Says he has not received instructions on from the National Press club, this is an hour. Good afternoon and welcome to the National Press club, the place with dues happens. Im aaron bell kind, the 2014 National Press Club President and the chief for the Associated Press in indian, england and japan. And now the chief journalism and and public affairs. Before we get started i wanted to remind our inhouse audience to please silence your phones if you havent already done so. And for our viewing and listening audience please feel free to follow the program on twitt twitter at nbc live. Before i introduce the head table, i wanted to recognize two very special tables on my right, and your left in the audience, which are comprised of members of National Press Club American leaders post 20. Which was founded on november 11, 1919, one year of the sooning of sam cities that ended the first world war. Led by post20 commander and f gc member, please stand and be acknowledged. Now, id like to introduce our head table, please stand when i call your name. And to the audience, please hold your applause until all the head table members are introduced. On your right, kevin win stand, retired u. S. Navy campaiptain a member of the mpc Headliners Team that planned these events. Brendan mccarry, managing editor of military. Com. Lisa matthews, Vice President at hager sharp and cochair of the mpc Headliners Team. Helen mitchell, defense reporter for the hill. Scott mass own, defense reporter for federal news radio. Jazmin, reporter for National Offense magazine. Josh roggin, columnist for the Global Defense of the the washington post. Speaking from our defendant from the home, aaron nelson, a senior producer specialist for the press and the mpc Headliners Team members who coordinated todays lunch. Thank you eric. Jim michaels, military for usa today and former marine officer. Amanda monosay yas. David mcgungter, defense editor. And alfredo diaz, retired army master sergeant, head of vietnam, iraq, panama and the device manager. Id also like to acknowledge briefly Additional Press club members responsible for organizing todays event. Thats official london, john don lly, and russo, staff lauren cocoa and lindsay underwood. With just the the army is the oldest and largest of Americas Armed services. Its fiscal 2018 budge request is about 166 billion, including proposed war spending in the context of a roughly 639 billion total pentagon budget request. The army faces a host of challenges today, and President Trump added a new challenge yesterday with his tweets barring transgender people serving in the military. And in case you are not aware, we have some breaking news update on that story, which is the news that a little while ago as we were preparing for this lunch, marine general joseph did you know ford, the charity of the staff spoke at the club a few weeks ago, sent a note, wrote a message of the chiefs of services and senior enlisted leaders that the military will continue to quote, treat all of our personnel will respect, end quote. And in two key paragraphs read out, quote, i know there are questions about yesterdays announcement on the trad policy by the president. There will be no modifications to the current policy until the president s direction has been received by the secretary of defense. And the secretary has issued implementation guidance. In the meantime, we will continue to treat all of our personnel with respect, as in partly different the current fight and the challenges we face, we will all remain focus in accomplishing our assigned missions. General joseph did you know ford, chairperson of the joint chiefs of staff. The ranks enlarge of 911 and shrink after the iraq and afghanistan and now they have begun to inch back up. The army wants to be sure that the units are larger and they are properly trained and equipped. The army and other services have said their readiness and preparedness tonight is not up to standard. To improve the situation, the army wants more money, but everyone agrees it needs to be wellspent. The army has had trouble in particular executing large weapons acquisitions and billions were spend on the crew saider, command chief and future combat system programs for example, which much less to show for it had originally been planned. The army is battled hardened today but has waved one particular type of war, counter insurgency. Tomorrows night might be different in character. To stay ahead of the curve, the army is focused and keeping pace with rapid technological change. General mark billy is keenly aware of all these challenges and is in the midst of addressing them. General milly became the 39th chief of staff in august of 2015, before that he led Army Forces Command in fort brag in north carolina, has held multiple staff and command positions and eight divisions and in Army Special Forces units throughout the last 35 years. He has deployed to multiple theaters of conflict. He graduated and received his commission through the rotc program through bridgeston university. He holds masters degrees from Colombia University and International Relation and war klums and national security. Hes the recipient of military awards including the braun star. There are two numerous to mention. Just look at his chest. General milly is a native of winchester, massachusetts, he and his wife had been married for 30 years and have two children. Ladies and gentlemen please join me in a major big welcome from the National Press club to army chief of staff, general mark milly. Thank you. I love coming to the National Press club and getting headline news. Thats great, i really