up, not quite double but significantly -- i am terrible at math and public -- but 1.5 times where they are now in monthly production, what would that take, so we are working with them on that. and on stinger, a similar set of questions around obsolete parts and planning efforts in addition to production. i mentioned the workforce so some of the funds might be going to the facility, some of it might be going to workforce. that is something the army might be working with the manufacturers right now. it is important to remember those capabilities, we want to be able to produce those capabilities for allies and partners but we are looking ahead to where we want to go. that was on track. now it is also about managing through both creating that capability for others, some amount of potential on the u.s. side, but making sure we are staying on track with the capabilities we need for the joint force in the future. roger: we have a few minutes left. i apologize i will not get everybody. i saw tom from csis. >> good to see you. in your remarks you talk about your aggressive and focused attention to the multi-domain threat to the homeland. we have seen hundreds and hundreds of cruise missiles being used by russia and ukraine. over the past several years joint documents have talked about the threat of nonnuclear cruise missile attacks. some of your documents talk about this as well. i wonder how do you think about that threat? what are some plans going forward? this is something the commander and other folks are pounding the table about of late. kathleen: i will broaden it a little. great to see you. i will broaden it to integrate air and missile defense, whether unmanned systems up through the cruise missile challenge, which we have long had that challenge from russia to think through. all the way up through the more advanced threats we are seeing today. the way in which we have to think about missile defense, both regionally and in the united states has to evolve substantially. there is still a key component for defeat and kinetic defeat, but increasingly we have to be looking at opportunities that are non-kinetic. cyber jamming and other capabilities. cruise missiles are one of these places where the detection is so challenging. there we put a bit of money into our radar and our systems. i know you are a big advocate of and hopefully are pleased with what we have done on this base architecture in terms of sentencing for this very reason. defeat is very challenged. i do not want to sugarcoat that. we have long emphasized, and i will emphasize today, our strategic deterrent and our conventional deterrent with regard to how seriously we view any kind of attack on the united states homeland, whether that homeland is guam, hawaii, alaska , or the condo united states. a cruise missile attack, any kind of attack, we have to be able to rely on the full suite of capabilities and the time and place of choosing for the united states to respond. roger: two more and then we will wrap up. michael gordon? >> what of the strategic [inaudible] prevent a fate a complete -- prevent a fait accompli by russia or china. i have two related questions. is it still the pentagon's objective to develop the u.s. military capability to deny china the capability to conduct an invasion of taiwan, or is the goal more general than that? that is to deter china by imposing a range of military or other costs under your integrated deterrence concept, if you see the difference? kathleen: yes to the first question. >> the second question is what you see as the lessons of the ukraine conflict for your ongoing efforts to deter action on taiwan, the other at -- the other lessons and what are they? kathleen: we are not done in ukraine and it is important for us to acknowledge lessons will build. i think a major lesson is the importance of the demonstrated will to fight in the capability to fight of anyone who is trying to defend their democracy. i think taiwan has that is a clear take away as well. making sure they are investing themselves in the self-defense they need to have and under the taiwan relations act we are here to support their self-defense efforts. working closely with them on those capabilities. it is not just capabilities, there are also institutional or more reform efforts they need to undertake that they are focused on where they to support them on that. more broadly i think the takeaways are when you get one of the asymmetries united states has that china and russia have lacked is the substantial throw weight of market economies that when they choose to bring that to bear it can have devastating effects. i think that will build over time it is a big lesson, not just for the europeans to see what they can bring to the table that they can also bring their citizens along to increase investments in defense as well, but also what the chinese will take away from the costs of aggression. roger: quick, because we are already over with the secretaries time. >> a quick question. upon your conference asian -- upon your confirmation -- as well as unmanned maritime. how have your key investment areas changed at all since that memo about one year ago, especially given events in the world? kathleen: that was not a key investment memo. that was a memo on issues for the program review and we will do another one this year. we are always shifting the areas we think are most important to investigate, which is little different from most important to invest in. i would say coming out of the analytic work we have developed some of those areas. we have a few others who want to invest this year. i will highlight broad areas. contested logistics is one we are very interested in exploring. that was before watching the russians be so challenged on their own border. we know logistics is a big challenge we want to make sure we can protect cyber defense. i would also point to homeland defense, how we think more broadly about the way in which our homeland plays into challenges, those complex threat dynamics that come against the united states and any major conflict. there will be several