Transcripts For CSPAN Defense Under Secretary Discusses National Defense Strategy 20221113

Strategy here in washington, d. C. Vice president and director of foreignpolicy here at the Brookins Institution and on behalf of all of my colleagues and Foreign Policy especially in Public Center for security, strategy, and technology i am delighted to welcome you here today to this special National Defense strategy. We are honored to be joined by one of the Biden Administrations most senior officials under the cemetery of defense for policy. The document set forth in the production production of a stable and International System around the globe. Stable and International System around the globe. Consistent with the 2022 Security Strategy identifies the republic of china as the main competitor and pacing challenge and identifies russia as an acute threat. The mbs outlines how the United States will continue to address heightened risks posed by north korea, iran, violent extremists and challenges such as Climate Change. In effort to link strategy and resources it is noticeable for the First Time Ever the Department Released the mbs with the Nuclear Posture review and defense review. Secretary of defense lloyd austin integrated deterrence the mbs as effective coordination of all of the instruments of u. S. National power to address monumental challenges facing this country. We are grateful to have the opportunity to come together today to discuss how the newly released mbs positions the United States to meet the challenges of what the document describes as a divisive decisive decade. The review and the 2022 Missile Defense review. We begin our event today with dr. Colin kahl and conversation with clint senior fellow Michael Hamlin and melanie stefan. A discussion including both mike and melanie as well as senior fellow rubenstein fellow and amy nelson will follow. Im delighted to welcome colin back. We have fortunate been fortunate to engage with him over the years. Dr. Kahl was sworn in april 28, 2021. He is responsible for the formulation and coordination of National Security policy within the department of defense. Prior to rejoining government dr. Kahl was the codirector for interNational Security and cooperation the inaugural senior fellow institute for International Studies and a professor in the department of Political Science at stanford university. He previously served as Deputy Assistant to the president , national to the Vice President from 2014 to 2017 advising president obama and thenpresident then Vice President biden. Now as our session today gets underway a reminder that we are on the record and we are also streaming live. Those who are viewing virtually plays it send your questions to us by email to events at brookings. Edu or on twitter using the National Defense strategy. For those in the room we will reserve the last few moments of each panel for q a. Microphones will come around. Mike and melanie over to you for the conversation. Thank you everybody for being here especially dr. Kahl. Want to put in a word of gratitude for all you have been doing for the country and all i have learned from you over the years. I thought i would begin with a broad question which is for those who havent yet read it or for those who have but want to know whats more important to you, what would you say are two or three of the most important findings or arguments of this review which just came out last month . Thanks, suzanne, for the kind introduction and to look you online paired when you submit your questions just know all the microchips that the vaccines will also broadcast in the room in real time. [laughter] i think the central challenge or premise of the National Defense strategy is the need to sustain and strengthen deterrence at a time when the geopolitical landscape is changing. You have a more aggressive russia, you have persistent threats from korea, violent extremist groups, but you also have technological revolutions. And a set of boundaries, Climate Change, pandemics which are generating Real Security challenges. The National Defense you have to grapple with that landscape. Consistent with the national Security Strategy it is defined as our challenge. The term pacing challenge basically, its meant to reflect the reality that the prc is really the only country with the intention and the capability to completely reorder international politics. To challenge the United States, militarily but also technologically, economically, kind of diplomatically. So, its a challenge. We think about the activities of the department and the world we have to be prepared to interact in not just now but in the decades ahead, we need to paste to that challenge. It doesnt mean we are ignoring other challenges and the most acute challenge is obviously russia which is defined as an acute threat. That word acute is very intentional because it means both immediate and sharp. Russia something does not have the capability to make the International Order in the way that china does, it does have the capability to blow up the world, though. The Vladimir Putin has shown himself to be reckless and capable of profound miscalculations. He is directly threatening the Security Order in europe and beyond through his aggression towards ukraine. So the strategy takes the russian challenge very seriously as well. I would say there are a lot of Core Concepts which we can talk about. I think one i would highlight is the concept you have written about this as well, the integrated deterrence. Some ways its a way to remind ourselves the activities have to be integrated in various ways. Integrated across domains, not just air, sea, land cyberspace and space like as outerspace. The challenges we face especially with other major powers are global. China is first and foremost a