appreciate you doing that. And so, thanks. Thanks for the opportunity to be here. And i dont know how many of you know it but myra is also a veteran himself. Served in vietnam as a young man, he was on general west more lands staff in the early years of vote yam, 64, 65 year frame. So thank you also. And i thank all of you for being here. Im here to talk about the new England Patriots and how they can bat 283. Just kidding. No, i realize everyone hear is keenly interested in that which goes on around us and im a shoulder, a public figure, a chief of staff with the army as you heard mauro say, a significant budge, a lot of soldier, young men and women of our nation and i feel an obligation to explain what we do, why we do it. And answer questions for the American People and the American People oftentimes get their news, get their view of us, the army or the military through the media, not exclusively but its one of mechanisms and i have the obligation of chief of staff of army to do that. What i want to talk today about there are four topics, i think i got about 20 minutes or so and we want to open the rest of it up to q a. I wont be able to talk in depth of these subject but ill be able to throw them out and if you have any questions. But i want to give you my view on what the United States army is being canalesed with around the globe today. Second, i want to tell you a little about your army and the second of readiness and what we prepare for. Thirdly i want to talk about the future and lastly i want to throw out a myth of the obligation that i think are wort while of discussing. But i do want to mention up front, the transgender news that came out the other day. I want to reiterate what was sa said. And i foe know theres a lot of questions out there. The military is a military that operates today to date of walking in here i have yet to receive implementation guidance and directives. We grow up and learn to obey the chain of command and mine is the secretary of army and the secretary of defense right, and the president. So we will work through the implementation guidance when we get it and then well move from there. And to my knowledge of the department of defense secretary mattis havent received direct orders yet. I know there was a opportunity over of what was said. Well act when we receive directives through the proper command of chain and well evaluate what we have and move up from there. In the meantime, hes exactly right. The entire chain of command will, always has, will today, will tomorrow and always should treat every single soldier, airman, marine, with the dignity and respect of our operations bar none. Thats where we stand of today. Ill be happen to fill whatever questions that are on peoples mind. I want to talk about this strategic environment briefly. As of right now, we define some of the challenges globally. We use a knew monoic four plus one, theres a lot of ways to describe security challenges, you can talk about them functionally such as merry time challenges or cyber challenges. Within the department of defense, at this time, broadly speaking were defining them. Its not the only way to do it and we recognize that. And then one broader challenge which are terrorists and ill walk you through each one of those. We do recognize theres other ways to define secure challenges. But beau security challenges of today that we design the apply to the force, the man training equipment force and joint force. I say this with caveat because secretary mattis is leading us through a detailed global review. And i would expect that well probably complete that perhaps sometimes maybe in the fall. And then that may or may not change how we view the strategic challenge. But at this point and time, the way i look at them is through the lens of four nation states and one group of fawn state actors. In the nation states, china, north korea and koran. And other states i would call violate terrorist organizations and extremist organizations. But you foe three, taliban, isis, al qaeda, other groups that seek to do damage to u. S. Interest. Let me start with what is clearly the most cabpable of thm which is russia. The way i look at challenges or threats is capability and will, and theres a lot of subsets and categories. Thats a pretty conventional look, a normal standard look of people in the military of any country, is capability and will. With russia it is clear that russians, military capability is significant and in fact its the only country on eartha represents a threat because they have the capabilities of weapons, and we do too by the way, that can destruct america. Other countries have Nuclear Capabilities as well but only russia has the capability to destroy the United States. In addition to that, their traditional capability has been modernized in the last five or ten years or so, maybe 15. Then you get into will. Thats a much more subjective capability piece. You can do the math, add it up figure oit out. When you get into will and intent thats quite subjective. There youre dealing with a higher order of justice. All we know for certain from behavior russia has acted aggressively to its boundaries, in places like crimea, georgia and elsewhere. We also know that they operate and try to undermined things like elections in European Countries and other countries. We know that theres a variety of cyber activity that goes on. A variety of other sorts of nonmilitary direct actions pressures that are done. Then you ask yourself why are they behaving like that and youll get owl kinds of debates on all kinds of arguments, then you got to figure out how to handle it. But