more than that, that is just a few examples. >> thank -- roger: thank you, dr. hicks, for sticking around with us. [applause] roger: we will have a distinguished panel coming up next. [room chatter] >> please take your seats and welcome our distinguished panelists to the stage. >> thank you very much. it is hard to follow on such an interesting discussion but we will try. we are fortunate because we have such a wealth of knowledge sitting to talk about these issues today. my mic is very loud. we have former under secretary of defense for policy. she can talk to us as someone who knows the policy side of the national defense strategy and the budget. then we have two people who need no introduction. congresswoman elaine luria, democrat from virginia and a current member of the house armed services committee, and the r&r bowl -- and the honorable mac thornberry. they can talk to us about the appropriations process. i want to start at a very general sense because as we all know ukraine, russia has dominated the national security space for a wild now and probably will continue to do so. despite the fact that the nds does focus on china, i am curious if you could give me your broad take away, each of you, about whether you think, how you think the nds -- should focus more on russia, and how you think the overall security situation in eastern europe should be impacting the nds more, if it should. michelle: thanks for hosting us and putting this great discussion together. i think the strategy got the balance about right. we have a tendency, as do all countries that confront near-term crises, to focus on the five major targets, the immediate challenge. there is a risk we could put all of our bandwidth into today's challenge and underperform in terms of preparing for the future. i think what they have tried to do by saying russia's invasion of ukraine is the acute challenge, we have to focus on helping ukraine beat back the aggression to make sure we are as strong as possible in deterring any further aggression against nato, but we have to keep a good portion of our bandwidth focused on preparing for that more significant threat from a rising china in the longer term. if you are the defense department of a global power in a country with global interests, you have to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time. we have to be able to do the near-term crisis management piece and the long-term preparation. that is easier said than done, and i really like dr. hicks'framework of thinking in three setups. i agree the middle one is the hardest to get right, but i personally believe that even on the china side, deterring china against taiwan there is a near-term deterrence challenge we need to be focusing even more of our attention on. how do we take the capabilities we have, combined them into ways with new operational concepts to meaningfully strengthen deterrence in the next five to seven years vis-a-vis taiwan, given all of the actions and the rhetoric coming out of china under president xi. >> you think the u.s. in the world has five to seven years? michelle: right now president xi is focused on dealing with the covid crisis that is not getting better. his economy is suffering and slow growth is always very frightening for the chinese communist party in terms of maintaining their order and control. he has the 20th party congress coming up where he will want to focus on stability and consolidating his power. i also think he wants to pursue a political and economic coercion strategy vis-a-vis taiwan. the use of force is a last resort. nor do i think his military force is ready for that. if after five years of trying the star trek absorption into the borg strategy does not work, we could be facing a situation where he says this is a legacy issue, i want to take care of this on my watch, i'm going to reach for use of force because it will only get harder for me in the future as the u.s. fields more and more capability. i think the timeframe could be sooner or later, but we have to be focused on that, not just china as a long-term challenge but china in the midterm as well. >> that exact argument you just made about a legacy issue in dealing with it right now, there a lot of people who think that is why that amir boudin has gone into you great -- that is why vladimir putin has gone into ukraine right now. congressman lauria, you look at this as someone who is sitting through congress right now. i wonder what your overall perspective is on this, whether it is enough focus in the current budget on russia and ukraine, russia specifically, given the focused on china. rep. lauria: a lot of things on michelle said. we have to be laser focused on china and their aggression in taiwan and the timeframe between now and 2027. i think there are significant gaps in this year's budget to adequately address that. i look at it and think about where are we different now than we were a few months ago before the february invasion? this is an opportunity. we had a very different impression of russia and russia's conventional military capabilities prior to the current situation with the recent invasion of ukraine. on top of that we have a host of nato and soon nato allies stepping up. what the last administration was trying to do was get nato to contribute more and we have been very surprised by germany and others. so we have an opportunity if we want to leverage our allies and partners and europeans are stepping up to find more and we have significant forces there, i do not think is a question of allocating more resources to europe, because we have more players also willing to do more. if anything if we want to leverage the allies and partners concept, we have the opportunity to allow our partners in europe to take more of the burden and for us to provide more of our resources to the very urgent situation in this timeframe between now and 2027 with regards to china and taiwan. courtney: do you have any concerns, some of your colleagues have talked about concerns for readiness? the u.s. has provided one third of the javelins they had in the arsenal