challenge they have interests in africa and the middle east, latin america and increasingly in the arctic. Across the spectrum of conflict between of the competitors rivals and adversaries we have to contend with our on one hand challenging as every single day in the gray zone, capable of conventional conflict but also in the shadow of nuclear concept as well. The point, we need to make sure we are integrated across the tools of u. S. Government u. S. Military needs to remain the most potent military under the world and it will. We have other potent tools in our kit too. We are unmatched on political power. The other aspect we agree with our allies and partners. So the deterrence is important but the last point i will make and sorry for going on for so long, its to try and think of the way in which we deter and the varied locket logix. A lot of the scenarios we have to plan against, we have a potent regional actor that engages in a very short, sharp lens at an ally or partner to kind of create facts on the ground and it is to start world war iii and rolled them back. How do you design a strategy around our ability to deny that type of theory to deter it from happening . In other is resilience. The reason resilience is important our adversaries have gone to school on the way of war they understand the american [indiscernible] space and they have spent hundreds of billions of dollars to hold the networks at risk. These are the services to buy to defend every point of it so you have to make sure your networks are resilient so you can fight through the inevitable disruptions they have planned for you. The ability to credibly signal, two adversaries that threaten our homeland we have the ability to make you pay a cost. The ultimate backstop of that is ever Nuclear Arsenal but there are other capabilities potent conventional capabilities. So thats effective in the document. Some of you have had the chance to read it but those are some things i highly. Fantastic first answer paired you spent some time integrating deterrence so let me pick up on the way its starting to reach the political debate where some republicans are saying this is an excuse by the Biden Administration not to adequately fund defense because you are trying to rely on the armed forces to prevent a war. How do you respond to that critique . Are there any particular kinds of scenarios besides the gray zone, any particular scenarios on your mind when you are thinking about integrated deterrence . First of all i think its hard to say the Biden Administration is changing the military when we proposed a 700 dollar defense budget. 700 billion defense budget. Every day we dont fund the budget we are leaving our resolutions. When there is a debate on the hill about whether it needs to be north of 773 billion my guess is it probably will end up north of that but its hard to argue we are under investing. I would also say we are making Major Investments in those military aspects of integrative deterrence. Our arsenal which is the ultimate backstop, and guarantor of our security, the triad, fi 23 budget as part of modernizing the triad. 11 billion for cyber and a lot of that is on Cyber Defense but also building Cyber Capabilities because a mane of competition and potentially conflict. The gray zone is alive and well every single day. 28 billion for space, then there are other areas, 7 billion for longrange fires. A lot of these theories of resilience and denial, they are in our budget. One of the reasons we relieved earlier this year we are grateful to the present for allowing us to do that even though they got ahead of the National Securities tragedy we could link to congress our strategy and our budget. People can see our homework. We can debate about whether we have a calibrated exactly right and that is fair game but people should see we are trying to be thoughtful about investments we are making. The only thing, the comeback to this notion integrated deterrence and passing the buck is ample resources towards our military is its not an argument for our Energy Partners doing more so we can do less. Its an argument that we need to do more and others need to do more alongside us. I would hope that that would be relatively noncontroversial. Applying some of these ideas to specifics of china and specifically even further burrowing down to the taiwan question which i assume is one of your most important considerations and think about chinas essential military adversary. What kind of scenarios are on your mind most when you think about china and taiwan . Are you worried about and Amphibious Assault when china tries to seize the island and by the way if you are worried about that are we doing enough to buy things that others recommended sort of survivable sensors and weapons that could be based without having to depend on Aircraft Carriers . What i worry about more is the blackeyed blockade contingency. Could you explain in terms of the taiwan contingency what do you worry about honest and could you apply any of these concepts are investments to one of those scenarios or the other . I mean, first of all i think and part of the reason the prc is described as facing challenges because he perceived this as a chance we confront right now. Theres a chance it can grow over time. In the near term, despite the reaction that the prc had to Speaker Pelosi, a quite profound reaction i dont think the near term china is planning to invite taiwan. I think they want to apply force and pressure on taiwan, i think they want to establish a new normal around taiwan. I think they want to put pressure on the International Community to act to chinas policy tds confident they want to do all of those things. I dont think in the next, you know, does couple of years they are likely to invade taiwan. But you