id argue, this is me now, id argue that the runner leadership is truly active. It is my belief that russian aggressive can be deterred through use of tools. There are russia states, United States needs to carefully and cautiously deliver and work to its common objectives and prevent undermining of our interest. Thatll involve assuring our allies and partners. But i believe with proper methods and leadership et cetera, that could be managed. China is a different situation. China is a significant rising power, and id argue that in chinas case youre looking at a country that reforms of 1979 and over the last 39 or 40 years, china has advanced to really significantly in terms of economic development, it was taken off 10 gdp growth a year, theyve slowed down over the last seven years. This is open to argument i suppose, but probably one of the most significant, if not the most significant economic shift in Global Economic power in the last five centuries. Since the west and the industrial revolution. The China Economic growth over the last 40 years is really really significant. What does that mean . When economic power shifts so significantly, military power typically follows and i believe were seeing that today. Were seeing a significant increase in the capabilities and capacity and size and strength of Chinese Military capability. Then you get back to will and intent. Whats theyre will and intend. Whats they trying to do. They have been very trans parntd about that. Theyre intent is to restore their historical 5,000 year role to essentially be the most significant power in age and they want to be coequal with the United States and achieve that by midcentury. Theyre very trarnz parent, they put out articles and books about it. Theyd like to do that as peaceful as they can, called a winwin strategy. If they cant do it peacefully theyre building that military. So stand by. China is not enemy, neither is russia. Enemy has a specific definition and that is a group of people or nation states that are currently engage requested are in conflict with. Sometimes words like that are used wrong. Competition is one thing, even if its add verily, even if theres some things below the level of conflict that happen that are not necessarily savory but theres a big difference between open conflict if the activities blow open conflict. Competition without conflict is probably a desirable goal, especially with the two countries given the size, capacity and capability of those subjects. Thats kind of where were at. China is also one of the most rational activists in the system. I believe to shift engagement and to deter insurance measureses that we can work our way into the future without significant conflict. But these are Unanswered Questions and we dont know until we get there. Whether you get to iran you have a different situation, iran desire for Nuclear Weapon have been sort of put on pause we hope for good, but were watch that closed closely. But even if it is we can say with certainty that iran tries to undermined u. S. Security interest in the middle east. They do that through means and terrorist groups. We are always an aposter realtive to iran. The fourth country i think it is one thats in the news a lot and rightly so which i think is the single most country thats facing the United States today, and that is the threat of north korea. I dont want to go into a tremendous am of detail on it, most of it is clarifiy classify classified but it is clear based on the july 4th weekend. More to follow but the time has shortened significantly and north korea is a significant threat. United states policy for many many decades now has been the the objective has been that north korea will not possess Nuclear Weapons and they wont possess Nuclear Weapons that will strike the United States. Were trying a wide variety of methods in the diplomatic and economic atmosphere. We in the military fully support those and want those to succeed. There is still time left, the pressure campaign, you can read about it in the media. We are fully in support of the secretary of state and department of state in their efforts to bring this to a future resolution. However, time is running out a bit. So, north koreas is extremely dangerous, gets more dangerous as the weeks go by so well see on that one. Last one is the violent extremist for terrorist organizations. I think frankly you got a situation in iraq, syria, yemen and libya, west africa and each one of those has different factors and analysis sis and every one of them is fled in different ways so you cant group all these in one. Id suggest we are in a long struggle against violent extremist who have a different view of the world than we do and they want to kill americans and kill local friends and partners not only in the middle east but elsewhere. We in the military are willing to help in that effort. Our revolution to that is to work with our friends and strength their capabilities. And try to where local Police Forces can manage those at a local level. You see whats playing out against isis which i think has been quite successful today. It will dispurse into some other form but its current form with its very very traditional structures of that is likely to be destroyed. But they will disperse, all of these organizations can morph into different forms and they are all dependant on a radical ideology which ultimately will have to be destroyed, mostly by the people of the region. So, thats sort of the world in a nutshell as fast as i can do it. And i know theres a lot of Unanswered Questions in there. Let me shift gears real quick. You heard mauro talk about