to ukraine. looking at that, do you think there's enough built in to maintain the u.s. readiness, or are you will concerned about stockpiles getting low? rep. luria: is something we will look at closely as we continue to transfer material equipment that we have adequate replenishment. if we can get more into the navy , where i focus a lot of my attention, i have significant concerns with proposed decommissioning of 24 ships, only building eight. the long-term capacity gaps that creates, it came up in an earlier conversation about the number of missiles. in the navy you might quantify that. if you look at the next seven-year period, we will learn up to 1600 through the decommissioning of the remaining 22 cruisers and the slow procurement of new platforms. you also talked earlier about the industrial base. there is capacity there. why are wynne lee building two destroyers. we can build -- why are we only building two destroyers? i think there is a host of things, it is not only the platforms, it is the munitions and all of that combined together. we need to be laser focused on what is needed for the deterrent. there is a lot of talk about needing to be able to deter in the near term but i do not think we are building a force to do that. it is clear you cannot build an entire new force in the five-year period. we have to fight with what we have today. we are divesting of that. rather than investing in the readiness, we are just saying divest to invest. it is obsolete, we need to move on to new concepts that do not equal any weapon systems that exist. ai, quantum computing, this is part of the mix in the future. we have to focus on the near-term, and we look at the budget, myself and many sides of the aisle, this is just a vesting too much. courtney: you mentioned deterrence. rep. luria: my feeling about the national defense strategy versus the previous administration is i think what we need is a deterrence by denial. you have to have the force and the presence to do that. i feel that shifting away from integrated deterrence, which is a deterrence by punishment. if you do not have the forces ready, if you do not have the authorities in place, that will be another discussion on the policies of strategic ambiguity and whether we need to change our posture relative to that, i do not feel like the shift to integrated deterrence is creating a force that can actually accomplish a deterrence by denial strategy in order to prevent the fait accompli. courtney: now that you're looking at this from a step back and hopefully you have more time now that you are not on the armed forces committee. what you think, specifically whether the defense budget and national defense strategy has the right mix on what it is specific to russia and china and also these other factors, north korea, iran. is there anything you're looking at right now with the situation with russia, do you worry about the readiness of u.s. military and how the money is being appropriated in this budget? max: i am struck by how we are having some of the same debates we've been having for a while. when president obama wanted to pivot to asia, the concern was you are turning away from something, in that case middle east terrorism was our primary concern, to focus on this one thing. united states does not have the luxury of focusing in one area or on one adversary and vladimir putin's invasion of ukraine is a slap in the face reminder that there are other threats to the world that we have to pay attention to. i am also struck by a lot of continuity in this national defense strategy that secretary hicks was talking about from the last one. it is words on the paper. the question is what change are you going to make that would make that become a reality? that is where you do get into a 4% increase that does not keep up with inflation is not enough to deal with, to implement that strategy given the world we all see clearly now. then you start getting tensions, that is where readiness becomes often the easiest and quickest thing to. we saw that before in the later stages of the obama administration where we had accident rates going up and we were at one point in the trump administration, north korea poses a threat and we have to move precision munitions from the middle east to the pay com area and in the middle east commanders start worrying they are short. i agree is not all about top line in numbers, but it does begin the conversation of what capability you have, how much in that budget. frankly i was encouraged to hear her say we will take this plan, we will add whatever inflation is, which is going to be pretty high, and then not lose capability like these ships they want to get rid of prematurely come and build from there. that is probably an approach that does begin to implement the words on this paper. courtney: what other capability gaps that you can point to, specifically with the threat to china that have you concerned right now? michelle: maybe to provoke a little debate, i have a slightly different view. i think that the u.s. does have the objective of being able to deny chinese aggression success against taiwan. we have to be careful of the metrics. it is not necessarily numbers of traditional platforms. this is going to be a very different environment where we have huge geographic advantage. they will try to create a fait a ccompli very quickly before u.s. forces can mass in the theater. it will be a highly contested environment where ships and planes that go in early will be very vulnerable. deterrence by denial may require some different operations. for example, my favorite example came out of the rand study which is taking long range anti-ship missiles and putting them on standoff air force platforms that can target -- can i finish? i am just saying, we have to have an operational concept in mind before we start making judgments about do we have enough destroyers, do we not have enough destroyers? the other thing is what i do think across the board we have munition shortfalls. as we are seeing in terms of ukraine situation in our own arsenal, but this is constantly