never know. In the next couple of years i think there could be an instance , one of the things we are watching closely is that the pla navy and the Pla Air Force have been, especially the air force, have been engaged in unsafe and unprofessional activities in the air. They come up and say hello what we have Surveillance Aircraft in the region. They did the same with the australians and the canadians and sometimes they do this in quite profoundly dangerous ways. There was an australian Reconnaissance Aircraft operating in International Airspace and a pla aircraft intercepted, flew right in front of the australian aircraft and released flares back into the engine of the australian aircraft. That could have been catastrophic. All of this is already in the public whether you heard of that report. China is increasingly doing that. When you confront them with what are you doing this over International Airspace . Well, youre too close to china. Its like but its International Airspace. There like youre too close to china. They said i think its an effort by the prc to establish a kind of influence. I think in the near term we have to be mindful that an incident could occur. I think in the. After that at least some of the ways in which the prc acted to Speaker Pelosi as it were meant to test drive various maritime missile activities that might be involved in a blockade of taiwan. They blanketed the island so perhaps thats a scenario. I dont think he has made a decision to forcefully take over, force reunification. He has given his military the charge to have that capability by the end of this decade and probably by 2027. Think a decision has been made to launch an invasion that the military has the capability to execute that, were he to make that decision. When you hear 20 27th thats important to keep in mind. Our policy has been consistent. We have a one china policy. We would opposed unilateral policy on the mainland or on taiwan consistent with the relations act. We will continue to provide taiwan those capabilities to defend itself and also maintain our capabilities to maintain peace across the state strait. It would have profound consequences for our National Interest and the world. The economic consequences alone would be cataclysmic. So we all have a vested interest. In term of our own investment china has been part of billions of dollars. The ability to use longrange fire missiles, cruise missiles, surface to land, antiship, but also drones, advanced fighter aircraft, to try to increasingly track and if necessary track u. S. Forces. We have to make investments in order to show we can fight inside and through antiaccess bubbles who ever the adversary in that context might be. We make a lot of investments. We have to make investments at sea this is one area where american advantage has the opportunity to persist for a longterm. It is a real advantage. We have to think differently about the capabilities of the marines and the army and the marines made themselves kind of coming out of iraq and afghanistan to refocus on the and does and pacific and the army is moving to the Multidomain Task force. We are not quite as focused on just a handful of places and overweighted in asia. Changing opinions in japan, changing opinions in australia, and relationships differently make sure that we have a more diverse posture and a set of relationships so that china understands where they to initiate a conflict, it would not impact the global economy. On the same china question i want to get your check on my who is ahead right now. If that is a meaningful question if we had dominance up to taiwan and beyond in the 50s and 60s and 70s and 80s, 90s. Is it realistic to get that close to that again or is this going to be a contested area . And related to that what do you sense about the Chinese Military on their own capability and how far theyve come . Do they really think they are not capable of defeating as or that they will be soon . Or maybe they think our political will, we would intervene. How do you assess the military balance today and lets a 2027 based on what you can see happening on both sides . How do you think the chinese ss that military balance . Thats a good question. The military leadership believes china has unquestionably engaged in a breathtaking modernization of their material. Where there military is now compared to the 90s, or even in the 2010s they made a lot of investments in longrange virus and investments aircraft. And they have built their entire military around being able to come after the United States. We have been their challenge for a long time. They have constructed their military around, where is the military balance . The United States remains the most potent military in the history of the world. I am confident we will sustain that edge. The gap is closed. Relative to the 90s, no one should doubt the United States is the most Capable Military in the world. I dont think china doubts that, actually. They are quite aware of our capabilities. So i think part of xi jinping giving has mark of 2027 they still have work to do. Our goal is to make sure that that timeline goes to the rate into to the right and to the right, or as long as possible. I think one other thing, we are all grappling with it, what happens with ukraine. I think one of the lessons for ukraine is you can look pretty darn good on paper what it doesnt mean youre going to fight very well. The reality is, the Russian Military on paper looked like the second best military in the world when they invaded ukraine. They dont look like the second best ella terry in the world in practice. They dont look like the second best military in the world in ukraine. I think china but a war in 1979. It went great for them back then. The type of conflicts they are contemplating, no