the army, we dont have a small army. But the question on size and forces, army, navy, affairs marines, its relative question not a revolutionary question. The question is what do you want it to do. The United States military is a Global Military and we have been for sure since the first world war, and with absolute certainty since the break enwood agreements which is world war ii, which is established the order of the regime but which the world is run today. Certain decades the world has rule sets like organizing free trade, international commerce, things like democracy, quote unquote libertying order. Then you got institutions that rest upon organizations and nations and all these thing that were developed many years ago. And that is essentially what people very quickly refer to as the world order. One of the significant roles of the United States military for seven decades has been to enforce that world order, to maintain it, to maintain its stability. And thats in our interest because in the first half of last century there was a blood letting, unlike any that have ever occurred in the history of mankind. So in 1914 and in 1945, 100 Million People were slaughtered in the conduct of war, and thats a horrible horrible nightmare. My mother and father both served in that war, my mother in the navy and my father in the marines. 22,000 japanese killed on an island that was two miles by former. There were millions of chinese killed and battle and murdered. If you want a real trail of tears go to Eastern Europe and see what happened in bella reduce and ukraine. Its horrific. Nine out of ten jews that lived in poland wouldnt alive. Most of lived in the ukraine were dead by 1945. Its a horrific picture that occurred. And those people who were in leadership positions in 1945 said never again. They said the same thing in 1815 after the napoleonic war and they set up in europe. They kept the long piece in europe, more or less, there were flare ups, the crimea war and a few other wars. It wasnt a continental wide war until 1914. We tried again in 1945 to set up a system to try to promote global piece. That system is under stress, intense stress today. That system is under stress from revolutionary to terrorist and gorillas, its under stress from nation states that dont like the rules of rode. That system is under very intense stress and were at 70 years now and that system has prevented great power of war, similar to what occurred in the first half of the last century. So the question is how big an army and navy do you want . Well, how much do you want that system . How much do you value that system . Is this system worth preserving owner. Therein, you get to the size and scope of your Army Air Forces navy and marines. And right or wrongly, fairly or unfairly, the roles of the archer of that system has to fall through the United States. There are other countries, 60 or 70 or so that have themselves military is too low. In the United States, its been the leader with that system. So the status of the army is part of the military force that works to help maintain the stability of the world, were Global Military and army and we got today about 180,000 soldier in the active army, National Duty in about 100 countries around the world. Not all of them are in combat, most of the ones that are are afghanistan, iraq, syria and elsewhere. Around the entire globe, 180,000. Thats not a large number. The active army is less than 500,000 right now. Based on the tasks that are required i believe we need a larger army. I know others and my teammates on the joint staff also think the same of the navy, air force and marines, because of the tasks that are required. We need to be bigger and stronger and more capable, which brings me to the feature. So very briefly, first of all, youre never going to know exactly what the future brings. Its my belief we are in the fundamental changes in the nature of war. War is a political act. Its an act in which you impose your political will on your opponent through the use of violence, thats what war is. And war is always dealing in the realm of un certainty. Dealing in friction and chance, instilling human will, instilling in a lot of areas that are not particularly well measured. And thats the nature of war. But the character of war, the way you fight a war, the weapons you fight it with that does change and it changes frequently. Its changed many many times in the past. I believe that right now were going through a fundamental change in the character of war, how you fight wars. Theres a couple of thing that are driving that, one is societal urbanization. We have a Significant Growth going on, but now the curve is going expo anyone shl where we think that by midcentury or so, 80 to 90 of the earths population, which will concentrated in high le suburban areas. That means armies in the past have been optimized to fight in rural areas, and we even surmise the fight in jungles and mountains and weve been suboptimized the fighting in urban area. If war is politics and politics is all about people then the probability the future battlefields are going to be in urban areas. Its not a probability its a real certainty and you saw a minor preview of it played out in mosul. Its my belief the United States army and most armies will have to sub optimize to conduct combat organizations in urban areas. Thats significant when it comes to the size of your organization, how you command control, how you move, move through street. Whats the weapon system, what is the elevation of guns. All of those characters change whether you shift the terrain from the open country of Northern