a top concern of the commander. services constantly trade-off munitions to pay for shiny objects and i think we have to focus. the last comment for security systems. the big lesson from ukraine is that after crimea, the u.s., the canadians, the u.k., other nato members spent time training and working with ukrainians to make them more of a porcupine. let's become very indigestible to the russian bear. not my phrase, tony thomas used to use this. we did similar work in the baltics. the same approach needs to happen in taiwan. how do you give them asymmetric capabilities to create costs to slow things down to buy time for the national community to support. rep. luria: i think you had a perfect scene setter and i think that is an investment we should definitely make. the reason i jumped in as i asked the air force at our hearing how many is in the budget. it was not a piece of data at their fingertips. it was not high on the radar for the air force as an investment for their contribution. i asked her the same question about offensive minded laying. a huge asset to help create this porcupine, both for us to have the capabilities as well as for taiwan to invest in the capabilities for their own defense. i think you also set the scene perfectly about the defense standoff ranges. we have not invested insufficient anti-surface capability. we are still relying on harpoons. it was developed in the 1970's. there been improvements in that missile and now we have mabel strike missiles and other capabilities. we are at a disadvantage which presents us -- which prevents us from being within the chinese missile range in certain phrases of a conflict. i also think there are other capabilities we do not think about. the navy is bad at building small. the chinese have very small, very heavily armed vessels that have a higher firepower with longer-range anti-surface missiles. i think we need to think about a mix, both for dispersion, i think the marine corps plans to develop their concepts, but also i do not like the budgets we get follow the words that we hear. the warfare vessel that will carry the marine core surface missiles, navy strike missiles, it is part of that context. it is delayed again two more years. if we are looking at the near-term, this is a relatively inexpensive investment. why aren't we making it a priority? why is it pushed two years down the road? i think the anti-surface capability is a big concern i have. courtney: is that something you've communicated to the military? rep. luria: i think is a combination, we can get started, we have capability and we can invest in more of it. i think it could be used more in their operational plans in how they disperse. we cannot continue to wait for the perfect solution. going back to the platforms, you have to have the platforms to deliver. divest to invest, capabilities we may be able to develop in 20 years. we do not have the luxury of waiting for them. we have to be creative with the platforms we have. there are potential capabilities for transferring eps to carry launchers for smaller craft. in this budget they want to decommission nine lcs. the capabilities it does have is the surface warfare module. even if it is a question of moving forces around because the lcs has a lower capability, that could free up destroyers to reposition and be in areas where they are more necessary to the fight. we have to get to what you wrote. in 72 hours we need to be able to target all of their anti-service capabilities. in my mind that is the ball for deterrence. i do not know if you've shifted from that -- in my mind that is the goal for deterrence. i do not know if you have shifted from that position. michelle: nope. courtney: secretary hicks says you been trading the ukrainians, providing all these weapons. did deterrence work? is there some way deterrence -- is there some way the u.s. can shift deterrence to maybe deter china from an invasion of taiwan? mac: it is always possible for bad guys to do bad things. you want to discourage it. you will not always be successful, which is why you need a military to win a conflict in case deterrence should fail. that is basics. you can also argue that perhaps vladimir putin was looking not only of how many ships and tanks and planes we had, he is looking at our divisions domestically and a whole variety of factors and thought this is the time when he could get away with it. remember deterrence is in the mind of the adversary and it has to be credible, not only what you have, but it could be used. to go back to my theme for just a second, it may be simplistic to look at topline defense budgets, but it is also a clear signal to vladimir putin and president xi of our national commitment to develop the capabilities we are talking about to defend ourselves. i was struck by how many times secretary hicks mentioned our nuclear modernization. it was not that long ago that it was do we really need a triad, can we get by with two? i think ukraine ends that debate. the harder question when it comes to deterrence is now we not only have russia, but we have china that has -- that is dramatically increasing their nuclear capability. is our capability credible in that three-way situation, or not? my personal opinion is i do not think we have thought enough about that. two more points. when it comes to us and china, conventional is important. it is also some of these newer capabilities, some of which we are behind in. hypersonic's, anti-satellite weapons. they have more data than anyone for ai. getting those nontraditional defense suppliers on the playing field is essential. to go back to michelle's point, developing this capability or that capability does not count for much unless you have the operational concepts to use them. that was a key finding of the strategy commission in 2018 and it is still an area where i am not sure we are quite up to snuff. we will develop hypersonic's, but what will we do with it? how will you use it? courtney: there's the operational concepts but there is the authority -- rep. luria: there's the operational concepts but there is the