one has really fought and if you are thinking about amphibious invading scenario, this is literary literally the hardest thing for any military to do. In terms of execution, so its one of the things where a football fan we all spent all this time on the preseason who traded who, who has the best team on paper and it never works out that way. It turns out you have to play games. The u. S. Military has been at war for a quarter century. And there is an intangible aspect to that. We have also military culture the world the role noncommissioned officers play. They sure sheer Human Capital how we structure, how we train and it turns out these things matter. A lot. My suspicion, i dont know, my suspicion is xi jinping thinks his military still is a lot of work to do. Thank you for the responses so far. The Biden Administration and the pentagon, under secretary maddox there are a lot of parasols and maybe one important parallel and one important difference if you like. The second question is the issue of how many conflicts to we need to be ready for at once . Uni have been around for the debates over the decades and after the cold war ended to military regional contingencies desert storm was a sort of the idealized model but obviously thats not what we are talking about today. We realize we probably shouldnt be fighting both russia and china at the same time but we also cant rule out the possibility of aggression by whichever one we are not facing. Not to mention iranians or terrorists. How do you think about the question of how Many Missions do we have to do once and do you step it up, how else do we deter if one we are engaged in a major operation . 2022 and 2018. I think a lot of times there can be a lot of pressure to drive a big difference between administrations from different parties. A lot of differences between our administration and the previous one as it relates to the National Defense strategy the next natural iteration from the 2018 document, i think the folks who were involved deserve a lot of credit for the kind of fundamental shift. It represented a change, it was the move into the post, post 9 11 era where essentially terrorism was our pacing challenge for 20 years and it let us to make massive investments in rock and afghanistan. Military enterprise and counterinsurgency the 2018 document i think recognized that terror mitt terrorism remained. It probably would challenge relative to the reemergence of great power of competition and highlighting russia and china so a lot of credit to the team for doing that and there is a through line between 2018 and 2022. I went to a public place even in recognition i think the 2022 document, it just tried to differentiate between china and russian challenges more we have already talked about pacing those are emblematic of the different types of challenges and the time frames around those challenges. Thats also just as it relates to certain capabilities. We are very selfconsciously pacing to certain areas so as we make investments in space, maritime, longrange fire, aviation, we really are pacing to the china modernization challenge. A lot of those events would also pay dividends for russia or north korea or iran or others. In other places were russia can lead in the near term is driving some of our investments. See capability, nuclear, even though made beijing is in the midst of this. In the world the lower threshold for using the arsenal in the world also in the land domain so there are ways in which we have tried to do it. More differentiation between russia and china. The other two places i draw a distinction the 2018 document is actually very front and center in the 2022 document because i think we have even more clarity than we did in 2018 that our adversary theory is to factor our nectar network. So making our networks and demands resilient against what we know they are going to try to do to us is how do we central that there he of deterrence. Resilience also matters in the face of other challenges. And time change is a massive challenge too to resilience. You look at the number of american bases affected by extreme weather events, flooding, changes in the arctic which accelerated geopolitical competition for putting pressure on infrastructure. You think about how Climate Change is going to challenge the resilience of whatever posture we built and you think about the demand on our own forces. Some of you have heard this before, i know my military hears me say this every day five years ago the National Guard of the United States spent 5000 days filed wildfires. 5000 person days. So the demand on our military to respond to climateinduced emergencies a home and abroad is only going up. I think this is obviously, the Trump Administration was not comfortable talking about Climate Change. Were very good about putting out strategies that emphasized the changing environment. If youre a careful not to discredit humaninduced Climate Change so i think thats another difference is the end of the document. You say opportunistic aggression, something we think about a lot. I believe we think the strategy is at the same time if we were to be engaged in any major contingency it would obviously consume a lot of our resources but we think we would have substantial residual combat credible forces. Where opportunistic aggression might occur we also feel like we have certain global strategic capabilities. Also certain cyber, space, and informational capabilities. They could be brought to bear. The other advantage of the United States is the rightful network of allies and partners. One of the reasons the document puts emphasis on getting our allies and partners more capable, or integrated is also a hedge against precisely to war scenario. Excellent. Thank you very much, dr. Kahl for being here and taking