Europe or the deserts of the middle east to highly dense urban areas and require a significant fundamental change. Thats an example. There are a bunch of whole other factors driving change in the fundamental of character and things like warfare. Things like technology. We are witnessing and on the edge of a significant robotics, and i believe we are seeing those in the commercial atmosphere more and more. Were already seen them in limited use of operations. The navy is moving out quick with unmanned sea vehicles. The land domain is much more complex and complicated and difficult to deal with. Eventually we will see the destruction of wide scale robotics. Artificial intelligence, it. All things are being impacted very very rapidly right now by technology, unlike in a speed and scope and unlike anything weve seen in history. So, a combination of drain and technology is unbelievable. Let me throw out five myths of war that are very very prevalent. Myth one, in my view, myth one is that wars will be short. There are wars that have been short in the past, but theyre pretty rare. Most of the time, wars take longer than people think they will at the beginning of those wars. Always be weary of the wars will be short. This will be quick, this will be a dustup. Weave achieve victory real fast. Be weary of that one. Second, you can win wars from affair. Wars are about politics, thats what theyre about. Theyre about impoedsing your political will and about people. I will tell you with a high degree of certainty that human beings can survive horrific things from a far. When my father hit the beach he were told the japanese dependants were dead. They went 66 days of around the clock bombing from naval air forces. Four days prior to competitiexe hitting the beach we rolled up a threat of 400 natives. They bombed that island with shells for 96 consecutive hours. Almost all the japanese survived. Life wouldnt good, they were drinking their own yearn, they never saw the sunlight, they were deep buried under ground and they werent happy campers, i get it but they survived. Look at what isis has done for six months in mosul. Theyre losing, they got power. But it took the infrastructure and commanders to go into that city, house by house, block by block, room by room to clear that city. What im telling you is, theres a myth out there that you can win from afar. To impose your political will on the enemy typically requires you at the end of the day to close with and destroy that enemy up close with ground forces. Im very weary of the win from afar myth. Third myth, special forces. Special forces are designated they are with that name for a reason. They do special services. They are highly trained and vetted. The one thing they are not designed to do is win a war. They can do raves, train on a country, theres a lot of other things they can do. Winning a war in and by themselves is not one of their tasks, theres a myth that just throws special forces that its magic dust and it works. We love it because their highly trained vetted and not in the knews. Winning wars is not in their drawer by themselves. Last two, armies are easy to create. They are not. Theres a myth that you can just bring kids into the military, march them around the field a bit six to eight weeks of training and boom you got an army. Wrong answer. It takes a considerable am of time to build armies. And the last thing id throw out is the myth that we in uniform sometimes prof katie this myth is that armies fight wars. We dont. Armies dont fight wars, navys, air forces. Nations fight wars. It takes the entire commitment of nation to fight cars. We can do a raid real quick but war is a different thing. It takes a nation tonight and win a war. So ill stop there. Thats probably longer than you wanted but thats what you got. So. I always tell my student general, its not the length of a story or speech its the content. And speaking objectively you gave us a hell of a lot of content and we appreciate it. Now, for a few questions as you mentioned. We still have a few questions on the transgender issue. And id like to ask this let me turn the mic to answer. Has the army faced the problem with having transgender people serving . I mean, look it, ill be candid. Theres a variety of issues. This is a complex issue and theres a variety of challenges out there that we have to deal with. And weve been working through it but this is not clean cut either way. So the short answer to your question is, yes. Yeah weve had to deal with problems. We dont get it in the media we deal with the professionally quietly with dignity for individual and institution. Did you have advanced knowledge that the president would be issuing the ban via twitter yesterday . I personally did not nor would i expected to. I noticed thats been in the media out there. I, like i said up front, its a chain of command thing and i rendered my advice through the chain of command which in my case id bring it up to general mattis and theyd bring it back to me. Nor would i expect him to do nor is there any kind of requirement to do that. How did you learn of the president s decision . Well. Besides the tweet i guess . Same way everyone else did i saw it on the news. But again were trying to make this out trump people are trying to make this out as if that is particularly unique. If i can count on thread and nickel for any time i read decisions in the news over the last 15 or 20 years id be a wealthy guy right now. Its not particularly unusual to read about things in the media. Thats why my office, i have six screens and i have scrolls going every which way and im always looking