authority. i think we need to have a debate in congress about authority. if you have amassing of forces on the coast of china and indications they will cross the strait. we can want to be a deterrent by denial and want to intervene, but what authority exists to do that? we cannot just introduce forces where hostilities are likely without coming to congress. we are not clear. our strategic ambiguity is ambiguous. it is time to have a debate about strategic ambiguity. my personal opinion is we should have strategic clarity and say we will come to the defense of taiwan in order to maintain the status quo in that last part is important. the debates are not being had in congress because the president will need position time. if you're going to wait to come to congress while they go 140 nautical miles, those things do not happen that quickly. courtney: are you saying you think there should be an naumf? rep. luria: if we have strategic clarity, everything would fall in behind that because there would be no questions that would be our national policy that we would come to the defense of taiwan. if we wait to have that debate until there are forces moving, i think that delay will lead to a fait accompli. courtney: the underlying idea of strategic ambiguity is supposed to be idea that the u.s. would defend taiwan. that is an assumption of it. but it also upends up the issue of strategic simultaneity. you said you think there five to seven years before china acts on taiwan in a military perspective. if they were to speed that up, where the u.s. is with this huge investment in ukraine, helping out in the war against russia, do you think china -- if china were to act on taiwan tomorrow, with usb able to come to the defense of taiwan come is the u.s. ready for that right now? rep. luria: not the way we need to be. i think the u.s. would come to taiwan's defense if the aggression were unprovoked. all of the wargaming we read about suggests if we just play with what we have, if we confront this with what we have, the results are suboptimal. there is a lot more risk than we should be accepting in that scenario. i think there's a lot that needs to be done. i do not want to say we cannot deter, but it would be more by cost than by denial. we want to get to the point we can deny their success. part of this equation of rapidly fielding new capabilities is building on what the secretary did when she was undersecretary of acquisition, which is creating a speedway or a highway for largely commercial technologies to be more rapidly integrated into the force. there are ai tools today that can give us a huge decision advantage. they need to be up and down the entire chain of command. we should be leveraging those because if you have more accurate and faster decision than your adversary that will be a huge advantage. there are things today we can do to build our resilience on the cyber side and the space side we should be investing in, largely commercial. it does not need a new military requirement. it is not need to go through the 5000 acquisition process. we need to create that fast track and train acquisition professionals to be special ops, acquirers of commercial technologies which we have not done at scale yet. this is an unmanned system. whether uav, this is a critical part of regaining capacity in a theater that is very far away from us and in the backyard of a potential adversary. there is a lot in that regard we can do as well that is a key element of how we are trying to bolster deterrence. courtney: do you think that right now the pentagon is being aggressive enough? michelle: i think they are starting to lean forward on this. i would like to see them lean forward even more. one of the challenges is we need to bring along congress, particular appropriators, who tend to be very conservative about how they spend taxpayer dollars. we are in a catch 22 were something like the navy will say we would like to buy a few unmanned surface vehicles so we can play around with them, experiment, develop a new operational concept come and congress comes back and says no, you do not know what you want to do with these things, so why would you let -- why would we let you buy, you have one common the navy says i need more than one to experiment. you're in this catch 22 because of risk aversion. this is the time where we have to lean forward to allow experimentation on a more rapid basis and except a little bit of risk that we might have some failures in the development and concept process that you learn from and then get to a better answer. courtney: i am curious what you think about that as someone who has the purse strings? rep. luria: authorizer's and appropriators. i was certainly on the armed services committee. we were all in to adding the $24 billion additionally last year and we did it more thoughtfully on the house. -- on the house side than the senate side. we focused on what are the things that are needed for the pacific. the navy only requested one destroyer. you talk about the standard industrial base, you have to build at least two destroyers because you have two shipyards. we preserve two cruisers. we were focused on the china scenario. i think there have been questions about, we want to bring before you this idea of an unmanned surface vessel. what are you going to put into it, what are you going to use it for? we can show you other platforms you can put 64 cells on and you can use the concept and it does not have to be unmanned, that can be done at a low cost. you could have eight epfs -- the cost is the same of 1 -- think about the amount of firepower you get out of that. there is a balance between their being to explain what they want the platform for and there is a history. there is a history of failed shipbuilding programs we have lived through. we are getting there, but it is taking much longer than we anticipated. i think there is the history of it and the lack of clarity of where you going to do with this. for some people who have operated ships on the technical engineering side, what is doubtful you can have it i'm in surface vessel