the opportunity to take a come through of these important foundational documents. I want to return as to a couple of key concepts that you have already touched on in the mbs in particular im going to talk about integrated deterrence. This is of course not the United Statestime to do less. Its looking to do more one of the ways in which it seems to me that integrated deterrence will require more of us is because of the coordinated action across the regency in particular. Im curious what the processes, the structure that is needed for that kind of coordination. Its a good question. I can tell you how weve been dealing with it inside the department first. I give secretary austen credit and this goes back to the crisis surrounding theneo from afghanistan. The secretary meets with the Senior Leadership in the building so the joint chiefs invites the deputy secretary, me, and a handful of others and it has every relevant combatant command on the screen during the afghanistan evacuation it was twice a day. In the lead up to the russian invasion we were meeting two or three times a week. We continue to pay on the Russia Ukraine meeting a couple of times a week on that issue. In recognition, not to micromanage things but the information flow needed to be flattened because decisions have to be made very rapidly and elevated very rapidly and leveraging essentially the ability to have videoconferencing. To be able to connect in realtime across the entire span of the globe, leveraging the fact that we have whether its the Russia Ukraine context there are real daytoday actions that is working on the security by Strategic Command that is in charge of our nuclear deterrence. Cyber command, helping defend our networks and go on offense. Russian disinformation and other things, our special operation commands and commanders in other parts of the world. So we have been trained to Leverage Technology to try to flatten the Defense Department and using this as a venue. Enter agency applies, the process that we have would be recognizable probably people who serve at various points of the Trump Administration or the Obama Administration or bush or clinton administrations, im not sure that we have evolved our processes very much. Maybe we should. I leave that to smart folks to help us think through. Im actually quite proud of how integrated we have been in the context of the Russia Ukraine. I think actually, we are up to the oneyear anniversary of the crisis starting. It was at the end of october, early november that we started to firm up the intelligence picture that russia was going to do this. We made the risky but right decision to downgrade a lot of intelligence to share with not only our allies but to share with the world and to use it to shape the information to try to get out ahead of what a lot of your boot was doing. The goal was twofold. One is to make sure our allies and partners were on our side so we could respond rapidly diplomatically, economically, and militarily. And to back push putin a little bit as he tried to do this. I think we were successful on the first parts. I think we were also successful on putting putin on his back with the National Community to execute the type of pressure. I think in some ways he continues to miscalculate. I actually think we did have a hold of government response that will be the type of response that we will have to do. Thanks for that and i want to ask another conceptual question. Im interested in learning about the camps upped concept of campaigning. Can you elaborate a bit on what it is and how we will do it while i recognize campaigning when i see it . Its going doortodoor and knocking on doors. In paintingin campaigning in part is a part of defense. Concern may not be the right word but when you put concept like integrated deterrence on the table there is a tendency to think about it in terms of building and investing in capabilities and the capabilities of for themselves. You build things, you set them on the shelf, the adversaries see the scary things and say i dont want to do that. Thats not actually how it works. There has to be a daily effort to shape the perception or adversaries will wake up doubtful they so to do that you have to be active. What it really involves is a reminder that as we are developing capabilities what do we choose to refill and how do we choose to reveal them to shape the perception of our adversaries . They could be a test, experiment we just had this exercise that is still ongoing on the Korean Peninsula that involves Something Like 240 u. S. And south korean aircrafts to demonstrate how interoperable the United States is with south korea. We had multicarrier exercises where we have done two u. S. Carriers alongside a british Aircraft Carrier and the japanese equivalent of an Aircraft Carrier. Off the coast of the philippines showing how interoperable we would be in a scenario in the western pacific. Its not just doing the exercises but how they are messaged. The information kind of wrapping around it and what you are messaging and in the over and not so overt way. Its things like that. If the other part of campaigning i would say is targeting domains like cyberspace. The daytoday contact with competitors and adversaries. Its one thing to build cyber tools and they just that there. Its another thing to actually develop tools and to constantly be in contact with the adversaries. You do something, they react. You explore that opportunity, you exploit that access and is just a different mentality of action. So we see it as the way in which you do deterrence on a daytoday basis but also the way in which daytoday disruption of activities that could threaten our interests. Campaigning is really meant to capture that. That is exactly what i wanted to ask next which is how do