for breaking news. So people can say what they want about the media but the one thing you are is fast. So. And accurate. Accurate sometimes, but fast, fast all the time. So. What has been the main challenges so far in integrating women into the infantry and other combat arms . So this is a a point actually thats been a actually. We did a lot of intensive study, a lot of analytical rigger on how to do this right. It took us three, four years. We did studies, pilot studies and all the studies that we did, and today the competitiexecutio policy is also working well to date. What i recommended and what reimplemented, i recommended to do this, women in the infantry, there are others who disagree, i represented to do women in the infantry or special forces, and i said give me three years. Let me have three years to run this and see its impact on readiness in our war fighting capabilities. And if i see a detriment in readiness and war fighting i will be the first back to come back and tell you we need to change. Thats kind of what were doing. Were in the first 36 months. Thus far, everything seems to be going okay, its working well. But again i comment on that because a lot of preparatory work went into doing that. We have our first women infantry commander secretary division. We got a variety of women listed as infantry officers. A couple of principles we put in place, i wanted to narrow the focus because its still an experiment. I wanted to narrow the focus from fort brag and fort hood and thats where a variety of women are assigned. Now, i also insisted that we had leaders first. So female sergeants and lunlts had to go in the units first. The last thing is, the military should and is standards based. So theres standards of performance, the standards of conduct, standards of fitness and medical standards. If youre meeting those standards than move up. If you dont, then youre going to do some alternative, you know either mo s within the military or well get you out of the military. But its a standardsbase military and you rise to the success level based on your merits thing of performance. Thats inherent in wearing of the uniform and were pretty strict were very strict about it. So thats where we are. Right now the women that are in the infantry has met the standards and is going okay. The numbers are very small. Frankly i expect they will be small for many years, if not forever. The Canadian Army has had women in the infantry for 30 plus years, they have a very very tiny percentage of women. It did you know matter how many want to do it, i dont think they should be denied. My personal opinion is no one should be defied. If you mied the standards drive on, if not try something else. You say some levels about reducing Sexual Harassment in the army. How is that going . Its a challenge its hard. The numbers have come down which is good. Reporting numbers have gone up, reporting in the sense of the way the system is designed to indicate that they women have its not just women by the way, there are guys who get sexually assaulted as well, but victims have greater confidence today than four or five years ago. In the chain of command and the victims advocate and results that come with it. Is it perfect, no not by long shot, theres still Sexual Assault and harassment in the military. We only got 16 or 17 per of the military are women. But, you know, theres no excuse for any of it. To me it has to do with good order, cohesion, discipline. I think of it a blue on blue. I dont know if youre familiar with that term but i think of it as. If i was to go out and say conduct a Live Fire Range or i was in a fire fight with the enemy, shooting your fellow soldiers by accident is not a good thing and serious consequences happen to the changes of command where you have in training or in combat. But if training, live fires is an example. Well, if you go out and sexually assault someone, thats practice side, youre beating up on your own unit. There needs to be and there is very very serious consequences to it. Not only to the individual but to the chain of command. If a chain of command has sfantd punishme multiples of these type of things in the unit that speaks volumes about the force. The chain of command is responsible for their unit. If theres a ill disciplined unit then you need a new commander for the unit. Theres no room or excuse for it. And there is no tolerance of it, period. Its the way it is. Its the rules sort of thing. According to the question thats been submitted here, it quotes, the defense secretary mat thinks is saying in response to a question, what keeks you awake at night. And nothi and he replied, nothing i keep other people awake at night. Do you feel the same way . Does anything keep you awake at night . Yes, general mattis. Now, hes ive known general mattis for a long time and of course many people have, hes a national figure, et cetera. But this nation is truly blessed actually to have him as our secretary defense. Hes a remarkable individual, generous, competent, delivered well, thinks things through, very very squared away this guy. And he promised us hed give us 400 calories a day and 300 hours of sleep. But he works hard, dedicated to this nation and no he doesnt keep us up at night in the sense but his quote is a great quote. To answer your question, no theres nothing do i toss and turn every night, no. But to take your thats the literal answer but to take your question more figuratively. The one thing im worried about frankly, candiedly, this situation with north korean is very serious. Its a very very very serious situation. And not only for the United States