that can operate for that time -- one is doubtful you can have a surface vessel that can operate for that period of time. courtney: one thing we have not touched on at all is the threat from north korea and iran. north korea just launched a ballistic missile. i was struck earlier this meet that the japanese defense minister talked about the threat from north korea as being imminent, which is not a word we hear often in north korea right now. i'm curious, do you think the way the nds is structured, it has north korea and iran as a secondary threat. you think that is appropriate or do we need to be more focused on the threat from north korea? and you think the budget reflects enough of the developments for the threat that is posed from north korea. mac: short answer on that is no. again, what you see, it a dynamic situation. if north korea thinks we are distracted by ukraine, then the logical thing is this is the chance we can get away with something we might not have been able to get away with before or at lesser cost. then iran is the same. they are pulling out of the middle east. now this is the time to push our allies in yemen to do more against saudi arabia and others there. you will have aggressors always looking to take advantage of opportunities. that is what you are seeing now. what you do about it? as elaine said, you have to keep your eye on the main thing. for us, the most consequential threat is china. you also have to have the capability to deter other kinds of aggression, whether it be in europe, asia, or the middle east. that does get back to does a 4% increase that does not keep up with inflation really meet that standard when it comes to implementing? i do not think it does. if i can chime in for a second on what they were saying, i do think there has to be a partnership between the administration and congress, and there are cultural issues in both the pentagon and congress on being able to move at the speed that events require. if north korea decides they will do something, we have to be able to move appropriately at that speed, and a budget process that takes two years to get the money appropriated, that is before you ever start building something, it does not cut it. you cannot treat everything the same. carriers and big expensive things are one thing, but a pool of money for ai applications, what the ai commission recommended congress to, more of a portfolio approach for these fast-moving technologies does help. when it comes to some of these threats, especially from china come into a lesser extent north korea and iran and russia, but with some of these threats, that flexibility of funding would help augment what congress and secretary lord have done as far as the acquisition authorities. they are in place, but you have to do with the culture and the money to get something out of it. courtney: is there anything else other than ai? is there a pull of funding you think could be applied? rep. luria: i think shipping. there been pilot programs on that but there been huge delays with cr's. another thing about resources and how they are allocated. you authorize the strategic deterrence fund, and you talk about -- the nuclear deterrent remains the cornerstone of our national defense, we have to keep the economy on track. big able to relieve some of that pressure from the navy shipbuilding budget, i think the authorizer's are always willing to do it but appropriators have never appropriated any funds. michelle: ai is important, absolutely. a broader category of bridge funding for innovation adoption. right now you have many new innovative technologies being demonstrated or piloted. you go to softworks and here are the best in class. you wait 18 to 24 months we will get you in the program. for some companies that is a death sentence. when you do have a pool of money that says based on the successful prototype we will continue to develop that capability and get it ready for full-scale production when you can get the program funds there. those bridging funds are key for a range of ready and emerging technologies. one more thing. every time we have a crisis, we make progress in making the system be more responsive and rapid. when the crisis is over we revert back to being slow and bureaucratic. there have been amazing innovations in the declassification use and sharing of intelligence in this crisis we should not lose going forward. there been huge innovations in getting things released and moved into the hands of our allies and ukraine that we should not lose going forward. i think part of what we need to do is try to hold on to some of those innovations and some of that progress when the crisis is over. courtney: i want to open it up to the audience in just a moment. congresswoman, i want to ask you one thing as a navy veteran. secretary hicks spoke about investing in people. i wonder if you think the current budget does enough of that? rep. luria: this is a personal thing back home. we have had tragic losses on the george washington recently, three suicides in rapid succession. something similar happened on the george h. w. bush. there is always talk about investing in the number of people and strength has to match the platforms, and i think the navy's budget this year they are roughly equal the requirement. investing in people, i think the navy, through this process of evaluating what happened on the george washington and beyond in the ship repair and availability and the stress on junior sailors , that highlights some investments we need to make in people and quality-of-life and people as well come in how we assign our most junior sailors. it is multifaceted. not just for people but for policies. i think the navy will come out with recommendations that will guide us. from my own observations visiting a ship and personal experience, i can say there are investments that are necessary to ensure the future help of our force. courtney: are there any recommendations the navy will make? rep. luria: i cannot speak for the navy, but at newport news there is a carrier for fueling ongoing. we have eight more carriers