you think about the relationship between campaigning and the grace and . There is language about campaigning coming in response to acute forms of coercion carried out by a competitor. His korea a current example of that kind of acute form of coercion and campaigning in the grace and . Is that a reasonable way for me to put those things together . I think theres a couple of things, one of the things weve seen a lot in the last year or so is the role of intelligence and information and the shining a light on activities in a way that makes those activities less effective. I will give a couple of examples. In the lead up to the russian invasion, further invasion of ukraine we outted a lot of the information that russia was planning. In some instances they still did it but the effect was already outed and therefore their effort to generate an incident and use the incident to justify something was complicated by the fact that we got out ahead of it in the intelligence information space. That is campaigning in the gray zone. I think you are probably seeing more recently news stories about when a country like iran is planning to attack saudi arabia because they believe saudi this inside of iran. That information getting out has a possibility of convincing the average person they can get away with it. One of the things we emphasized is the role of domain awareness and pushing back against gray zone activity. If Companies Like the prc are going to use fishermen and maritime militia, you know, making it clear that these are not independent fishermen doing things. They are not independent vessels. They are tieback to a conscious strategy and making sure that our partners understand that and that the world understands that. A lot of it is kind of that interception of intelligence and information. The other is through the activities to demonstrate your capability to deny the ultimate objective or grace on activity. Such a protect yourself and defend yourself and demonstrate capabilities in a way to cast doubt in the eyes of the adversary that the grace on tactics wont work. I dont know, its not going to solve every problem but a lot of the grayson is making it harder for them to get away with it. Im going to ask one last question. Relatively brief in and we will turn to some audience questions. For those of you in the room start thinking now if you have not written down your questions you would like to ask dr. Kahl. It was very specific where the department will focus on deterring attacks and it is decidedly nonspecific in the similar section about the p. R. C. Why the difference . I mean, first of all i think the p. R. C. Challenge is more global than the russian challenge. I think russias capability to engage is focused on the eastern flank of nato. That said, im not sure i would read too much into it. When outlining the four priorities, one is deterring russia. Deterring conflict with china, chinese aggression in the indo pacific being our number one priority. And i think the most realistic scenarios for largescale p. R. C. Aggression are in the western pacific. It could be something across the taiwan straight. It could be something in the East China Sea so i think there is still a sense that at least the regional conflict scenarios that are most likely to turn into a major contingency are either in europe when you come to russia or when youre talking about china. Thank you for entertaining the questions that mike and i brought we would like to turn to the audience. I would like to say if the audience doesnt have enough questions im sure mike and i can find a few more as well so people start here. I will start with amy appeared at the front. Thank you so much for your comments today, sharing your thoughts. A lot of language in the mbs about preventing escalation or deterring escalation from a conventional conflict to a nuclear one, the language is almost to the fact that we dont have an answer. Is there an answer out there similar to melanies question . Will we know it when we see it . How was the Department Going to go about managing this problem . Thanks. My Political Science, deterrence is one of the questions that interNational Security stuff has gotten special with 5060 years 50, 60 years. Under what circumstances certain things dont happen as opposed to what did happen. Is not like anybody has cracked the code on this. I think obviously we want to deter conflict from happening, period. And you want to keep conflict at its lowest possible level of violence, if possible, especially if you are dealing with a Major Nuclear power. In direct conflict to a direct conflict 28 Nuclear Conflict it takes on an exit stencil consequence. I think theres going to be some learning. I think we should have some confidence that our deterrence can operate. I will give you any example, we are not threats to ukraine. Russian as we are helping ukraine a lot. They also know that President Biden is a hundred percent serious about defending every inch of nato. They know the other capabilities we can bring to make that commitment real. Despite all thats going on in ukraine, deterrence as it relates to coming after nader nato it is possible. I think we were talking about scenarios with the p. R. C. Earlier i think deterrence is also operating there. Strength in that deterrence over time. I think we wont have to think more creatively about how that works especially when you are dealing with major conventional Nuclear Power and its going to get even more complicated because by the end of this decade for the first time in u. S. History we will be dealing with not one but two your Nuclear Countries as china triples its Nuclear Arsenal. We will have to continue to work through this problem. Remembering lessons we learned from the cold war, part of this is we are out of