and south korea and japan, but for china, russia, the global community. And its a very serious situation and its not going in good directions, so those of us that are old enough to remember, remember the korean war. What would you envision if there was a ground war with north korea . What would it competencampus, wd it look like . Let me use descriptive words rather, obviously Different Things shouldnt be talked about in public. But a war on the Korean Peninsula would be highly deadly. It would be horrific. I think general mattis said it will be, i think he used the word catastrophic or horrific or Something Like that. And it would, think about it youve got a city of souls, 25 Million People or so in the met poll tin area. And way more in other areas. Do i think northern koreas military will be destroyed, i do. Do i think the United States military, absolutely, but that would be done at high cost in terms of human life, in terms of infrastructure and theres economic consequences to a war in the Korean Peninsula. The war in the Korean Peninsula would be terrible, however a nuke war weapon detonating in los angeles would be terrible. And this some real the the comment thats been out there, there are no good options is a very apt comment. At this point for lots of reasons, we can go back to 25 years of history dealing with both koreans. But the fact of the matter is we are point and time where choices will have to be made one way or the other. None of these choices are particularly palletable. None of these are good. The consequences of not doing nothing is good. The consequences of Armed Conflict is not good. The consequences of, you know, collapsed north korea is not good and theres a wide range of scenarios. So the idea of the down size of all these options are bad, thats true, they are. That doesnt relieve us of the responsibility of choice. And and we are going to have to make conscious decisions that are going to have significant consequences. And and ill just stop there. But it would be its not going to be a pretty pictureky tell you that, be very violent. Going from northeast asia to south asia, we have some journalist here from the subcontinent, one of them ask, the tension between china and our chinese border, you have a on the usa role in that region . Were monitoring and tracking it but no, role not that im aware of, other than try to encourage both parties to deescalate and reduce tensions. Six months into the administration theres still no army secretary, what is the consequences of that and how does it affect your job . It would you know we have a intent to nominate mark esther. His names out there. We had two nominees, both withdrew for a variety of reasons. Its best to have a secretary. There are a variety of, you know, authorities and that come with having a secretary. But having said that, the way the system is bimt, no one man is inzpens bl so to speak, so bob atmosphere, it was designated as the acting secretary and he has been sin the inauguration. Hes done a wonderful job and is doing a great job. Granted hes an acting secretary, but im an acting chief of staff for a period of time too. So were all acting in a sense all of our time lines are always limited any time youre in an appointed position and government service. I would argue that not having a quote unquote full fledge secretary of the army has not been catastrophic. The professional sill yans, the department of army has stepped up and done a tremendous job. That includes circumstance spear. I think its best to have one and its not catastrophic not to have one either. We have two questions that tie together about tank warfare. With russia prepare to have its new attack, the 214 arnaud dah are you worried the United States and its allies are making a disadvantage and should there be an increased focus of warfare and modernizing our fee . What technologies would you like to see developed . I have an entire group of people digging deep into just that issue of of quote unquote new tank sort of thing. Its ana family of vehicles. So let me go back to the basic question of, have tanks and mechanized war and army on in 1914 there were giens around who were wearing three and four stars who adhere to the roles of horse calfry, and then the horse cavalry wen into machine guns when things didnt go so well for horse cavalry. So are we in that period where mechanized vehicles are cavalry. So are we sort of at that point in history where perhaps mechanized vehicles are going the way of horse calvary and going the way of dinosaurs . I dont think so. But im skeptical enough to ask that. We have a good solid tank today. The m1 tank. And the m1 tank that you see today visually looks exactly like the tank from 1981. Its not exactly the same tank. The insides of those things, the firing mechanisms thats all been upgraded and modified over the years. Having said that, we do need a new ground armored platform for our mechanized infantry and our tanks because its my belief, at least in the foreseeable future and call that out to say 25 years or so there is a role to play in ground warfare for those types of things. And the tank we have today, in the bradley for that matter, came online in 1980. So ive been in the army 39 years. Thats 40 years ago almost. I do think we need to do that. What are some of the technologies . Active protective systems, theres reduced crews with automated turrets, but the real sort of holy grail of technologies that im trying to find on this thing is material. Is the armor itself. If we can discover material and a lot of research and Development Going into it. If we can discover material