three fuel that will built or going to be built. i think we need to invest in things that do not sound as sexy as new missile systems, but we have to have the sailors to operate the equipment. things like barracks and single sailor housing. that can friction point where people are taking two to does going to have additional hours each way to get to work. we have to look at those. i think our community, with partnerships as well between federal, state and local. having the shipbuilder is something that drives the economy. i think we need to look at pairing across all levels of government to make sure we can invest. michelle: if i could add a point on talent management. i think all the services arena 20 century talent management approach and could certainly get even more out of the incredible talent. i will give you one example. the vast majority of officers who come out of the academy or rotc programs are stem graduates. those are the folks the scholarships go to, by and large . once you are in, you become an officer of the line, you will be placed wherever. few people use their engineering backgrounds. there is so much talent in the force that we are not actually leveraging because we have not created career paths that promotes, you cannot make general officer or flag officer as a technologist. it is very difficult. better investing in developing, managing, placing, allocating the talent we have is part of the solution as well as attracting additional quality talent from outside. rep. luria: building on top of that, i think in the process of design, procurement, acquisition, we have lost that expertise. the engineering level expertise within the military in uniform. breed engineers, ocean engineers, naval engineers, all of that capacity to provide that oversight so we do not -- i feel like there's not enough oversight in the services over those programs that leads us down some of the paths that are not successful. i think a combination of that with the needs of the services themselves to use that talent to a better effect is important. courtney: it is interesting to have that conversation when we are also hearing more about recruiting issues in the army. mac: recruiting and retention has been changing over time. covid accelerated some of those changes. one of the factors i think we are still playing catch up on is the family dynamics to retain you have to consider the whole family needs. i think we are still not doing that. rep. luria: carter made a priority when he was secretary of defense that did not catch on. michelle: this is a place where there been critics saying the department thinks too much about diversity and inclusion. diversity inclusion dramatically increases your recruitment for. why should we be increasing our recruitment on half of the population? we need to focus on all of the united states and get the best and brightest from every background. every race, creed, and color, to bring those people into serve our country. if you open that aperture you are dramatically improving your talent for and your chances of recruiting the best and brightest. it is not a side issue. it is core to dealing with the recruiting retention and performance issues the department struggles with. courtney: i want to take a few questions from the audience. yes? >> thank you. i work at the center for east asian studies at john hopkins science. thank you for the great conversation. i want to take it back to taiwan. there is an interesting poll that came out in march that found more believe japan would come to the defense of taiwan than the united states would come to the defense of taiwan. shockingly, still this poll was conducted only a few weeks after the president sent a bipartisan delegation to visit taiwan, which one of our distinguished panelists was a part of. i wanted to ask all of the panelists if the taiwanese believe japan is more likely to come to the defense of taiwan, should we assume that same thought is being held by dcp leadership, and does this failure represent an inability to communicate willingness or inability to demonstrate we have the capability to come to taiwan's defense. how do we rectify whether it is either or or a combination of both? thank you. rep. luria: strategic ambiguity does create ambiguity, as the title would suggest. however, there are challenges associated with abandoning that policy, perfectly in terms of creating a provocation that would get china to act sooner, but also diminishing the faith other allies and partners in the region can use to be helpful to taiwan without having to be forced to choose sides. that said, i think we could do a better job of clarifying our commitment and our resolve, both our willingness to defend taiwan under certain circumstances, meaning they are not declaring independence and creating the crisis themselves. we can stretch the boundaries of ambiguity by being clear in our work. most importantly, we can be clear in our actions in terms of the extent to which we are helping them with the self-defense, the extent to which we are enforcing international law in and around the straight, the extent to which we are investing in the right capabilities and showing up again and again diplomatically. i think the biggest problem we have with deterrence is china has created this narrative of u.s. inevitable decline and they have drug their own kool-aid -- they have druink their own kool-aid. we have to through our actions and words demonstrate that is a miscalculation. i think there is a cautionary tale. if putin does not succeed in ukraine there is a cautionary tale for president xi. putin underestimated ukrainians and nato and the u.s. xi needs to pause. he is a very serious risk of underestimating the u.s. and international community and how we would respond to unprovoked aggression against taiwan. mac: can i add a couple of things? number one, be careful what you say, and follow-up and do what you say. that adds credibility. we are still in a rebuilding credibility mode around the world right now. i'm not surprised by those numbers, partly because the shift that is