practice. This is something we dealt with a lot in the 50s, 60s, and 70s. There is a lot of that Christopher Columbus issue which appears new to you but it doesnt mean its actually new. It exists already and we need to relearn those lessons but we need to identify those areas where things are different. They could be youre not dealing with not just one but two. If thinking about the domain implications because i think one of the things that differentiates the stability equations from the cold war is the prospect of stumbling into a nuclear war through another domain. From cyberattack to a massive attack in space, potentially under the sea. There are scenarios where the comingling of conventional and Nuclear Capabilities or command and control are other things and the main implications of that could lead one party to stumble across the threshold they didnt even know was there. So i think we are trying to be very intentional about thinking through those scenarios in part to understand how the adversary may do things to us but also where we need to be mindful as we would conduct activities we want to make sure we are only sending the signals we intend to send. Lets do the gentleman in the middle section here. The question here and your answer set up my question, i was thinking about as we move, the Nuclear Standoff has been a twoparty game and now its moving to three, maybe four party game. Does that change, it involves the preprogrammed responses to the opponent. If you do this ill do that. So is there a need to think, gee, do we have to communicate and ancillary response of the two main combatants blowing each other up . Are you thinking about stuff like that, it sounds like you are. Its a really important question and we are thinking about it deeply. I would say im pretty sure what the answer is not, what the answer is where im pretty sure the answer is not is one adversary has a thousand and the other adversary has 1500 that means you need 2501. Its not a game were like the person with the most toys wins. Thats not how this is going to be determined. The reason i say that is because i worry a little bit that emerging future of two nuclear peers that there will be a lot of places that basically say well, if russia has this, and rest china has this than we need this and this plus one. Is going to happen. I dont think thats intellectually the right answer. I think with the right answer is , if you have to have enough capacity that israel reliable, so that if you had a contingen cy with one country you have enough residual capacity to determine the scenario that could escalate. So there is very much the residual capacity but also i what other capacities are. But then also to make sure they understand that if they try to take advantage of something that was going on over here to raise things to a Nuclear Level that you can still do damage. Im quite confident that if we were in a major contingency with any country in the world we would have the residual capacity to defend the survival of the United States through a mix of all of our needs. We have to be bit vigilant but im very confident in our ability to do that now and will continue to reassess that. Will go right here in the middle. First of all, thank you for getting back today my name is jay park. Actually, im with the corporation u. S. Ally. The situation with north korea and south korea there is tensions going on and also do you think military information between korea and japan should be mobilized because south korea and japan relationship wasnt as good before i heard there are to get information when they launched ibm missiles recently. You are right, our allies front and center and obviously our treaty allies like japan, you know, are central to our strategy in helping in the indo pacific alongside other countries like australia and others. I think one of the things we need to do is get back into a rhythm of making sure that our forces are ready and interoperable. After a series of exchanges between President Trump and kim jongun i understand why that happened. I think we need to get back to a normal of exercising not only to demonstrate our readiness which is important that also deterrence but just to make sure that we are ready for any contingency. The earlier vigilant storm is an example of that. We should be doing things that are gratuitous, the goal is to make sure in no certain terms that they understand our military is extraordinarily capable of operating. So we will continue to do that. What the value of the operation is, obviously there is a long history between south korea and japan. Im sure you have forgotten more about it than i will ever know it does create political challenges. I think there is considerable scope for him to roll. You have seen instances in which the three countries have done things together and instances where the United States has been courtly highly coordinated. I suspect we are going to see more of that in the future. I really do think that for all of the meaningful historical political differences between korea and japan the threat picture as it relates to the prk is very similar. I think there is a considerable scope to lean into that. We have time for one more question. If we have a question from the young lady in the back there. Hi i am a grad student at the university of maryland. Do you believe the Baltimore Initiative is a direct threat to the u. S. , especially with projects in latin and south america . How can the u. S. Counter this initiative . First of all, as a direct threat . I think it is an indirect threat. Im not trying to be a wise guy. I think the mere existence of Chinese Investment in infrastructure is not inherently threatening countries all over the world. I think the thing that differentiates probably lots of things