that is significantly lighter in weight that gives you the same armor protection, that would be a significant breakthrough. The last piece of technology is weve been using kinetic or powder based and there are advances in nonpowder kinetics such as real guns, lasers, et cetera. The next is robotics. Everything we develop we have to make sure that its dual use so the commander at the time can have the option of it being manned or unmanned, flip a switch and its robot. Thats some of the technology to be built into ground vehicles not just tanks. We have a little presentation, then well have a light question at the end. A light question. I think youll like it. General, while you have received many medals and awards during your distinguished military career, we have something we feel is very special to present to you today to mark your visit. Something that many other national and International Leaders including the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff a few weeks ago received when they have spoken at the National Press club. And they proudly display in their offices and please do let me know if the next time you go into general dunfords office, you see the coveted National Press club mug [ applause ] and i was in his office the other day, and i did not see it. Did not see it. He was actually drinking out of it. Uses it all the time. General, for our concluding question, which is, as i say, by tradition is given in a lighthearted manner, we have an anonymous source. We dont like to use Anonymous Sources. But they tell us, Anonymous Sources tell us that you are a big Boston Red Sox fan. Yes. So what do you think about the red sox cutting third baseman Pablo Sandoval and will it affect the chances of winning the world series . It will have no effect. We will win the world series. [ applause ] we have 30 seconds. Another one . No. General, you played ice hockey at princeton. Correct. Im pleased that our researchers get things right. Back in april 2016 when you were visiting fenway park, you said you were supposed to get drafted into the nhl, the National Hockey league. Right. If you had to choose, where would you have signed . I did play, you know, when youre 16 and 17, you actually have dreams. And so my brother convinced me that i was good enough to play in the nhl. I never was, but i always wanted to. For some reason i think they drafted a different guy named milly, and i didnt get drafted. Ladies and gentlemen, a warm thank you to our guest of honor, thank you. One final request, the general has another important engagement, more important than National Press club, i take it. I dont know. I dont know what im doing. I have to ask my people. We have been told he has to leave promptly. Could you just remain seated for about 30 seconds while the general leaves. And thank you all for coming to the National Press club where i think it was demonstrated, thanks to our guest of honor today, that this is the place where news is made. Ladies and gentlemen, we are adjourned. [ applause ] dr. Kurt newman on his book healing children. The conversations i hear about been cutting things like medicaid and, you know, cutting the nih and doing all these things when were on the cusp of such terrific discoveries and when you think about half of it. Who is going to get hurt . Why do we want the do that . Were not doing that to the elderly on medicare. In fact, we ought to double down and really put more into our children. Watch the entire Program Saturday at 7 00 p. M. Eastern. Also on book tv on cspan2, 7 00 p. M. Eastern, David Goodhart on his book the road to somewhere, populist revolt. You can see this in the contempt in the people in my email chains after the brexit. You had left wing professors basically saying why didnt we give the people the vote at least without some kind of iq test mgts for more of this weekends schedule go to booktv. Org. Weve been on the road meeting winners of this years student cam video competition. At East Lyme High School in east lyme, connecticut, second Prize Winners were handed 1500 for their documentary on environmental justice. Then at east lyme middle school, Honorable Mention winners received 250 for their documentary on healthcare. And then to concord, massachusetts to hand out a second prize to students won a second place prize of 1500 for their documentary on the wage gap. In northampton massachusetts, students won an Honorable Mention for their documentary on sanctuary cities and immigration reform. And in ludlow, massachusetts, students at paul r. Baird middle school won an Honorable Mention of 250 for their documentary on the opioid epidemic. Thank you to all the students who took part in our 2017 studentcam documentary competition. To watch any of the videos, go studentcam. Org. And studentcam 2018 starts in september with the theme, the constitution and you. Were asking students to choose any provision of the u. S. Constitution and create a video illustrating why the provision is important. Michael eric dyson and entertainer Michael Biv Bivins as part of the naacps annual Convention Held in baltimore. Panelists talked about the state of the Justice System for people of color, the disparities and judicial outcomes faced by black citizens compared to their white counterparts and what changes need to be made to close such gaps. [ applause ] hello, everyone. A pleasure to be here with you all today. I have the great privilege of introducing todays panel and im going to do that quickly because my mentor, dr. Dyson, who will be joining us, has to have a hard out and i really want
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