happening with japan is a -- is pretty significant. i am still blown away by germany and the european changes and how encouraging that is. we should not take lightly the shift that is also occurring in japan. we have allies that are taking significant steps to step up and be a more significant contributor to pushing back against aggression. > thank you the foundation. great to see each of you again. roger asked some great questions of the secretary on how we can better deter aggression against our allies and partners. secretary fournay, you mentioned security assistance. it seems to me one of the key lessons from what we have seen in ukraine is that it is much easier to arm partners before the invasion that after, and about provoking authoritarian bowlers -- authoritarian in democracies before the invasion starts. -glad to see discussions on taiwan. i and mindful there is a $14 billion backlog in arms sales to taiwan. i am mindful the ethics team will not get there for a long time. the harpoon missiles that will make them the porcupine you think they should be may not arrive until after the window admiral davidson talked about. i am wondering and welcome comments from all of you. maybe there's legislation to focus on how we can deliver arms quicker after the announcement. things like are the countries at the top of the queue, what can we provide in terms of interim capabilities while they are waiting for that. what can we do in advance of delivery and training. there are prohibitions on training with taiwan that are self-imposed. what can we do to expedite full operational capability when they finally get those weapons. interested in thoughts on those comments. >> i am very interested in the training piece. there is talk about how the u.s. training the ukrainians made a big difference. >> the sms system is perennially slow. that is still true. i think that i would like to see more fast-track established, not just from when the crisis happens but building up deterrent capabilities of critical partners and allies. we went to accelerate the porcupine process. i would love to see that happen. maybe it has to be a presidential level designation, etc. i went through this in several cases in the obama administration where we had to bump people in the queue for strategic priorities. i think that is essential. there is an interagency task force specifically focused on the taiwan problem and accelerate these. some are affected by industrial base challenges. others are placed in the queue. there's an effort to try to do exactly what you are saying with regard to taiwan. the other thing holding us up with technology. i have long advocated an approach for rather than going through the concepts and at the very end asked the question, can we release this technology? where we are trying to build deterrent capabilities across a number of partners, why do we do that upfront? for the sake of building deterrents in europe we will release this technology to the following allies and partners. it is frontloaded as a strategic policy decision had not something that holds of the train at the very end case-by-case by case. there are reforms that that can improve the performance of the process. >> i would in addition to your question, the partner you addressed training ahead of time. in a broad sense training and operability and operational plans with taiwan is an area that requires focusing more attention. i think they can be injunction -- conjunction with new systems. the ball drops tomorrow, we have not trained with the taiwanese. it is not like other areas and conflicts we have been prepared for over time. we can drop in with nato allies, the japanese with south korea the common language, the ability to talk to each other. investment in time and focus on those issues. mac: i would add we still do not move at the speed the world moves when it comes to security assistance. back to the point michelle made, we have a crisis. we will do a task force for that crisis. what about the rest of the places we want to make for difficult for aggressors? it needs to be a broader change. secondly, we have amazing new tools now for training and simulation that are incredibly realistic and don't require having all the ships burning diesel or whatever. we need to take advantage of those. our partners around the world can benefit from the training and simulate an capabilities and elevate. >> we have time for one more. >> two fax have changed on the ground in washington. how does that change the way you think about how we will fund national defense? >> i guess i can jump in on that. earmarks have returned. there is a limited about the -- they cost any -- there are a limited amount. hasn't had any effect on the defense spending or how we go about that. >> on the budget control, thank god it is gone. now we can look at how dangerous the world is, what our needs are and have a budget that matches. we have the opportunity now. we had to use workarounds with funding. now you can be more transparent. i think probably that is a good thing. >> the real problem now is continuing resolutions forever, because innovation and new starts are key to getting us the capability we need for the future. we heard secretary hicks talked about the department able to send clear and consistent signals to the market, to industry on where to invest, put your r&d, all of that. continuing resolutions undermine that. he creates unpredictability. investors and companies likely can't put the extra money into something that might be true in five to 10 years because it is too much uncertainty. that is the next thing we have to go after. extremely difficult in the polarized political environment we are in but it has real implications. >> and the signals don't just go to the market. they go to couldn't -- putin and xi so it is a crucial thing for us to do. >> when you were chair, we passed it through committee unanimously, right? >> thank you to the reagan institute and a wonderful panelists. thank you to all of you. [applause] thank you to roger, too. 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