that differentiate but among them is, i think china has a very curt strategy to leverage its own initiative for multiple purposes. Some of them are military. So a port that could be useful for, centroid commerce and trade could also be used for vehicles. We believe that china has, they have a base and have an interest in building mark infrastructure in africa. When they invest in Telecommunications Infrastructure for example what kind of access does that give them to Sensitive Data and the ability to penetrate some of the networks in the countries they are operating in . They can challenge security and are a direct challenge to us. They do certain things i think under the scientific and technology manhole. It includes Building Infrastructure that supports their Situational Awareness and activities in space. Building a telescope, or Communications Layer or Something Like that. We are obviously not the infrastructure we are not in charge of pushing back every Road Initiative elsewhere we are very mindful in the strategy to be aware of the places where china is trying to make significant and roads in the demand and would have to reduce military application making sure our allies and partners, the countries involved actually understand the full implications of what they are getting into. This is another for example pushing back and sharing information and intelligence. Really communicating with some of the security applications are plays a role. I give the Trump Administration credit in a lot of ways. They did this with various allies and partners. We will continue to do that. The last point i will make and it really goes back to the very beginning. One of the things that makes china the challenge is that they have ambition. And i do not think we should understate the fact that china wants to dominate the commanding heights of the technologies that will govern the rest of the century. They also want to dominate the underlying infrastructure of those technologies, the underlying supply chains associated with those technologies, and the underlying standards and rules that go along with those technologies. And they want to do it to make the world safe to make the world conducive with the prcs interest and the ideological preferences of the ccp. And so i think one of the ways in which the china decision is different they will our security and way of life in ways that are sometimes our circuitous and we have to be vigilant about that. On behalf of the brookings audience and institution, mike and myself thank you for joining us today to talk through the National Defense strategy as well as a number of other questions the audience raised today. We thank you for the work you do and wish you well. [applause] as he departs, we will take a moment for a transition into the next section where we will listen to expertise. We will see you in a few moments. Thank you very much. Next to be you in person. [speaking in spanish] is your unfiltered view of government. Funded by these companies and more, including charter communications. Chapter has invested billions to build an infrastructure, upgrading technology and empowering opportunity in communities big and small. Charter communications supports. [speakinin spanish] as a public cspan as a public service. Giving awe frontrow st to democracy. Tonight on q a, former boston globe reporter and biographer john ferrell, author of ted kennedy, a life, looks at the life and political career of the late senator from massachusetts. He talks about the tragedy that surrounded ted kennedys life, including the 159 car accident at chappaquiddick. A dozen and amount aide found him the following morning, he was having breakfast on the regota and he said had you reported it . He said no, were going with the story that mary joe was driving the car. They said you cant do that, you cant do that. Still they did not go to the police. They went to a phone so that he could call and talk to other advisors and it was while they were doing that they saw the am balance hearst go on the terry to chappaquiddick and they realized they had about 15 minutes to get to the police and make some kind of report which in its own way was candid. He said i was the driver of that car. John farrell and his book ted kennedy tonight at 8 00 eastern on cspans x and a. You can listen now on our free c span app. Tomorrow morning on washington journal, n news senior congressional reporter scott long and eric lawson discuss the battle of power in congress and itself impact on both the lame duck session and the new term in january. Later, Scott Kennedy talks about President Bidens facetoface meeting on monday with chinese president xi jinping and. State of u. S. China relations. Join with your Facebook Comments d tweets. Live at 7 00 a. M. Eastern on washington journal. Congress returns for legislative work r the First Time Since the midterm elections on monday. Lawmakers will continue talks on the house and senator floors to continue funding the government. The senate will continue debate on 2023 defense programs and pocy legislation and vote on more of President Bidens judicial nominations. Watch the live coverage of t house on cspan. You can alsoatch on our free video app, csan fncisco now or online at cspan. Org. Now, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich talkings about Richard Nixons legacy at the grand strategy such hosted by the Richard Nixon foundation in washington, d. C. Topics include nixons Foreign Policy strategy and the advice mr. Gingrich was given by the former president on how to gain a republican majority in the u. S. House of representatives. [applause] i am often asked, d im often asked, what would president nixon do about this issue or that problem, who better to attempt to answer tha the Newt Gingrich who served as